An Overview and Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my blog. I have recently become highly interested in several issues of which I feel I can say, without hyperbole, are critical to the continued success of our society. The issues of which I am writing are sustainability, global climate change, and the local food movement, three issues that are vastly interlinked. I feel that once one has the proper information on these issues, one cannot ignore them. These aren't political issues; these issues affect everyone on a daily basis, whether you know this or not.

My recent interest in these issues has led me to see what I can personally do to aid these movements. Along with certain changes I am trying to make on an individual level, I have undertaken a political project to see if I can effect change on a larger level: I have written an initiative to the people of Washington state, with the hope that it will appear on the 2007 general election. This initiative will require the labeling of all food in Washington containing GMO's (Genetically Modified Organisms). One may ask what the connection is between GM foods and the issues I've listed. My response is that this would be a small step in the right direction. My goal for the initiative is to plant the seed (pun intended) of doubt about the safety of GM foods in the heads of consumers, with the hope that with ability to make these choices, people will begin to start asking questions about the current state of our system of agriculture, start wondering why so much of American food contains GMO's, while the rest of the industrialized world has banned or requires mandatory labeling of such foods, why there is so little independent academic research of these items, etc. I feel that consumers should be given the chance to make an informed decision about what they put in their bodies. This should not be a politicized choice; rather, I believe it is an unalienable right of the citizens of a functioning democracy.

I am something of an outsider to politics, and hope to learn a lot about this particular democratic process. My goal for this blog is to detail the democratic process, and to also use this blog as a means of disseminating information on the causes I find important.

The deadline for submitting this initiative is quickly approaching. Initiatives to the People, which is what this is, must be filed within ten 10 moths prior to the next state general election, which gives me until January 6. I hope to finish writing the initiative by the end of this week, at which point I must find a notary public to sign an affidavit stating that I'm a registered voter. From there I'm off to Olympia to drop off the paperwork with the Secretary of State. Once the initiative is submitted and approved, which I anticipate, I will be faced with the daunting task of obtaining 224,880 signatures by July. It'll be a lot of work, but I think I'll be able to get a lot of help from good people. When I finish the initiative this week, I'll put the text in its entirety up here, and hopefully Friday I'll have the chance to make the trek to Olympia. Details to follow soon.