Poor Rich, can't figure out why carbon panic isn't a bigger seller with the plebs.

"Climate change is the greatest existential threat to the planet."
No.
Words matter.
The planet will be fine no matter what the climate does.

Breathless hysterical over-the-top Chicken Little rhetoric is "the greatest threat to the planet".
People are not stupid, when you bullshit them with hysterical ignorant lies they learn to disbelieve everything you vomit out your piehole.
"Scientist" (better known as obedient subservient lackeys of the Leftist University 'Research' Propaganda Industrial Complex) have lost credibility with the public.
The more the Left screams Incontrovertible Evidence! and Total Consensus! the more that rat stinks.

"These surveys show us how dumb our priorities are. "
No.
These surveys show us how sick the public is of the Leftist bullshit hysteria and lies.

Inslee has a mediocre record void of accomplishments and he is not an engaging inspiring 'leader'.
Pushing all the buttons of the Looney Left on Climate Change! isn't going to resonate with the nation and will quickly become grating to The Left.
His numbers will never get above 1% and the longer he hangs around the less chance he will be on a cabinet.
He should go home and actually accomplish something in Washington if he hopes to impress anyone else.

Because you know, if someone making the minimum wage pays 10% in taxes, and you pass a head tax, or a tax on the rich, someone making min is still paying 10%.

Progress.

"Vote for me or YOU WILL DIE!!!!!!"

Yeah, good luck running with that.

No Sausage, I don’t.

Please point out where in mathematical reality The Stranger’s “solution” for regressive taxation is going to help laborers and untipped service workers?

Also, black folks hate it when you say “you people”.

Just a tip as you e-champion for the scary folks outside.

K joke?

inslee's forced muscular smile is too much for me to take, plus his pandering to statist global warming hyperbole. he literally looks to me like a 1980s david horsey caricature of snake oil salesman

5
Hysterical.
The joke was sure on us since she was in bed with the Russians manufacturing a phony dossier on Trump and perverting the nation's intelligence services to further her campaign.
But I guess we showed her in the end.
Moral arc of the universe and all...

If he really cared about climate change. He'd build a tunnel or bridge and we would save million of dollars and reduce emissions by removing a number of ferry routes.

@7

we love america. And Western Civilization. That's why we despise america-hating trash like you who are committed to ruining it.

That’s very cool, Sausage.

Let’s return to the canard in the article, shall we?

Please point out where in mathematical reality The Stranger’s “solution” for regressive taxation is going to help low-wage laborers and untipped service workers.

Do it in the name of class war, oh myopic one.

The stark reality is: it is too late to “fight” climate change. The world has warmed, and it is going to warm a lot more, no matter what happens now. The petroligarchs succeeded in delaying action long enough to cook us all, and other consersvative policies have put so much pressure on average people, they’re more worried about where the next paycheck is coming from than they are about ecological collapse. Global warming policy will solely be reactive to the effects of global warming, not the root cause. The only question is how much worse things are going to get and how much of the planet dies off. If we humans want to blunt the effects of that, we are going to have to behave in a fundamentally different way not only from how we have behaved, then from the way any animal has ever behaved ever. So while Jay’s goal is laudable, it’s also probably not commensurate with the actual scale of the fight.

So disappointing. Instead of solving problems he was elected to FOCUS on: budget, crime, drugs, homelessness, human trafficking --- Bozo elects to do nothing to help the people.

If rich people can't loot and burn the planet, who will shower down on them?

OK, for starters, if Inslee were a real environmentalist instead of #FakeGreen, he would have told Washington State AG Bob Ferguson to back off on Ferguson’s ridiculous culvert lawsuit, which the state ultimately lost in the US Supreme Court, just as it has lost dozens of lawsuits against the tribes over many decades. The $ wasted on this suit could have paid for a lot of culvert retrofits.

