It is the heart of election season, with important races and measures being decided across the country, including in Washington state, where one of the initiatives on the ballot has to do with the issue of our time: climate change.

Initiative 1631, as most voters know by now, would impose a fee on greenhouse gas polluters and invest the lion’s share of the revenue into reducing pollution and promoting clean energy. By charging $15 per metric ton of carbon pollution beginning in 2020, the initiative would generate $2.2 billion dollars in the first five years, at once reducing pollution and setting the state on the path to be a leader of a greener economy.

The measure has drawn attention nationally, including in an article in The Atlantic last summer that noted if I-1631 supporters are successful, Washington will become the first state in the country to adopt a carbon tax and the first government to do so by ballot referendum.

We do not expect the measure to be perfect, but we hope islanders — and residents across the state — will vote “yes” at a time when climate action is critical.

The Vashon Progressive Alliance has endorsed the initiative, stating that we have a choice between the interests of oil companies and clean air and water.

“For us that’s an easy choice. We’ll take our state’s health and the future of our kids over big oil every time,” Melvin Mackey, speaking on behalf of the alliance, wrote in a recent email.

The local alliance has plenty of company in supporting the initiative, including, as Mackey pointed out, more than 360,000 people from all over the state whose signatures helped put it on the ballot. Other notable supporters include some of Washington’s luminaries, such as Bill Gates, who earlier this month called climate change “the toughest problem humanity has ever faced.” Additional supporters range from The Nature Conservancy and The Sierra Club to the American Lung Association and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians are behind it, as are the Union of Concerned Scientists, who wrote a long blog post about the measure late last month, standing strongly with the initiative and its intent — and noting that the millions of dollars of opposition funding have come in largely from oil companies.

Washington voters have cast their votes for a carbon tax before — in 2016 — when the measure failed, but the alarming facts behind climate change have only gotten stronger since then. Just weeks ago, the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change released a report with the dire news that we have just 12 years to limit climate change to moderate levels. The risks are clear: worsening food shortages, rising seas, larger storms, more disease, food shortages and wildfires.

Much will be required of the world to prevent what scientists are predicting, but in Washington, on this tiny island in Puget Sound, we can help take the first step, joining with the Union of Concerned Scientists who stated the situation clearly: “Climate change is here, climate change is happening, and climate change demands action.”