To the editor:

I was raised in Washington state, third generation. My family lived in eastern Washington, where the summers are hot and the winters cold; we all enjoyed the out of doors.

More recently, I spent 20 years in Yakima, where the summers kept getting hotter — and smokier, with fires more frequent and closer to our home.

Some people like the heat, but for me, when it gets over 90 degrees it’s less and less pleasant, even to be in the garden, where a lot of people spent their summers. When it’s over 100, I find it unbearable. In Yakima, more and more days were (and are) over 100 and smoky.

A few people in eastern Washington have air conditioning, but when the temperature is over 100 and the nights not much cooler, and you can’t afford air conditioning, it’s pretty miserable. That goes for western Washington, as well, where the days and nights are also getting hotter and smokier. I moved to western Washington in part to escape the heat, but the heat and smoke have come here, too. And not many people here have air conditioners. Yes, we can buy air conditioners, but that doesn’t address the bigger problem — what’s happening outside, where we really want to be during the summers.

Having done environmental work for 30 years, I can tell you that climate change is by far the scariest thing to threaten our environment. It is real, it is caused by us, it is bad, and we can and must do something now — to decrease the ferocity of this change. It affects not just people, but animals and plants, and the places they live. It affects our water, forests, coastlines, the ocean, the air we breathe.

The primary cause of climate change is people; in Washington state, now, it is cars. An aggressive change from the polluting fuels we use would eventually slow the change, reduce the effects of climate change. The future of our planet depends on how we approach this issue in the next few years. This is not an exaggeration. There is hope, but the time to act is now.

I worked in government. I learned how difficult it is and how long it takes to get people motivated, then organized, then doing something.

Of course, the fastest way is for people to take individual responsibility. And many in our area have — using public transit, bicycling to work, getting a fuel-efficient car, reducing our use of fossil fuels.

But to address the greatest source of the pollution in Washington state, to get everyone on board, to get to the source of the problem, now.

We need to pass Initiative 1631, a fee on carbon. For your friends, family and the natural world around us. For your future, for our future.

There is no Plan B, because there is no Planet B.

PAT IRLE

Bainbridge Island