The end of our ecology is an enormous, well-oiled machine that’s already running. By design there are no obvious places for us to stop it and step off. It’s now up to us, groups of people moved by conscience, to find every point of entry, every tiny opening we can fit into to slow it down, break off a portion, grind something to a halt.

For those of us in the Pacific Northwest, the great matter closest at hand is coal export, specifically opposing the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal export facility at Cherry Point, in Whatcom County, Washington.

This imperative came home to me and about 2,000 other Washington state residents on November 17 in Benaroya Hall, Seattle, at the first stop of Bill McKibben’s Do The Math tour. According to McKibben’s research, most of the remaining fossil fuels on earth have been not just identified, but bought and traded among corporations and oil-rich nations. And if they burn even 20% of their reserves, we will reach the earth’s habitable maximum of atmospheric carbon.

But at the moment, all 100% of those reserves are on track to be burned. We have precious few years remaining before it’s obvious to even the most self-interested polluters that emitting carbon is an economic liability -- not to mention an existential threat to our species. Our fight, now, is how those precious few years play out.

In the spirit of late-capitalist delirium, companies such as Arch Coal, Ambre Energy and Peabody plan to build the infrastructure for extracting more coal in Washington, Montana and Idaho, shipping it by rail to ports in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, and then loading it onto Asia-bound ships. Never mind that “coal is the lifeblood of our domestic energy supply” and “vital to our national security” - this alliance of coal companies seeks to export American coal to China and other eastern economies.

The corporations may even be overly optimistic about China’s demand for imported coal in the future; the Chinese government is currently capping its own domestic coal extraction and experimenting with carbon trading. Nonetheless, there is a deep perversity to their proposal since our so-called "lifeblood," coal, would be in fact fueling the manufacture of goods we love to buy but can no longer "afford" to produce domestically. Interesting logic.

There are currently seven export facility proposals at different stages of completion, but the one sparking greatest concern right now is at Cherry Point.

The biggest and most visible players in the case are Peabody, Goldman Sachs and SSA Marine. The proposal, which remains in the environmental impact statement scoping period until Tuesday, January 22, allows any concerned citizen to submit comments stating the environmental impacts that the Washington State Department of Ecology and the Army Corps of Engineers should study on the public's behalf. (The initial deadline of Jan. 21 was extended after a Montana group of coal enthusiasts tampered with the commenting email address, diverting viewers away from the official site).

Obscurity is the proposal’s best defense. Vague rhetoric about environmental mitigation measures pales in the face of this reality: for the Cherry Point facility alone we’ll be watching 48 million tons of coal rattle across our country to be burned abroad, returning in the form of 137 million metric tons of CO2 and other atmospheric trash.

There are many other serious harms in store, of course, for our waters, railroad-abutting neighborhoods, etc., and as ever these harms would disproportionately affect non-white and poorer people. But the carbon cost is paramount, as generations in the future will be paying for the crimes of the privileged today.

Which is why it is important to focus on what’s right in front of us here and now. If a multinational corporation is trying to frack your yard, don’t sweat the coal export. If you’re busy standing in the way of the pipeline, don’t lean too far out to get a better look at the coal trains. We have found a point of entry. Now we need your attention and help to stop some dangerous fast-moving parts.

Please comment thoroughly before tomorrow at http://www.eisgatewaypacificwa.gov/.