By BOB HALLAHAN

With Independence Day celebrations in the rear-view mirror, Whidbey Island now turns attention to local political races which are heating up. Let’s tip hats to the 89 Islanders who registered as candidates for local offices in May. I won’t be one of them this time, as I’m vacating the school board seat I’ve served in since 2015.

There are many reasons to run for office, but unselfish service to others is the highest and best of these motivations. Public servants who perform this do so without expectation, or even desire, of any kind of extrinsic reward. Thus many public offices are unpaid, such as our school board seats, or underpaid. Public servants eschew popularity or power, accepting the intrinsic rewards of a community left better than before.

Today’s world reveals overflowing opportunity for improving our communities, perhaps explaining our large number of candidates. Worryingly though, I hear little from our candidates about what may be the most important issue they will face during their time in office — the climate crisis. I suspect it will surprise local candidates to hear that even jobs on city councils or school boards will involve some climate work, but nonetheless they do. I certainly didn’t expect to do infectious disease work when I ran for school board, but then COVID suddenly filled our agendas, appropriately so. Similarly, to some extent every government job these days has to be thought of as a climate job.

Horror stories from our overheating world abound. 2021’s historic heat wave, 2022’s devastating Asian flooding and this summer’s off-the-charts Canadian wildfires and ocean temperatures make it clear that consensus warnings from climate scientists are coming true. Even though climate change has many non-local causes, our elected officeholders must confront them because the solutions to this global challenge are implemented locally.

To be sure, a great deal of planetary heating has already taken place, and more is baked into our future because of natural lag- -temperatures take time to catch up. Our overheating is caused by unavoidable physics of fossil fuel burning, therefore the first solution is to switch from using fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. This will be true for every business, church, and residence, but government leaders must set an example through action.

Fortunately, Whidbey Island’s near-term climate solutions are straightforward. We can slash climate pollution by constructing buildings with heat pumps instead of furnaces, retrofitting existing buildings with electric appliances, and replacing conventional vehicles with EV’s. This will increase electricity use, but state law is already moving utilities toward renewable generation so climate pollution will trend down. Emphasizing building and vehicle electrification is particularly advantageous because these actions reduce energy use, saving money while improving peoples’ health. Governments have to accelerate these changes, while adopting complimentary policies to deal with effects from warming we cannot avoid.

Because our Constitution charges government at all levels with “promoting the general welfare,” none can skirt the duty to respond to this crisis. Elected officials will need bravery!

Our country (the one we regularly profess allegiance to!) has pledged to help the world keep global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) above pre-industrial temperature. This limit was not chosen because 1.5 C of warming is “safe”- -it was chosen as the best that might be economically achieved. Unfortunately the science indicates that this much warming will still produce substantial suffering, including the likely death of 70-90% of coral reefs worldwide, multi-meter sea level rise, stronger heat waves, the deaths of billions of animals, and waves of human migration.

Where are our hearts, if these outcomes do not motivate us to act? What of our souls, if we consign the consequences of an overheated planet to the next generation because we’re too preoccupied to study the situation or too afraid to do what is right? There is no room for ambiguity here; candidates unwilling to take on these challenges ought to examine their reasons for seeking office and bow out if unwilling to use their offices to fight climate change.

As Americans, we live in the wealthiest nation that has ever existed. This is why I reject arguments that we “cannot afford” sustainability. We’ve grown as wealthy as we are because we’ve been partying for a century on fossil fuel, but now the hangover has arrived. While the costs of fuel switching are not zero, they’re insignificant when weighed against long-term benefits.

Our world has existed for 45 million centuries, but the one we live in will be historically consequential. Today’s decisionmakers have unprecedented power to set conditions for future civilization and the animal kingdom. To date, our governments’ climate efforts have been neglectful. The opportunities to change direction are sacred; those seeking these powers must approach them with humility.

It is said that the best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago, but that the second-best time is now. This describes wise leadership: planting trees for shade that we may never see. Climate work is our work. May our candidates find the wisdom to do it. And if they don’t, may we find the candidates who will.

Bob Hallahan serves as Director #3 on Oak Harbor’s school board. He is a retired Navy pilot, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, an Eagle Scout and father of two.