Jay Inslee, Who Led the Push for a Climate Debate, Drops out of Presidential Race

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who made solving the climate crisis the center of his presidential campaign, is dropping out of the 2020 Democratic primary race.
Inslee announced his exit Wednesday while speaking on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, The Guardian reported.
"It's become clear that I'm not going to be carrying the ball," Inslee said. "I'm not going to be the president, so I'm withdrawing tonight from the race."
I know you agree that our mission to defeat climate change must continue to be central to our national discussion -- and must be the top priority for our next president. But I’ve concluded that my role in that effort will not be as a candidate to be our next president. pic.twitter.com/Kp8WejuVJy
— Jay Inslee (@JayInslee) August 22, 2019
Inslee failed to qualify for the third Democratic primary debate in September, as well as for a climate-themed CNN town hall. Inslee had met the donor threshold for the third debate, but not the polling threshold, CNN reported.
Despite failing to qualify for the climate town hall, Inslee was the first candidate to call for a debate focused solely on the issue. He also put forward several ambitious plans to address the climate crisis. The first promised a transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035. Another plan targeting the fossil fuel industry would have ended subsidies, banned drilling on public lands and made carbon polluters pay. On Wednesday, the day of his resignation, he also dropped a new plan focused on agriculture, including a commitment to invest in climate-friendly farming innovations.
The Sunrise Movement, a grassroots group that has led the push for a Green New Deal, took to Twitter to celebrate his campaign's legacy.
"Jay Inslee entered the race with the goal of putting the climate crisis at the center of the campaign," the group wrote. "He may be leaving the race, but it's clear he and the movements who fought alongside him are succeeding in that mission."
.@JayInslee entered the race with the goal of putting the climate crisis at the center of the campaign.
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) August 22, 2019
He may be leaving the race, but it's clear he and the movements who fought alongside him are succeeding in that mission. https://t.co/R6NUHRgLcH
David Roberts, who has covered Inslee's campaign for Vox, praised the detail of his plans, which now amount to more than 200 pages of climate policy:
The result is far more than a campaign document — it's a comprehensive governing blueprint. It takes the lofty aspirations of the Green New Deal and translates them into nuts and bolts, specifying which agencies and programs need to do what. Whichever Democratic candidate may become president, they would do well to keep a copy of Inslee's plan on their desk.
Inslee is not yet ready to say which candidate he hopes will end up in the Oval Office. He said they all needed to bolster their climate plans. But he said Wednesday that "every single one of them is 100% better than the current occupant, no question about that," CNN reported.
In an email to supporters reported by CNN, he outlined what his campaign had accomplished:
"Many of the campaigns started with little attention to climate, but since our campaign began, we've seen almost every serious candidate put out a climate plan; we've seen climate come up in both debates; and we now have two networks hosting nationally-televised climate forums in September," he said. "Most importantly, we have introduced a detailed and comprehensive policy blueprint for bold climate action and transformation to a clean energy economy. We will fight to ensure this gold standard of climate action is adopted and executed by our party and our next president."
With his presidential hopes over, Inslee is likely to announce a run for a third term as Washington's governor Thursday, two people close to him told the Associated Press.
Presidential Candidate #JayInslee Unveiled His First Major #Climate Plan https://t.co/kYbOtB0a8t @ClimateNexus @DeSmogBlog
— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) May 6, 2019
- Redwoods are the world's tallest trees.
- Now scientists have discovered they are even bigger than we thought.
- Using laser technology they map the 80-meter giants.
- Trees are a key plank in the fight against climate change.
They are among the largest trees in the world, descendants of forests where dinosaurs roamed.
Pixabay / Simi Luft
<p><span>Until recently, measuring these trees meant scaling their 80 meter high trunks with a tape measure. Now, a team of scientists from University College London and the University of Maryland uses advanced laser scanning, to create 3D maps and calculate the total mass.</span></p><p>The results are striking: suggesting the trees <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">may be as much as 30% larger than earlier measurements suggested.</a> Part of that could be due to the additional trunks the Redwoods can grow as they age, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a process known as reiteration</a>.</p>New 3D measurements of large redwood trees for biomass and structure. Nature / UCL
<p>Measuring the trees more accurately is important because carbon capture will probably play a key role in the battle against climate change. Forest <a href="https://www.wri.org/blog/2020/09/carbon-sequestration-natural-forest-regrowth" target="_blank">growth could absorb billions of tons</a> of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.</p><p>"The importance of big trees is widely-recognised in terms of carbon storage, demographics and impact on their surrounding ecosystems," the authors wrote<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank"> in the journal Nature</a>. "Unfortunately the importance of big trees is in direct proportion to the difficulty of measuring them."</p><p>Redwoods are so long lived because of their ability to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73733-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cope with climate change, resist disease and even survive fire damage</a>, the scientists say. Almost a fifth of their volume may be bark, which helps protect them.</p>Carbon Capture Champions
<p><span>Earlier research by scientists at Humboldt University and the University of Washington found that </span><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302584" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Redwood forests store almost 2,600 tonnes of carbon per hectare</a><span>, their bark alone containing more carbon than any other neighboring species.</span></p><p>While the importance of trees in fighting climate change is widely accepted, not all species enjoy the same protection as California's coastal Redwoods. In 2019 the world lost the equivalent of <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30 soccer fields of forest cover every minute</a>, due to agricultural expansion, logging and fires, according to The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).</p>Pixabay
<p>Although <a href="https://c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/publications/1420/files/original/Deforestation_fronts_-_drivers_and_responses_in_a_changing_world_-_full_report_%281%29.pdf?1610810475" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the rate of loss is reported to have slowed in recent years</a>, reforesting the world to help stem climate change is a massive task.</p><p><span>That's why the World Economic Forum launched the Trillion Trees Challenge (</span><a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a><span>) and is engaging organizations and individuals across the globe through its </span><a href="https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o00000vOf09AAC/trillion-trees" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Uplink innovation crowdsourcing platform</a><span> to support the project.</span></p><p>That's backed up by research led by ETH Zurich/Crowther Lab showing there's potential to restore tree coverage across 2.2 billion acres of degraded land.</p><p>"Forests are critical to the health of the planet," according to <a href="https://www.1t.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">1t.org</a>. "They sequester carbon, regulate global temperatures and freshwater flows, recharge groundwater, anchor fertile soil and act as flood barriers."</p><p><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor">Reposted with permission from the </em><span><em data-redactor-tag="em" data-verified="redactor"><a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/redwoods-store-more-co2-and-are-more-enormous-than-we-thought/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>.</em></span></p>EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
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