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Prevent repeal of the Carbon Commitment Act (I-2117)

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By Tim Manns

At the state level, Audubon Washington in concert with other conservation organizations is organizing to prevent repeal of Washington State’s arguably most important climate legislation, the Climate Commitment Act of 2021 (CCA). This act created a carbon market in Washington setting up a financial incentive for the state’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases to progressively reduce their climate pollution. Revenues which the system generates are funding a host of projects and programs addressing the effects of climate change. All these will end if the CCA is repealed.


Last year a lone individual in the Seattle area spent millions for paid signature gatherers to collect the thousands of signatures needed to bring six initiatives to the legislature. During its session earlier this year, the legislature passed 3 of those initiatives but decided not to act on the remaining three. Those three will appear on this November’s ballot, and among them is I-2117 to repeal the CCA (Initiative 2117.pdf (wa.gov)). The idea that the carbon tax has led petroleum companies, already making record profits, to raise gasoline prices has been the stuff of many news reports. Wherever the truth lies, the reality of human-caused climate change urgently requires action even if it does mean paying a bit more for fossil fuels while they are still in use. The CCA’s cap-and-trade carbon tax system is the most significant element of Washington State’s efforts to slow and reverse human-caused climate change and all it portends for birds and us. Please join the effort to prevent the passage of this reality-denying initiative. Follow this link https://act.audubon.org/a/sign-page-campaign-defeat-i-2117.


For information on conservation issues Skagit Audubon is following, please go to the conservation notes on the chapter website at Skagit Audubon Society - Conservation Notes.

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Survival by Degrees

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by Tim Manns
At this writing in mid-March two Whooper Swans first noticed weeks ago in fields along Chuckanut Drive west of Burlington are still visiting Skagit County. Thanks to Jeff Osmundson’s good directions, I joined many other birders adding this species to the avian wonders we have seen so close to home. Whoopers nested on Attu Island in the Aleutians in 1996, but most of these near Trumpeter-sized swans inhabit northern Asia and Europe and only rarely visit North America. Of the world’s six swans in the genus Cygnus, there in my narrow scope view were three: a Whooper posed in front of a Tundra and, to the side, a juvenile and adult Trumpeter. It was a dramatic reminder of the avian diversity we can experience in the Skagit. When this Skagit Flyer issue reaches you, the swans will probably have left for their respective breeding grounds: Trumpeters to inland Alaskan or Canadian lakes, Tundras further north to, yes, tundra ponds along the Arctic coast of Alaska and Canada, and the Whoopers back to northern Asia or Europe where they came from, venturing all the way to Skagit’s pastures and potato fields. We know that the presence of swans, ducks, and geese can impose financial burdens on Skagit’s farmers, and we appreciate those who tolerate the waterfowl spectacle the Skagit hosts each winter. Skagit’s present capacity to support huge numbers of ducks and geese and more Trumpeter Swans than any other county in the Lower-48 depends on the bays, marshes, and remaining inland habitat and also on agriculture.

Whooper Swan

Photo credit:  Whooper Swan, Digital Nature Scotland/Shutterstock

 

National Audubon’s Survival by Degrees: 389 Species on the Brink (Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink | Audubon) is a powerful reminder that climate change has drastic implications for many birds as their ranges shift and, often, shrink. Will swans find the Skagit a good place to winter in the future? Will these far-northern breeders find their necessary conditions for reproduction so changed that nesting failure becomes common? Look at Audubon Washington’s and National Audubon’s legislative priorities and note the pervasive focus on bills and funding to address climate change. These human-caused changes are the foremost threat to birds just as they profoundly threaten people and all life as we know it.

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Climate Commitment Act

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In 2022 Washington State implemented the Climate Commitment Act (The Climate Commitment Act: Washington’s path to carbon-neutrality by 2050 - Washington State Department of Ecology). This established a cap and trade program as a financial incentive for the state’s largest greenhouse gas emitters to reduce their carbon pollution. The generated revenues fund projects to transition away from fossil fuels and build the climate resilience of Washington’s communities. The act’s effect on gasoline prices is the subject of heated debate. As a member of the Environmental Priorities Coalition, Audubon Washington supported SB 6052 requiring oil companies to reveal the factors behind gasoline prices and industry profits. The bill stalled in the Senate Ways and Means Committee and is dead for this session. Paid signature gatherers have accumulated enough names for an initiative repealing Washington’s most important climate-related law, the Climate Commitment Act, to appear on next fall’s ballot.

Another Audubon priority, HB 2049, would have required reduction in product packaging and revamped Washington’s recycling system. This bill did not meet the cut-off deadline for a vote on the House floor and will not receive further consideration this session. Companion bills to promote community solar projects (HB 2253 / SB 6113) did not make it out of committee.

