Whats the biggest environmental challenge for the city of Seattle right now?
You know, talking about the mayor’s environmental record — that was leadership he showed when he said Seattle would reduce global warming pollution to meet the levels in the international treaty, the Kyoto Protocol. The thing about that is when you say you’re going to meet the Kyoto Protocol and you ask hundreds of mayors around the country to do that, you really have to follow through. And the mayor’s decisions with respect to the tunnel, with respect to his support of the roads-and-transit ballot measure, are really inconsistent with that objective. Our single largest source of global warming pollution is from the transportation sector. Statewide, something like $12.6 billion a year went out of the state to buy oil and gas. So making a transition to alternatives — particularly in a city like ours — it’s the right thing to do not just environmentally, but economically. That pollution issue, by the way — the emissions from that are also one of the leading sources of damage to Puget
