Governor Jay Inslee can still be a climate champion on a global scale.  Sure, he didn’t get a carbon tax to hold up as an example of the sacrifice his state was willing to make.  Voters again rejected a plan he backed that would have made gasoline, propane, electricity—actually everything—more expensive in the name of symbolically fighting climate change.

This is the second time Washington voters have resisted such a measure.  The first was I-732 in 2016.  This year it was I-1631 going down, even as other “progressive” initiatives prevailed.

The legislature in its last session failed to give Inslee a carbon tax by way of direct legislation, also the second time that route has dead-ended.  In 2014 it was his cap-and-trade plan that flopped.

When he introduced his carbon tax bill in January 2018, Inslee said it was “time to step up.”

He should listen to himself. Instead of making an example of the rest of us, Governor Inslee can lead by personal example.  He can be a zero-emissions Governor.

Human beings emit 2.3 pounds of carbon daily, eight times more under exertion.  We’re not calling on Governor Inslee to stop breathing or giving speeches, though his bombastic delivery probably dumps more carbon into the atmosphere than most orators. 

We’re being serious.  Governor Inslee, right now,  starting today, can do everything he wants the rest of us to do to meet a challenge he insists threatens the existence of civilization.

He can begin with his transportation choices.  This is an easy step for him.  No more travelling in any vehicle that burns gasoline or diesel.  He, his family, his staff and his security detail should restrict themselves to those Chevy Bolts Inslee is buying to meet his green vehicle goals for the state’s fleet.  And there’s always bicycles and walking to get around Olympia. Or he can take a clean, green bus. And no Lincoln Towncars to and from the airports on his far flung journeys.

If he is really taking climate change seriously, he can cease his nearly constant travels across the nation and to foreign countries.  All that travel contributes to the demand for burning aviation fuel.  Internet conferencing is the alternative with climate integrity.  It has no carbon footprint at all.

Sure, it forecloses opportunities for glad-handing and photo ops and cocktails.  But in the face of impending doom those considerations are meaningless.

Governor Inslee can practice climate integrity in every aspect of his life.  He should prohibit any deliveries to the Governor’s mansion of anything that relied on burned fossil fuels to get there.  No more Amazon Fulfillment Center boxes on the doorstep unless they arrive by electric vehicle or bike.

Speaking of the Governor’s mansion, it is not exactly a model of climate virtue.  Governor Inslee should prohibit the use of any electricity that is generated even in part by the burning of fossil fuels.  Turn down the heat and turn off the air conditioner.  And do something about the high maintenance landscaping unless it is performed with no power tools and internal combustion mowers  Replace that dead zone of a lawn with a young forest that soaks CO2 from the atmosphere.

Please get some solar panels up there on the roof, Governor, and wind turbines in all that open space. Those structures may clash with the manse’s neo-colonial style, but consider what’s at stake.

And there’s the Governor’s diet.  Climate activists tell us we must all become vegetarians to save the planet from burning up and our cities from drowning.  So, Governor Inslee, no more hamburgers, steaks, sausages, chops, chicken tenders, tacos, barbecue, salmon filets, clam bakes, crab cakes or steamed mussels unless they are formed from legumes, seeds and grains.  Insist Tofurky be the main course on the mansion’s Thanksgiving menu. 

As a true climate champion, Inslee can bring other leaders with him.  For instance, Senators Cantwell and Patty Murray, and our local congressman, Derek Kilmer, echo his call for bold efforts to fight climate change.  He can use his bully pulpit to persuade or shame them into turnng  off the air conditioning in their offices.  D.C.’s electricity relies on a lot of burned coal and natural gas.  The HFCs that can be released from AC units are another driver, we are told, of global warming.  For well over half the history of this country Congress got its job done without air conditioning.  The founders wrote the Declaration of Independence and Constitution without once adjusting room temperature. So no excuse, Congresscritters. Just wear shorts and open the windows. 

Governor Inslee, please tell them.

When he visits Paris for the next climate conference—strike that, when his image appears on television screens in conference rooms near the Eiffel Tower—Governor Inslee can shame world leaders into becoming legitimate climate heroes like himself.  With the planet’s billionaires, politicians and movie stars all reducing their standard of living to stave off climate apocalypse, think of the millions who may be inspired to follow suit.  They won’t need government with its hand on their necks and in their pockets.  They will do it out of selfless love for the planet.

This may prove bad for Paris hotels and restaurants because thousands of climate activists will no longer descend upon the City of Lights with fat expense accounts.  But aren’t smaller travel and entertainment budgets for climate activists a positive for the planet?

If you’re thinking we’re getting silly, it may be because you realize Governor Inslee and others of his stature, power and wealth will not make the personal sacrifices they demand of the rest of us.  As law professor Glenn Reynolds, a contributor to USA Today and creator of the Instapundit blog frequently says about hypocrisy by self-proclaimed climate leaders, “I’ll believe it’s an emergency when they start acting like it.”

Governor Inslee can dispel such unfortunately justified cynicism by stepping up, personally and profoundly, before he rolls out another plan to conscript us into his grand vision.  Great leaders don’t need to be told they must set the example they wish others to follow.