We are 25 days into what will likely be the hottest month in Earth’s recorded history. Humans are dramatically changing our environment and warming our earth by emitting greenhouse gases. Seattle’s humans are no exception—our city’s greenhouse gas emissions are continuing to increase.
And yet, yesterday, the city of Seattle gave a truck driver a $5,000 cash prize for driving 1,800 carbon-emitting miles around Seattle in just four short weeks.
The $5,000 was an award for driving his truck safer than any of the other drivers in a contest called “Seattle’s Safest Driver 2.0.” The city thinks the money, which came from the contest’s sponsor PEMCO Insurance (also a sponsor of our mayor’s election campaign), was well spent because the contest encouraged safe driving. But how safe is it to encourage an activity that is destroying our planet and will kill millions in the process? Greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles like the winner’s truck rose 3 percent between 2014 and 2016 in Seattle, to 298,000 metric tons.
Perhaps the city should start questioning if any driver of a carbon emitting vehicle can really be called safe.
2/ Mayors of Seattle have been promising since 2001 to lead the nation on climate change by slashing the city’s carbon emissions. It wasn’t until I graphed the promises over time that I saw how far Seattle has to go. #dataviz pic.twitter.com/l2S7O9cgpe
— John Ryan (@heyjohnryan) January 12, 2018
