HinesSight

Hornets sting me. Bees are disappearing. Got to be Bush’s fault.

I've been stung twice by hornets recently. A longstanding hive of wild bees on our property also has disappeared. Naturally I'm blaming George Bush. He's responsible for so many disasters, might as well pin these on him too.

But seriously … this youa culpa isn't all that far-fetched. The climate, in Oregon and elsewhere, is changing due to global warming. That's having effects on plants and the insects that pollinate them.

In Europe global warming is being blamed for the spread of the Asian Hornet into France and potentially Great Britain. These are giant hornets renowned for their vicious stings.

I don't know what kind of hornet stung me. Both times it was on the top of my head while I was walking around our neighborhood lake. I'd been watching out for yellow jacket nests in the ground. They usually appear this time of year.

Laurel and I are expert at spotting and killing yellow jackets. Hornet nests, though, were uncharted territory. In the seventeen years we've lived in rural south Salem, I don't think we've ever been stung by a hornet. This summer, thrice (Laurel got stung once). Something has changed.

A neighbor with a bee suit took care of the first nest, which was hanging from an oak tree branch. We handled the second ourselves. It was in a fir tree close to the trail I was on when attacked.

Laurel bravely sprayed it, aiming at the nest's opening, while I not-so-bravely stood farther away, providing flashlight assistance (it's advisable to kill yellow jackets and hornets at night, when it's cooler and they're not very active).

Is it a coincidence that the wild bee hive disappeared just as the hornets thrived? Maybe. But it's also possible that climate change is messing with the balance of insect nature in ways that aren't well understood yet.

Last night I read a fascinating article in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert, "Stung. Where have all the bees gone?" She describes the worrying phenomenon of colony collapse disorder (C.C. D.), a serious but poorly understood problem in both Oregon and the rest of the world. (See "Bees Vanish and Scientists Race for Reasons")

Kolbert mentions a 2006 report titled The Status of Pollinators in North America.

Among the many possible contributing factors that the report cited are habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change, and introduced pathogens. May Berenbaum, a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois, chaired the National Research Council panel.; she recently characterized C.C.D. as "a crisis on top of a crisis."

"We can't count on wild pollinators because we've so altered the landscape that many are no longer viable," she said.

Well, I can testify that wild hornets still are viable. And that buying stock in whoever makes Benadryl could be a savvy investment ploy, because if hornets are increasing because of global warming lots more people are going to be chugging this antihistamine after getting stung, just like I did.

In my heart of hearts I know that blaming George Bush for my stings is a bit irrational. Yes, he's irritatingly clueless about the reality of global warming, just as he is about many other things. However, the decline of bees and the rise of hornets in our neighborhood surely is the result of numerous causes, climate change being only one possibility.

At the same time, there was something fitting about the way I slapped my head when I felt the hornets sting me. It's what I feel like doing much of the time when I hear about clueless George denying some evident scientific, political, or military fact.

So until the American voters get rid of his hornet's nest of incompetency by electing our next president in November 2008, I think I'll keep on viewing my stings as George Bush's fault.

My lip swelled up after the first attack. It felt and looked strange. The next day it was back to normal. That's the way I'm looking forward to feeling when a new Democratic president takes the oath of office.

Normal again, after eight years of getting stung by neoconservative blunders.

Salem's Pringle Creek Community--an innovative green oasis

I cruised into Salem's oh-so-Green Pringle Creek Community yesterday. In our new Prius, naturally. I wanted to see the super energy efficient cottage home that'd just been built there—one of only six in the country to qualify for Platinum LEED status, I believe.

It was getting a lot of attention from Tour of Home gawkers. As it should have been. It's a sustainable architecture tour de force, packed with energy saving devices and technology described in this newspaper story.

I talked quite a while with Don Myers, one of the head honchos of this first development to sprout on the Fairview Training Center property. My wife and I were investors in Sustainable Fairview Associates, which bought the entire property and sold 32 acres to the Pringle Creek Development folks.

We weren't very happy with Sustainable Fairview when we cashed out last year, after the remainder of the property had been sold to Phil Morford. He's now in default on a bunch of obligations, which makes our decision to get out of Sustainable Fairview look pretty wise.

Fortunately, Pringle Creek Community is a whole different shade of green – financially, managerially, and philosophically. I really like what Don and his team are doing. They're creating a wonderful vibe on their sorely needed oasis of creativity and innovation in generally fuddy-duddy Salem.

I was thrilled to hear that an organic restaurant is planned for their Village Center. I'd be a frequent diner there, for sure.

I also enjoyed the contrast between how Pringle Creek Community is handling a large oak that needed to come down, versus conventional developer George Suniga's trash-the-Earth approach at his utterly un-green Waln Creek Estates.

