To the editor:
Last year was the warmest year on record. The signs that our climate is changing in serious and life threatening ways are clearly evident. Those who understand the science are telling us that a new way of viewing our relationship with the natural world and a thoughtful creation of new approaches and policies are long overdue.
And yet we continue to do pretty much what we have always done, exploiting resources and ignoring the limitations of nature as if there were no consequences.
We seem to have a whole host of excuses: addressing climate change would be expensive and inconvenient, or we need to fix other, more immediate problems first. So over 30 years after our first warnings, most of us do little more than pay lip service to the need to eventually do some important work on our climate crisis. Just not now. Just not when we want to do other things.
The proposed Suzuki development is a case in point. We know — and any fifth-grader can tell you — that protecting trees and preventing car-dependent development (transportation is our state’s largest source of emissions) are two of the most effective ways to address climate change. But destroying over 13 acres of significant woodland and creating a totally car dependent development on publicly-owned land is exactly what is being planned for the Suzuki property.
While we contemplate spending $81 million to make our schools safe, why don’t we invest a fraction of that amount in keeping our children’s future safe? Let the Suzuki property remain as is. Retain an important wildlife corridor and the home to 70 different bird species. Allow its trees to continue to soak up CO2 and other pollutants. Consider it fully occupied by what we need most.
Certainly refusing to develop the Suzuki property will not solve our climate problems, but knowingly adding to the problem by developing this community-owned land would demean us all. And maybe our refusal would start to awaken both us and other communities to the fact that it’s time to use our intelligence, our expressed concern for our children and our species to demand and actually work for and not against a viable future.
ERIKA SHRINER
Bainbridge Island
