Today is Earth Day and naturally politicians are making grand statements about their commitment to the environment. Environmental activists and many reporters will cheer these statements and promises, using them as evidence of a sincere concern for the planet.

What is unlikely to be offered is accountability for the repeated failures of many of those same politicians. Yet the evidence of failure is all around us. Even as politicians tell us we are facing an environmental crisis, the state's web page for tracking environmental results scrubbed the stark evidence of failure from the web page, glibly saying they are "pausing updates," removing data showing that past promises have not been met.

While they pause, environmental concerns continue.

Failing to Protect Salmon

As the Puget Sound Partnership’s online dashboard shows, Chinook salmon runs are not recovering and the state is far below the 2020 population target. Puget Sound Chinook and steelhead are both “in crisis” according to Washington’s 2020 State of Salmon In Watersheds report, as are three other salmon populations. Another five populations are “not keeping pace.”

Despite that dismal reality, the legislature is likely to dedicate a smaller percentage of the state Capital Budget to salmon recovery projects this biennium than in the last. Even though Puget Sound salmon have made virtually no progress in the last two decades, nearly all of the focus of the environmental community is on spending billions to destroy the four Lower Snake River dams, where two of three critical populations are considered recovering or near recovered by the State of Salmon report.

CO2 emission reduction failures

Even with the economic downturn from COVID, Washington state will surely miss its 2020 CO2 emissions reduction targets. Emissions in 2018 increased to a level 10 percent above the 2020 target set by politicians.

King County is in a similar position. Through 2018 King County had only achieved four percent of its 2020 CO2 emissions reduction target and almost certainly missed the promised target.

Rather than acknowledge that much of what is being done, such as subsidizing solar panels and EV charging stations for the wealthy, isn’t working, politicians at the state and local level promise more of the same fruitless policies.

Unhealthy Forests

According to the Department of Natural Resources, there are nearly three million acres of forestland in Eastern Washington that need some kind of treatment to help restore them to a healthy state. This has been true for years, and while there is more attention to the problem now, there are still many regulatory barriers that make it difficult to do the work that is needed.

Despite the urgent need, evidenced in recent summers by wildfire smoke that covered the whole region, many greens and politicians still oppose active forestry. As a congressman, Governor Inslee led the opposition to the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, and tried to limit forest thinning and other activities to areas within one-half mile of communities, leaving millions of acres to burn. That attitude is still in evidence from groups like The Lands Council in Spokane, which falsely claimed in 2021 there were “large clear cuts” in the Colville National Forest “without looking into environmental impacts.” This is completely false and represents the irresponsible mindset of too many on the environmental Left that will lead more forests to burn, more habitat to be destroyed, and our skies to again fill with smoke.

It is time for innovation and accountability

The politicians who have failed are unlikely to solve the problems they created. Rather than admitting their mistakes, they are likely to do more of the same, mindlessly wasting more time and money.

It is time to harness the spirit of innovation to create solutions that provide incentives for sustainability, connecting results to accountability. The best way to do this is to empower people close to nature and those who use resources and benefit from sustainable practices.

There are already many successful examples around us.

Tribal stewardship of natural resources

Across Washington state and the West, Indian tribes are active stewards of their land, improving the health of their forests, innovating to improve salmon runs, and managing wildlife populations and habitat. Although tribes must follow many of the same regulations and other landowners, tribal sovereignty, local governance, and political license combine to give them more flexibility to manage their natural resources.

Tribes also have strong incentives to be good stewards. Their communities pay the price for unhealthy forests, loss of wildlife, and poor salmon runs. The combination of accountability for results and additional freedom to act and innovate offers a model for environmental management on state and federal lands.

Cutting electricity costs while reducing CO2 emissions

As Washington moves toward 100 percent CO2-free electricity even as grid managers warn of increased grid instability and a shortfall of electrical generation, most of the focus is on improved planning. As was demonstrated in Texas and California in recent years, relying on planners is risky and can quickly become a house of cards, resulting in dangerous blackouts. Empowering consumers by rewarding them with price reductions for shifting demand outside of peak hours not only saves money but can reduce CO2 emissions.

Instead of using electricity in the evening, when natural gas and coal plants are used to meet the increase in demand, consumers can now use smart thermostats with artificial intelligence to shift their use to the middle of the day when solar power is available and overnight when wind is blowing. This helps increase demand for CO2-free energy, reduces costs to consumers, and helps maintain grid stability, rewarding consumers for conservation when electricity supply is low and helping prevent blackouts. This system is already working in Great Britain. It can work here too.

Increasing mobility and transit efficiency

Transportation represents the largest portion of CO2 emissions in Washington state and advocates of public transit point to buses and fixed light rail as one solution. Sound Transit’s increasingly costly expansion reduces only 130,000 metric tons of CO2 per year – about 0.1 percent of Washington state’s annual emissions, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars.

By way of contrast, cities in Canada and the United States are creating more flexible transit systems that respond to rider demand. Using an app-based system, buses in Bellville, Ontario are routed based on demand. The bus may pick up riders at other stops along the way, passing bus stops that are empty. Between 60 and 70 percent of stops on a traditional route can be bypassed in a typical run. By making transit more responsive, ridership increased, and the system used less gasoline, emitting less air pollution and CO2.

Innovation and accountability will save the planet

On Earth Day, and every other day, those who truly care about environmental stewardship will ignore political rhetoric and demand accountability for politicians who make grand statements but don’t deliver what they promise.

The greatest progress on environmental stewardship have been a result of innovation combined with incentives to do more with less. Free markets are the best system to unleash those incentives and innovation, and Earth Day is a great day to make a commitment to an approach that truly delivers what politicians only promise.