Suniga cut some marvelous old oaks for no good reason, then disposed of them quickly to hide the evidence of his misdeed. At Pringle Creek Community, though, this fallen oak is displayed with reverence in front of the sales building.

I believe it's the one that Don told me would be cut up for lumber and used for building, thereby completing a tree circle of life that began and ended within a few hundred feet.

Beautiful. Pringle Creek Community is doing more than using We're Green! to sell lots. They're walking the sustainable walk, along with talking the sustainable talk.

Don also pointed out some Yew trees that had been carefully saved from bulldozing (yes, it can be done, George Suniga). A sign by them says they're a metaphor, having survived for over a thousand years—even through the Fairview Training Center era.

Now they're in good hands, thanks to Pringle Creek Community's commitment to long-range sustainability rather than short-term profit.

Yes, residences here are going to cost more per square foot. But plenty of people are willing to pay a bit more upfront to gain energy savings down the road. Plus, the satisfaction of putting their pocketbook where their environmental philosophy is.

I told Don that my main gripe with Sustainable Fairview was the reluctance to push for a truly world-class, knock-your-socks-off green development that would draw in people from all over the country – and even other countries – who wanted to live there. Build it and they will come.

Pringle Creek Community has.

I ran into a friend in the model cottage home who'd reserved a condo at a traditional sort of development being built near downtown Salem. She and her husband are having second thoughts now that Pringle Creek Community is looking so attractive.

If we weren't so attached to our ten acres where we've done so much work planting trees and restoring blackberry and poison oak infested acreage —our own little "sustainable development" – I'd be thinking those sorts of thoughts myself.

Maui overdevelopment makes for sad sights

We love to visit Maui. Just as we love Oregon, our home. So it's sad to see overdevelopment trashing the livability of both beautiful places.

Measure 37, which seriously watered down Oregon's land use laws, is causing subdivisions to sprout on irreplaceable farm and forest land. I don't know what Maui's problem is--basic greed and complacency, I suppose.

Maybe when you live here, it's like the old "boiling a frog alive" metaphor. Development occurs so slowly and steadily, you get used to it, not noticing how hot the overdevelopment water is becoming.

My wife and I notice, since we only come here for a short time once a year. And at least some locals do. I read a letter to the editor in the Maui News a few days ago. The guy had counted the number of large construction cranes between Lahaina and Kapalua.

It was about a dozen, I recall. Here's a couple of them, towering over the few palm trees that remain at Kapalua Bay.

We're staying at the nearby Napili Kai Beach Resort. Sitting on Napili Beach you can hear the incessant noise of construction equipment back-up beeps coming from Kapalua.

This couple was getting married on the Kapalua Bay beach when I walked by. The minister's conch shell and singing was beautifully Hawaiian. The back-up beeps that marred the ceremony weren't.

That's how Maui is becoming: an increasingly uncomfortable blend of natural beauty and manmade ugliness.

A parking lot at the Kapalua shopping area used to be shaded by these magnificent trees, whose name I don't know. This tree is near where we park at Napili Kai. The front desk person didn't know the name of the tree either.

Whatever kind of tree it is, the developers at Kapalua chopped the tops of them off. Sad sight. Maybe they'll survive. But not as they were. Which pretty much sums up Maui.

In three lines this web page did its own summing up of the island:

Pros: "There's something for everyone on Beautiful Maui"
Cons: "Growing too fast."
In A Nutshell: "Get there before the developers do any more damage."

What's most striking is the growing gap between the wealthy folks who buy the oceanfront developments, and the regular folk who already live here.

Again, a lot like Oregon, where rich out-of-staters drive up the price of properties in desirable places like Bend and Ashland, making it tough for locals to afford a home.

The Kapalua construction is discreetly walled off from the view of drivers-by. This poster shows who will be living here, now that the trees have been cut down and much of the oceanfront condo'ed over. She doesn't look like a native Hawaiian, does she?

I feel entitled today to criticize the crushing of Maui's once pristine environment. A plastic bag blew off the beach this morning while we were ensconced on our mats.

It dropped into the ocean. Laurel said, "Somebody needs to get it." I said, "It looks like that man is." But he wasn't. He made a few desultory strokes toward it, but it already was being blown by the wind out to sea.

"A sea turtle could eat it!" Laurel exclaimed. "I don't have my fins, or I'd retrieve it." "I'll do it," I told her confidently. I was about ready to go for my daily 20-30 minute swim back and forth across Napili Bay anyway.

What I didn't realize, though, was that swimming straight out past the reef (finless) against some fairly large waves was a lot tougher than swimming sideways across the bay. Plus, the bag kept being blown further out.

I began to have my doubts that I'd ever reach it. But my admiration for the Wonder Pets helped keep me going. I kept hearing their voices in my head: "There's an animal in distress…We've got to help it!...This is serious."

I reached the plastic bag. Stuck it in my swimming trunks. Used some large waves to propel me back toward shore. A minor environmental crisis averted.

