HinesSight

1000 Friends of Oregon urges Salem to preserve Sustainable Fairview

Today the Salem City Council has a choice to make: preserve cutting-edge Green zoning requirements for the highly touted Sustainable Fairview mixed use development, or show once again why Oregon's capital deserves it's nickname, "So-lame."

I'm not wildly optimistic, given the Salem Planning Commission's disappointing go-ahead to Simpson Hills, LLC that would allow it to build a bunch of average apartments on what should be an exceptional piece of property.

But if the City Council listens to those in the know, as opposed to those with the biggest short-term profit motive, it will stick with the Sustainable Fairview Master Plan.

1000 Friends of Oregon urges, "Salem Should Keep Sustainable Fairview VIsion Intact."

A flawed proposal can sink a whole vision. That's the case in Salem, where a proposed multifamily housing development seeks to sidestep an innovative, sustainable plan that local residents developed several years ago. The proposal will soon go before City Council, and local advocates are urging the Council to stick to the vision already adopted.

When the City of Salem adopted the visionary Fairview Master Plan in 2005, it was the product of a community with big ideas. It proposed a livable, sustainable future that garnered praise locally and around the country for its creative and productive reuse of a unique large parcel in the middle of a city. “Salem may get used to seeing its name on magazine covers for some time,” crowed the Statesman-Journal editorial board at the time.

Just seven years later, the City has a decision to make: whether to keep to the vision and the potential of that citizen-created plan, or to follow a bland path that it will undoubtedly later regret. 1000 Friends of Oregon hopes the City will choose to stay on the course its citizens so boldly laid in the Fairview Master Plan.

...The nearby Pringle Creek Community, on a different portion of the Fairview site, is a faithful expression of that vision, and has been rightly praised for its accomplishments. But Simpson Hills, citing insufficiently proven constraints on its portion of the site, claims that many of these same principles should be set aside to build utterly indistinctive apartment housing that might be seen anywhere in the country.

Local neighborhood associations, businesspeople, and advocates reject the idea that Salem should embrace blandness and walk away from the community’s vision expressed in the Fairview Master Plan. 1000 Friends of Oregon agrees.

Quality matters. This site can only be developed once. If Salem gets this right, it will set the tone for its own future as a livable and sustainable place, and those magazine covers will keep coming, as will creative and talented residents who will help the city’s economy and culture thrive.

And Salem Breakfast on Bikes has another good overview of what's wrong with the Simpson HIlls, LLC attempt to de-Green Sustainable Fairview.

On Monday, in an appeal on a Planning Commission decision, Council returns to the matter of the third Fairview refinement plan. (For background and analysis see here, here, and here.) The lead images from the plans, though, tell quite a bit of the story in a visual shorthand. The refinement plan strays significantly from the Master Plan and Council will have to decide how much straying should be permitted and, even, whether to construe the refinement plan as "straying."

Salem City Council, preserve the vision of "Sustainable Fairview"

Please, Salem (Oregon) City Council. Pretty please.

Don't allow the beautiful property in south Salem to become less than the world-class Green development that Sustainable Fairview currently is zoned as.

A few days ago I learned that the Salem Planning Commission is OK with turning the undeveloped portion of the property from a vibrant green to a blah gray, architecturally speaking. On May 14 the City Council meets to decide whether to allow Simpson Hills, LLC to build a bunch of typical apartments on 43 of the 104 acres it owns at the site that used to house the Fairview Training Center. This is the big picture of Sustainable Fairview. Pringle Creek Community, a genuinely Green development, is located in the jagged outcropping at the top of the green-outlined boundary of Sustainable Fairview.

Simpson Hills, LLC owns the property at the bottom, lots 1-5. The white area is to be developed in the future. The area just above, lots 1-3, are inaccurately termed the "Refinement Plan Boundary." Refinement, I guess, is how planners refer to modifying existing zoning criteria.

I'd say Demolishment would be a more fitting term in this case. Here's a close-up look at the plan for lots 1-3.

Yes, it's largely colored green. But that's about the extent of its Green'ness, sustainability-wise.

These lots are planned to house typical three story apartment buildings. Even though current Sustainable Fairview zoning requires LEED standards, Simpson Hills, LLC doesn't want to make the apartments any greener or more environmentally sound than the usual Salem zoning requires.

Ridiculous. 

When Simpson Hills, LLC bought 104 acres of the Sustainable Fairview property, the buyers knew that this was, duh..., a sustainable development with especially sustainable zoning regulations that had been approved by the City of Salem quite a few years ago.

The vision of the Sustainable Fairview Master Plan, for example, included having highly energy-efficient homes; all stormwater captured on site; minimal emphasis on cars/roads; varied types of housing; mixed uses on site so people could "live, work, and play" in a conveniently compact area.

Disappointingly, Simpson Hills, LLC now wants to back off substantially from those laudable goals.

Note the expanse of gray in the plan for lots 1-3 above. Those are parking lots and roads. Lots of lots. Lots of roads. The rain water that runs off them, which will be lots, is planned to end up in the holding pond shown on the right of the drawing. Then all the water will go into Pringle Creek. 

Pringle Creek Community, by contrast, has permeable asphalt and other ways of capturing stormwater. And the original plans for Sustainable Fairview envisioned limited "obvious" parking, with cars sequestered behind dwelling units, rather than prominently parked front and center.

The Morningside Neighborhood Association, which represents those already living in the area, isn't thrilled with the Simpson Hills, LLC "refinement" plan.

Geoffrey James, an architect, heads up the association's land use committee. He's put together an excellent critique of the proposed development which can be read here. It starts off with:

Fairview Hills is a current proposal by a developer for the southern ownership [portion of the Fairview property,i.e. the old Fairview Training Center, that was sold by the State of Oregon in 2008 [actually, 2002], and is supposed (by ordinance) to be a Sustainable, Green, and Low Impact Development. Unfortunately, conventional apartments are currently proposed, with conventional parking lots. A public hearing on this is before Salem City Council on Monday, May 14. Morningside Neighborhood Association is the neighborhood, and the Executive Board passed a motion unanimously, that is opposed to this development.

Attachment 7 in this (large) collection of documents related to the Simpson Hills, LLC proposal is a memo from Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA), the organization which bought the Fairview Training Center property from the State of Oregon. 

If anybody knows how Sustainable Fairview should be developed, it is SFA. And SFA also isn't happy with how Simpson Hills, LLC is trying to cut corners on cutting-edge sustainability/green'ness. In the memo Sam Hall, SFA Managing Member, told the City of Salem:

We are generally supportive of the plan to develop apartments on the site, but there is little evidence that their plan for apartments at Fairview is different from the projects they say they have done many times before on properties all over the country. We see very little understanding or recognition of the goals of the Master Plan and the nature of the Fairview site.

This should be a no-brainer for the Salem Planning Commission and City Council.

Simpson HIlls, LLC shouldn't be allowed to breeze into town with a cookie-cutter proposal for the Sustainable Fairview property that maximizes profits for themselves and minimizes Salem's chance to have a world class Green development. 

Salem Weekly, our city's alternative newspaper, has exposed how the Planning Commission is unfairly (and possibly illegally) comprised: five out of seven members have strong ties to real estate development.

So its no surprise that a short-sighted Chamber of Commerce mentality at odds with the Sustainable Fairview Master Plan has led the Planning Commission to recommend approval of the Simpson Hills application. It's up to the City Council to stop the madness.

Frequently I critique Salem's blah'ness on this blog. There's a good reason Oregon's capital is nicknamed "So-lame." Often, it is.

Sustainable Fairview is a non-lame flash of creativity, innovation, excitement, and world-class Green design that needs to be nurtured, not crushed by a Simpson HIlls, LLC proposal which seeks to markedly diminish those qualities.

Geoffrey James put it nicely in his critique of the ill-considered development plans:

Why was the area described by the Fairview Master plan meant to be different than other areas of Salem? What is the value of a "sustainable" community or neighborhood?
 

It is intended to be a new kind of neighborhood for those who live and work in Salem, that will foster innovative land development and transportation practices. create a strong yet dynamic sense of community, stimulate and create new employment opportunities, demonstrate the efficient use of both natural and human resources,preserve a healthy environment for people, nature, and business, protect nature and develop new techniques for integrating the natural and built environments, use resources to meet the needs of this generation while conserving them for future generations, encourage creative ideas, products, and processes, and share them with other communities and developments, and be a focal point for the growing effort to achieve a balanced,sustainable future.

The distinction of the project is it is becoming a magnet for people out of state wanting to relocate to a community that values sustainability. Protecting the standards of the project will ensure a differentiated project that would attract new people and new talent to Salem, in particular young professionals from out of state. Additionally, for recruitment, such a distinct housing offering will help our large employers attract top talent to Salem, rather than lose workers to other cities or to Portland. Several thousands of workers live in Portland and commute to Salem each day because they believe Portland has a better quality of life. Offering a well- designed housing option in Salem may lure these workers to live in Salem, and spend their money here rather than in Portland.

 Absolutely.

It'd be crazy if the Salem City Council said "OK" to building a bunch of oh-so-average apartments on the Sustainable Fairview property that are indistinguishable from apartments on Liberty Road, Commercial Street, Wallace Road, or many other places in our town.

Sustainable Fairview is designed to be special. Simpson Hills, LLC wants it to be nothing-special. Why? Apparently because the corporation thinks it will make more money by offering an average housing product, rather than an exceptional housing product.

Well, Salem has enough average.

Let's continue to aim for exceptional with Sustainable Fairview, as the Pringle Creek Community is doing, and which I assume SFA intends to do with the portion of the property it still owns.

Hold fast to the Fairview Master Plan and current zoning, Salem City Council. Don't settle for average.

(The Breakfast on Bikes blog has a good post about the Simpson Hills, LLC proposal. Give it a read. I heartily agree with the concluding words: "Salem has plenty of conventional development. The City of Salem should give that Master Plan a fair trial and square deal. Is it really necessary to water it down from the start?")

Global warming deniers are "merchants of doubt"

Facts are facts.

Cigarettes cause lung cancer. Coal-fired power plants cause acid rain. Fossil fuel emissions cause global warming.

There's scientific consensus on the causes of lung cancer, acid rain, and global warming. Unfortunately, there also has been, and still is, a systematic effort to spread lies about these serious problems.

In her book "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming," historian Naomi Oreskes documented how this happened. A review says:

Merchants of Doubt might be one of the most important books of the year. Exhaustively researched and documented, it explains how over the past several decades mercenary scientists have partnered with tobacco companies and chemical corporations to help them convince the public that their products are safe – even when solid science proves otherwise.

These businesses had a goal: to sell cigarettes and chemicals such as DDT. These businesses had a problem: scientists said their products were bad for people. These businesses found a solution: hire scientists to step outside the objective, peer-reviewed scientific academies and spread junk science and misinformation, manufacturing and selling doubt.

...Today, a number of scientists have figured out how to sell doubt in the public consciousness and make money and a reputation in doing so. “Merchants of Doubt” shows how many of these same scientists are still working today on the Grand Poobah of science issues: global warming.

Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway tell the story of a number of scientists and organizations that they say have established themselves in this practice, but three in particular steal the show – er, charade: Bill Nierenberg, Fred Seitz, and Fred Singer. Oreskes and Conway contend that each of these scientists developed extensive political networks they then used to begin some of the greatest misinformation campaigns in American scientific history.

Today I listened to a podcast interview of Oreskes on Point of Inquiry. It was simultaneously fascinating and disturbing. 

I learned that fear drives many global warming deniers. It's the same fear that impelled Cold War warriors to see Communism as a much bigger threat than it really was, and to trample civil liberties in their efforts to root out nasty Reds who supposedly were undermining the United States from within.

Amazingly, Oreskes said that rabid anti-science "merchants of doubt" still believe in the Watermelon Theory of modern environmentalists: green without, red within.

Corporate greed of fossil fuel companies is one driver of global warming lies. An irrational fear of government intrusion into people's lives is another driver. If human-caused global warming is a serious problem -- and science tells us that it IS -- then something needs to be done about it.

Oreskes said that even though pollution trading mechanisms based on the free market worked with acid rain, and carbon trading would work equally well with global warming, fear of big government leads global warming deniers to spread lies, apparently figuring that their supposedly virtuous libertarian ends justify sleazy untruthful means.

The good news is that the American public is seeing through the lies: 75 percent of Americans favor regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant; 60 percent support a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

A new national survey confirms strong public support for funding renewable energy research, regulating carbon pollution, and signing a global treaty to slash emissions. The study, conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, found a remarkable 75% of Americans support “regulating carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) as a pollutant.”

The survey’s results are counter to widely held assumptions among the media and politicians, but consistent with recent polling. The poll found:

• 63 percent of Americans support “signing an international treaty that requires the United States to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide 90 percent by the year 2050“!
• By a margin of 3 to 1 — 61 percent to 20 percent — Americans say they would be more likely to vote for a political candidate who supports a “revenue neutral” tax shift, increasing taxes on fossil fuels, and reducing the federal income tax by an equal amount.
• 61 percent said they support holding the fossil fuel industry responsible for “hidden costs we pay for citizens who get sick from polluted air and water, military costs to maintain access to foreign oil, and the environmental costs of spills and accidents.”
• By 3 to 1 — 58 percent to 17 percent — Americans say “protecting the environment … improves economic growth and provides new jobs” vs those who say it “reduces economic growth and costs jobs.”
• Asked “When there is a conflict between environmental protection and economic growth, which do you think is more important?” an amazing 62 percent supported “protecting the environment, even if it reduces economic growth” vs. 38 percent who backed “Economic growth, even if it leads to environmental problems.”

More good news: Obama reportedly is going to make climate change a presidential campaign issue. Given that a clear majority of Americans want this country to take strong action to combat human-caused global warming, that's a smart political move.

Obama said:

Part of the challenge over these past three years has been that people’s number-one priority is finding a job and paying the mortgage and dealing with high gas prices. In that environment, it’s been easy for the other side to pour millions of dollars into a campaign to debunk climate-change science. 

I suspect that over the next six months, this is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way.

That there’s a way to do it that is entirely compatible with strong economic growth and job creation – that taking steps, for example, to retrofit buildings all across America with existing technologies will reduce our power usage by 15 or 20 percent. That’s an achievable goal, and we should be getting started now.

Obama vs. Romney on energy: Obama wins!

There's lots of reasons to vote for President Obama rather than Mitt Romney this November. Lots.

Here's one area where Obama triumphs over Romney, big-time: energy policy. The world is running out of fossil fuels (fossils take a long time to form, so we're using up oil and coal hugely faster than more is being created, but the Republican Party doesn't seem to know this basic fact).

Other countries, like Germany and China, are avidly pursuing profitable alternative energy sources like wind and solar.

Obama recognizes that even though oil and coal will be part of our energy future for many years, the time is now to begin transitioning to sustainable, non-polluting sources of energy which will simultaneously lessen our dependence on foreign oil and stimulate the United States economy.

Romney is stuck in the dark ages, energy policy-wise.

His habitual tilt toward corporate interests ("Corporations are people, my friend!") and the 1% causes him to lean away from American energy independence and home-grown sources of fueling our economy.

Here's a summary of how Obama and Romney differ on energy policy, courtesy of Climate Progress (click to enlarge). For more details, check out "How Obama and Romney Compare on Energy Issues."

Glaciers are still shrinking from global warming

Almost always, truth runs deeper than a single shallow newspaper story. Especially when the subject is global warming, a subject that has been studied in depth by climate scientists.

This morning Google News led me to a Christian Science Monitor story, "Global warming mystery: some Himalayan glaciers getting bigger." Yes, but only some. And not a lot bigger.

Then I came across another more inclusive story in the Guardian by Jonathan Bamber, director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre, "The glaciers are still shrinking -- and rapidly." 

With glaciers and ice sheets covering such a diverse range of latitudes (from the tropics to the poles) and altitudes (from sea level to over 6,000 metres), it is not surprising that there are regional variations in their behaviour. Such variability should not, however, distract from the broader and more important story unfolding, which is one of profound and likely irreversible changes to global land and sea ice cover. Taken as a whole, the evidence for sustained changes to the cryosphere is clear.

The impacts these changes are having on water resources, sea-level rise and climate feedbacks are already observable and significant. Some recent predictions of the increase in sea levels by 2100 exceed one metre. Loss of Arctic sea ice results in enhanced warming of the Arctic Ocean due to a strong positive feedback.

Most glaciologists believe we are witnessing unprecedented changes to land and sea ice. The burning question is not if, but how fast, land and sea ice will disappear, and what we can do to mitigate and adapt to these changes.

That's the deeper truth. Global warming is real. It's happening. And we've got to mitigate and adapt to it.

How I'm fighting global warming Internet "trolls"

It's a tough decision: how to handle anti-science global warming deniers who repeatedly leave lengthy comments on my blog posts, filled with untruths, deceptions, and flat out lies at odds with facts about how the Earth's climate is changing because of human carbon pollution.

I've tolerated this crap for a long time, but have decided to take a stand for truth (as contrasted with "truthiness," which is what global warming trolls specialize in. 

In this context a troll isn't a mythical being, but someone set on disrupting courteous, respectful cyberspace discourse. They're a problem almost everywhere on the Internet. I've had to moderate comments on my two blogs to keep them under control.

Up until recently I've been accepting of global warming-related comments which aren't based in scientific reality. I'd correct the factual errors through a comment of my own. However, when someone keeps repeating lies, it gets tiresome to keep on spending time refuting them.

A few years ago DeSmog Blog put up a post about this troll problem.

George Monbiot has a great article this week citing DeSmog Blog, regarding the vexing issue of “trolls”. Not the kind that live under bridges, but those faceless cyberspace monikers that pop up frequently in comment sections of blogs likes this one, to repetitively froth away against climate science.

Are these real people? Or are they operatives in the employ of Big Oil?  “Paul S”? “Phlogiston”? I’m talking to you.

It seems that Monbiot has same problem that we do. On the Guardian website, a small minority of anonymous“skeptics” often dominate the discussion by regurgitating talking points from well-known climate deniers. Sound familiar?

When Monbiot challenged his trolls to reveal their identity, or even confirm or deny whether they are posting from a PR office, he has never got a straight answer.