We haven't heard a fucking peep out of Inslee about the grotesquely polluting partially coal fired silicon smelter that's proposed for in Pond Oreille County in a very sparsely populated rural area near the Idaho border on PUBLIC LAND that, of course, is not zoned for industrial use. If permitted it will generate high volumes of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, greenhouse gases and toxic particulate matter that will affect human health and water quality within its expansive plume zone. Additional energy will come from cheap electricity provided by the Box Canyon Dam, which is located about 55 miles north of Newport and is owned by the Pend Oreille Public Utility District. This clean hydro is currently fed into the grid, and could and should be used for less polluting purposes. The Kalispel Tribe, whose traditional homeland spans present day northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana, opposes the project, arguing that the smelter’s air pollution and climate impacts are too severe and pointing out that the tribe’s most important natural resources have been historically degraded by government policy. The Washington Department of Commerce, which also doesn't give a fuck about the environment, has designated the smelter proposal a “Project of Statewide Significance” and awarded a $300,000 economic development assistance grant of Washington State taxpayer dollars to the Canadian investors who are pushing this project. A local citizens group, CANSS, alleges that air pollution from the smelter could create potential health hazards just as communities living in the fallout zone of the smelter at Trail BC were harmed for many long decades until that smelter somewhat cleaned up its act. The citizens group points to high levels of arsenic near a silicon smelter in Iceland as a cautionary tale of the damage these smelters can do.

Inslee is thrilled about the proposed methanol plant in Kalama that will supposedly produce the primary raw material used in plastics manufacture, but rumor has it that the Chinese billionaires who are financing it may divert some of this plant's output to use as a gasoline fuel additive. That's right folks, filthy fracked methane imported from Canada (and possibly from fracking wells in the US) will not only power and serve as the raw material for the methanol this plant produces, it also wind up a fossil fuel for cars. Even if 100% of the methanol the plant produces were used to manufacture plastic, do we really need more plastic in the world when we can't recycle the gargantuan piles of plastic that already exist? Ninety-five % of "natural gas" that will fire this plant and be converted into methanol is methane, a greenhouse gas that is 80 times as potent as CO2. When all the impacts on groundwater and leakage into the atmosphere throughout the supply chain--from extraction, transport, distribution and incineration--are added up, fracked methane is arguably worse than coal in hastening climate chaos. In addition, the methane used at this single plant will increase greenhouse gas emissions in our state by 30 percent into the indefinite future. It should also be noted that this plant is a resurrected version of the one initially planned for a site on the filled tideflats of Commencement Bay that Inslee shilled for secretly behind the scenes for three years before it died due to massive public opposition.

Finally, if Inslee actually gave a fuck about climate change, why hasn't he lifted a finger to top the illegal construction of Puget Sound Energy's monstrously large, exceedingly hazardous liquified natural gas (i.e., fracked methane) plant on the old proposed methanol plant site in Tacoma? This facility is almost complete, yet it has been built without consultation with the Pullayup Nation, and absent at least one of its required permits. It is sited on fill placed over deep fine sediment deposits that in presettlement times formed salt marshes and mudflats that were part of the Puyallup River estuary. Even though it is built on pilings, during a large magnitude earthquake the ground underneath the plant will liquify and possibly rupture the tank, or, more likely the gas pipes that feed it that are buried in substratum of numerous filled wetlands in residential, commercial and industrial areas in Tacoma and Fife. In the event of a massive explosion of this 8 million gallon LNG time bomb, hundreds or more people people could be blown to smithereens along with a substantial fraction of the Port of Tacoma, not to mention the nearby ICE detention facility, which cages 1,600 prisoners and is serviced by 200 guards. The project scope has expanded from merely supplying freighters owned by TOTE cargo ships in Tacoma, to the flat out export of immense quantities liquid fracked methane to the highest bidders worldwide as part of the tRump administration's dangerous plan to make the US the world's largest exporter of fossil fuels. The tank's gas supply has also expanded from the above mentioned set of pipelines, to limitless numbers of rail cars of fracked methane, some of which may include liquified superchilled methane, which are subject to explosions within densely populated areas including downtown Seattle. As is the case with the Kalama methanol plant, Inslee has gullibly bought into PSE's lies that use of filthy fracked methane by industries and homes in its service area will magically enable decisionmakers in China to close some of their coal fired plants, thereby reducing greenhouse gases worldwide. This is nonsense, because the truth is that China may close some of its older coal fired plants, it is currently building even more of these plants than it is closing.