Hopefully there are lots of people who live on Maui who're willing to similarly expend some energy saving the livability of their island. Don't take it for granted, my friends.

We're seeing Oregon become a different (and worse) place because of overdevelopment. Learn from our bad example. Don't let it happen here anymore than it already has.

Oregon needs a new Tom McCall. Lots of them.

Oregon is on the verge of losing its way. And that's being charitable. We may already have sunk into mediocrity among the 50 states, having lost our once well-deserved reputation for environmental trail-blazing.

Yesterday I was bemoaning with some friends the sprouting of subdivisions in south Salem. That's just a taste of the California-izing that is to come if Measure 37 isn't fixed, pronto.

You can kiss much of Oregon's charm and rural character goodbye if the asphalt and concrete-lovers are able to convince the legislature that the trashing of our land use laws should continue unabated.

We reminisced about the good old days of Gov. Tom McCall, famous for his "Visit, but don't stay" sentiment. Tom, you're missed. Now we've got a Ted (Kulongoski) who says he admires you, but unfortunately doesn't act much like you.

Ted is standing up for the environment in some ways. Yet Measure 37 is causing Oregon to move backward. That calls for a McCall who will do more than stand up—we need a battler who will fight his way forward.

Even better, millions of them. I sense that our citizens are fed up with organizations like Oregonians in Action who don't give a damn about the livability of this state, being mostly interested in lining the pockets of developers by turning farmland and forestland into tract homes.

It's sad that someone can say, with an absolutely straight face, "Don't Oregonize California." How far we've sunk.

This week I came home to a beautiful moon and Venus rising over a just-set sun. It was a classic Oregon scene, minus the clouds and rain, that had me racing for my camera and tripod. Our lighted dogwood provided a nice contrast to the darkening night sky.

Imagine that scene with Measure 37-approved twin billboards smack in the middle of it. That's the Oregon "property rights" zealots lust for. Artificiality replacing nature from the coast to the deserts.

Here's my simple response: you don't have the right to do that. This land is our land, not your land. You didn't make it. It comes from another hand—call it God, Tao, Buddha nature, Allah, Big Bang, whatever you like.

I don't know what Tom McCall's philosophy of life was, but I strongly suspect he'd agree. Clearly, though, he'd be aghast at what Measure 37 has wrought. Here's what McCall said in 1973:

But there is a shameless threat in our environment and to the whole quality of our life and that is the unfettered despoiling of our land. Coastal condomania, sagebrush subdivisions and the ravenous rampage of suburbia, here in the Willamette Valley, all threaten to mock Oregon's status as the environmental model of this nation.

Sadly, those words could just as well have been spoken in 2007. McCall's legacy deserves better.

So-called “climatologist” George Taylor has to go

George Taylor is a embarrassment to Oregon. He passes himself off as the official state climatologist even though Oregon doesn’t have such a position. Today an article in the Oregonian (“Experts square off over climate change”) quoted Governor Kulongoski:

"He's not the state climatologist," the governor said. "I never appointed him. I think I would know.”

Apparently Oregon State University’s College of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences gave Taylor this title, because the Oregonian story says that the position of state climatologist was dissolved by the legislature in 1989.

Regardless, Taylor loves to spout off about how humans really aren’t a big factor in causing global warming, an unscientific position that makes him a darling of big oil and conservative organizations like the Heartland Institute, which recently trotted Taylor out as among the serious scientists who are debunking scaremongering about climate change.

Yeah, right. You’d be hard pressed to find a truly serious scientist who doesn’t accept that human caused climate change is happening. Heck, Taylor’s own college admits this on its web site:

Climate change is happening globally and in the Pacific Northwest. Humans are contributing to global warming and climate change in a measurable way.

Willamette Week ran an expose on Taylor in August 2005. I’d been ranting about the absurdity of Oregon’s climatologist being a global warming denier for several months previous. It’s even more absurd now that we know he isn’t the climatologist.

But Taylor is still up to his old tricks. Just a few days ago (January 26) right-wing talk show host Lars Larson had Taylor as a guest. He introduced Taylor as the “official state climatologist.”

Taylor then proceeded to mangle facts and science. He said that the 1930s was the warmest decade in Oregon, which isn’t true: the 1990s was. He also claimed that 1917-42 saw the most melting of Oregon glaciers. Also not true, according to this Oregonian story.

"It's almost universal that all glaciers are retreating," said Peter Clark, a professor at Oregon State University and an international authority on glaciers. "The signs of retreat are dramatic and accelerating."

If Taylor simply went around speaking as an uninformed individual with views about global warming that aren’t shared by reputable scientists, that wouldn’t be so bad.

However, when he writes a letter to the editor as the state climatologist, passing along the untruth that the 1930s was the warmest decade on record in Oregon, that’s unconscionable.