Washington State Legislative Session

Washington State Legislative Session: The session currently underway goes through March 7th. For a one-page summary of Audubon Washington’s legislative priorities go to 2024_audubon_legislative_priorities_one_pager_12.2023_2.pdf.

Click below for a link to Audubon Washington’s legislative tracker (Bill Tracker: 2024 Legislative Session | Audubon Washington). The “Take Action” link with each bill listed allows easily communicating your support to your state representatives and senator. Each bill number links to the particular bill’s page on the legislature’s website. There you can find the bill’s text, related reports, and where it stands in the legislative process. On a particular bill’s page, scroll down to “Bill History, 2024 Regular Session” to see what committee is currently considering the bill. At the upper left of the page, click on “Legislative Committees,” then on the relevant House or Senate committee to find the date when the committee will hold a hearing on the bill. From there you can go to a page where you may be able to enter your support for or opposition to the particular bill before the hearing and testify via zoom if you wish. Alternatively, on any page of the Legislature Home (wa.gov) website, scroll to the bottom of the page and at the left click on “Comment on a Bill,” “Participate in Committee Hearings,” etc. Legislators want to hear from us, and this website makes it easy.

Comment Here

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Comment Here 〰️

Barred Owl Management Strategy: As mentioned in the December and January Conservation Notes (Skagit Audubon Society - Conservation Notes), within its responsibility for implementing the Endangered Species Act the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposes to remove non-native, invasive Barred Owls from parts of the range of the Northern Spotted Owl. Since the highly adaptable Barred Owl arrived in the Northwest about fifty years ago, its numbers have greatly expanded, increasingly displacing the Northern Spotted Owl, which has been on the Endangered Species List since 1990.
Scientists now project that the Northern Spotted Owl will be extinct in one to several decades if Barred Owls are not removed from at least some of the Spotted Owl’s range. The six alternatives in the environmental impact statement (EIS) accompanying the proposed strategy include the “No Action” alternative required in every EIS and five “Action” alternatives, all calling for killing Barred Owls. In mid-January Skagit Audubon submitted a comment letter supporting the USFWS strategy and suggesting a number of adjustments. The chapter’s board vote on this letter was not unanimous. Several members expressed strong reservations about killing one species to benefit another. Some members voting in favor expressed strong reservations about not taking action when that decision likely would mean extinction for the Northern Spotted Owl and possibly for another subspecies, the California Spotted Owl.

To read Skagit Audubon’s letter, click here. For information on conservation issues and advocacy, see Conservation Notes under the Conservation tab.

Creating Bird-Friendly Communities

Sometime in the early afternoon of October 28th, a half mile from downtown Mount Vernon, a Wilson’s Snipe dropped into our backyard for a meal. When darkness fell she, or he, still probed the wet ground near the rain garden, finding enough earthworms and other good things to stay a while. Encountering snipe around Skagit’s wetlands and ditches isn’t unusual, but before that day we had never caught sight of this fine bird on our city lot. Birders know the thrill when rare birds appear or more familiar ones turn up in unexpected places, especially in the backyard. One of the great gifts birding gives us is the habit of attention, of being open and alert to the other than human world all around us. Paying attention sets us up to be thrilled again and again. And birds, given our attention, remind us that the Earth is not ours alone.

Photo by Brenda Cunningham

Wilson’s Snipe Photo by Brenda Cunningham

It’s no wonder that birding has moved so many towards conservation action. Habitat loss and climate change are arguably the greatest threats to the well-being of birds and all wildlife. Addressing those huge problems benefits people too. Reluctant as many may be to accept the indisputable fact, we are not separate from the rest of the living world. When birds and other wildlife are in trouble we are too.

Among Audubon Washington’s strategic initiatives is one titled, “Creating Bird-Friendly Communities” (Bird-Friendly Communities | Audubon Washington). This focus urges us to manage the places where we live, whether in town or the countryside, as habitat for birds as well as for ourselves. Recall John Marzluff’s Skagit Audubon presentation a few years ago about his recently published Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhoods with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers, and Other Wildlife. Make your home friendly to birds and wonders can happen. 

A recent conversation with Natalie Niblack about her terrific bird portraits on display at the Museum of Northwest Art brought to mind Henry Beston’s words about wild creatures in The Outermost House:  

“In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

When environmental, political, personal problems loom, noticing birds takes us out of ourselves, reawakens us to the wonder of the world and reinvigorates our will to do whatever we’re able to turn appreciation into action. Watch for snipe in your yard, read about the wonder of them (Wilson's Snipe Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology), and be active in supporting the places birds and humans need for healthy and fulfilling lives.

For information on conservation issues and advocacy, see Conservation Notes on the Skagit Audubon website, www.skagitaudubon.org, under the Conservation tab.