Could Nov. 8 mark the day Washington state becomes an environmental national leader, again?

I say again, because Initiative 732 proponents so closely resemble the environmental enthusiasts who drove Sen. Henry M. Jackson’s critical legislation to create the Environmental Protection Agency in 1969. Just as the EPA has provided 47 years of steady safeguards for our generation’s environment, I-732’s carbon tax trade for a 1 percent reduced sales tax may help ease our climate pains.

As an older I-732 volunteer, I take great pleasure watching and helping younger I-732 volunteers work to protect their own future generations. Should voters pass this initiative this November, a new generation of Washington state environmentalism will be born. This time it is not burning rivers and smoggy cities at stake but our entire carbon-polluted atmosphere. Our greenhouse earth can no longer control its own temperature. We can.

Around five years ago, Canadians acknowledged this and realized that the earth’s thermostat must be fixed. With legislation similar to I-732, British Columbia has reduced their annual emission 5-13 percent while their economy has outpaced the rest of Canada. I-732 is not burdened by carbon moralizing; it simply encourages us to burn less fossil fuels — market economics 101.

Forty-seven years ago “Scoop” Jackson made a difference. He proved that doing the right thing is not always expensive. Similarly, I-732 costs nothing but its legacy could prove priceless. Its elegant simplicity and potential as a national precedence would make us all proud.

George Reynoldson

Sammamish