Email the dean of George Taylor’s college at OSU, Mark Abbott. Tell him that Taylor needs to stop being called the state climatologist. And that Oregon deserves to have someone competent heading up the Oregon Climate Service.

Lars Larson asked Taylor whether, if we change our human activities enough, we can have an effect on human caused global warming. Taylor’s answer: “I don’t believe that’s true.”

Willamette Week said that Taylor’s critics call him one of the most dangerous men in Oregon. Could be an overstatement. But human caused global warming is real and deadly serious.

To have someone saying otherwise, who is passing himself off as Oregon’s climatologist, that is dangerous.

[Update: Advance reports of what will be in the soon to be released report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change feature headlines such as "World's scientists say climate change is much worse than they thought." But George Taylor feels that he knows more than the world's experts on climate change, because he continues to claim that humans are having a minimal effect on global warming.

The report supposedly will say: "It is virtually certain that human activity has played the dominant role in causing the increase of greenhouse gases over the past 250 years." But don't worry. George Taylor says it isn't so. And so long as Oregon State University continues to bestow upon him the title of "state climatologist," unfortunately some people are going to believe him.]

How Sisters, Oregon became a charming prosperous town

It wasn’t through allowing property owners to do whatever they wanted, an instructive lesson for those who seek to dismantle Oregon’s pioneering land use laws. No, Sisters changed from a town on the decline into a charming artsy Western-themed community because of central planning.

My wife and I love Sisters. We share ownership of a cabin in Camp Sherman, about fifteen minutes away. We go to Sisters a lot. It’s a great place to walk, shop, eat, and relax. Plus, they now have spiffy centrally located public bathroom facilities. What else could you want? (especially after a triple latte at one of the fine coffee houses)

Last weekend Laurel read a history of the Sisters area that was sitting on a cabin bookshelf. She learned that the developer of nearby Black Butte Ranch (a beautifully planned residential resort) wanted Sisters to be a classy place for Ranch owners and visitors to enjoy.

So, according to a history of Black Butte Ranch:

"When Brooks Resources began developing the Ranch [in the 1970s], they offered merchants in Sisters $5,000 and free architectural help to create a “theme” look to the town. The Sisters planning commission adopted an 1880’s theme, which improved the town’s attractiveness and returned it to its original roots.

The theme adoption has made Sisters a thriving community creating a unique, quaint town with excellent gift and souvenir shopping."

Currently there isn’t a garish oversized neon sign anywhere in Sisters. Nor any other obnoxious symbol of unfettered commercialism. Even the McDonalds on the edge of town (many residents wish it didn’t exist at all) melds harmoniously with the Sisters western theme.

Thus let’s tip our cowboy hats to foresighted planning. And dedicate the next line dance to Oregonians past, present, and future who recognize that places where anybody can do whatever they want with their property aren’t worth wanting compared to well-planned locales like Sisters.

(For more about why we like Sisters so much, take a look-see at “Belly dancing and fast food in Sisters”).

Bush finally embraces sustainability. For a bad reason.

I’m still trying to get my head around George Bush’s new love for sustainability, a Green word decidedly at odds with this envirophobic president. Yet there he is these days, calling for a sustainable this and that.

The problem is, the “this and that” Bush wants to sustain is the war in Lebanon and its extension to Syria and Iran.

Sure, he speaks about his desire for a sustainable cease fire in the Middle East, but what Bush really means is that he wants Israel to keep pounding Hezbollah (and innocent civilians) until fire from across the border ceases, because anyone who could pull a trigger is dead.

Being a firm believer in sustainability, I see this as dismally sad.

Bush ignores the clear evidence for human-caused global climate change, which threatens the ability of Earth to sustain our lives. Bush ignores massive trade and budget deficits that have mushroomed during his administration, which threaten the sustainability of the U.S. economy. Bush stifles cutting edge medical research on embryonic stem cells, which offers much promise of sustaining lives that now are cut short by death or debilitating diseases.

Yet when he wants to keep a war going that is devastating Lebanon, a country that was on the verge of embracing a genuine democracy, Bush finally finds his voice for “sustainable” — speaking about it for all the wrong reasons.

There are times when it makes sense to look far into the future. I’ve just mentioned three: when the Earth is warming dangerously; when deficits threaten the economy; when meaningless religious dogma is favored over advancing medical science.

But there also are times when action needs to be taken, now. If a street gang is killing passersby, you don’t conduct a sociological analysis of what made them turn to violence before you call 911 and get police on the scene. Likewise, when thirty-seven children are killed in a war that no longer has a discernible purpose, you don’t babble on about finding a “sustainable” way of ending the violence.

You end the violence. Now.

President Bush, I’m all for you getting on the sustainability bandwagon. However, you need to learn what is worth sustaining, and what isn’t. You believe that its fine and dandy to sustain the killing of innocents.

