By Sally Deneen
PostGlobe
Seattle becomes center stage in the global warming debate Thursday with busloads of people from distant points coming here to join locals in urging federal officials to take action.
The Bell Harbor Conference Center at Pier 66 is the setting of one of just two public hearings being held by the Environmental Protection Agency – the other occurred Monday in Washington, D.C. – to let the public have its say.
At issue: What do you think of the agency’s proposed decision that six key greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles threaten the public health of current and future generations?
Deeming vehicle emissions an endangerment “would not itself impose any requirements on industry or any other entities,” states an EPA fact sheet. But observers view it as a way to pressure Congress to take action to curb global warming. The National Association of Manufacturers, among critics, isn’t taking chances and has launched a petition drive urging, “Don’t let EPA regulate your life!”
Many supporters of the EPA’s proposal are lining up to speak Thursday. They include West Seattle mom Kirsten McCaa, who expects to have her 4-year-old son, Harris, in tow; some prominent business figures such as Starbucks manager Jim Hanna and Nike executive Sarah Severn; and people coming from Portland on buses.
“People are taking the whole day off of work so they can make their voices heard that they want action,” says Robin Everett, a staffer with the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club. She plans to wake up around 5 a.m. to catch one of the 7:30 a.m. buses she arranged to carry Oregonians to Seattle.
A couple of thousand people are expected to converge on Pier 66 for a noon rally. Inside the Bell Harbor Conference Center next door, the actual EPA public hearing begins at 9 a.m.
So many people – more than 220 as of Tuesday, including Mayor
Greg Nickels and Gov. Chris Gregoire – were signed up to speak at the public hearing that if everyone spoke for the three-minute limit, the hearing would end after 1 a.m., EPA spokesman Mark MacIntyre said. Whether it’ll actually go that long or longer is unclear. The room is reserved until midnight. “We can’t go for 24 hours. I don’t think the place would let us do that,” MacIntyre says.
His agency encourages people to go online to submit comments on the issue (bureaucratically identified as “Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171”).
Thursday marks her 10th wedding anniversary, but McCaa, the West Seattle mother and co-founder of an organization of moms combating global warming, plans to make the most of her couple of minutes in front of the microphone at the public hearing.
“This is probably the most challenging issue that’s facing the entire planet as a whole. It’s surprising that more people aren’t literally out on the streets demanding action,” says McCaa, who remembers things coming to a head for her when her husband, Jim, a former climate modeler, showed her a chart depicting future temperatures soaring. She didn’t keep the chart, but it was along the lines of this one.
“It shook me to the core of my being,” McCaa says. “It hit home hard. We’d already been doing a lot in our own lives, and I just knew that I had to do more. Those images, that graph, painted a very disturbing picture of about what (my child’s) future would be.”
And so it goes. What happens Thursday may end up being mostly symbolic. Folks from Washington, D.C., will swoop in, go home and return to a political fight there. But at least 1,800 people won’t take any chances, as they’re heeding the e-mail, postcard and Facebook campaigns waged by organizations such as Climate Solutions, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club and the Climate Protection Alliance and saying they’ll show up at the rally.
“We definitely are congratulating and thanking the EPA for taking the global warming issue on and taking the science seriously. But there’s a long way to go and a lot of heavy lifting,” says Kathleen Ridihalgh, a staffer with the Sierra Club’s Seattle-based Cascade chapter. “So we want to show them that there’s a lot of public support for being very aggressive in dealing with this problem.”
McCaa wants to be sure to do her part.
“My greatest concern is the Earth’s climate clock is ticking and we have very little time,” McCaa says. “We know the science is clear. We know that if we fail to take action, we are in effect causing our children harm.”
-------------------
FAST FACTS
ISSUE: EPA administrator Lisa Jackson recently made a proposed “endangerment finding” – specifically, that a mix of six greenhouse gases threatens the public health and welfare of current and future generations. The six gases emitted from vehicles are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. Read more here.
WHY NOW? The EPA finally is responding to a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Massachusetts v. EPA), in which the court found that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act. The high court turned around and told the administrator to determine whether such gases cause or contribute to air pollution that can reasonably be expected to endanger public health or welfare.
WHY IS THERE A PUBLIC HEARING? So the public can have its say about the proposed endangerment finding. It’s one of only two public hearings in the nation on this issue.
HEARING DETAILS: Starts 9 a.m. Thursday until it ends, possibly after 1 a.m., but definitely after dinnertime; Bell Harbor Conference Center, 2211 Alaskan Way. Listen to an audio Web stream of the hearing.
RALLY DETAILS: Starts at noon at Pier 66. Speakers are to include Nickels, McKinstry Co. Chief Executive Officer Dean Allen, Rabbi Zari Weiss of Rodef Tzedek and the Jewish Climate Challenge, various children with a message.
SUBMIT COMMENTS TO THE EPA: Deadline is June 23 to submit comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171. Submission of comments can be done by one of the following methods – e-mail: GHG-Endangerment-Docket@epa.gov; fax: 202-566-1741; or the federal eRulemaking Portal.
