Doing What’s Right To Save What’s Left

Rick Dubrow

Rick Dubrow May 16, 2025

Government tends to wait quite some time to react to a problem, doesn’t it?  The delay between problem recognition and embracing a solution set can be forever long and is typically diluted in its effectiveness. Political compromise crawls at a slug’s pace.

Then there’s the Precautionary Principle, a key environmental concept that suggests this: once the majority of the scientific jury is in about a particular issue, logic demands that we begin to enact the solution. It may simply prove too late to wait for consensus or yet another study confirming the momentum of data that is already compelling.

Consider this system dynamic we find ourselves in: government tends to react slowly and weakly, while threatening environmental problems compel us to react quickly and strategically! The result is that, at times, we have the right to behave in a certain way even though we know, at our core, that it’s not the right thing to do.  My immediate reflex is to suggest a few examples for you but I’m not going to do your homework for you!  Instead, ask yourself what you do that you know, in your heart, is the wrong thing to do; something for which society offers you a smokescreen behind which to hide.  “Hey, there’s no regulation against such-and-such, so I can carry on!  When our government knows that such behavior is wrong, I’m sure they’ll take the necessary actions to make it right!”

Wrong. Remember governmental lag time and its probable dilution. Collectively, we need you to mend your ways even when our collective rules are blind to them. We simply can’t wait for government to catch up to the problems at hand while our natural world continues to unravel. 

Hence the dance: we can regulate ourselves, voluntarily, or involuntary regulations will follow. 

You and I need to do what’s right, sooner, not later, even though others choose to behave otherwise by hiding behind lagging and ineffective environmental laws.  I can only dream that if enough of us act in unison with the natural world, leadership may unfold that will align society’s law with natural law. In the meantime, this I know: we cannot grow on like this. We need to get a grip on our numbers, on our ecological footprint. 

Consider doing what’s right when you have the right to do otherwise.

WEC's Birth

Rick Dubrow (June 1, 2024)

Six years into my retirement, on 8-23-24, I met with Carl Weimer for a beer.  It was time for me to explore dipping my toes back into local activism.  Why the long break in the action?

Right after retiring, after helping to morph A-1 Builders into a worker-owned cooperative – A1DesignBuild -- I needed a third back surgery.  Great start, eh? The good news was a very successful rehab. 

Now ready to re-engage into local, progressive rabble rousing, I found myself so disillusioned about the state of the environment, and the likely success of further activism, that I insulated myself from the groups I had been so attached to:  RE Sources; Sustainable Connections; Transition Whatcom; Futurewise Whatcom.

Over time, though, the nagging sense that I couldn’t stop trying to save the world kept growing and growing until, well, this growing sense began to surpass my continued disillusionment with renewed activism.  But for 6 years I had been uninvolved, so how would I re-engage?

I decided to call Carl and ask him where I might be helpful.  He had been the Executive Director of RE Sources while I was Board President, and our successful teamwork left an impression on me that has not wavered.  There’s no person in this community I respect more.

“So, Carl, where would you suggest I reinsert myself if you were in charge?”

The beer flowed and so did this story…

Carl Weimer, Stan Snapp, Rick Dubrow

Just before Covid striketh, Carl and Stan Snapp, an admirable, respected, retired, former City Council member, had been discussing the idea of tapping into the experience, success and wisdom of older, progressive locals.  Where have they landed in retirement?  What are they doing with themselves?  Have they fallen to the wayside politically?  Why not tap into their experience, contacts and wisdom?

Covid arrived and stuck a cork in Carl and Stan’s emerging idea.  But now, with Covid predominantly in the rearview mirror, might the time be ripe to revisit this idea?  We thought so, so Carl, Stan and I started meeting to discuss this further. It was October 30, 2023.

Why, we thought, would another organization be warranted, within a community so full of pre-existing, successful, progressive groups?

Here’s the answer that emerged… once retired, one need not seek re-election, or worry about losing one’s job, or threatening an advancement or pension, or answering to whomever. From my own perspective, while working as a local contractor, I needed to protect my brand so as to sell additional work, right?  How far dare I go to speak truth to power if my actions, perhaps too aggressive, could threaten the health and wellbeing of my company?

That was the seed that germinated:  find others who are no longer working, for the most part… others who had been embedded in local governance, local progressive activism, healthy and safe community.  A bucket of individuals, yet to be identified, who are older, who were successful, proven and wise.  Yes, experience takes time to simmer into such a brew, and yes, it shows. We’re old, and proud of it.  For good reason.

For good.

The three of us decided to individually pen a list of our own local champions who fit this bill and might be interested in being part of such a group.  And, to a person, we were convinced that the names on our list would be too busy, too immersed in retirement, in family, in travel, in the garden.  We thought not a one would engage.

Wrong. Within about 48 hours everyone on our list who received our initial invitation unanimously responded:  they would like to learn more about joining such a group.  Further, almost everyone voiced something close to “…I have been feeling too far removed from local community since retiring, especially since Covid. Something like this may help to fill a void I’ve been sensing within.”

Our first gathering was on January 8, 2024. Ten of us. Rather quickly what emerged was our desire to focus on local, environmental issues.  Hence the name “Whatcom Environmental Council.”

I write this in June of 2024. A few weeks ago we went public for the first time at a City of Bellingham City Council meeting, offering input on a rezone proposal in the Silver Beach neighborhood.  We still have about 150 names on our potential “members” list, with more people contacting us all the time as word of the group gets out. Stay tuned while we try to decide how best to engage and unleash this pent-up knowledge, experience, and desire to make this community a better place.

Our time has come.