You’re wrong.

Camp Sherman threatened by Jefferson County

If you love Camp Sherman and the Metolius River, you need to help defend this beautiful piece of Oregon. For the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners is determined to cast aside Camp Sherman values in favor of zoning changes that would foster ticky-tacky development.

As the Friends of the Metolius put it in their July newsletter:

For twenty-five years Camp Sherman folks have worked for sensible, sensitive land use planning for the private land in the Metolius Basin. They have sought rules which would produce development that was small scale, low key, conservative, deliberate, that was protective of the natural values. The proposed revision of the Jefferson County zoning ordinance would severely restrict that approach.

Friends of the Metolius has put together a Save the Metolius web site with everything you need to know about the horribly flawed development plans that Jefferson County is trying to foist upon the Camp Sherman area.

Print out, sign, and mail in their petition to the County to stop the rezoning process until genuine local citizen participation takes place. Read a sample letter to the county commissioners, then write and send in your own plea for them to reconsider their ill-considered plans for the Metolius Basin.

What’s at stake here? Gregory McClarren, president of the Friends of the Metolius, spells it out:

By the end of spring 2006, I believe “war was declared on the Metolius,” one of Oregon’s crown jewels, by the county commission. The proposed revision of the Jefferson County Comprehensive Plan would undo nearly 25 years of protections for the Metolius Basin’s unique charms, open space, and pristine water quality.

Camp Sherman would end up with a greater density of homes and tourist rental accommodations, stream protections would be scaled back, and the unincorporated rural character would be allowed to become more urbanized to help fulfill urban housing needs.

To add insult to injury five parcels in the Basin ranging in size from about 20 acres to over 640 acres would be designated as “eligible and available for destination resort siting,” further increasing loss of wildlife habitat, threatening water quality, and diminishing the Camp Sherman character.

Five large destination resorts. Just what Camp Sherman and the Metolius Basin doesn’t need. Laurel and I are one-fourth owners of a cabin on the Metolius that sits on leased Forest Service land. We love the river. We love Camp Sherman. We love the wonderful rural friendliness and eccentricity of the area.

Especially the Camp Sherman store, where even if everybody there doesn’t know your name, they act as if they did.

It seriously galls me that the Jefferson County commissioners are ready and willing to sacrifice what makes Camp Sherman unique. The Bend Bulletin editorial board says that the commissioners could use a nanny, given how childishly they’ve been handling the Measure 37 claims process.

I’d add, ditto for how they’ve been handling planning for the Metolius Basin. So tell the commissioners how you feel about the prospect of changing the Camp Sherman area much for the worse. That’s what I’ll be doing myself, first thing tomorrow morning.

Oregon Cougar Plan starts needless killing

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission is hard at work spending taxpayer money on a nonexistent problem. Contract employees using hounds will be used to kill 66 cougars in three areas.

These 66 cougars aren’t problem cougars. They’re just plain cougars. They haven’t been caught killing livestock or otherwise causing a nuisance to humans.

In its idiocy, the Fish and Wildlife Commission came up with a cougar management plan that doesn’t seek to control problem cougars, but rather kills the animals en masse in areas where cougar complaints and purported cougar predation exceed 1994 levels.

Gosh, what a great concept. Let’s apply it to traffic in Salem, where I live. I often complain that there are a lot more cars on the road now compared to when I moved here in 1977. So let’s thin the herd of automobiles so I can drive around as freely as I used to.

I recommend starting with any car that either has an out-of-state plate or a “Bush-Cheney” bumper sticker. They may not be causing any problem when the tow truck comes to take them away, but I feel like they might. And besides, I’ve got a right to keep Salem traffic jams at 1977 levels.

Another obvious problem with the cougar plan is that many reported sightings of “cougars” are mistaken. But if you call in a sighting to the Fish and Wildlife Commission, it counts as a complaint. Even if the animal was really a kitty cat. I wouldn’t be surprised if some ranchers already have the complaint number on their speed dial and are phoning in phony sightings while they watch Fox News.

Cougar phobic Oregonians in the red counties, don’t you feel a bit funny calling on big government to save you from a problem? Especially when the solution you’re getting isn’t much of a solution. And the problem isn’t much of a problem.

If you’re losing livestock regularly to a problem cougar, that’s a problem. However, killing cougars indiscriminately likely isn’t going to help much. Men commit most of the crimes in this country. But if government starts randomly killing men the crime rate won’t go down much.

You see, it’s certain types of men who commit crimes. Most men are law abiding, just as most cougars don’t kill livestock, and most pit bulls don’t bite people. Profiling entire groups that are considered dangerous just to deal with a few problem individuals doesn’t work.

Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his The New Yorker article, “Troublemakers: what pit bulls can teach us about profiling.” The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission must not have read it. Or if they did, ignored it.