Monbiot's post is titled "Climate denial 'astroturfers' should stop hiding behind pseudonyms online." Absolutely. I heartily agree.

Opinion is opinion. Facts are facts.

If someone wants to spew anti-scientific crap that sounds like it's coming from a Big Oil-funded public relations firm, he or she needs to provide proof of a real identity. I don't mind someone leaving a comment on my blog saying "I like hip-hop more than rap." That's opinion. But if someone says "It's perfectly safe to play Russian roulette with a loaded revolver," that's a dangerous lie.

Anyone who says it's OK to ignore human-caused global warming isn't in touch with scientific reality.

Just as I wouldn't let my blog become a forum for promoting shooting oneself in the head with a revolver, neither do I want anonymous trolls to have free rein to leave their lying comments about global warming.

So I've decided to take the approach Monbiot persuasively argues for.

Two months ago I read some comments by a person using the moniker scunnered52, whose tone and content reminded me of material published by professional deniers. I called him out, asking "Is my suspicion correct? How about providing a verifiable identity to lay this concern to rest?" I repeated my challenge in another thread. He used distraction and avoidance in his replies, but would not answer or even address my question, which gave me the strong impression that my suspicion was correct.

So what should we do to prevent these threads from becoming the plaything of undisclosed corporate interests? My view is that everyone should be free to say whatever they want. I have never asked for a comment to be removed, nor will I do so. I believe that the threads should be unmoderated, except to protect the Guardian from Britain's ridiculous libel laws.

But I also believe that everyone who comments here should be accountable: in other words that the rest of us should be able to see who they are. By hiding behind pseudonyms, commenters here are exposed to no danger of damaging their reputations by spouting nonsense.

Our local newspaper, the Salem Statesman Journal, requires a Facebook account log-in to leave an online comment on a story. Increasingly, newspapers, blogs, and other web sites are moving away from unfettered commenting anonymity. Comments may be fewer, but they are of much higher quality when the real identity of commenters are known.

Unfortunately, my blog service (TypePad) doesn't have a way to require a Facebook log-in before leaving a comment. 

So I've asked this blog's most avid anti-science global warming denier to send me a link to his Facebook page. I told him/her that I'd publish future comments if I confirmed a real identity which would be included with every comment.

As I suspected, no response. Just more blather about censorship and such. Hey, trolls: good luck with publishing your no reason to worry about global warming B.S. in a scientific journal under a pseudonym like asswipeXS. 

Like I said, facts are facts. Opinions are opinions. If someone wants to leave lies on a comment to one of my posts about global warming, he or she needs to stand behind that comment by providing a real identity. 

Then I, or anyone else, will at least know the source of the B.S. I have no problem with my name being associated with what I write about global warming. Neither does any reputable scientist. Only trolls hide in the dark of climate science anonymity.

I like the title of another Guardian article on the subject of trolls:  An internet troll's opinion should carry no more weight than graffiti. Nicely put.  

Arctic warming could be cause of NW cool spell

It's been freakin' cold this spring of 2012 in the Great Pacific Northwest. Also, rainy. March saw the most rainfall ever in Portland. I think here in Salem we had the third rainiest March on record.

Today I went for an afternoon dog walk in 45 degree weather. Driving home from my Tai Chi class tonight, my car thermometer "dinged" with a 37 degrees nearing-freezing alert. 

Global warming deniers seize upon any unusual cold spell as evidence that Al Gore is wrong; global warming is a fraud perpetrated by the United Nations One World Order and complicit climatologists; weird record-breaking weather is just doing what the weather does -- be changeable.

Here's the scientific truth: "Arctic Warming Favors Extreme Prolonged Weather Events 'Such as Drought, Flooding, Cold Spells, and Heat Waves." 

By showing that Arctic climate change is no longer just a problem for the polar bear, a new study may finally dispel the view that what happens in the Arctic, stays in the Arctic.

The study, by Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University and Stephen Vavrus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, ties rapid Arctic climate change to high-impact, extreme weather events in the U.S. and Europe.

The study shows that by changing the temperature balance between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, rapid Arctic warming is altering the course of the jet stream, which steers weather systems from west to east around the hemisphere. The Arctic has been warming about twice as fast as the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, due to a combination of human emissions of greenhouse gases and unique feedbacks built into the Arctic climate system.

The jet stream, the study says, is becoming “wavier,” with steeper troughs and higher ridges. Weather systems are progressing more slowly, raising the chances for long-duration extreme events, like droughts, floods, and heat waves.

...In addition, the study also mentions jet stream configurations that led to heavy snows in the Northeast and Europe during recent winters. Such events are also “consistent” with the study’s findings, according to the paper.

A map included with the blog post shows why our relatives in the mid-West have been gloating about marvelous warm weather this spring (close to 80 degrees, or even above, I believe), while we've been telling them "it's still cold and rainy Oregon."

Surface temperature departures from average during the March heat wave. Credit: NOAA/ESRL.

Blue colors are colder than average in March 2012. Darker the blue, the more from the long-term average. Red, orange, yellow, and green show March temperatures warmer than average, with red, orange, and yellow being the warmest.

So most of the United States has been basking while the West Coast states have been "enjoying" (if that's the right word, which to me, it isn't) cooler than normal temperatures. Note that western Oregon and Washington had the largest deviation in the cool direction of anywhere in the U.S.

Lucky us. But the weather will change. That's what weather does.

However, with global warming becoming steadily stronger, this study says that as the Arctic warms faster than the world as a whole, changes in the jet stream are going to cause even weirder weather in the future. 

The study contains a stark warning about future weather patterns, given projections showing that Arctic climate change is likely to accelerate in coming years. “As the Arctic sea ice cover continues to disappear and the snow cover melts ever earlier over vast regions of Eurasia and North America, it is expected that large-scale circulation patterns throughout the northern hemisphere will become increasingly influenced by Arctic amplification,” the study reports.

In other words, rapid Arctic warming is expected to exert a growing influence on the weather far beyond the Arctic Circle, for many years to come.

Fox News gets positive about Chevy Volt

It must have been my recent blog post that convinced Fox News it should stop lying about the Chevy Volt and get behind an all-American car that has won both the North American and European Car of the Year awards.

Because this Steve Doocy interview strikes a whole different tone from the Volt-bashing that's been going on at Fox News.

Oil-loving conservative Texan Lee Spieckerman of Spieckerman Media started off by saying that Fox News commentators have had "a fetish for demonizing the Volt," then went on to explain why the Volt is such a great car.

I love Fox news, and I feel like I’m kind of attacking my own family here. I love O’Reilly, I love Neil Cavuto, I love Eric Bolling, but like a lot of my fellow conservatives, they seem to have kind of a fetish for demonizing the Volt.

They are perpetuating the myth that the Volt was some kind of Obama administration green energy fantasy that as you say was forced on General Motors during the bailout.

It’d been in development two years before Obama was elected. And it was championed by … Bob Lutz, who is a conservative and a climate change skeptic. So you know it’s a myth.

The tax break for buying the Volt was implemented by the Bush administration. It was not  something that was implemented under the Obama administration.

So unfortunately, there have been a lot of myths perpetuated.

Have a look. 

My favorite part is when Spieckerman asks Doocy if he knows how electricity is generated in Ohio. I thought, "Oh, no! They're going to criticize the Volt for using electricity from global-warming exacerbating fossil fuel."

Not so surprisingly though, both Spieckerman and Doocy loved how the Volt and other electric cars are able to use coal for "fuel." American coal! USA, USA, USA! Driving an electric car is the height of patriotism, according to Spieckerman.

On the personal front, my wife and I ordered a Volt today from Capitol Chevrolet here in Salem. We're going to sell our Nissan Leaf and shift to the Volt's approach to going electric. The Leaf also is a great car, but it ended up not being as suitable for our lifestyle as we expect the Volt will be.

Sneak preview of the Auto Trader ad I'm putting up tomorrow: Our price for a 2011 Nissan Leaf with only 3,000 miles will be the least expensive used Leaf being sold in the entire United States. (I'm pretty sure of that; need to double-check prices tomorrow.)

Plus, our 2011 Leaf has leather seats and a Level 3 (fastest) charger. If you're looking for a Leaf, and want to pay a lot less than the $37,250 MSRP for a new 2012 Leaf, look no further. We've got a great all-electric car for you, at a great price.

Crazy March weather points to global warming

This morning my wife and I had to cope with five inches of snow on the ground here in rural south Salem (Oregon). It was weird. I've lived in Oregon for forty-one years. Can't remember a time when the blooming daffodils were crushed by so much snow.

Because our newspapers couldn't be delivered, over breakfast I read a story about the spring storm in the Oregonian online. Turning to the comments, I saw predictable comments along the lines of "Ha, ha, Al Gore is wrong. Can't be global warming if the Willamette Valley got record-breaking snow for this time of year."

That sort of ignorance isn't bliss. It's disturbing. Because if lots of Americans keep on denying the reality of global warming, we're headed for much scarier and much weirder weather.

The global warming deniers who used comments on the Oregonian story to display their foolishness forgot, or ignored, an inconvenient truth: while the temperature in the Pacific Northwest has been unusally cool this month, most of the rest of the United States has been extremely warm.

On the highly recommended Climate Progress blog, check out March Madness: 'This May Be an Unprecedented Event Since Modern U.S. Weather Records Began in the Late 19th Century.' The post starts out this way.

Dr. Jeff Masters: A spring heat wave like no other in U.S. and Canadian history peaked in intensity yesterday, during its tenth day. Since record keeping began in the late 1800s, there have never been so many temperature records broken for spring warmth in a one-week period–and the margins by which some of the records were broken yesterday were truly astonishing. Wunderground’s weather historian, Christopher C. Burt, commented to me yesterday, “it’s almost like science fiction at this point.“

Yesterday, meteorologist Masters published a detailed statistical analysis that concluded, “It is highly unlikely the warmth of the current ‘Summer in March’ heat wave could have occurred unless the climate was warming.”

See that strip of blue on the northern portion of the Pacific coast? In addition to south Texas, that's the only spot in the United States that has been unseasonably cool from March 8-15, 2012.

All that red, including the really dark red? That's record-breaking heat. 

Global warming is real. We need to deal with it. Now.

Pared down HB 4095 won't harm Oregon land use system

I'm feeling better about what I called "land use shenanigans" that popped up at the very end of the Oregon legislature's short 2012 session.

After learning more about what the $550,000 appropriated by the joint Ways and Means Committee for a pilot regional land use planning project in Josephine, Jackson, and Douglas counties would do, it looks like Oregon's efforts to protect irreplaceable farm and forest land from unnecessary development aren't much at risk.

This is because HB 4095, which was a major threat to Oregon's land use system, died without getting a vote in either the House or Senate. 1000 Friends of Oregon noted that HB 4095 was called a "major threat" by the Oregon Conservation Network. 

What the bill proposes: HB 4095 would allow the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC) to redefine agricultural and forest lands in three Southern Oregon counties based in part on factors other than the productivity of the soil or the history of resource use. The bill then allows the counties to redesignate current agricultural and forest lands as "non-resource", paving the way for development.  The bill includes such factors as speculation about the future viability of resource use and proximity to other land uses.

Why 1000 Friends opposes this bill: HB 4095 could allow sprawling rural residential development on lands that have been in continuous farm or forest use for generations. 

...The bill would also add unnecessary complexity to the land use program. If Southern Oregon counties require a new definition of agricultural and forest lands specifically reflecting the usability of such lands for resource uses, current law provides the means to do so. Also, re-mapping of lands that do not meet the definition of agricultural land or forest land is already possible under HB 2229, passed by the Legislature in 2009. However, no county has taken advantage of that authorization. This bill is not only bad policy, it is simply unnecessary.

So if HB 4095 was unnecessary and didn't even get a hearing in the joint Ways and Means Committee, why was $550,000 in general fund taxpayer money allocated by that committee to enable three Oregon counties to do what already can be done under existing laws and regulations?

Apparently because lots of legislative "horse-trading" goes on at the end of a session. Republicans were stymied on some of their favorite bills and wanted to be able to point to some wins, no matter how small, in exchange for supporting Democratic legislative priorities.

Also, many people view Oregon's land use system as being too rigid.

So giving the three southern Oregon counties some money to support an attempt to come up with regional definitions of farm and forest land throws a bone to the barking dogs who would prefer to see land use planning go away completely.

It looks like nothing substantive will be done with the $550,000 until the next biennium, which begins on July 1, 2013.

The state Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) will have to come up with rules to guide the activities of the three counties. Then any request to redefine what is productive farm and forest land in southern Oregon would need to be approved by the Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC).

Since all state land use laws remain intact, and no new legal criteria for defining farm/forest land were added because of the failure to pass HB 4095, if the three counties succeed in getting LCDC to agree to some proposal, it will be no different from what could have been done prior to the 2012 legislative session.

In the end, then, Republican members of the legislature will be able to claim a small victory for local control over land use decisions, even though actually Jackson, Josephine, and Douglas counties don't have any more control now than they did before.

They just have $550,000 to do what they could always have done: petition DLCD and LCDC to define farm and forest lands differently based on the usability of these lands in a regional area. LIke I said before, to me it seems like that money would have been better spent on other needs -- such as education, health care, or public safety.

But since the bad aspects of HB 4095 were pruned away by the Ways and Means Committee, what's left is almost certainly innocuous.

Land use system-hating county commissioners in the three southern Oregon counties will huff and puff about the need to pave over farm and forest land so that illusory jobs can be created. In the end, whatever definitional changes allowed to take place will be what is already permitted under state land use laws.

Sneaky land use shenanigans in 2012 Oregon legislature

I don't think I've ever used "shenanigan" in a blog post, but I'm bringing out that word to describe what happened to HB 4095 at the end of the 2012 Oregon legislative session.

a devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose

tricky or questionable practices or conduct 

Yeah, that's what "passing" a bill through hidden backroom budgetary machinations rather than in an open deliberative legislative vote is -- a shenanigan. 

HB 4095 was an attempt to begin dismantling Oregon's successful land use system by allowing counties to band together and come up with regional definitions of farm and forest land which permitted "pave it over" development.

1000 Friends of Oregon called it "the session's biggest land use threat." I testified against it. At the hearing I attended, the Oregon Association of Realtors was for the bill. Almost everyone else who appeared before the House Judiciary committee was against it, including farmers.

There was absolutely zero reason for HB 4095.

Regional definitions of farm and forest land already are allowed. If resource lands, farm or forest, have been misidentified under a definition, this can be fixed via remapping under a bill passed in a previous legislative session (HB 2229). 

So given how little support HB 4095 had, and how there was no need for it, I was feeling good when I kept checking the Oregonian's bill tracker and finding it hadn't gotten any votes after passing out of the Judiciary committee on a near party-line vote.

(Modern day Republicans hate land use planning, even though G.O.P. Governor Tom McCall presided over the founding of Oregon's land use system in the early 1970s.)

In fact, HB 4095 didn't get a vote before the session ended. Yet much of the bill "passed" anyway. How? Through shenanigans, a.k.a. back room dealmaking.

I don't know how it happened -- I wasn't invited into the back room -- but a Ways and Means committee item in the budget rebalance bill, SB 5701, inserted at almost the last minute gave proponents of HB 4095 much of what they wanted, and couldn't get through public hearings, deliberative debate, and transparent voting by elected citizen representatives.

To support an anticipated Governor’s directive to pilot a regional land use planning project, $200,000 General Fund was added to the agency’s [Department of Land Conservation and Development, DLCD] budget to support rulemaking and related activities.  In addition, $350,000 General Fund was appropriated to the Department for distribution to Jackson, Josephine, and Douglas counties through intergovernmental agreements. The counties will use these funds to complete technical studies, mapping, and preparation of materials required for preparing a petition to the Land Conservation and Development Commission for rulemaking to consider regional definitions of agricultural and forest lands.  

When I asked Steve McCoy of 1000 Friends of Oregon what this meant, he explained to me that a Governor's executive order or agency rulemaking can't go beyond existing law. Since HB 4095 didn't pass, this means that whatever DLCD and Jackson, Josephine, and Douglas counties do with their $550,000, it will only be what's already allowed under current land use laws.

So if six county commissioners in those southern Oregon counties decide they want to pave over farm or forest land in a fashion that isn't permitted by Oregon statute, they won't be able to. Thus the Ways and Means committee handed them over half a million dollars to do what they can do currently.

Crazy. Shenanigan'ish. 

Why didn't the legislature use the $550,000 to fund schools, keep state troopers protecting our highways, or provide inhome health care for seniors? Why give the money to three counties to come up with regional definitions of farm and forest lands when this could have been done by them at any time in the past?

Again, I don't know.

Likely Democratic leadership and the Governor's Office threw Republicans this bone in the course of end-of-session legislative horsetrading. Which sucks. Because holding good bills hostage so that bad bills can be passed is bad legislating.

I'm disappointed this happened. In an overly optimistic previous blog post, written before I learned about the HB 4095 shenanigans, I said:

Much of the Republican "jobs plan" in the 2012 session centered around trashing irreplaceable farm and forest lands for illusory short-term economic gain. Thankfully, neither the Oregon legislature nor Governor Kitzhaber fell for this B.S.

Well, I was wrong. In part, they did.

The above-mentioned budget item doesn't change the criteria for defining farm and forest land, as HB 4095 would have, but it still gives opponents of our land use system $550,000 to play around with unnecessarily. 

Republican state Rep. Matt Wingard said on a post-session radio show that Gov. Kitzhaber likely soon will be announcing an executive order to reform Oregon's land use system. That's a stretch, since as noted above the Governor is bound to comply with existing laws.

Bill Post Show 3-6-12

But the budget note and forthcoming executive order put some wind in the sails of those who want to dismantle Oregon's environmental laws bit by bit.

They can claim that some counties now will have more local control over land use decisions, even though the control counties have after the 2012 legislative session is exactly the same as they had before.

Is this worth wasting $550,000 of precious taxpayer money? Is this worth engaging in backroom shenanigans which made a mockery of the normal legislative bill-making process? I say No. 

Here's how 1000 Friends of Oregon sums up the current state of affairs:

On the final day of the session, the final budget rebalance bill included $550,000 for DLCD and the three counties for work “related to regional land use planning activities.” We will be working with the Governor, his staff, LCDC, the Department of Land Conservation and Development, and the counties to make sure that this money is spent in a way that supports the resource economies of Southern Oregon. We will keep you posted on opportunities to help shape this conversation.