Inslee reminds me of The Fool in the Tarot card deck who blithely gazes off into the distance while stepping off a cliff. Yes, all of the presidential candidates do need to talk about climate change, but they also need to do so without propogating lies about being a "The Climate Candidate."

It's just sad and lame that the Stranger treated him to beers and tater tots while tossing him softball questions. I stopped voting for him after he allowed the charter school bill to pass without his signature at a time when schools in our state had been criminally underfunded for years, but with respect to deceiving the public about what it's really going to take to avert total climate catastrophe, Inslee's dissembling about climate change issues in his own state is worse. Inslee is a #CentristNeoliberal fraud who should be primaried, and primaried hard.

"'Listen, I'm the only person in this race who has said this has to be the number-one priority in the United States. No one else is willing to say that," Inslee said... "

Okay. Except for Bernie said the same thing four years ago.

Our Military's willing to say that.
At least, the ones who gotta Plan for shit.
Get THEM on your side, Jay.

You could Rule the World.
Or maybe cool it down.

Money "equaling" Free Speech is handing
the Planet over to the Billionaires, Jay.

Maybe that's where you and Greta oughtta start.

"[Greta] Thunberg . . . spoke to a meeting of some hundred and fifty journalists, activists, and political staffers, in Portcullis House, where M.P.s have their offices, she was flanked by Ed Miliband, the former Labour Party leader; Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary and a prominent Brexiteer; and Caroline Lucas, Britain’s sole Green Party M.P., who had invited her.

Thunberg, who wore purple jeans, blue sneakers, and a pale plaid shirt, did not seem remotely fazed. Carefully unsmiling, she checked that her microphone was on. 'Can you hear me?' she asked. 'Around the year 2030, ten years, two hundred and fifty-two days, and ten hours away from now, we will be in a position where we set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control, that will most likely lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.'”

Can you hear me, indeed.

From: "The Uncanny Power of Greta Thunberg’s Climate-Change Rhetoric" By Sam Knight ~ April 24, 2019 in The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-uncanny-power-of-greta-thunbergs-climate-change-rhetoric

"She described Britain’s eagerness to frack for shale gas, to expand its airports, and to search for dwindling oil and gas reserves in the North Sea as absurd.

'You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before,' she said. 'Like now. And those answers don’t exist anymore. Because you did not act in time.'”

From @21, above

Also: "No one knew what to say to Thunberg, or how to respond to her exhortations. Her microphone check was another rhetorical device.'Did you hear what I just said?' she asked, in the middle of her speech. The room bellowed, 'Yes!' 'Is my English O.K.?' The audience laughed. Thunberg’s face flickered, but she did not smile. 'Because I’m beginning to wonder.'”

Great article.
GREAT Kid.

Wow, an incredible number of right-wing climate deniers on this comment thread. I'd like Jay to be the next head of the EPA, and throw the current oil lobbyist out of the job. For those of you who think climate change is a conspiracy, call up the Atmospheric Sciences Dept. and UW or WSU and ask THEM about it.
Jay has done an incredible amount of thinking and research on climate change and what all of us need to do now.
During recent elections in Finland the highest priority for voters was doing something about climate change. But keep your head in the sand, Repubs.

@18, Got a CliffsNotes version?

He has zero support. He is running for Secretary Of Interior for A Dem Administration. Nothing more.

23 - you dont think funding and job status have any bearing on where the "settled science" is currently pointing in terms of today's conventional wisdom? is there any chance that there are institutional biases to lines of thinking where one's organization and source of income would gain power/funding/control/importance from the "sky is falling, need more funding and action" ideology? call me right wing, but I started my skepticism doubting the neocon push into iraq, and i see similarities with the sky is falling consolidation of power thats being pushed currently. so many other ignored factors other than CO2, and so many temp oscillations through history. warm period have historically been good to our species, and cold periods always come again. look at glacier growth in the 70s and the time magazine covers about a coming ice age from as recent as then. see the population bomb where ehrlich was later proven wrong that population was going to doom us in the ways he had people convinced.

same with the economy, the folks that point to endless continuation of the current trend are always proven wrong with the tendency for waves of trends that oscillate back down after a trend upwards. look at housing prices now, your recency bias enthusiasts were telling us no change was in sight, but there are always ebbs and flows. ignoring that and trusting the already many times wrong climate "models" is believing summer is here to stay every time your house gets too fucking hot to sleep.