Gladwell points out that, as a breed, pit bulls aren’t a problem. Particular pit bulls do become problems, however, just as particular German Shepherds, Dobermans, and dogs of any other breed do. He says that it possible to figure out what combination of dog, owner, and environmental (like being chained up) factors leads to a dog attack.

“But,” Gladwell says, “it’s always easier just to ban the breed.” Or, the species.

I think it’s time for a voter initiative that would ban the indiscriminate hunting of cougars with hounds by government bounty hunters. Oregonians have already made their wishes clear (see “Oregon cougar plan a slap in the face to voters”). Unnecessary cougar thinning wasn’t one of those wishes.

As several commenters to a Salem Statesman-Journal story about the cougar killing plan observed, it’s crazy that the government is now paying contract employees to kill cougars in a manner that was banned by the voters in 1994. What is it about “don’t use hounds to hunt cougars” that the Fish and Wildlife Commission doesn’t understand?

For another perspective on this issue, check out Loaded Orygun’s “Is ‘Cougar Madness’ Leading to Unnecessary Kills?”

Short answer: yes.

Treasury secretary nominee favors Kyoto Treaty

George Bush seems to be warming up to the reality of global warming. Henry Paulson, his nominee for Treasury Secretary, is a supporter of the Kyoto Treaty and an avid environmentalist.

My head is reeling. Could it really be true that Bush has converted to fact-based, rather than faith-based, policy making? If so, the foundations of my Bush-bashing world will be shaken. I’ll be finding good things to say about a President who, up until now, has blundered along from faulty gut instinct to faulty gut instinct.

I worry that this is an aberration though.

Physics tells us that the quantum world is founded on probabilities, not predictable determinism. Just as there is a small but real possibility that a sub-atomic particle will tunnel through a solid barrier and be found on the other side, there must be a small chance that George Bush will do a few things right, if only at random.

Regardless, the conservative blathersphere is starting to bear its fangs against Paulson because of his Green leanings. Back in April a coalition of free market-based policy groups urged Bush not to appoint Paulson. One of his neo-con sins is that he has served as head of the Nature Conservancy which, horror of horrors!, seeks to conserve nature.

Can’t have that. Thus Human Events, a national conservative weekly, warns darkly: “Treasury Nominee is Ideologically, Ethically Challenged.”

Well, President Bush, give me more ideologically and ethically challenged appointees like Henry Paulson, please. You’ve got a long way to go before you begin to govern from the center, like you promised back in 2000. But it’s never too late to start.

Same with governing from a grounding in scientific facts. Try it. Whether or not you like it, the Earth and future generations certainly will.

Paving over paradise

We just got back from ten days on Maui. Paradise. And it’s being paved over. Sound familiar, Oregonians? Be careful about who you vote for in November. That “we’ve got to respect property rights” verbiage may sound fine, but what it really means is: paradise needs paving.

Which it doesn’t. Not now, not ever. We’ve been to Maui almost every year since 1991. The traffic keeps getting crazier. The ocean views keep getting filled with condos. The construction cranes sprout faster than palm trees.

Don’t get me wrong. Maui still is a wonderful place to visit. So is Oregon. However, if you live in either of these paradisiacal places and care about sustaining a livable environment, you’ve got to be concerned. This Maui resident says that he’s thinking of moving.

I’m positive I’m not alone as I watch the island of Maui slowly die at the hands of greed and exploitation.

I wake up almost every morning to Realtors rushing around outside dragging perspective [sic] buyers with them up and down the streets of my neighborhood with small computers chirping and cell phones squawking.

I believe that Maui was meant to be visited. After only five years here, I feel it is time to move. The lack of respect for this amazing place along with the painfully obvious destruction disguised as growth has gotten the better of me.

This visit we experienced a symbolic reminder of how over-development is harming Maui. Well, not so symbolic, really. A jackhammer in room 103 when you’re staying in 204 is pretty darn real. A condo below us was being renovated.

I gently (and not so gently) suggested to the resort manager that guests come to Maui for rest and relaxation, not to listen to loud construction noise for several hours a day. My sacred post-swim/beach afternoon nap was thrown for a noisy loop. As the Wonder Pets say, “this is serious!” (add a lisp for the proper Ming-Ming effect).

Our complaints had no effect. Instead of ocean waves and birds we got to listen to electric saws and drills. That’s modern Maui in a nutshell. All too often making a buck comes first. Harmoniously relating to the environment and fellow human beings takes a back seat.

Yes, it’s more pleasant creeping along in a traffic jam on Maui than it is on an Oregon freeway. You can watch the waves rolling in rather than grass seed growing. And the air passing through the window that your elbow is hanging out of usually is warmer (except for today—Oregon is “enjoying” a record breaking heat wave).