 

Oregon's environment survives GOP attacks in 2012 session

Whew. That's my one-word environmentalist reaction to the end of Oregon's first ever regular "shorty" legislative session in an even-numbered year.

My wife and I were afraid that Republican efforts to undermine our state's land use, endangered species, and forest management laws would succeed in the speeded up craziness of an abbreviated session -- where public hearings often were a sham and last minute deals on important bills were the norm.

But overall, I'm happy.

My biggest personal concern was HB 4095, a totally unnecessary bill that would have allowed three southern Oregon counties to essentially opt out of the statewide land use system, substituting their own politically-inspired definitions of farm and forest land.

("If it can be paved over, it isn't worth growing crops or trees on" is the truthful desired definition, but Republican county commissioners would have come up with sneakier ways of saying the same thing.)

That bill didn't go anywhere, praise be to the Joint Ways and Means Committee. Likely efforts will be made to revive a reincarnation of HB 4095 in the next session. Hopefully in 2013 Dems will have broken the 30-30 tie in the House in their favor and increased the Democratic Senate majority.

My wife, Laurel, went to the legislature and testified against a bill aimed at overriding the successful citizen initiative against using dogs to hunt cougars, and also against another bill (HB 4158) which bizarrely would have authorized the killing of wolves in order to preserve them under the state's endangered species act.

Both failed. Way to go, Laurel!

Now the lawsuit filed by Oregon Wild and other organizations against the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) can go forward in the Court of Appeals without political interference. A legal hold has been put on the killing of a wolf in eastern Oregon which supposedly has been killing cattle. 

However, ranchers need to show that they've tried non-lethal means of deterring wolf attacks before a member of this endangered species can be killed. The lawsuit presented strong evidence that this hasn't happened, and ODFW has been too eager to pull the trigger. 

Much of the Republican "jobs plan" in the 2012 session centered around trashing irreplaceable farm and forest lands for illusory short-term economic gain. Thankfully, neither the Oregon legislature nor Governor Kitzhaber fell for this B.S.

Kitzhaber was opposed to a bill that authorized increased clear-cutting of timber on state lands. It failed, as did some other misguided G.O.P. efforts to revive rural economies. Earth to Republicans: the money problems of rural Oregon counties aren't going to be solved by doing away with environmental protections and engaging in unsustainable forest management practices. Thinning fireprone forests makes more sense than cutting old growth.

Nor is farming in eastern Oregon going to be helped much by taking lots of water from the Columbia River -- another G.O.P. "jobs" bill which met a well-earned demise. This is an idea which has some merit, if implemented wisely, but it needs a lot more study than was possible in the short 2012 session. 

The biggest lesson to take away from the past month's legislative deliberations is how important elections are. And voting is. In 2010 Kitzhaber won over Republican Chris Dudley by only 22,238 votes, 1.5% of the electorate.

Imagine what an environmental disaster the past two legislative sessions would have been if Oregon was led by Governor Dudley and Republicans were in control of the state House and Senate (currently 30-30 and 16-14 D-R).

Republicans don't understand that economic development and protection of natural resources go hand in hand. For some reason conservation has become a dirty word to conservatives. However, without a healthy, vibrant, productive Earth, where do they think long-term economic growth is going to come from?

Not from fantasy land, where a good share of G.O.P. legislators reside these days.

(Here's a overview of the 2012 legislative session from the green viewpoint of 1000 Friends of Oregon.)

Flying into Portland and Burbank shows why Oregon shines

In this 2012 session of the Oregon legislature, haters of our land use system once again are trying to kill it through a thousand cuts (HB 4095 being a prime example).

I urge each of these "pave it over" advocates to do what my wife and I did last Friday and today: take an Alaska Airlines flight into Burbank, California, then return to Portland, Oregon.

(Instead of Burbank, Phoenix would be an even better bad example of non-planning.)

From the air, it's obvious why Oregon's pioneering approach to protecting irreplaceable farm and forest land needs to be strengthened, not weakened. Those in the know say, it works.

Through property tax incentives, transferable development rights, and limited use requirements, the program protects and conserves farm and forest lands for agricultural and timber production. At the same time, the state establishes locally designated urban boundaries to both accommodate population and business growth while preventing urban sprawl onto rural lands. As a result, Oregon reports a high level of food and timber production. Its urban planning strategy incorporates public facility and public transportation plans, which the state notes are providing environmental benefits and cost savings by reducing reliance on automobiles.

A vision-picture, though, is worth all those words.

Flying into Burbank, on the other side of the Hollywood Hills from Los Angeles proper, I watched subdivisions slide by for many miles under our airplane's wings before we landed. The LA metropolitan area appears limited only by geography and designated state/national forests.

I grew up in California from age six to twenty-one, when I moved to Oregon to attend graduate school at Portland State University. In the late 50's and early 60's my mother regularly drove me from central to southern California to visit relatives.

I remember lots of orange groves and other farmland close-in to the Los Angeles metro area. Not now. It's solid sprawling urbanization, ever-so-obvious from our flight.

Contrast this with flying into Portland.

Arriving at noon today, the mostly sunny day allowed Mt. Hood's snow covered heights to sparkle above drifting clouds. Clear cuts, many made obvious by their snowy whiteness, showed that Oregon's forests produce lots of timber as well as bountiful recreational opportunities.

After the pilot announced, "We're beginning our descent into Portland," I concentrated on the view from the airplane window. Forests and farms passed by for quite a while, with small communities dotting the landscape. 

Mt. Hood remained directly to the east, straight out the window, with a beautiful stretch of almost completely natural landscape leading from beneath the plane to the slopes of the mountain. 

Then our plane banked to head toward the Portland International Airport. Briefly all I could see from the window was clouds and sky. When the plane went level again, now on a new heading...

Bingo! Suddenly city! Instant urbanity!

Oregon's land use system requires urban growth boundaries. That's why Oregon cities don't sprawl like those in other states do. There's city. And then there's country. Farm and forest land can reach right up to the city limits, as was evident from today's flight into Portland.

The beauty of Oregon blows me away every time I fly somewhere else, and return to Portland. That beauty is partly natural, and partly a result of our state's pioneering efforts to protect what we have from unnecessary and unwise over-development.

It's easy to see how successful our land use system is. Just fly into Burbank, then into Portland.

OSU setting traps to kill wildlife needlessly

Why, Oregon State University?

Why would you contract with the federal government's animal killing machine, Wildlife Services, to indiscriminately set traps for fawns, racoons, coyotes, dogs, cats, and any other creatures able to crawl under the OSU sheep farm fence?

Predator Defense is asking. My wife and I are also. There are much better ways to protect livestock than by killing wildlife and endangering family pets. 

There are numerous alternative non lethal practices available and used world-wide to keep sheep and lambs safe besides killing wildlife, including the use of “New Zealand fencing,” hot wires around a fence line, the presence of guard dogs or llamas, OSU staff shedding and/or corralling the lambs at night, and a human presence in fields and pastures.

Watch this short video of what's going on at Oregon State University. Then take action to stop the needless killing.

 

James Huffman wrongly attacks Oregon land use system

I'm surprised how badly James Huffman, a dean emeritus of the Lewis and Clark law school, misinterpreted the highly successful Oregon land use system in a misguided opinion piece in today's Oregonian.

"Keep the messy politics: rule by government experts is a recipe for tyranny" reflects the overblown rhetoric of the sky is falling! Tea Party types. They see left-wing dangers, conspiracies, and constitutional threats hiding in the shadows everywhere.

Only problem is, when you ask them to specifically point them out, providing factual examples of dictatorial, tyrannical government over-reaching, they get tongue-tied. Why? Because their scary hobgoblins exist only in their own minds.

Huffman believes that "experts" (eek! knowledgeable people! frightening!) are controlling Oregon's land use decisions. Not the elected officials who hire and manage those experts. Not the voters who put those elected officials into office. Not the legislators who passed the land use laws those experts implement.

The Oregonian editorial board suggests a siren to warn when "legislators try to take over management of the state's natural resources" (“Water, trees and politics,” Feb. 16). On the opposite page, columnist Dave Lister describes how voters in Clackamas County are taking over bridge projects, urban renewal districts and light rail. Maybe there should be a siren to warn of such voter interference, as well. 

How dare the elected representatives in Salem interfere with expert management of state-owned forests or Columbia River water! And surely the transportation and land-use planners know better than the voters of Clackamas County. 

But wait. Don't we live in a democratic republic? Doesn't all government authority, at all levels of government, derive from the people? 

Yes, Mr. Huffman, it does. And that's exactly what is happening in Oregon: government agencies are carrying out the will of the people regarding land use decisions. 

Huffman doesn't offer up any examples of rogue "experts" doing nasty, illegal stuff. Professional planners act in accordance with laws, regulations, ordinances, and such. If they do something outside of legal bounds, those acts can be challenged in court.

Having read a number of Huffman's Oregonian opinion pieces about the evils of land use planning, I can confidently say that what he really is disturbed about is the very ideal that he extols: government authority derived from the people.

Senate Bills 100 and 101, which brought Oregon's land use system into being, were passed by a democratically elected state legislature, at the urging of a democratically elected Republican governor, Tom McCall.

Since, opponents of land use planning have tried to dismantle our state's demonstrably effective approach to preserving farm and forest land, while allowing room for cities to expand in a thoughtful fashion.

The people have spoken, most recently in 2007 with the passage of Measure 49 -- which markedly scaled back the "pave it over" aspirations of Measure 37 by a vote of 62% in favor. This rankles Huffman, who was strongly against Measure 49, opposing it via a misleading mailing. 

After it passed, Huffman criticized democracy and the "tyranny of the majority." His dream is to have activist judges declare Oregon's voter-approved land use laws to be unconstitutional.

So it's bizarre that Huffman is now inveighing about a fantasized tyranny of experts when he has expressed such a strong desire for a tyranny of judges to step in and do away with Oregon's highly popular land use system.

If there's any tyranny Oregonians should be concerned about, it's the tyranny of extreme government-haters like Huffman who want our state to return to an archaic pioneer mentality where anybody can do anything they want with their property, regardless of how this affects other people, neighboring landowners, the environment, or irreplaceable farm and forest land.

Oregon cougar hunting bill is dead. Long live cougars!

Great news for those who value wildness, ecological diversity, and sound science (rather than hysterical fearmongering).

We just got an email from Predator Defense saying that HB 4119, the bill to repeal the twice-passed citizen initiative which bans cougar hunting with dogs, is dead in the 2012 Oregon legislative session.

GREAT NEWS!

GOVERNOR KITZHABER HAS INFORMED REP. SPRENGER, THE SPONSOR OF THE BILL HB 4119 TO REPEAL MEASURE 18 AND BRING HOUND HUNTING OF COUGARS BACK, THAT HE HAS NO INTENTION OF SIGNING IT!

PLEASE CONTACT THE GOVERNOR AND THANK HIM FOR STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE FOR OREGON VOTERS AND COUGARS.

http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/contact.shtml  503-378-4582

Portland State "Electric Avenue" flash mob

Finally -- my glancing at the usually boring PGE Home Connections email blah-blah-blah paid off. Nissan Leaf owners that we are, I was curious to read "Cost savings drive buyers to EV's." (electric vehicles)

That led me on to a You Tube video of the flash mob excitement when charging stations opened up on Portland State University's Electric Avenue: "a street dedicated to showcasing electric transportation technology — thanks to a unique partnership between the university, PGE and the city of Portland."

Cool. Nice dancing to an entirely predictable song.

 

Funny... nothing like that happened when the City of Salem had some EV charging stations installed in downtown parking areas. Could it be that Salem is, gasp!, less excitingly, energetically green than Portland? (Yeah, it sure could be.)

Wolf-phobic ranchers need therapy, not HB 4158

Eastern Oregon ranchers, my wife and I want to send you some healing thoughts: You don't need to suffer from your fear of wolves. Really. Breathe in...breathe out. Embrace reality. You're safe. There's no wolf at the door. Little Red Riding Hood is a fairy tale.

Unfortunately, so far the ranchers and other wolf-phobic Oregonians haven't gotten the therapy that they need. House Bill 4158 is evidence. Introduced in this month's mini-legislative session, it "allows killing of wolves to address depredation of livestock."

I guess the sponsors of the bill, which was introduced at the request of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association, were so busy locking their doors and putting in wolf-proof security systems they didn't take time to find out that the Oregon Wolf Plan already allows for killing of wolves -- but only after non-lethal preventive measures have been attempted.

Earlier this year, wolves lost federal Endangered Species Act protection via a congressional budget rider. Shortly after, Oregon Fish and Wildlife ordered the killing of two additional wolves in response to a series of livestock losses blamed on the Imnaha Pack. Following those killings, some members of the pack dispersed, leaving just four members, two of which were the target of the most recent kill order. Under the state wildlife agency’s management, Oregon’s wolf population has dropped from 21 to 14 this year due to lethal control, poaching, dispersal and the accidental death of a young female after Fish and Wildlife staff fit her with a radio collar.

Some of the groups involved in today’s lawsuit had originally supported the management plan as a compromise because it required landowners to adopt nonlethal measures before lethal control could be carried out. The groups, however, have become increasingly frustrated by the wildlife agency’s willingness to shoot wolves in response to political pressure from powerful livestock industry interests, including the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association.

As the above excerpt from an October 2011 Center for Biological Diversity press release points out, the Oregon Wolf Plan permits killing of wolves as a last resort. Which is as it should be. Wolves still are an endangered species under Oregon law. They are highly beneficial to ecosystems. 

And they barely affect the bottom-line of ranchers. 

To keep this in perspective, consider some of the stats: In 2011, wolves killed 25 cows, while 55,000 were lost to weather, disease and thieves in 2010. In the rare instances in which livestock are lost to wolves, ranchers are reimbursed at fair market value by Oregon taxpayers.

So there's no need for HB 4158. It's a solution in search of a problem. The Oregon Court of Appeals has put a stay on the planned killing of wolves, persuaded by clear-headed environmental groups that conserving wolves under the state endangered species act isn't fostered by killing them.

HB 4158, in a marvelous display of double-speak, says that notwithstanding all that endangered species stuff in state law, "the conservation of wolves in Oregon may include the killing of wolves to address the depredation of livestock by wolves."

Kill them to protect them. These ranchers sound like wife-abusers: "Honey, I'm hitting you because I love you so much."

Again, if a wolf, or wolves, can't be stopped from killing cattle after preventive measures have been seriously attempted, my understanding is that the Oregon Wolf Plan already allows for the Department of Fish and Wildlife to shoot them under special rare circumstances.

But ranchers basically want a "shoot on sight" rule. Not all, thankfully, but enough of them to cause the Oregon Cattlemen's Association to sponsor HB 4158. To them the only good wolf is a dead wolf. Well, like I said, those ranchers need to get some therapy. 

As Oregon Wild says, "Wolves have been vilified." For no good reason.

With wolves, old myths die hard and antiquated ideologies persist. It’s taken us 50 years to shift our mind-set from extermination to tenuous acceptance, and it will likely take another 50 years for Oregonians from all backgrounds to embrace the return of wolves. In the meantime, we should all remember that wolves are just another animal trying to make their home in Oregon.

HB 4095 hearing shows dysfunction of 2012 Oregon legislature

Wow. This 2012 short session of the Oregon legislature is even more screwed-up than sessions usually are. And that's saying a lot, giving the dysfunction evident in normal legislative deliberations.

This is the first even-year session, as Oregon has done away with the archaic practice of having the legislature meet every two years. A lot needs to be accomplished in 35 days, but some (translation: mostly Republicans) are doing their best to focus on pet dream bills rather than on pressing immediate priorities.

Case in point: HB 4095, which Republicans have introduced before in different guises. It's an attempt to gut Oregon's highly successful land use system, which 62% of Oregon voters supported in 2007 by saying "Yes!" to Measure 49.

Doesn't matter to Republicans, who have this bizarre notion of "two Oregon's" in their democracy-fearing minds. Meaning, statewide votes don't count, because people in the Willamette Valley have no understanding of the supposed unique specialness of what lies geographically beyond.

So HB 4095 is an attempt to carve off three southern Oregon counties, Josephine, Jackson, and Douglas, from the statewide land use system.

Republican sponsors of the bill want politicians in these counties (just nine county commissioners) to be able to redefine "farm" and "forest" land so subdivisions and shopping centers could sprout where crops and trees grow now. 

After listening online this morning to the audio stream of the House Judiciary Committee hearing on HB 4095, I'm glad I decided to stay at home rather than testifying again against the bill, as I did on Monday. It was infuriating to hear how citizens were treated by Republican legislators, and how eager these legislators were to short-circuit what should be an open, transparent, and thoughtful bill-making process.

The charade of a public hearing reminded me of the Seven Deadly Sins, albeit with different names owing to the special nature of iniquity in the 2012 Oregon Legislature. (I've only got four; got to keep this blog post halfway short.)

Disrespect. On Monday the Republican co-chair complained about how most opponents of HB 4095 lived in the Willamette Valley. Today several people came up from southern Oregon to testify against the bill, including a Douglas County farmer who informed the committee that the Douglas County Farm Bureau successfully urged the Oregon Farm Bureau to oppose this threat to family farming.

But at first the Republicans didn't want to allow anyone to testify about the bill in general. They just wanted to hear testimony on some amendments that put off implementation of the bill until 2013. "So what if people drove for hours to testify at 8 am?," they said. "We legislators have a lot to do and can't take time to hear from the public." Fortunately, wiser minds prevailed and some people (but not all) got a few minutes to testify -- universally, I'm pretty sure, in opposition to HB 4095.

Hypocrisy. One legislator threw a mini-tantrum about how, if HB 4095 made it out of this committee, it would go to the Joint Ways and Means Committee, as apparently all bills in this short session will. He probably was upset that Democrats have a 13-12 advantage over Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee.

Also, that the $600,000 price tag of this bill will look ridiculous given that proponents of HB 4095 weren't able to provide a single perusasive reason why it is needed, given that rezoning/re-mapping of farm and forest land already is permitted under existing land use laws. The legislator wanted HB 4095 to be heard by a substantive committee.

