Editor,

Washington state’s legislature convened this week to look at our state’s underfunded education system, our underfunded roads and Gov. Jay Inslee’s curious proposal to address both by making carbon polluters pay.

Voters understand some things about carbon pollution and the changing climate it causes. They have heard that, worldwide, 2014 is likely to be announced as the warmest since record keeping began.

They see our ski industry suffering from warmer, shorter winters.

They heard about 2014’s massive scallop die-off near Vancouver Island and heard that local oyster farmers are struggling with our ocean’s new acidity. Voters mourned the jobs lost when these farmers moved to Hawaii for healthier water.

People know that our beautiful, useful salmon face trouble as glaciers and the rivers they feed shrink.

Voters may not fully understand the complex relationship between carbon pollution, climate change, salmon health and jobs, but they certainly know that something weird is going on with the weather. Voters know that something is very wrong, and that the words scientists use to describe it terrify them.

Voters want the team of Sen. Barbara Bailey, Rep. Norma Smith and Rep. Dave Hayes to go to Olympia to do something about it.

They want Bailey, Smith and Hayes to fund education, to make roads and ferries better and to do something about climate.

Inslee’s cap and trade proposal, similar to what is already working in other parts of the country, is one possibility.

A carbon tax is another.

Leading conservatives, such as George W. Bush’s economic advisor, Greg Mankiw, advocate a carbon tax. Such a proposal could be implemented in a revenue-neutral manner, as our neighbor, British Columbia, has done.

Just such a proposal is being prepared right now as a state initiative for November’s ballot.

If the Bailey-Smith-Hayes team is unable to sensibly address climate change during this session, voters should do it for them this fall.

Bob Hallahan

Citizens’ Climate Lobby