There has to be a limit to growth, though. On Maui. And in Oregon. Special places like these need to be preserved. We’ve already got plenty of LAs in this country. If I want to smell exhaust fumes and gaze upon wall to wall concrete I can always hop on a plane and visit my daughter in Hollywood.

Back in the 80s I spent some time on a Fiji island. There wasn’t much to do at the small resort where we were staying. That was the idea. Not doing much. One afternoon a Tahitian girl showed us how to make a native something or other. I don’t remember what it was. I do remember the girl.

She was gorgeous. A classic Tahitian beauty. Wise too. My fellow vacationers were mostly from Australia and the United States. Someone said, “Have you ever been to America?” “No,” she replied. Then she was asked, “Would you like to go?”

She tossed back her long dark hair and smiled. Her words stuck in my mind.

“Why would I want to? In America you live in big cities, work hard, and then die. Why should I leave here?”

There was an awkward silence. I could sense that we all were thinking, “Good question.” In an instant the proud U.S. citizen belief that ours is the land everyone wants to come to had been buried under the sparkling Fiji sand. I thought to myself, “Why do I want to go home? That’s the real question.”

Polynesians like this girl were the first inhabitants of Hawaii. I wonder what they’d think if they could see it today. Probably just what the Native Americans who settled in Oregon would think if they saw this state now. Pardon the stereotype, but only one word seems to fit their reaction.

Ugh!

We check out of Sustainable Fairview

Today we cashed out of Sustainable Fairview, the 245 acre site in south Salem that, according to the local newspaper, is “envisioned to become a model of mixed-use and environmentally friendly development.”

Hope so. But at 1:30 this afternoon I traded two shares in Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA) for a check, shook hands with Sam Hall, the managing member of SFA, and brought to an end our sometimes satisfying but mostly frustrating experience as investors in this development.

The property has been sold to a group led by Phil Morford, a Portland-area developer, and Gordon Root. Good luck to them.

And thanks to Phil and Gordon for buying the property from SFA, because a few hours after picking up the check I was standing in front of a clerk at the Marion and Polk Schools Credit Union paying off a home equity loan that we’d used to buy the five acre lot next to our home. (See “We buy some really expensive blackberries”.)

Many SFA investors are keeping their shares in play, staying on board while Morford and company pay off their purchase price over the next few years. We may be passing up an opportunity to make more money than the 30% or so we realized over the four years we were SFA members.

But Laurel and I never hesitated to jump ship when the opportunity was presented to us. We (mostly me) have been two of the gadflies who questioned how well Sustainable Fairview was being managed and whether basic principles of sustainability were being applied by SFA.

I’ll end with a compilation of the Sustainable Fairview-related blog posts I’ve written (and ranted) over several years. Digging them out of the “sustainability” category just now, I remembered how passionate I used to be about this development. Then, I lost interest.

I haven’t been to a SFA meeting in several years. I’ve been reading the minutes and keeping a general wary eye on our investment. However, there never was an opportunity for creative, enthusiastic greenies like Laurel and me to become involved in anything but a passive way with the project.

That’s too bad. Hopefully the new owners will realize, as SFA never did, that sustainability isn’t just about enviro-friendly building codes and other mechanistic means of saving energy, recycling waste, conserving water, and all that. In my “Sustainable Fairview Associates—a cautionary tale” post, I said:

Thoreau puts it so well: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.” What truly sustains us? Not water, not air, not food, not shelter. These are all for the body, not the “us” that is our soul, spirit, consciousness, original nature, true self—whatever you want to call it.

A so-called “sustainable development” that doesn’t sustain this part of us, the most important part of us, the part of us that finds meaning in life beyond bare existence, it isn’t sustainable at all. Man (and woman) does not live by solar collectors, living system wastewater treatment, permeable roads, and fuel cells alone. A life absent genuine community—where I can commune both with myself and with my fellow human beings—is a life absent what makes life worth living.

Glancing over my SFA-critical blog post oeuvre, I realize that I sound pie-in-the-skyish at times. Lots of times. Undoubtedly this is how I sounded to SFA management as well, who turned a deaf ear to my “Let’s be truly green!” entreaties.

Well, I tried. Sustainable Fairview has turned out fine. Maybe it will end up more than fine—excellent. We’ll see. Time will tell. There’s no doubt that these 245 acres will end up in much better shape than they would have if a traditional developer such as Chuck Sides had gotten hold of them.

For that, I’m happy.

Here’s my compilation of Sustainable Fairview blog posts. Perhaps someday they will become fodder for a graduate student thesis concerning the history of this development. In a decade my writings will appear either prescient or foolish.

Whatever. I just said what I had to say—the blogger’s creed.