But the House Judiciary Committee shouldn't be handling land use bills either. I've been told that HB 4095 ended up here because it had a better chance of getting out of committee (this "pave it over" concept has been rejected by committees who deliberated in a full legislative session, so proponents are hoping to ram HB 4095 through in as sneaky a fashion as possible.) Live by the sneak, die by the sneak.

Duplicity. Few had seen the amended HB 4095 before arriving at the hearing. Not even most of the legislators on the House Judiciary Committee. One plaintively said, "Shouldn't we know what we're voting on?"

Amazingly co-chair Rep. Wayne Krieger (I believe it was; couldn't be sure since I only had audio to go by) told his colleague, in effect, "Don't complain. Health and education bills are being pushed through the legislature this session, and nobody knows what these bills will do either. So deal with it."

Again, wow. Other legislators are trying to ramrod bills into passage without informed deliberations, so the House Judiciary Commitee is proud to do the same.

So what if only lobbyists such as Dave Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action get to see amendments ahead of time? (In fact, it was noted that Hunnicutt apparently wrote the amendments.) So what if environmental organizations representing the majority of Oregonians who favor protecting farm and forest land were shut out of the process? Just trust us. And the Oregon Realtors Association, which is one of the few supporters of HB 4095.

Bad vibes. Hey, I'm a child of the '60s -- both the decade and, now, my age. A woman opposed to HB 4095 testified about how her eyes had been opened to how the Oregon Legislature operates after coming to hearings this week. She was disgusted at what she saw, previously not being familiar with what goes on in the not-so-hallowed halls of the Capitol.

I know what she means. Whenever I go in there to testify at a hearing, the atmosphere feels creepy. It's a place where lobbyists, politicians, businesspeople, and other "suits" feel comfortable. Ordinary citizens don't. For good reason, because little is done to welcome them.

As noted above, at the beginning of today's hearing the Republican co-chair tried to stop people who had come a long way from testifying at all on the substance of HB 4095. Then he made an absurd mini-speech about how he was disturbed at how previous testimony had impugned the motives of bill proponents, and he didn't want to hear any more of that sort of stuff today.

Oh, gosh. Sorry, teacher. Rap my knuckles. I'll forget about free speech and the first amendment. Forgive me for exercising my right to express my opinion about a stupid, expensive, unnecessary bill aimed at doing away with Oregon's highly popular land use system.

Fortunately, people ignored him. They spoke their minds. Forcefully, respectfully, factually.

They weren't intimidated by Republican attempts to ramrod through this poor excuse for legislation. It was approved on what I think was a 6-4 vote. Hopefully the Joint Ways and Means Committee will give HB 4095 the death that it so richly deserves.

Don't base land use laws on "two Oregon's" myth

"There are two Oregon's," said Rep. Wayne Krieger (R-Gold Beach). "The Willamette Valley and everywhere else."

[Update: Glancing at the notes I took at the meeting before the paper went into recyling, I see that I jotted down "Rep. Esquivel" next to the two Oregon's mention. So, probably was him. But I'm sure Krieger endorses that notion.]

Waiting to testify on House Bill 4095 at a Judiciary Committee hearing this morning, I thought, What is he talking about? Two Oregon's? That notion is untrue and divisive.

Unfortunately, it's also an assumption that underlies a lot of bad legislative proposals, mostly initiated by Republicans who have an almost paranoid fear that people who live in the Portland Metro area or the Willamette Valley don't understand the supposedly unique needs, values, and worldview of Oregonians who live elsewhere in the state.

Again, not true. 

Quite a few fellow testifers, along with me, took issue with Rep. Krieger in the course of our three-minute-limited remarks to the committee. Several people noted how they'd lived many years in southern or eastern Oregon before moving to a rural area in the Willamette Valley.

I said that in our rural neighborhood that's about six miles from the Salem city limits, property owners opposed to a subdivision which threatened our wells and surface water didn't think of themselves as Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or progressives.

We neighbors all agreed that land use decisions should be made fairly, through an open and transparent process, using facts and the law rather than personal political views. 

Only a few people at the hearing testified in support of HB 4095. Someone representing the Oregon Association of Realtors, for one. Dave Hunnicutt of Oregonians in Action, for two. And a woman who used to farm in Josephine County.

It's a bad bill. I submitted some brilliant (in my humble opinion) written testimony which can be marveled at by clicking on the link below.
Download HB 4095 testimony Feb 2012 

In the couple of minutes I had to summarize my opposition to this attempt to allow county commissioners in three southern Oregon counties to redefine what constitutes productive farm and forest land, I focused on how unwise it would be to politicize our state's land use system.

I said, "People in our neighborhood who bought property and built homes figured that adjacent farm land wouldn't be arbitrarily rezoned by some county commissioners who ignored facts, basing their decision merely on a feeling that construction of a subdivision should be allowed."

I'm sure the same is true of most people everywhere in Oregon. We don't want politicians messing around with rezoning farm and forest land unless there's a good reason to do so. 

Short-term economic problems isn't one of those reasons. A woman opposed to HB 4095 (who farms in the Willamette Valley) spoke movingly of how, fifty years from now, we'll regret losing irreplaceable farmland through short-sighted actions today.

Others said that Southern Oregon's high unemployment isn't going to be solved by allowing developers to pave over farm and forest land. I'm pretty sure Jackson, Josephine, and Douglas counties aren't running out of homesites, small acreages, and industrial land. People need jobs; taking farm and forest land out of production will be a step backward in this regard.

State law, via 2009's HB 2229, already allows counties to re-map inaccurately designated farm and forest lands. Meaning, if a parcel isn't truly suitable for farming or timber production, its designation can be changed.

Oregon's land use goals allow for a lot of flexibility. In 2007 over 60% of Oregon voters affirmed their desire to preserve farm and forest lands through their passage of Measure 49. As someone testifying in opposition to HB 4095 said, these are "industrial" lands -- job-creating and income-producing.

But the proponents of HB 4095 want clusters of counties to be able to come up with their own definitions of farm and forest land. Huh? I don't get it. 

Do crops and trees grow under different biological rules in southern Oregon? Are the laws of nature somehow different there? Again, Oregon's land use laws already allow for considerable flexibility, based on geography, soil types, and such.

Opponents of our state's highly successful efforts to preserve "resource" (farm/forest) lands and keep cities from needlessly sprawling onto them want to dismantle our land use laws. HB 4095 is a step in that direction.

Hopefully it will be voted down by people who reject the notion of "two Oregon's."

If you live in Oregon and want to express your opposition to HB 4095, 1000 Friends of Oregon explains how to do this:

Why 1000 Friends opposes this bill: HB 4095 could allow sprawling subdivisions on lands that have been in continuous farm or forest use for generations. This bill would, for example, allow LCDC to craft a definition of agricultural and forest lands that would allow counties to redesignate all lands near highways and urban growth boundaries (UGB) as "non-resource," even if they are still in active production.

Since most Oregon cities are located amid the state's most productive resource lands, protecting farmland around them is a fundamental mission of Oregon's land use program.  Increased uncertainty for farm operators near UGBs will cause them to decrease investments in their lands, bringing valuable agriculture land out of production and making farming even more difficult for their neighbors. Furthermore, taking farms and forest lands out of production will cost Oregon jobs.

The bill would also add unnecessary complexity to the land use program. If Southern Oregon counties require a new definition of agricultural and forest lands specifically reflecting the usability of such lands for resource uses, current law provides the means to do so. Also, re-mapping of lands that do not meet the definition of agricultural land or forest land is already possible under HB 2229, passed by the Legislature in 2009. However, no county has taken advantage of that authorization. This bill is not only bad policy, it is simply unnecessary.

Status: The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on this bill at 8:00am Monday, February 6.  Please contact the co-chairs of this Committee and your own legislator to tell them you oppose this bill. You can reach co-chair Rep. Jeff Barker at 503-986-1428 or rep.jeffbarker@state.or.us, and Co-Chair Rep. Wayne Krieger at 503-986-1401 or rep.waynekrieger@state.or.us. You can find your own legislator's contact info on this page.

Marion County commissioners raked over legal coals again

Ha, ha! We were right and you were wrongI

Thanks to Salem Weekly, our city's alternative newspaper, I got to gloat again about our neighborhood's land use win over the Marion County commissioners after publisher A.P. Walther asked me if I'd like to write an opinion piece based on my recent gloating blog post.

"Of course," I told A.P.

I then struggled to find the perfect lead for the column, one which reflected my maturity, seriousness, and dignified writing style. "Ha, ha!" struck me as perfect, especially since I figured Salem Weekly wouldn't allow stronger language in a publication that's read by minors.

Check out "Marion County commissioners proven wrong."  

The photo accompanying the column in the printed Salem Weekly was what I use in the header of this blog. But the online version was the pleasingly sinister version above. I like the semi-crazed look. "Watch out, law-defying politicians, I see what you're up to!" 

My wife and I have been gloating about our neighborhood's legal victory over Patti Milne and Sam Brentano since 2010. See: Circuit Court reverses Marion County commissioners and Judge slaps down Marion County Commissioner Patti Milne.

I'll probably keep on gloating for a couple of reasons.

One, gloating is fun, particularly when the objects of the gloat are politicians who blatantly favor special interests over the public good. Two, the more light is cast on politicians who ignore the law, the greater the chance they won't be able to hide in the shadows.

I realize that county politics isn't of much interest to the majority of Marion County voters.

Salem residents identify mostly with their city, even though they (obviously) also are county residents. So it takes a debacle like Courthouse Square, which used to house county offices in a block close to downtown Salem until it was declared unusable due to construction defects which were ignored for years by Milne and Brentano, to focus even a modicum of citizen attention on the County Commissioners.

People in our neighborhood, though, have had lots of experience watching Milne and Brentano clown-walk their way through important decisions, ignoring facts, ignoring public testimony, ignoring expert reports.

Here's an excerpt from a previous gloating that shows what I'm talking about:

Patti Milne and Sam Brentano, acting in their quasi-judicial role as county commissioners, concluded that the Ridge View Estates vested rights application deserved a pass on all six factors.

Judge Johnson, however, gave the application a fail on five of the six factors (she gave a rather weak endorsement of the Board of Commissioners' application of the law on the nature, location, and ultimate cost factor).

That's a big legal turnaround: six for six, versus one for six. It reflects how uncaring Milne and Brentano were to getting both the law and the facts of this case straight, in contrast to Carlson, who seemed much more concerned with making a wise informed decision.

In April 2009 our neighborhood's Keep Our Water Safe committee sent a letter to the Board of Commissioners, asking that they hold a public hearing before deciding whether the Ridge View Estates vested rights application should be approved. Here it is:
Download KOWS request for hearing

Sixty-five people signed the letter. Sixty-five. But Milne and Brentano didn't want to learn about the legal and factual errors in a hearing officer's report to the Board. So they voted without a public hearing. In the request for a public hearing we presciently said:

"By holding a hearing, the Board will provide the public with due process and an opportunity to refine these issues before the board makes its final decision. If the board were to decide this application based on incomplete information it could very likely cost more money down the line by requiring this matter to be remanded for further proceedings."

Which is exactly what happened.

We and our neighbors, along with Friends of Marion County, had to spend thousands of dollars in attorney fees and lots of hours in volunteer time working on the briefs that got filed in Marion County Circuit Court.

This wasn't necessary. Just as letting problems go with Courthouse Square until the building had to be vacated seemingly wasn't necessary.

As we indicated in our press release, the citizens of Marion County should be able to count on their county commissioners to be sound decision-makers, gathering all the pertinent facts about an issue before voting on a course of action.

Patti Milne and Sam Brentano didn't do this with the Ridge View Estates subdivision. They clearly had personal political and philosophical agendas which prevented them from making the proper legal decision on the vested rights application, as well as the original approval of the subdivision.

Eugene girls sue Kitzhaber over climate change inaction

Here's four big Green Thumbs-Up from my wife and me to Eugene residents Olivia Chernaik, 11, and Kelsey Juliana, 15. The Register Guard reports:

...with the help of their mothers, Lisa Chernaik and Catia Juliana, [the girls] filed a lawsuit against the state of Oregon and Gov. John Kitzhaber, accusing them of violating their duties to uphold the public trust and to protect the state’s atmosphere, water, land, fishery and wildlife resources from the impacts of climate change.

Excellent! The lawsuit is being brought under the aegis of iMatter, a group that encourages kids to get involved in the fight to preserve their future from the very real threat of global warming.

 

Pretty darn simple. Too bad so many adults don't grasp these truths.

Like a good share of the membership of the Oregon chapter of the American Meteorological Society, who, bizarrely, have their heads firmly in the sand of global warming denial. The genuine scientists in this bunch must be hugely embarrassed by the antics of their anti-scientific colleagues. 

Earth to the Oregon Chapter: your parent group, the American Meteorological Society, strongly affirms the reality of human-caused global warming, as does every reputable scientific organization in the world. 

Despite the uncertainties noted above, there is adequate evidence from observations and interpretations of climate simulations to conclude that the atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; that humans have significantly contributed to this change; and that further climate change will continue to have important impacts on human societies, on economies, on ecosystems, and on wildlife through the 21st century and beyond.

Focusing on the next 30 years, convergence among emission scenarios and model results suggest strongly that increasing air temperatures will reduce snowpack, shift snowmelt timing, reduce crop production and rangeland fertility, and cause continued melting of the ice caps and sea level rise.

It's embarassing to Oregon that we have so many adults, including professional meteorologists, who don't understand the science of global warming. Hopefully they'll learn from the children and grow up, scientifically.

Our Nissan Leaf doesn't give me "range anxiety"

"Range anxiety" is a hyped-up malady potential electric car owners shouldn't worry much about. Yes, at first I worried about how far our Nissan Leaf would go on a charge. Now, I don't. 

After four months of owning the electric Leaf, I enjoy driving the car almost as much as our Mini Cooper S. (Not quite... nothing is more fun than a Mini Cooper in my utterly biased opinion.) 

It's quiet, smooth, responsive, and handles well. The turning radius seems as small as the Mini's. The interior is light, open, and well-designed. For a $26,000 car, after federal and state tax credits, it's got appealing features: navigation system, satellite radio, great-sounding audio system, cool driver displays.

We have two other cars. So we only use the Leaf for our around-town jaunts, which must be over 90% of our driving. I know that even though we live in a rural area about six miles from the Salem city limits, the Leaf is going to get me where I want to go and back again, no problem.

When I researched the Nissan Leaf before my wife and I decided to sell our Prius and get a fully electric car, I read some horror stories about how little range the Leaf had in cold weather -- since the heater, lights, and everything else (including the motor, of course) runs off of battery power. 

Use more of those other electricity drains and there's less left to propel the car.

True. But here's a real life example of why range anxiety isn't a problem for us even in mid-January, when Oregon got about as cold as it ever does here in the mid-Willamette Valley. Consider the facts of a drive back and forth to Salem I made on January 13, 2012:

Throughout the entire trip the Leaf's thermometer showed the outside temperature as ranging between 30 and 35 degrees F. The trip odometer showed that I went 20 miles, total. And that was with three stops: at the Mail Depot to drop off a package, at LifeSource Natural Foods to do some shopping, at the River Road Courthouse Athletic Club to exercise.

Our Leaf was fully charged when I left home. Meaning, all ten bars on the "fuel gauge" were showing electricity available. The estimated range indicator showed 106 miles after I turned on the car.

When the Nissan salesman who sold us the car was showing us how it worked, he said "Don't pay much attention to that" when he pointed out the digital Remaining Range indicator. I've learned to do just that.

Coming home from town, we drive over a mile mostly downhill. The Remaining Range tells you how many miles you probably can go given how you've been driving recently. So freeway driving at 65 mph drops the range rapidly. Driving in town at 30 mph boosts it back up. The lesson is to pay more attention to the "fuel gauge." (Even though it also isn't completely accurate.)

I drove the entire 20 miles with the automatic climate control set to 70 degrees, so the heater was blasting away the entire time. The LED headlights and radio also were on. When I got home, five of the ten bars on the fuel gauge were still left.

So, yes, in cold weather, with about half of a 20 mile drive being at 40 to 50 mph and the rest at city speeds, the Leaf's range isn't anywhere near the 100 miles or so cited in Nissan literature. However, I was able to accomplish everything I wanted to do on a freezing day, and still had half of the car's charge left.

Plus, the Leaf fuel gauge has three red bars after the ten aforementioned bars. We rarely let the car get into this area, so I don't know how many miles it's possible to go in the "red zone." Probably, quite a few.

The Remaining Range indicator showed "49" when I drove home into our carport. That's optimistic, since as mentioned above the last miles I drove mostly were downhill. But the recharge only took 2 1/2 hours, whereas Nissan says a fully depleted battery takes about seven hours to recharge on a home quick charger. 

So I suspect I'd used considerably less than half of the Leaf's battery power on my 20 mile, three-stop, trip into Salem. Again, in 30-35 degree F. temperature, at night, with the heater blasting the whole way.

The cost was 64 cents, given our electricity rate. That's 3.2 cents a mile. By contrast, our Toyota Prius hybrid got about 42 miles a gallon on mixed driving like my Leaf trip. At $3.40 a gallon, that translates into 8.1 cents a mile. The Leaf, even in the dead of winter, is two and a half times cheaper to drive than a Prius.

And the Leaf needs much less maintenance that a gasoline-powered car. No oil changes, tuneups, and such.

Range anxiety? No big deal for us.

Nor for this test driver of a Leaf, who reviewed the car for Automobile.com. Check out "2011 Nissan Leaf: Range Anxiety for No Reason" for another view of this subject.

Marion County commissioners owe us an apology

By "us," I mean hundreds of people in our rural south Salem neighborhood who vigorously opposed a 217 acre Measure 37 subdivision proposed to be built on high value farmland that threatened our ground and surface water (wells and community lake).

My wife and I led this fight.

By "commissioners," I mean Patti Milne and Sam Brentano, Republican county commissioners here in Marion County who did everything they could to approve the Ridge View Estates development. Janet Carlson, the third commissioner, was on the losing end of several 2-1 votes.

Carlson, by and large, believed in applying the law to the appeals filed by our neighborhoods' Keep Our Water Safe committee. We didn't agree with everything she did or said, but Carlson was much more fact-based and reasonable than Milne and Brentano.