1 degree over 1 hundred years is not inhospitable, exponential growth, and is not historically unheard of. you joiner statist liberals are the ones pushing some of us skeptics into some right leaning opinions. as a public figure and politician (i don't know about personally), inslee is an opportunistic virtue signaling careerist pandering liberal bell weather flogging this climate shibboleth with his forced smile and spotty if not forgetable history as a governor.

I propose a two state solution.

Washington and Oregon should leave the United States. We'd be richer if we didn't have to support fucking Alabama and Mississippi. We'd have a free hand to ignore the DEA on marijuana. We could cover the entire area with light rail, impose a carbon tax, establish a graduated progressive income tax, and universal single payer healthcare. We could end military spending, a major drag ion the economy, an instead the 18 year olds who would otherwise die in a war, on how to become doctors, nurses, and public health professionals, whom we would then use as ambassadors to build good relations with the entire world. We could legalize sex work. We could educate everyone for free.

You know, fuck the USA. I want Cascadia. Gimme a Green New Deal that both employs everyone and makes the tourists' jaws drop when they see how beautiful this place is.

And best of all, we could deport Tim Eyman. We could tie him down to an office chair and wheel him right over the border into Idaho. We'll do it as a relay, with volunteers pushing his chair down I-90, all the way from Edmonds.

"Washington and Oregon should leave the United States. We'd be richer if we didn't have to support fucking Alabama and Mississippi. "

Yep, there you have modern American liberalism. Two of the whitest states should separate from two of the blackest states.

"During recent elections in Finland"

Oh, tell me more!

@17 & @24: ....said a big MAGA apologist dope ON dope. Get your shots, muffy---it's the state law, nowadays.

@20 kristofarian: Greta 2020. I think a lot of generations would cheer her on--she is decades ahead of her time.

Jay's candidacy will accomplish the following things:

1) It will force climate change onto the party platform. Its as probably going to be there anyway, but this just nails it to the board so it doesn't fall off.

2) Jay will become the obvious choice for Secretary of the Interior when Warren, Sanders or Harris wins the general election in the fall. The gubernatorial opening will be filled by Governor Ferguson, who is cute, albeit in a different way than Jay is cute. Jay is cute in that sort of lead-star-in-a-porn-parody-of-Captain-Planet kinda way. A little blue make up, and a lot mess clothing, and the Planeteers will ... well, you get the idea.

Bob is more like the geeky younger brother who broke the internet when pics of his naked chess games were posted online by an angry ex-girlfriend. Still fucking hot, but not in the same buff, tall, holy shit he's our governor kinda way.

Anyhow, the queue moves along. Next!

3) This will advertise Washington State in time for the census as the magnet for progressivism. If you're a gay kid in Texas, or if everyone in your small town in Tennessee thinks you're not to be trusted because you have read any books other than the Bible, or you are a woman who's bothered by Trump but can't tell anyone in your part of Arkansas because your husband might kill you, come to Washington where its safe and there're more of us Lefties than there are of the people youre trying o get away from Jay's campaign is kind of like a televised version of that poem at the Statue of Liberty's base. Does it really suck back home? Move to Washington.

4) This in turn means our census numbers will grow in 2020. That means more congressional representation, more actual power in the House for us. And, since the people attracted by that poring star candidate in the debates will likely want to live in progressive areas, we can expect those new Congresspeople to be mostly Democrats.

Why isn't he getting more attention? Because like the rest of the democrat field, he is chasing the next popular cause, instead of actually doing his job. Look at Harris - got elected to the Senate and immediately starts campaigning for President, without doing anything solid for the country.

34 - yes! generally, lets keep this thread alive. too fun to rip on this vain pandering clown to stop.