Port of Seattle Commissioner Ryan Calkins shares his f
ive year vision for a zero-carbon, clean future.
On this Earth Day, its 50th Anniversary, I’ll be thinking about how we guide our recovery efforts toward a healthier, safer, more just and more sustainable society. In the words of Colleen Echohawk, a local leader and enrolled member of the Pawnee Nation, “it is now imperative for us to lead with boldness, compassion, and with incredible vision — a vision for a future where every voice is important and valued.” In this sense, we are not striving to rebuild the pre-COVID normal, but to build a new normal in which the lessons of the pandemic and the need to address climate change inform everything from how we vote to what forms of infrastructure we invest in to our modes of work and travel. To do so will require a re-examination of even our most certain of assumptions, and a willingness to act audaciously. My hope is that this anniversary of Earth Day, coming in the midst of this crisis, will remind us to do big things.