Today the Salem Statesman Journal had a story about Oregon Court of Appeals and Supreme Court rulings that made my wife and I want to scream We told you so! at the county commissioners.

Which, I guess, is what I'm doing in this blog post. 

We and the attorneys who fought the developers and Marion County, Ralph Bloemers of the Crag Law Center and Sean Malone, a Eugene attorney, kept telling the commissioners what Oregon's land use laws and the common law of vesting required of them.

Unfortunately, Milne and Brentano chose to ignore those laws, until a Marion County Circuit Court judge ruled in our neighborhood's favor and the subdivision developers didn't appeal the decision.

A wise choice, because last week the Oregon Court of Appeals issued another in a string of rulings that support one of the key points that we kept making, and Milne/Brentano kept ignoring: whether someone who has started work on a development should be allowed to continue after a law changes depends in large part on what the completed project is planned to be.

That's common sense.

If you build three rooms of a five room house, you could justifiably say "I'm about 60% done." But if you've built three rooms of a 1000 room apartment building, you've barely begun.

Milne and Brentano owe us and our neighborhood an apology because they willfully ignored this common sense. Oregon law says that whether a vested right is granted to a partially completed Measure 37 development depends on what was done by the developer prior to December 6, 2007.

That's the drop-dead deadline. Nothing done after that date counts as development. (In fact, Measure 37 claimants were required to stop work on December 6, 2007, the effective date of Measure 49 -- which scaled back Measure 37 considerably.)

In our written appeals, in our oral testimony, in our letters to the Marion County commissioners, we kept telling Patti Milne and Sam Brentano what the law said. And they kept ignoring it.

In our case, just as in the Clackamas County case, Campbell v. Clackamas County, the subdivision developers planned a high-end project with expensive homes that would cost around $500,000. Yet after Measure 49 put an end to development, suddenly the developers claimed they'd had a change of heart and planned to build cheap homes.

The Oregon Court of Appeals and Supreme Court didn't buy this argument. It was obvious to us that they wouldn't, just as it should have been obvious to Milne and Brentano if they hadn't chosen to be blinded by ideology, rather than being clear-eyed about what the law demanded of them.

Here's an excerpt from the Court of Appeals ruling:

Because the vested rights determination under Measure 49 is made as of December 6, 2007, the effective date of the measure, "it is incumbent on the property owner to establish the likely total project cost in relation to the size and character of the structures that the owner contemplated building in compliance with a Measure 37 waiver as of December 6, 2007."  Kleikamp, 240 Or App at 66-67.  Moreover, the likely total project cost is "'based on construction costs as of December 6, 2007.'" 

We and our neighbors spent a lot of time and money in court undoing the mistakes made by the Marion County commissioners. If Milne and Brentano had followed the law, rather than their own "pave it over" right-wing political mentality, this could have been avoided.

Note the twice-mentioned "as of December 6, 2007" in the quoted passage above. That's what we kept telling Milne and Brentano.

A developer can't say, "Oh, the housing market is so bad now in 2009 (or whenever). The total cost of our subdivision has been much reduced given these new plans." They don't get to change their plans. Whatever the plan was of December 6, 2007, that's the total cost of development to be considered in a vested right decision.

We and our attorneys were correct. Commissioners Milne and Brentano were wrong. We accept their apologies, in abstentia, because we doubt such will be forthcoming. 

Oregon's dry December -- caused by global warming?

Climatologists predict that extreme weather events will become more common as human-caused global warming intensifies. So I've been wondering if the really weird December weather here in the Pacific Northwest has anything to do with global warming.

There's a good chance that Portland will break the all-time record for least rainfall in December. I recall KGW meteorologist Rod HIll saying the record goes back all the way to 1876, or thereabouts.

New research presented at a recent American Geophysical Union meeting suggests there could be a link between the unusually long-lasting high pressure that has keep storms away from Oregon, and the loss of Arctic sea ice caused by global warming.

"The question is not whether sea ice loss is affecting the large-scale atmospheric circulation...it's how can it not?" That was the take-home message from Dr. Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, in her talk "Does Arctic Amplification Fuel Extreme Weather in Mid-Latitudes?", presented at last week's American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Dr. Francis presented new research in review for publication, which shows that Arctic sea ice loss may significantly affect the upper-level atmospheric circulation, slowing its winds and increasing its tendency to make contorted high-amplitude loops. High-amplitude loops in the upper level wind pattern (and associated jet stream) increases the probability of persistent weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere, potentially leading to extreme weather due to longer-duration cold spells, snow events, heat waves, flooding events, and drought conditions. 

Now, so far there isn't conclusive evidence that this is happening, even though there's no doubt that the Arctic is getting warmer, greener, and with less ice.

But it sure seems reasonable to expect that losing Arctic sea ice equivalent to 44% of the size of the contiguous United States would, as Dr. Francis said, do something to the jet stream which normally funnels storms into the Pacific Northwest during the winter. 

Here's another excerpt from the Climate Progress repost of Jeff Master's Wunderblog piece:

The Arctic has seen a stunning amount of sea ice loss in recent years, due to melting and unfavorable winds that have pushed large amounts of ice out of the region. Forty percent of the sea ice was missing in September 2007, compared to September of 1980. This is an area equivalent to about 44% of the contiguous U.S., or 71% of the non-Russian portion of Europe. Such a large area of open water is bound to cause significant impacts on weather patterns, due to the huge amount of heat and moisture that escapes from the exposed ocean into the atmosphere over a multi-month period following the summer melt.

Every nation agrees to cut greenhouse gases

What are global warming deniers going to do, now that every country in the world has agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions?

OK, more accurately every nation has agreed to work on a future agreement that would commit them to binding greenhouse gas reductions. But that's still a heck of a lot better than doing nothing, a reason to smile about the Durban climate change conference.

And it leaves those deniers without any place to lay their anti-science heads.

One hundred and ninety-four countries signed on to the Durban agreement. That, Wikipedia tells me, is the entire roster of member states and observer states in the United Nations. So no matter where global warming deniers go, they'll be in a nation that affirms the reality of human-caused climate change.

Somehow I suspect they'll manage to carry on, though. Now it just will be tougher for them to justify their ridiculous conspiracy theories. 

How is it that Al Gore and his merry band of left-wing One World environmental activists have managed to convince every country in the entire world that action needs to be taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions? 

Wow, that's a lot of power.

Al Gore must be able to control the governments of China, Israel, India, Russia, Brazil, Bhutan, Saudi Arabia, and all the other nations on Earth -- plus the United States. But, hey, reality, reasonableness, and facts don't matter to climate change deniers. 

Sadly, Jon Huntsman joins the anti-science GOP candidates

I hereby take back my praise of Jon Huntsman. No longer is he the only sane Republican presidential candidate. Huntsman now has joined the ranks of anti-science climate change deniers in his quixotic quest to replace Barack Obama.

Jon Huntsman, who slammed Rick Perry over the summer for not trusting scientists on climate change, has now developed his own doubts.

...Huntsman said he still supports the idea of a scientific consensus but is not yet endorsing the conclusion that climate change is happening and caused by human activity.

That leaves a grand total of zero moderate GOP presidential candidates, which must make Democratic strategists happy. 

Note to Huntsman: the World Meteorological Association recently issued a press release that said:

“Our role is to provide the scientific knowledge to inform action by decision makers,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities,” he said.

Reality. It's so inconvenient when you desperately want to be president.

Danger warning! -- people and dogs sighted in Salem park

Watch out, residents of Salem, Oregon. Be warned. Danger is afoot in city parks, including the popular Minto-Brown Island park which has almost 900 acres of open and wooded areas, with many trails.

People and dogs have been sighted in the park! So be extremely cautious around them. These pose the greatest risk to you.

Cougars, not nearly so much.

So don't worry about a recent cougar sighting at the Minto-Brown Island park. Focus on the much greater danger you face from two other species: Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris, people and dogs.

I've done some research to quantify the relative risk of being killed by (1) a person, (2) a dog, and (3) a cougar. These United States statistics cover 2001-2010, the previous ten years.

There were 162,230 homicides during that decade, an average of 16,223 per year. In 2010, ninety percent of the killers were men, according to the FBI. Fifty-three percent of murder victims were killed by someone they knew; a quarter were slain by a family member.

The lesson: if you spot a man in a park, be fearful. Especially if you know him. Males you've met before are the most dangerous killing creatures any human will ever encounter. 

Dogs are considerably less likely to kill you. Still, 263 people were slain by dogs over the last ten years, an average of 26 per year. 

What about cougars?

Most people are more afraid of cougars than of their fellow humans or dogs. But they shouldn't be. Cougars killed just 3 people in the United States from 2001-2010. That's an average of .3 per year.

So you're 54,000 times more likely to be killed by a person (probably a man) than by a cougar. And you're 87 times more likely to be killed by a dog, than by a cougar. This is why, if you value your life, people and dogs should be feared much more than cougars.

Unfortunately, irrationality reigns when it comes to wildlife. Why? Seemingly because they're wild. We're used to seeing men and dogs in parks. Cougars are rare, so people freak out when one is sighted.

Today's Salem Statesman Journal had a great letter to the editor on this subject from Linda Bierly. I heartily agree with her. Thanks for stimulating this blog post, Linda. 

Regarding the recent possible cougar sighting in Minto-Brown Island Park, while it is always prudent to be aware of one's surroundings, cougars have not demonstrated a threat to humans in Oregon.

Top predators such as cougars and wolves are critical to ecosystems. Without these keystone species, ecosystems collapse and degrade. Lack of top predators is the true threat to all species.

Park visitors have much more to worry about from other threats surrounding parks, including the drive to the park, other human park users, off-leash dogs and especially, inadequate funding for Salem city parks.

— Linda Bierly, Salem

Wildlife Services kills a family dog -- we need to kill that useless agency

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services is a horribly misnamed agency. It doesn't provide services for wildlife, it kills them. Needlessly. Expensively. Wastefully. And not just wildlife: family pets also.

Recently the McCurtain family in Gresham, Oregon suffered the heartrending loss of their dog, Maggie. Wildlife Services killed Maggie. Probably illegally (the family is suing Wildlife Services). Definitely incompetently.

Predator Defense tells the sorry tale.

Imagine a federal wildlife agency setting deadly "instant-kill" traps within 45 feet of your suburban back yard where your children play. Imagine that one of those government-set traps kills your beloved dog and no one returns for the trap, or to even say they're sorry.

This sounds like the kind of government abuse and secrecy one would see exposed on "60 Minutes," and it should be. However, that is not the case in Gresham, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, where the government has made every effort to intentionally hide such a tragedy.

The agency responsible? Wildlife Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal, Plant, and Health Inspection Services.

Wild Earth Guardians has exposed Wildlife Services for the incompetent, dangerous, environmentally clueless animal killing machine that this government agency is. Read "War on Wildlife," or at least the two page executive summary. 

There's also a good overview of what Wildlife Services does wrong on the Predator Defense web site.

But why read? Watch a You Tube video.

Doug and Denise McCurtain movingly describe how their beloved family dog, Maggie, was killed in their own back yard by Wildlife Services. Lots of statistics can be cited about how Wildlife Services recklessly kills birds, coyotes, and other animals (including pets) for no good reason. Those facts are important.

The McCurtain's experience, though, cuts through the abstractions. Here's the down to earth truth about how cruel Wildlife Services is: "Maggie's Story."

Watch it, then do what Predator Defense suggests: email "60 Minutes" at 60m@cbsnews.com and ask them to do a story on Maggie's killing and Wildlife Services. If we can cast enough light on Wildlife Services, hopefully it will be defunded as a useless agency.

 

U.S. stands alone in denying climate science reality

It drives me nuts when Americans chant (whether in so many words, or not) "We're number 1! We're number 1!"

No, we're not.

The United States lags northern European nations economically, having a higher Misery Index. We've got a greater proportion of our citizens in prison than any other nation, leading China in absolute numbers even though China has four times as many people. Our health care non-system is the unenvy of the world, costing much more and being less effective than that of other countries.

And we're also near the bottom of scientific literacy among industrialized nations. The proudly know-nothing Republican party bears a large share of the responsibility for this disgraceful state of affairs. 

Witness the fact that the Congress of the United States, because of Republican head-in-the-sand science deniers, has failed to acknowledge the pressing need to deal with a steadily warming world.

The promise to cut emissions was contingent on Congress passing an aggressive cap-and-trade bill. But that 2,000-page bill went into the trash instead of onto the president’s desk. The Great Recession briefly achieved what Congress didn’t — national emissions fell for a short time. But no longer.

“Starting in 2010 it looks like we’re starting to see an uptick again, and you would expect to see emissions continuing to increase in a business-as-usual case out to 2020,” says Kevin Kennedy at the World Resources Institute….

“Nowhere else in the world do you see a political debate about whether climate science is real, whether or not the climate is actually changing,” Kennedy says. “That political climate makes it very difficult to move forward in a comprehensive way. And that is something we need to address in this country.”

Nowhere else in the world. So we're number 1 in at least one area: denial of reality. Unfortunately, this isn't an accomplishment the United States can be proud of. 

Oregon court says "Stop!" to killing wolves

Yesterday I was happy when Oregon Wild reported that the Oregon Court of Appeals had reaffirmed a ban on killing two wolves in our state. 
Download Wolf article 

This above-linked info about the continued stay on any wolf-killing by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) whetted my appetite for learning more about why the Court of Appeals slapped the wrist of ODFW and the Oregon Cattlemen's Assocation (OCA).

I wasn't surprised that Cascadia Wildlands, Center for Biological Diversity, and Oregon Wild won in court. I've been following this issue for quite a while, blogging recently about the absurdity of risking the recovery of an endangered Oregon species just because a few cattle have been predated upon.

So tonight I read the entire 16 page order of the Court of Appeals granting the stay extension pending judicial review of ODFW's kill-happy wolf policy. It's an impressive piece of legal work. Here's some highlights that I found particularly interesting. 

Page 4. The court says that because the Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management plan was adopted in 2005, people have adjusted to these rules over the past six years. Legally, this puts more of a burden on the petitioners (Oregon Wild, etc.) who seek a stay of the wolf-killing. They need to show that a stay is necessary to prevent irreparable harm and that they're likely to prevail upon review. Bingo! The petitioners showed both things. 

Page 5. The court found that, more likely than not, there are 23 gray wolves in Oregon -- more than the petitioners contended, and less than the OCA argued. The goal of the Wolf Plan is to have seven breeding pairs producing two pups a year over a span of three years.

Page 6. But currently there are only two breeding pairs of wolves in Oregon, one of which would have been destroyed if the ODFW kill order of an alpha male had been allowed to happen. Plus, the court found that this alpha male, which has a radio collar, couldn't have killed the cattle which spurred the kill order request by a rancher. The wolf has an perfect alibi: no radio-collared wolves were in the area of the kill. Yet somehow ODFW and the OCA want to kill the alpha male anyway, making the court go "huh?"

Page 8. The court agreed with the petitioners that the focus of the Wolf Plan isn't on sheer numbers of wolves in Oregon, but on breeding pairs. Again, why destroy one of two current breeding pairs, especially since the male wolf that ODFW and OCA seek to kill wasn't responsible for cattle deaths? And here's an important finding by the court which I'll quote verbatim:

As petitioners argue, as predators at the top of the food chain, wolves play an important and unique role in maintaining the balance and health of Oregon's natural environment, and contribute to biological diversity. The court also recognizes that neither petitioners nor their members can be compensated by money damages for the killing of even one wolf. Petitioners also have shown that denying a stay likely will cause irreparable harm to the Imnaha pack itself for the immediate future, and may cause irreparable harm to the reestablishment of the species as a whole in Oregon, at least for the reasonably foreseeable future. To that extent, petitioners have established irreparable harm.

Ranchers want to be compensated for livestock losses. Fine. That's being done. But the court found that everyone who lives in Oregon and enjoys the reintroduction of wolves to our state is harmed by needless killing of these "important and unique" animals. And money can't remedy that harm.

Page 9. Oregon law says that no "person" can kill an individual member of an endangered species, which the gray wolf is. Yet ODFW says that, as a government agency, it isn't a "person," so it can kill away. That's bizarre reasoning. People do the killing for ODFW. The agency is run by people. Yet ODFW wants to be able to ignore the law against killing gray wolves, even though the species is endangered.

Page 11. ln a fine bit of ironic legal writing, the court said "It is not self-evident that killing individual members promotes conservation of the species..." However, ODFW argued that killing wolves is necessary to increase the number of wolves. Wow. George Orwell forecast "doublethink" in his 1984. ODFW has taken it to heart. Killing wolves is necessary to save them, the agency believes, because killing wolves keeps the Oregon Cattlemen's Assocation happy, and then they might support the Oregon Wolf Plan. Weird. Very weird. The court didn't fall for the weirdness.

Page 13. I guess ranchers aren't as tough as the image they like to project. The Oregon Cattlemen's Association argued that ranchers are suffering emotionally as they worry about their livestock being killed by wolves, and by their supposedly huge financial losses from wolf predation. Oh, poor ranchers. The truth is that since 2006 there were 65,000 cattle and calf deaths in Oregon, 94% from non-predator causes. In 2011 there has been less than 20 confirmed cattle deaths by wolves. 

Page 15. Oregon already has a program for compensating ranchers for cattle killed by wolves. So why should wolves be killed, when ranchers are being paid for the loss of their cattle? Since the Department of Agriculture doesn't seem to have implemented the compensation program yet, the court ordered the petitioners to put up $5,000 to pay for any cattle killed by wolves. That should be no problem. I'd be happy to contribute to the fund. 

Bottom line: The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association, got slapped down by the Court of Appeals. The judges found that Oregon Wild and the other petitioners have a good chance of winning their case, and I agree.

Killing members of an endangered species in order to conserve the species doesn't make any sense. I bet the Oregon Wolf Plan will have to be amended to reflect that obvious fact.

Electric car parking spaces being used by gas guzzlers

After owning our Nissan Leaf electric car for seven weeks, always charging it at home, I decided to check out the recently installed charging stations at the Chemeketa Parkade in downtown Salem (Oregon). 

There are four of them, conveniently located on the first floor of the parking structure near the walkway to JCPenney's. So convenient, they're tempting to drivers of non-electric cars who blatantly ignore the signs displayed between each charger.

Here's the evidence.

Two parking spaces are dedicated to each charger, as the cord can reach a car parked in either space. So eight spaces should either be empty, or filled with an electric car. Count the electric cars in those eight spaces. 

(Hint: our Nissan Leaf is an attractive light blue. None of the other cars in the photo is electric. If you came up with "one" as the answer, give yourself a carbon free prize.)

This is irritating. Most people respect designated handicapped parking spaces. Why don't they respect electric vehicle only parking spaces?

The most likely reason is that Salem doesn't have a city ordinance that levies a fine for using a space assigned to an electric vehicle charging station. I know this, because after I drove our Leaf into the only open space I grabbed my iPhone and started to snap a photo of the offending gas guzzling car parked next to me.

I hadn't realized that the driver was still in the car.

He jumped out and said, "Hey, don't turn me in. I'm with the EV (electric vehicle) project." The guy was there to fix a broken charger. He apologetically said that his work car couldn't be electric because he does so much travelling around, since the range of a EV is only about 100 miles.

OK, this was a good guy.

I holstered my iPhone camera and turned to asking him parking questions. He said that Salem didn't have any rules against parking a regular car in an EV spot. I told him that the chargers being installed by the EV Project aren't going to be of much use if owners of electric cars aren't able to use them -- an emerging problem.

Hopefully the City of Salem will change its parking ordinance so a ticket can be issued if an ICE (internal combustion engine) car uses an electric vehicle space. Apparently California has such a law, as does the city of Portland. 

California recently considered a controversial revision of its statute, AB 475.I'm not sure if it's become law.

"Pure" electric car owners in California, like us Leafies, were upset that the proposed law would (1) give equal parking rights to hybrid electric cars like the Volt, which can run on an ICE after the battery gives out, and (2) require that a car in an EV slot be actually charging.

Being an EV newbie, I wasn't aware about charging etiquette in early adopter places like California. But from this article I learned some manners:

The existing EV etiquette deems that if an EV parked in a charging space has finished charging, a nearby EV owner may remove the charger and plug it into his or her own car. Now, under the new law, the EV owner who was parked in the designated EV charging space but is now charger-less could be towed.

Well, that doesn't seem right.

But at least California has rules and an enforcement mechanism for Electric Vehicle Only parking spaces. The Oregon Legislature needs to follow California's lead. So does the City of Salem.

I'm going to do some lobbying about this, now that I've seen how many ICE people thumb their noses at EV Only parking signs.

Global warming deniers mocked in great "Denial Tango" song

Rational arguments and solid science only go so far when it comes to pointing out the ridiculousness of global warming deniers.

For true mockery, it takes an Australian band, "Men With Day Jobs." (Reportedly the jobs are Insecurity Guard, Impersonal Trainer, and Communications Impediment.) 

I learned about their Denial Tango on the Climate Progress blog. It's well worth a look/listen. My favorite lyric: 

I'm in denial.
Deep denial.
And as the waters rise about me
I'll just hold my breath and say
"It isn't so."

 

On a more serious note, there's good news on the global warming front. President Obama has put the Keystone tar sands pipeline on hold until after the November 2012 election. This is a big win for environmentalists.

Also pleasing: Rand Paul and his Senate Republican cronies failed to weaken air quality standards that will prevent up to 34,000 premature deaths a year. So much for the "party of life" -- which doesn't consider saving many thousands of lives to be more important than fossil fuel industry campaign contributions.

"Wild Shots" fundraiser skillfully pulls on boozed-up heartstrings

Congratulations to Portland's Crag Law Center for putting on another fun "WIld Shots" benefit event last Saturday night.

After scoring a great Oregonian article, the industrial-chic Holocene on SE Morrison was densely packed with environmentalists decked out in a typically NW diverse array of party-going garb -- from tuxedos to flannel shirts and blue jeans.

My favorite part of the evening was the live auction of nature themed photographic art (hence the name "Wild Shots") and other items. Crag's skillful handling of their biennial art benefit is a case study in how to suck money out of your supporters.

The formula is pretty darn simple: free booze (after buying a $25 ticket) plus inspiring "support us" stories plus quality auction items equals freeflowing bids.

Of course, I may be overemphasizing the importance of the first variable -- free booze -- given that I more than doubled my usual nightly alcohol consumption after drinking in fairly short order a beer and large glass of wine proffered by the busy "Wild Shots" barkeeps.

I felt pleasingly loose, which is exactly the frame of no-mind that a benefit auction should strive for.

Even so, for almost every moment of the live auction my bidding paddle wasn't raised -- in part because my non-drinking designated-driver wife was holding it under her coat in what may have been an attempt to protect our family finances from a mildly inebriated husband who adores the Crag Law Center in his normal state of consciousness and loves it after some beer, wine, and inspired mini-speeches from Crag attorney Ralph Bloemers and fellow Salem supporter Arnold Strong (an Iraq war veteran who shows that green and khaki go well together).

When the auctioneer lady began to plead for cash contributions that'd be matched up to $10,000 by an anonymous donor, my bid paddle hand began to twitch. In between a call for $1,000 and $25 donations I grabbed the paddle from my wife and made what may, or may not, have been a legally enforceable contribution commitment.

I suppose "your honor, they gave me free booze, then tugged on my heartstrings, and I couldn't help myself" could have been argued.

But not only wasn't I going to chance that when Ralph Bloemers recently won an important Oregon Supreme Court land use case, my VISA card soul remained completely content with the donation even in the clear-headed light of today. 

The Crag Law Center does great work for amazingly little cost. 

And their "Wild Shots" benefit is a highly enjoyable way to be separated from your money. Plus, their own. I saw that Crag staff were active bidders on auction items themselves.

(Of course, since they'd been at the event for longer than I had, booze may have loosened their wallets even more than it had mine. Which raises a theoretical legal question: can employees of a law firm sue themselves for alcohol-induced charitable enticement?)

Oregon Supreme Court ruling supports land use system

Here's good news for supporters of Oregon's land use system, which has done a great job protecting irreplaceable farm and forest lands from being paved over unnecessarily.

Today the Oregon Supreme Court released a long-awaited ruling on a Yamhill County land use case, Friends of Yamhill County v. Board of Commissioners and Gordon Cook.  
Download Supreme Court Decision -- Cook 

Basically it's a big win for Friends of Yamhill County and the Crag Law Center. And a corresponding big slapdown of both the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners and the county vesting officer.

The Oregon Court of Appeals also got corrected, but mildly, as the Supreme Court affirmed a decision on appeal to deny Cook the right to continue on with a 10-lot Measure 37 subdivision that he'd spent $155,000 on before Measure 49 put an end to development in late 2007. The Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals, yet for different reasons.

Having led a successful fight in our own neighborhood against a Measure 37 subdivision that threatened our ground and surface water, I'm familiar with the vested rights issues in this Supreme Court case.

After a quick reading of the 42-page opinion, I'm gratified to find that, in non-legal speak: Nyah, nyah! We were right and you were wrong!!

"We" being me, our attorneys (Ralph Bloemers of the Crag Law Center, who ably argued the Supreme Court case, and Sean Malone), and other attorneys/judges/land use advocates who understood the common law of vesting a lot better than would-be subdivision developers and miguided decision-makers did -- the "you's."

The Supreme Court affirmed that whether someone can go ahead with a development after a law has changed that now prohibits it depends in part on the ratio of what's been spent compared to the total cost of development. 

This was part of the Supreme Court's landmark vested rights decision in 1973, Holmes. However, attorneys for Measure 37 developers and pave-it-over minded county commissioners were fond of arguing that "$100,000 (or whatever other amount) is a substantial amount of money," ignoring the obvious fact that substantial is in the eye of the beholder.

To a billionaire, $100,000 is a rounding error. To a poor person, it's a heck of a lot of money.

So in this decision the Supreme Court affirmed that the Yamhill County Commissioners and Circuit Court should have compared Cook's total cost of development, which would include building houses on his lots, to the $155,000 he spent prior to the effective date of Measure 37, December 6, 2007.

Regarding that date, the Supreme Court also agreed with another point that our attorneys, Ralph and Sean, made in our own legal briefs. Namely, that just because Measure 49 spoke of being vested on the effective date of Measure 49, this doesn't mean that anything a developer did prior to that date was fine and dandy legally.

After Oregon Voters passed Measure 49 in early November 2007, quite a few Measure 37 claimants spent the next month ripping up the farm/forest land they wanted to develop in an attempt to incur as many construction costs as possible. In some cases bulldozers, pavers, excavating equipment and such operated almost around the clock.

Which, in the common law of vesting, is known as trying to beat the clock -- a no-no from the standpoint of "good faith," one of the vested rights criteria in Holmes. 

Meaning, when someone knows that a law has been changed and is about to go into effect, it's not cool to rush ahead and try to circumvent that law. Land use laws promote the general welfare. In the case of Measure 49, a clear majority of Oregonians said "We want to protect farm, forest, and groundwater limited land from development."

Yet many Measure 37 claimants heard that message and ignored it, racing ahead to pave over their property in what turned out to be a vain attempt to gain a vested right -- given today's Supreme Court decision, which said that it is up to the "trier of fact" to determine whether someone's development actions constitute good faith or bad faith. Merely stopping work on a new law's effective date isn't automatically a sign of good faith.

All in all, the folks at Friends of Yamhill County and the Crag Law Center should be popping open some corks today. They've scored a big legal win for Oregon's environment, since even though Measures 37/49 have passed out of most peoples' minds, some large subdivison developments could still spring back to life if they gained a vested right (OPB called these the "ghosts of Measure 37").

The bad news is that the Supreme Court remanded this case back to Yamhill County for more work consistent with the Supreme's opinion. Sadly, Yamhill County is a hotbed for screwy land use decision-making. The County Commissioners keep getting overruled by higher courts, yet this doesn't seem to pound any sense into their right-wing leaning minds.

Hopefully this Supreme Court decision will cause them to wake up and smell the legal roses. Obey the law, Yamhill County. You may not like Oregon's land use system, but that's irrelevant. You've still got to obey the law.

Lastly, kudos to Supreme Court Judge Rives Kistler for writing such a clear and coherent opinion. As a layperson interested in land use law, I've read quite a few cases that left me wondering what the heck a judge was trying to say. Judge Kistler left no doubt. HIs opinion was solidly legal, of course, but not full of jargon'y legalese.

2011 OLCV Scorecard ranks greenness of Oregon legislators

Which Oregon state legislators have been naughty or nice to the environment?

The just-released 2011 Environmental Scorecard produced by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV) makes it easy to tell.
Download OLCV 2011 Scorecard

I checked out the Republican legislators who, unfortunately, my wife and I are saddled with here in our right-leaning area of Marion County.

Ugh!

State Senator Brian Boquist got the absolutely lowest OLCV Senate score when it came to voting in support of our Earth's one and only environment: 44%. Amazingly, in the 2011 session he scored even lower than Larry George.

On the state representative side, Rep. Jim Thompson got a 60%. Hey, not too bad, Jim. Also, not too good. Compared to the really un-green wacked-out Republicans in Congress, our Oregon GOP shines environmenally. 

But only in comparison.

Sixteen Democrat state senators got gold stars from OLCV, scoring 90% or better, while only two Republicans did. In the House, eight Democrat state representatives got gold stars -- zero Republicans did. 

Conclusion: with rare exceptions, vote Democrat if you care about the environment and growing the economy through Green jobs.

Oregon court orders halt to wolf killing

Great news. The Oregon Court of Appeals has granted the request of three conservation groups to temporarily halt the hunt of two wolves in Eastern Oregon.

Governor Kitzhaber should have ordered the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) to do this on his own, rather than forcing Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity and Oregon Wild to step in.

It's crazy that ranchers get compensated for documented wolf kills, yet ODFW also jumps into action as soon as a wolf-hating rancher demands that the last breeding pair in Oregon also be killed.

Crazy, because wolves are more important than cattle. And the Oregon Cattlemen's Association is dedicated to making wolves extinct in this state, not co-existing with them as the Oregon Wolf Plan demands.

Let's give a big Howl! to the Court of Appeals. Hopefully this legal action will lead to ODFW following the law, rather than the "kill them all" agenda of some selfish, anti-environmental ranchers.

"Farming or Folly?" forum in Salem (Oregon)

Friends of Marion County, a land use advocacy group my wife and I are close friends with, is having a "Farming or Folly?" community forum this coming Thursday, October 6, 2011 at the Salem Public Library.

See press release info below.

I'll be attending, because I haven't made my mind up on the farming or folly expanded uses question.

Some people don't like the idea of a winery, say, being able to host marriage parties or other events. They consider that bringing a hundred or more people onto farmland isn't really appropriate, and fear non-farm uses will steadily erode the character of Oregon's rural areas.

Well, given how tough it is to make a living as a farmer these days, I lean toward giving farmers quite a bit of leeway when it comes to making a buck. But maybe I'll learn stuff at the forum that will lead me to change my mind.

------------------------------

Farming or Folly?
Expanded Uses on Farmland

Friends of Marion County, an advocacy group dedicated to sustainable land-use policies, is sponsoring a community forum to take place Thursday, October 6, 2011, 7 PM; Salem Public Library, Anderson Room “A”, 585 Liberty St., SE, Salem.
 
The forum, “Farming or Folly?  Expanded Uses on Farmland” will focus on a Marion County ordinance and also increased types of activities allowed on farmland due to laws passed during the 2011 legislative session.  Legislative issues for 2012 will also be discussed.

Panel members include David Epling, Planner, Marion County Public Works; Steve Berrios, Inspector, Oregon Liquor Control Commission; and Steve McCoy, Farm and Forest Staff Attorney, 1000 Friends of Oregon.

The public is invited to attend and participate in the discussion. Refreshments will be served.

For further information contact:
Friends of Marion County
Roger Kaye
503-743-4567
rkaye2@gmail.com

Car conversations make me appreciate Oregon's Green'ness

Too often, we Oregonians take our state for granted. We focus on what our Pacific Wonderland lacks rather than feeling appreciative for the oh-so-special nature of Oregon.

Every time I fly back to Portland from some flat, brown, fir-tree-lacking part of the country, and a Mt. Hood panorama fills the airplane window, I think Wow! I'm so fortunate to live here.

The past few days some car-related conversations helped reinforce that feeling.

Last night we had dinner with some friends. I mentioned how Laurel and I had recently bought a Nissan Leaf, the first 100% electric car offering from a major manufacturer. (Our 2007 Prius Touring is for sale -- great deal.)

A guy who I don't see too often pulled out his iPhone and clicked away on it, then leaned over to show me his own new electric "baby."

Yeow!

A Model S Tesla -- 300 mile range, 0 to 60 in 5.6 seconds. He'd put down a $5,000 deposit on a car that will be produced in 2012. Way cool. He didn't even know what Oregon dealer -- almost certainly one in Portland -- will be handling the Tesla.

He just knew that he wanted one. I couldn't blame him. The Tesla is about twice as spendy as our $35,000 Leaf (before $9,000 in tax credits), but it also will have more than twice the range and be almost twice as fast.

In Oregon, as in Hollywood, electric cars are trendy. Our sensibilities are much Greener than the nation as a whole. In this state it's much easier to do the right thing for our excessively warming planet and go electric.

Take a look at The EV Project map of the six states (Oregon is one) plus D.C. taking part in a stimulus-funded effort to support electric car charging infrastructure. Eighteen cities are involved; four are in Oregon -- Portland, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene. Washington state only has one city; California, three.

Oregon is a renewable energy wonderland, a still-evolving sustainable paradise. Yes, we have a long ways to go before our state has lowered its carbon emissions to a truly desirable level. We're way ahead of most other states, though.

As evidenced by another car conversation I had this evening at a Tai Chi class potluck. One of my fellow students recently acquired a used Honda Insight, the original hyper-mileing hybrid. She and her husband said it can get 70 mpg, even more if it's in a good mood (and headed downhill, I assume).

Another of our friends bought a new green Insight when it first came on the market back in 2000. Two seats, manual transmission, no AC (I believe) -- but Earth-friendly. Such is the stuff a pleasingly large percentage of Oregonians are made of: commitment to preserving the environment in a highly livable state for our children and grandchildren.

Whenever I get depressed about where the United States is heading, which often seems nowhere but down with all the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. these days, I turn my thoughts close to home, to Oregon.

This state is leading the Green way in many areas: sustainability, renewable energy, electric car infrastructure, fostering a bicycle-friendly culture, organic farming. Even if the rest of the country goes to pot, Oregon can be a environmental beacon (along with possibly going to pot in its own fashion).

Oregon's wolves are more important than cattle

So far as I know, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife still plans to kill two of the few remaining wolves in our state. The guy in charge of the wolf management program at ODFW deserves a raise, because he must be getting lots of phone calls and letters from wolf-lovers and wolf-haters.

Today I listened to my wife, Laurel, leave a message on his voice mail. She isn't happy with the planned wolf killing, to put it mildly, and wasn't shy about forcefully expressing her opinion.

Which I share.

It seems ridiculous that wildlife officials are willing to risk extinguishing Oregon's fragile wolf population (this killing will eliminate a breeding pair, likely leaving none) because a few cattle may have been predated upon.

What's more important, losing a few cows/calfs when there are about 960,000 of them in this state, or losing two of fourteen wolves? Adding to the ridiculousness, ranchers are compensated for confirmed wolf kills, so money isn't the issue here.

This really is a battle for the wild soul of Oregon.

That might sound overly dramatic, but I stand by that statement. As would, I'm sure, the activists who chained themselves to the ODFW doors in Salem today in a protest against the unnecessary wolf killings.

 

Good for them. I took part in sit-ins against the Vietnam War way back in the 1960's. The war was unjust, just as the wolf killings are. Sometimes it is necessary to take a dramatic stand when authorities are unable or unwilling to hear the voice of reason.

Are you listening, ODFW? You have the word "wildlife" in your organization's name. Oregonians love their wilderness, and they love the wildlife who inhabit that wilderness. Wolves included.

Not all ranchers are as wolfphobic as Todd Nash, who requested that the pair of wolves be killed after he claimed some livestock losses. Nash is one of many "welfare ranchers" who are happy to use public grazing lands at an absurdly minimal cost, yet get upset when the public asks them to co-exist with wolves who live on those lands.

Rancher Todd Nash is not happy about losing any of his cattle to the wolves. He had one confirmed wolf kill on a calf in the Spring of 2010 near where this photo was taken in the “Divide Country” of Eastern Wallowa County, (which has now been compensated by Defenders of Wildlife). He says he had as many as 15 unconfirmed kills last year when he was grazing his cows in this remote area, but there is no way to confirm the losses without evidence of a kill. Todd uses federal lease allotment grazing land in central wolf country.

In today's online Portland Oregonian, Ceiridwen Terrill posted an excellent "We Can Save Oregon's Wolves" piece. He ends with:

The wildlife and public lands of Oregon belong to us all. Will we Oregonians be able to tell our children that we chose to be a model for other Western states and share the land with wolves, not just those species that don't inconvenience some of us?

There are quite a few interesting comments on Terrill's thoughts. Here's part of one from someone who knows the truth about welfare ranching on public lands.

Every wolf story brings out cattlemen to cry the "Red Riding Hood" story to a public in the city totally ignorant of the predator role in sound management, and healthy populations, wildlife and domestic critters. The destruction of our rangelands by livestock grazing includes destroying water sources and "poisoning" of free flowing waters by cattle and sheep- like Giaridia infestations that have made almost all streams in the west either "suspect" or outright dangerous.

Significant in the article is the ridiculously low $1.35 per AUM fee ranchers pay on public land, "moofare" costs Americans far more than "welfare", as "city folk" don't destroy rangelands that wildlife like deer, pronghorn and antelope depend upon, government "free rides" to them don't cost nearly as much as "free range". Just the number of people killed by hitting cows on that "free range" when they're in highways far exceed human deaths and damage caused by "predators".

As to those "non-confirmed" kills by coyotes and wolves, I've seen those carcasses being "attacked" when the cow died while calving at 20 below zero out on the open public range, where ranchers put them to save money on grazing fees by calving on "winter range". Yep, wolves can jump fences, actually, so can cows! Not to mention how cows "magically" take down gates, or have "hunters" open them so they can go from licensed range, onto allotments they're not supposed to be on, or into wildlife and water exclosures where the grass is literally greener, and "tastier". It's funny how no sign of hunters is around months before hunting season, but signs of buckaroo activity show up around those "accidentally" opened gates.

Yes, with over 40 years out observing those rangelands, and wildlife as well as livestock, I understand the ranchers' "plight", especially when they ARE compensated for ACTUAL losses to wolves that can be proven. Now if they just had to pay for the damage their livestock has been proven, for decades, to have caused, or even those "range improvements" that decimate wildlife populations, migrations, and breeding grounds.

Many ranchers recognize that it is possible to raise cattle in an environmentally responsible way and still make a decent living. Todd Nash, unfortunately, appears to be one of the uninformed "the only good wolf is a dead wolf" ranchers. They can't be allowed to dictate Oregon's wolf policy.

I grew up in a ranching town. I spent my youth wandering the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. I learned how to deal with rattlesnakes and other dangers. I didn't expect wilderness areas to be made into a theme park, nor did any of the ranching families I knew.

Wolves are wild. This scares some people.

Well, they should move to a condo in Portland if they are afraid of being around top predators like cougars and wolves. Where my wife and I live, cougars are known to roam. We enjoy this.

Sometimes I walk in the woods at night with our dog. If a nearby deer carcass is evidence of a cougar kill I'll be more cautious than usual. But I'd rather run the very small risk of being attacked by a cougar, than live in a world without wildness.

Remember Thoreau...

The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild, and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind. . . . 

Oregon Cattlemen's Association seeks wolf extinction

Do you eat beef? If so, make sure it doesn't come from a rancher who belongs to the Oregon Cattlemen's Association (OCA).

This group appears to be committed to killing every single wolf in our state -- causing wolves to once again become an extinct member of Oregon's top predator ecosystem. If you don't believe me, take a look at the OCA Facebook page.

Friday's entry says "Good news for ranchers in Eastern OR," referring to a La Grande news story: Two Imnaha pack wolves to be killed after another confirmed livestock loss

Yesterday’s investigation scene showed clear evidence of a wolf attack. The large spring calf had been dead less than two days, yet was almost completely consumed, suggesting the entire pack had fed on it. The alpha female was observed near the investigation site the following day, and GPS collar data indicates the alpha male was with her at the time.

Let's leave aside the question of whether this truly is "clear evidence." (But it sure doesn't seem to be, since wolves feeding on a dead calf isn't proof that they killed it.)

Let's focus on some facts -- facts that should make anyone who cares about the environment, wildlife, and ecosystem preservation extremely angry at the Oregon Cattlemen's Association.

The OCA could have said that the wolf kills are unfortunate. Instead, there is a gleeful "kill all the wolves!" attitude among the association that represents Oregon ranchers. And they are damn close to succeeding, according to an Oregon Wild email I got today.

After confirming the loss of a cow to the Imnaha Pack on Thursday, the state publicly announced the kill order late Friday. We’re still working hard to try to stop them, but time is short and options are limited. The order will be easy to carry out. The alpha male wears a gps tracking collar and will be shot along with last year’s pup. 

Earlier this year, in an effort to assuage the livestock industry and relieve local political pressure, the state killed two wolves from the Imnaha Pack. Another died shortly after being collared, and still others have dispersed. If this kill order is carried out, Oregon’s first wolf pack - which once numbered sixteen - will be reduced to two. Sophie – the alpha female named by the Wolf Pack in 2008– and her young pup will be left to fend for themselves.

Oregon will have killed six wolves in the last two years, and recovery has stalled. This will be the 4th kill during Governor Kitzhaber’s short tenure.

Two. That's how many wolves will be left in Oregon after ranchers succeed in their wolf jihad.

Here's another fact: wolves account for less than one percent of cattle losses in Wyoming, which has hugely more wolves than Oregon. See:
Download The Truth About Wolves and Livestock

Ranchers can be compensated for livestock killings that are proven to be wolf-related.

So this is why I say the Oregon Cattlemen's Association is on a jihad. It's not about money, but more like a holy war to them, except killing wolves for no good reason is unholy. Also, unnecessary. To the OCA, the natural world is an irritation for ranchers who want to raise cattle unnaturally.

The OCA is happy to accept "welfare ranching" benefits from us taxpayers, but also wants to be able to freely kill wolves who have returned to roam public lands in Oregon.

Well, Oregonians have a choice in what they eat. The more people recognize that the Oregon Cattlemen's Association is dedicated to extinguishing our state's wolf population, hopefully the less Oregon beef they will buy.

After reading the highly disturbing Oregon Wild email message, I immediately phoned Governor Kitzhaber's office and complained about the wolf-killing policy. I encourage you to do the same. Here's the number:503-378-4582. To email the Governor, click here.

This is how the Oregon Wild message ends:

The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association celebrated the [kill] order as “good news” on their facebook page over the weekend. For folks who value native wildlife, the news is anything but good. It’s disappointing to see a state that prides itself on its green reputation again turning to lethal control, bending over backwards to satisfy special interests, and ignoring those who value wildlife.

After Governor Kitzhaber signed a compensation bill earlier this year, you – Oregon’s taxpayer - will now be writing a check to one of the state’s most vocal anti-wolf activists while simultaneously footing the bill to kill most of what remains of Oregon’s first pack. We’ll stay on this and update you on what you can do.

For most folks, conservation doesn’t mean bullets, traps, and snares. Please call Governor Kitzhaber (503.378.4582) tell him to start focusing on conservation and recovery for Oregon’s remaining wolves.

For the wolves,
Rob Klavins

PS – Take a moment to watch video of Sophie and her pup taken earlier this year. With winter coming on and anti-wildlife interests hungry for more “good news”, it’s going to be tough going for these two. Oregon’s remaining wolves are going to need all the allies they can get – please tell your friends about the Wolf Pack and encourage them to support Oregon Wild's work to ensure wolf recov.

OLCV "Wheels & Wine" event in Salem tomorrow

If you live in the Salem area, here's two good reasons to attend a "Wheels and Wine" energy efficient wine tour tomorrow, Thursday September 22. It's sponsored by the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, and will feature...drum roll, please...

Our brand new Nissan Leaf! Shown here, getting its first charge in our carport after being driven home from the Jack Scoville Nissan dealership in Corvallis late this afternoon.

So Reason #1 is: Come to the event from 5 - 8:30 pm at the Santiam Wine Company, 1555 12th Street in Salem (details here, and below) and you'll get to see my wife and me showing off the Leaf. I'll be semi-prepared to answer semi-geeky questions, and fully prepared to share our first impressions of this fully electric car.

And Reason #2 is: Wine tasting. Energy efficient car browsing -- Volt and Prius, plus the Leaf. and maybe others. Support the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. Wine tasting (worth a second mention).

Here's a preview of the sort of fascinating Electric Vehicle geek'osity that I'll be sharing based on my extensive 24 hours of ownership experience with a Nissan Leaf:

I just went out to the carport to check the "Stats" function on the Blink charging system that was installed a few days ago free of charge by Cherry City Electric, thanks to Oregon's participation in a six state + D.C. stimulus-money-funded grant program.

The Leaf was fully charged when I left the Corvallis dealership. I drove 26 miles to our home in rural south Salem, going through Albany and then taking I-5 the rest of the way, where I drove 65 mph with the automatic climate control on, the day being warm.

It cost 63 cents to "refuel" the Leaf at our PGE electricity rate of 7.5 cents per kWh.

That's 2.4 cents a mile, a bit above the 1.9 cents a mile our car salesman, Russ Goodyear, told me he gets (Russ bought one of the first Leafs sold in this country). This likely is due partly to our home's rather high use of electricity, which kicks us into that higher "marginal" rate of 7.5 cents per kWh. Base rate is 6.7 cents, or thereabouts.

Even so, my trip home was the equivalent of our 2007 Prius being fueled with $1.06/gallon gasoline, since the Prius averages about 44 mpg in mixed rural/city driving. (Note: the Prius is for sale at a great price. Check out my blog ad.)

And the Leaf produces zero emissions. The Blink told me we just saved 6.89 pounds of CO2 emissions from being spewed into the atmosphere. Cool. Which the world needs, given the obvious effects of global warming.

First impression of the Leaf: Great. Come to the OLCV event tomorrow and I'll be glad to expand on that one word Leaf review. (After a glass of wine, I might be abnormally expansive.)

Here's the event details, copied from the OLCV web site:

-------------------------

The Marion County Chapter of OLCV is rolling out a new and different concept in wine tours! Join us for an evening of wine from local vineyards all over the region all in one easy location. What is the "Wheels" part, you ask? Well, you can stroll on out to the parking lot to take a gander at the most fuel efficient cars on the market in the region to see what is new and exciting in the realm of transportation.

We are holding this exciting new event on September 22, 2011 from 5:00 to 8:30 pm at Santiam Wine Company, 1555 12th Street in Salem promoting local wineries and energy efficient cars. Local auto dealers will have some of their most energy efficient cars on display. We will be having a tasting and silent auction of local wines.

When: Thursday, September 22nd, 5-8:30pm pm

Where: Santiam Wine Company, 1555 12th Street in Salem

Cost: $20 per person and includes wine tasting

Click here to get tickets or register for this exciting event

 

Sunday, support sustainability with the Strongs in Salem

Sesame Street should be proud of me. Look how many "S's" I used in my blog post title!

I stretched my alliterative mind muscles because the house party in honor of the Crag Law Center's 10th anniversary that I'm publicizing deserves to be noticed by people in the Salem, Oregon area who care about protecting our state's natural environment.

Without attorney Ralph Bloemers and the Crag Law Center our south Salem neighborhood couldn't have successfully fought the threat that a 43-lot subdivision posed to our ground and surface water.

So in addition to friends and neighbors, I'm spreading the house party word to other people in hopes that you'll join in saying "thank you" to a terrific public service environmental law outfit.

The house party is next Sunday, September 25, 4 to 6 pm, at the home of the Strong's -- who live at 360 Fawk Street SE (a block north of Hoyt, and a block east of Commercial). Here's a Google Maps link:
http://g.co/maps/ef5jd

See below for a message from Margaret and Arnold Strong, and an invitation to the house party. Photographic art work of Oregon's natural beauty will be displayed. Wine will be served. And yes... there will be a low-pressure opportunity to make a donation to the Crag Law Center.

----------------------------

Dear Friends,

Please join Arnold  and I as we open our home on behalf of our dear friends at Crag.  The Crag Law Center is celebrating its tenth anniversary of supporting community efforts to protect and sustain the Pacific Northwest's natural legacy. 

Ralph Bloemers and Chris Winter have been our friends for eight years.  Their work on behalf of the wild places and the great outdoors here in the Northwest has strengthened the richness of our wilderness areas and helped to keep this great place we call home as wonderful as it is.  CRAG is preparing to defend our forests before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The artwork we will display in our home is a combination of new pieces that will be available at the Wild Shots auction in November and some of the Wild Shots that we have won at auction in years past. 

We are delighted to feature these beautiful portraits of the life in the wild from Rainier to Hood, from the Oregon Coast to the Cascade Mountain range, from the roar of the Columbia River to azure of Crater Lake, from the Polar bears of Alaska to the pronghorn sheep of the high deserts of Oregon.  This will be an event you will appreciate. 

Help us to sustain the work of Crag Law Center by joining us. If you can't be with us at the event, please consider making a contribution to their work directly.  Crag is a non-profit law center.  Their work is made possible by the ongoing contributions of those of us who support their work. You can learn more here.

Please RSVP to either myself at arnold.strong@gmail.com or to Margaret at mmtstrong@gmail.com or 503.931.6681. 

We look forward to seeing you here in our home!

Most Sincerely,

Margaret and Arnold

My question for Humane Society of U.S. leader

This was my big chance.

Would I ever get another opportunity to ask the President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Wayne Pacelle, a question about animal consciousness?

Almost certainly not.

So I stuck my hand in the air tonight when Wayne said that he'd welcome a few questions from the passionate band of local animal activists who'd assembled at Ted and Beverly Paul's beautiful home in the south Salem hills to meet Pacelle.

As soon as we arrived, I plunked down $27 to buy a copy of his book, "The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them." Thumbing through the Contents, I could tell that Pacelle melded science and ethics in his book.

His remarks, spoken without notes while standing in the Paul's living room, confirmed for me that -- not surprisingly -- this leader of the national Humane Society had a good command of both facts about animal welfare and the morality of mistreating them.

I toyed with the idea of asking a direct question about vegetarianism: whether a root cause of cruelty to animals is the disconnect between (1) the enthusiasm people have for eating animals (most of whom are raised in nasty conditions on factory farms), and (2) the disgust people feel when an individual identifiable animal is mistreated.

But I didn't want to risk antagonizing the kind-hearted meat-eaters with whom I'd shared an excellent meal, wonderfully catered by Willaby's, which featured no animal carcasses other than a salmon dish.

So here's what I basically said to Pacelle:

A comment and a related question. It seems to me that a central problem here is that people forget that we are animals. There aren't humans, and also animals. We also are animals.

Which gets to the question of consciousness.

I'm amazed to read in neuroscience books that some people question whether animals are conscious. Anybody who has a dog or a cat is certain that their pet thinks, has feelings, and so on. Our dog spends much of her day plotting how to get her way with me, and she does a damn good job of it.

Do you think that as neuroscience advances, as more and more animals are studied in brain scanning machines, and it becomes increasingly obvious that animals have a roughtly similar sort of conscious life as humans do, this will make a difference in how people view their fellow animals?

Pacelle responded with a thoughtful answer, most of the details of which I can't remember. He said that just as science has debunked the pseudo-science of phrenology, along with the notion that the white race is superior to other races, so will research continue to demonstrate that animals are a lot like us.

When Pacelle signed the book I'd bought, I mentioned to him that I'd recently listened to a Philosophy Talk podcast about evil. A psychologist who has done research in this area said that he doesn't believe something called "evil" exists.

Rather, people who act cruelly suffer from an empathy deficit. And of all the animals, empathy is most highly developed in us Homo sapiens. So I told Pacelle that what he said in his remarks tonight made a lot of sense:

Yes, humans are animals. But we are special animals who are capable of feeling a lot of empathy for both other members of our own species, and members of other species -- like chickens, cows, pigs, cougars, wolves, salmon, and so on.

Sometimes people defend cruelty toward animals (such as raising chickens in tiny cages where they can barely move, and can't raise their wings) by saying, "Animals in the wild kill other animals for food, so why can't we?"

Well, other animals aren't as highly evolved as us human animals. They don't have as much capacity for empathy, though elephants have been observed to engage in what sure looks like grieving behavior when one of the herd dies.

We should aspire to be the most moral animal species on the planet, not just another species "bloody in tooth and claw."

In a final chapter in his book, Pacelle lists "Fifty Ways to Help Animals." Here's the first one:

Follow the 3 R's of eating: reducing your consumption of meat and other animal-based foods, refining your diet by avoiding animal products derived from factory farming, and replacing meat and other animal-based foods with vegetarian foods as you are comfortable doing so.

We test drive a Nissan Leaf. How dog friendly is it?

So there we are today, looking over a blue 2011 Nissan Leaf, all 100% electric and high techy, wondering if we should go ahead and buy the car after putting down a $500 deposit on it upon learning from Russ Goodyear at Corvallis' Jack Scoville Nissan that a Leaf could be ours much sooner than expected, owing, I believe, to someone cancelling an order for this car.

Russ is ready to show us its technological marvels, and let us take our first test drive, but first Laurel needed to closely inspect the car's dog friendliness. How comfortably and safely would Serena, our eleven year old, 65 pound, Lab/Shepherd mix, ride in a Leaf?

Nissan engineers probably didn't factor this concern into their design process. But my wife expressed worries about the cavernous "hole" in the rear luggage area. Yes, the rear seats could be folded flat. Our dog, though, wouldn't fit on them. Apparently she'd have to curl up in the hole, which didn't look too appealing to us.

Russ, astute salesman that he is, recognized that a $35,000 sale (before $7,500 federal and $1,500 state tax credits) of perhaps the most futuristic car made today might hinge on how well a dog could fit in it. So he fetched the Leaf cargo box accessory and installed it while we looked over the car.

This produced a nice flat area behind the rear seats. However, the hatchback opening is high compared to our 2007 Prius, and even with the Prius we have to help our aging dog into the car.

Laurel preferred the idea of having Serena get in through a rear door and travel on the folded rear seats. Now, though, a new problem surfaced: the gap between the front of the seats and the back of the front seats. Our beloved family pet could slip a leg or two into the opening with possibly injurious results.

Russ thought that a "sling" was available for the Leaf similar to a device we have in our Prius. It covers up the gap between the folded rear seats and the front seats, producing a continuous dog-friendly surface in the rear compartment. We're going to look into this.

Once our dog concerns had been addressed, Laurel got in the driver's seat and I crawled in the back. Russ told us about Leaf features from the passenger seat as Laurel cruised around.

We were curious about how the car sounded, having read that some people are bothered by the whine of the electric motor. (A low speed sound alert system can be shut off with a button push, but the motor obviously can't.)

My hearing isn't as good as Laurel's is, especially when it comes to high frequency sounds. Laurel and the comparatively youthful Russ could clearly hear the sound of the motor, especially as the car accelerated. To me, the Leaf had a barely noticeable "distant jet plane" sound at times which wasn't at all bothersome.

I also got to drive the Leaf. Quite a bit actually, because Laurel wanted to concentrate on motor noises while I cruised up and down some Corvallis hills as Russ offered driving directions. The interior is appealing.

I like how the Leaf handles. The heavy battery in the mid-section of the car helps make it feel stable in turns. The car has a "zippy" feel, even though the 0-60 time must be mediocre. Press on the "gas" (rather, accelerator pedal) and the Leaf zooms forward with surprising quickness.

We experimented with the Leaf's Eco mode. This seemed to add about eight miles to the car's predicted range when it was turned on. Acceleration is mushier, though still acceptable to Laurel and me.

Surprisingly, the car's display showed a range of 85 miles when we left the dealership, and it had barely changed by the time we returned in half an hour or so. My "range anxiety" diminished quite a bit after I saw how clearly the Leaf's electronic displays let you know about what's going on with the battery.

Here's one thing we learned from our test drive: Leaf owners are hugely enthusiastic. When we walked into the dealership, a couple of guys who owned Leafs were chatting with each other while one of their cars got a 240 volt Level 2 charge (which takes quite a bit of time).

Walking up to them, I said that we had a deposit on the blue Leaf and were trying to decide whether to purchase it. One of the men, who looked to be in his 70's, loudly proclaimed, "If you leave without buying that car, you're making a big mistake!"

I liked their contagious enthusiasm about all things Leaf'ish. I soon got the sense that Leaf owners become part of an electric car "cult," and I'm using that term in its most positive sense.

Namely, a pioneering group who are happy to be blazing new gasoline-free trails, even when this involves some difficulties.

For example, apparently there is only one Level 3 fast charging station in Oregon (30 minutes for an 80% battery charge), so one of the guys who lives on the Oregon coast was spending several hours at the Nissan dealership as his Leaf got enough juice for the trip home via a Level 2 charger.

Level 3 charging stations soon will be built along Oregon's I-5 corridor and elsewhere, though. The electric car revolution has just begun. I like the idea of being part of the first wave of pioneers. Hey, cults can be fun!

Next week we'll come to grips with our Nissan Leaf buying decision, maybe after Cherry City Electric comes out and confirms that our garage is suitable for a free Level 2 charging station, which would make buying a Leaf several thousand dollars less expensive.

A 2011 Nissan Leaf could be sprouting in our garage soon

We've changed our minds about changing our minds... about getting an electric car. In early May I put down reservation deposits on both a Nissan Leaf and a Mitsubishi i MIEV. A few weeks later, we'd decided to take a pass on going electric automotively.

And today?

I gave Russ at Jack Scoville Nissan in Corvallis a $500 credit card deposit to hold a soon-to-arrive blue 2011 Leaf for us. Obviously, something changed to make us change our minds again, after we initially changed our minds about getting a Nissan Leaf.

Well, a few weeks ago The EV Project notified me that my application to get a free 240 volt Level 2 charging station installed in our garage had been approved. This could be up to a $1,200 value. Plus, the cost of a Level 2 charging port on the Leaf would be paid for, which I think saves us another $750 or so.

This was good news, but I'd still said "no thanks" when someone from Cherry City Electric phoned and wanted to schedule an appointment to make sure that our garage was ready for a charging station.

I told the woman that we'd decided to pass on buying a Leaf. However, a few days later I decided to take another look at the Nissan Leaf web site. I was curious about whether the 2012 model was much different from the 2011.

It is, but not hugely.

I learned that the 2012 Leaf has more standard equipment: a cold weather package (battery heater, heated seats and steering wheel, and other stuff) plus the Level 2 rapid charger. This reviewer was unexcited about Nissan charging more for this new standard equipment on the SL (high end) Leaf than the equipment cost as options on the 2011 model.

Still, my first thought was that the battery heater would extend the 2012 Leaf's range, since batteries work more efficiently when they're warm.

Russ corrected me about this when we talked today. He told me that the battery heater only kicks on when the temperature reaches 15 degrees F, which is essentially never here in western Oregon. The battery heater is just for making sure the car starts in really cold weather.

But researching the 2012 Leaf had gotten me interested again in an electric car. So I decided to phone the first buyers of a Leaf in Salem, Richard and Pauline Mather, green pioneers who were profiled in this SolarFlareBlog post.

Pauline returned my call, leaving such a wonderfully enthusiastic message about how much they love their Leaf her voice mail time on our Qwest service ran out. So she called again to finish her thoughts. This time my wife could answer the phone and got more positive information.

Assuaging much of my "range anxiety," Pauline said they sometimes return to their home with a greater charge in their Leaf than when they left by using regenerative breaking and other techniques.

This sounds sort of like perpetual motion to me, which defies the laws of physics, but I'm open to the possibility that such can happen. More importantly, Pauline responded to a concern I'd expressed in my own voice mail by saying, "You shouldn't worry at all about living six miles from the Salem city limits."

Today I asked Russ, the Corvallis Nissan salesman, how often he had been stranded in his own Leaf.

"Never," he said, though he admitted that he'd purposely drained the battery a few times to see what happened to the car. Russ also told me that none of the 30 or so people who have bought Leafs from his dealership have run out of electricity.

After I'd requested a quote on a 2012 Leaf, I'd gotten an email from Jack Scoville Nissan saying that a blue 2011 Leaf might be available for quick delivery. When I phoned Russ to ask about the car, he said we'd save about $3,000 if we got a 2011 Leaf rather than a 2012.

That's a lot to pay for heated seats. And a battery warmer we'd likely never use.

So we decided to put down a deposit on the 2011 Leaf which is due to arrive in a week or so. Before then we'll probably head down to Corvallis and take a test drive, either in Russ' own car or a demo vehicle at the dealership.

Who knows? We might change our minds again. But getting a Leaf feels right this time around. Avid environmentalists that we are, we want to support the emerging electric vehicle industry.

Oregon is a leader in the construction of public charging stations. Fairly soon it will be possible to do a Level 3 charge of an electric vehicle every 50 miles, or thereabouts, all along I-5 between the Canadian and California borders. Stations also will be on routes leading to, and along, the Oregon coast.

My wife and I don't like to drive long distances at a stretch. We, well, like to get out of our car and stretch. So stopping for 30 minutes to get a Leaf 80% charged, providing another 70 miles or more of traveling, isn't worrisome for us.

Stay tuned to this blog for more electric car news. The times, they are a-changin'. And, probably, charging.

Lars Larson's unnatural view of the world

I enjoy listening to right-wing talk radio because I believe in "know your enemy."

Reality- based progressives like me who respect science and truth, unlike many Republicans, find it hard to understand how so-called conservatives are willing to embrace obvious falsehoods.

I say so-called, because my interest in politics began in the 60's, fueled by my mother's rabid Republicanism. Yet she also loved science, nature, preserving the environment. She was a conservationist, which used to have something to do with "conservative."

No more. Not in the Tea Party crazed Republican Party of today, where scientific truths have become dirty words.

(Not in China, though, where clean energy and other high tech industries are being massively supported by the government -- which threatens American supremacy in applied science.)

This afternoon I tuned into the local Lars Larson show on KXL to get additional insights into the often weirdly-functioning right-wing mind. Larson took a call from a guy who cogently argued why top predators like wolves are an important part of the natural Oregon ecosystem.

The caller also thought that runs of wild salmon needed to be preserved. Larson couldn't grasp what he was saying. Notions of ecology, balances of nature, feedback loops, sustainability and such apparently couldn't penetrate Larson's simplistic view of reality.

"If something is good for humans," Larson said, "then we should do it."

The caller tried to explain that we human beings are dependent on the natural world for our survival. If we screw up the oceans, forests, agricultural land, water supplies, energy sources, and so on, then what is "good" today (strip mining, over fishing, deforestation, overdrawing of aquifers, etc.) is going to be "bad" for us tomorrow.

This is so obvious. Yet a dismayingly large number of right-wingers fail to recognize an undeniable truth: we humans are animals, albeit intelligent ones, who are as dependent on the natural world for our survival as any other animal is.

Our actions have consequences.

If we mindlessly kill off other species; if we pollute the air, water, or earth; if we rapidly warm the planet in a fashion that no other animal has ever done before; if we exhaust the world's fossil fuel energy supplies without developing renewable sources; then...

We're screwed. Which means: ignore Lars Larson'ish right-wing wrong-headedness. Be a genuine conservative and work to conserve Earth's habitability for human life.

Buy local Oregon strawberries -- even if non-organic

I'm a huge fan of our super-tasty Oregon strawberries, which put the California varieties (at least the ones shipped up our way) to shame, taste and appearance-wise.

This week I started buying strawberries from a farmer's stand on Salem's south Liberty Road, in the parking lot by the Salem Heights Hall. When I brought them home, my wife asked "Are they organic?"

"No," I told her. "But they're local." A mild husband/wife argument ensued.

I feel that we need to support local farmers, even if what they grow is non-organic. Otherwise we'll get more and more fruits and vegetables trucked in from far away, increasing Oregon's carbon footprint and decreasing our taste buds' pleasure.

My wife puts a lot more emphasis on eating organic. She's appropriately wary of pesticides, and conventional strawberries are #3 on EWG's "Dirty Dozen" (a 2011 shopper's guide to pesticides in produce). EWG's advice is to buy organic strawberries.

Well, for some reason it's hard to find local organic strawberries. And when they're available, the price is high -- especially compared to what Fred Meyer has been selling organic California strawberries for (two pounds for $6, or even $4, if I recall correctly).

So Laurel is eating comparatively tasteless organic strawberries trucked in from California, while I've been feasting on sweet, juicy local berries.

Yesterday, when I stopped by the farmer's stand to buy another 1/4 flat for $7, I asked how much pesticide was used in growing the strawberries. Even though I've been buying stuff at this stand for many years, I'd never asked that question before.

A woman told me, "They're only sprayed in the flowering stage. After that, no pesticides are used." That was reassuring. For me, at least. My wife continues to stick with her organic California strawberries.

The local strawberry seller also said that she's been involved with growing Oregon berries for more than fifty years, starting when she was a child and followed the "pick one, eat one" rule.

That was how I did it also, when I frequented U-pick fields soon after I moved to Oregon from California in 1971 and felt like I'd made it to Strawberry Heaven. I ate them without any washing; but back then we also drove cars without shoulder belts or air bags.

The woman told me that a lot more pesticides were used on strawberries in the old not-so-environmentally-aware days. Given how many pounds of Oregon strawberries I've eaten during the forty years I've lived here, this struck me as both present-day good news and historic bad news.

Bottom line for me: I love our local berries -- raspberries, marionberries, blackberries, blueberries, and especially strawberries. When I can buy them organic at a non-exorbitant cost, that's what I'll do.

Otherwise, I'll happily keep on eating local non-organic strawberries. They're one of the healthiest foods, so hopefully the antioxidant and other benefits will outweigh the detrimental effects of any pesticide residue.

(I've been blogging about Oregon strawberries since 2003, soon after I started HinesSight. See "Strawberries say so much," "As Oregon strawberries go, so the state," and "Help me save Oregon strawberries.")

Republicans, reality is a terrible thing for the U.S. to lose

At the risk of sounding like Glenn Beck, I'm getting increasingly afraid for America. What worries me isn't that our citizens, political parties, and Congress are deeply divided about how to solve the many problems facing the United States.

There's a more disturbing division which stands in the way of negotiating solutions to our financial, budgetary, environmental, educational, infrastructure, and other social problems.

A split between reality affirmers and reality deniers.

Now, from the title of this post you can tell where I feel most of the reality deniers hang out politically: in the Republican party. But many Democrats, independents, and politically uninvolved people are equally guilty of shunning "what is" for "what I'd like to be."

This is dangerous. Really dangerous.

If two fire trucks from different stations pull up in front of a burning building, there's no problem in having a brief heated (so to speak) discussion about the best way to put out the blaze. However, if one team of firefighters says, "Fire? What fire? I don't see a fire," a pile of ashes could be the result.

Almost every Congressional Republican denies the reality of global warming. Leaving Congress doesn't bring them to their senses, because yesterday former Senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum declared that global warming is a concocted liberal scheme designed to bring about more governmental control.

That's freaking weird.

The reality studied by climate scientists isn't conservative or progressive; it's nature, which doesn't subscribe to any particular political leaning. It's fine to disagree about what global warming means and how the United States should respond to it. But to deny what 98% of the world's leading climatologists tell us is happening -- that's super dangerous.

Countries that try the head-in-the-sand thing, pretending that everything is fine when actually is isn't...they won't prosper. Reality has a way of biting deniers of it in the butt.

Last year the National Journal wrote, "The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate science that appears unmatched among political parties around the globe, even conservative ones."

Indeed, it is difficult to identify another major political party in any democracy as thoroughly dismissive of climate science as is the GOP here. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, says that although other parties may contain pockets of climate skepticism, there is “no party-wide view like this anywhere in the world that I am aware of.”

It will be difficult for the world to move meaningfully against climate disruption if the United States does not. And it will be almost impossible for the U.S. to act if one party not only rejects the most common solution proposed for the problem (cap-and-trade) but repudiates even the idea that there is a problem to be solved. The GOP’s stiffening rejection of climate science sets the stage for much heated argument but little action as the world inexorably warms — and the dangers that Hague identified creep closer.

Today Mitt Romney got blasted by conservatives for saying that global warming is an issue that's real, but he disagrees with how the environmental community wants to deal with the problem.

Wow.

That's what happens when a prominent Republican casts his lot with reality: he's vilified by the many members of his party who believe that truth is whatever they want to believe.

(This nifty flow chart sums up the situation perfectly.)

Witness the fact that 51% of Republican primary voters didn't believe that Obama was born in this country, despite all of the evidence that he was. And how Sarah Palin supporters rushed to Wikipedia to alter the truth about Paul Revere's ride to make it match Palin's personal view of what happened.

My mother was a deeply conservative woman. She was a passionately devoted Republican. Also a great lover of science. I know that she'd be appalled at how today's Republican Party is so willing to disrespect reality.

I hope our country's politicans learn how to embrace a common set of facts, while initially agreeing to disagree on what to make of them. Only in this way will we be able to deal with our problems in a meaningful fashion.

Oregon wildlife agency kills 10% of endangered wolves

Is this government gone crazy, or what?

(I wish I could write government gone wild, but unfortunately the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife isn't really all that big on "wildness," as I'll describe below.)

In the past few months Oregon's wolf population has shrunk from 23 to 17. That's a 26% decrease in the number of an endangered species which used to be, and in the future should be, a integral part of our state's natural ecosystem.

Two of the wolves were killed by wildlife officials to protect livestock. That's insane -- to kill off about 10% of an endangered species population when wolves are responsible for only a miniscule percentage of livestock losses.

In Idaho, which has hugely more wolves than Oregon does, all non-human predators (coyotes, dogs, wolves, unknown) accounted for 1% of cattle losses. So wolves are essentially a non-factor for ranchers in the big scheme of things here in Oregon.

Yet the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has authorized twenty-four landowner kill permits -- essentially permission to shoot wolves on sight, given the animosity, fear, and ignorance of many Eastern Oregon ranchers when it comes to these marvelous wild animals.

These welfare ranchers, who get massive subsidies from us taxpayers for grazing rights on public lands, nonetheless believe that they have a right to do whatever they want with wolves -- even though they're happy to feed their livestock at the public trough.

Disturbingly, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife is tilting its wolf management plan way toward the self-centered interests of a few ranchers instead of managing wildlife for the broader public interest -- an unbalanced approach that ODFW also uses with cougars and coyotes.

Today I was pleased to see that eleven conservation groups are calling on ODFW Director Roy Elicker to do what's right, rather than what the Oregon Cattlemen's Association tells his agency to do.

Their letter to Elicker lays out facts that made me furious when I read them. Something needs to change at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

My wife and I have dealt with them on coyote and cougar management issues. Too often, science and common sense take a back seat to simplistic "shoot 'em" attitudes, not what Oregon needs. This is 2011, not 1811.

Here's some excerpts from the letter:

Director Elicker, until our concerns are adequately addressed and thorough documentation is provided to substantiate public claims and legal obligations of your agency, we demand that ODFW immediately halt the issuance of any new permits to kill endangered Oregon wolves, and withdraw the 24 kill permits that have already been given away.

In taking the significant and severe action to kill two wolves and authorize the potential killing of many more, ODFW should have the justifying documentation at their fingertips when those decisions are made. We expect future decisions of this nature will be accompanied by more timely and detailed information.

Your agency’s actions in recent weeks regarding wolf management raise a number of deeply troubling questions. Conservation-minded Oregonians supported a compromised Oregon Wolf Conservation and Management Plan with the understanding that wolf recovery would be the motivating factor guiding agency actions and that the desires of the livestock industry would not outweigh the general public good.

As you know, time and time again Oregonians have overwhelmingly supported wolf recovery in our state. Should ODFW continue to veer away from wolf conservation efforts, public support for the plan and your agency could be seriously undermined.