Sustainable Fairview overview
What’s sustainable?
New name for “Fairview”
Renaming Fairview makes the news
Thanks for feeding PollMonkey
On remaining in a room
Relativity and sustainability
Sustainable Fairview Associates—a cautionary tale
Seriously seeking special setting
“You say you want a revolution…”
Power to the weblog, right on!
275 urban ac.; 700,000 sq. ft.; grt. vu.; Salem; $13 mil/offer
“Sustainable” Fairview: is it really?
Sustainable Fairview update
Pringle Creek Community, a Salem sustainable development
Salem City Council knows zilch about sustainability

Global warming is real. Debate over.

If you have any doubts that global warming is real, read the April 3 TIME magazine cover story and “Be Worried, Be Very Worried.” The evidence is in. The debate is over. Global warming is happening. Humans are the major cause of it. And we’re heading for disaster.

Yes, there are still global warming deniers like Oregon climatologist George Taylor. But he’s been outed by Willamette Week and I haven’t heard any “global warming is a myth” craziness from George lately. Maybe he’s turned to arguing that creationism and intelligent design are fact, while evolution is fiction. Or that the Earth is flat.

It’s a free country. People can believe weird things. But they don’t have the right to destroy our planet. This is why there’s a big difference between evolution-denying crazies and global warming-denying crazies: the latter are a lot more dangerous.

TIME speaks the truth: “Polar ice caps are melting faster than ever…More and more land is being devastated by drought…Rising waters are drowning low-lying communities…By any measure, Earth is at the tipping point…The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame.”

It may be too late to do anything about it. Once past a tipping point, it’s devilishly difficult to turn things around. But the cover story ends with:

Curbing global warming my be an order of magnitude harder than, say, eradicating smallpox or putting a man on the moon. But is it moral not to try? We did not so much march toward the environmental precipice as drunkenly reel there, snapping at the scientific scolds who told us we had a problem.

The scolds, however, knew what they were talking about. In a solar system crowded with sister worlds that either emerged stillborn like Mercury and Venus or died in infancy like Mars, we’re finally coming to appreciate the knife-blade margins within which life can thrive. For more than a century we’ve been monkeying with those margins. It’s long past time we set them right.

James Hansen, a NASA scientist the Bush administration has been trying to shut up, is one of the scolds who's been warning about the dangers of global warming. His Scientific American article, “Defusing the Global Warming Time Bomb” is both solid and scary. “Small forces,” he says, “maintained long enough, can cause large climate change.”

Humans are pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Nonetheless, compared to Nature as a whole humanity’s impact on the climate is puny. The problem is, as Hansen pointed out, that relatively small anthropogenic (human-caused) forces can have big effects.

Arctic ice is melting. That’s a fact. As it melts dark water increases and light ice decreases. Dark water absorbs heat while light ice reflects it. So that causes more melting, which makes more dark water, and so it goes. The system feeds back upon itself.

TIME says that the effects of global warming are upon us much more quickly than was anticipated.

What few people reckoned on was that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives rise to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. Pump enough carbon dioxide in the sky, and that last part per million of greenhouse gas behaves like the 212th degree Fahrenheit that turns a pot of hot water into a plume of billowing steam.

Amazingly, conservative apologists like George Will are still saying that global warming is up for debate. It’s strange. In the old days, conservatives believed in conserving. I know this because I was raised by a woman who was both deeply Republican and deeply conservative in the best sense of the word: frugal, non-wasteful, protective of limited resources both monetary and natural.

George Will writes:

Are we sure there will be proportionate benefits from whatever climate change can be purchased at the cost of slowing economic growth and spending trillions? Are we sure the consequences of climate change -- remember, a thick sheet of ice once covered the Middle West -- must be bad?

Gee, George, what a great question. Let’s ask the people of Nebraska if they’d rather run the risk of having the United States’ economic growth slowed slightly or be buried under a sheet of ice.

Alternatively, if the answer to that question seems obvious we can instead apply ourselves to combating global warming. Hansen says, “The emphasis should be on mitigating the [climate] changes rather than just adapting to them.”

My wife and I own two cars, a Toyota Prius and a Toyota Highlander. Both are hybrids. Automotively, we’re doing our part.

Our hot water heater needs replacing. Today we ordered a new one. The energy efficient model is going to cost us an extra hundred dollars (though we’ll get some of that money back via a tax credit). Water heaterly, we’re doing our part.

Unfortunately, neither of us is the President of the United States, who isn’t doing his part. Recently I heard George Bush say that he is opposed to the Kyoto Treaty because it would harm the American economy.

As if having the mid-West covered by a sheet of ice wouldn’t. What an idiot.
-------------------------
Next day P.S.: it might seem paradoxical that global warming could lead to either a mini or maxi ice age, but the Scientific American article about "Abrupt Climate Change" explains how this might happen:

As global warming continues to heat up the planet, many scientists fear that large pulses of freshwater melting off the Greenland ice sheet and other frozen northern landscapes could obstruct the so-called North American conveyor, the system of ocean currents that brings warmth to Europe and strongly influences climate elsewhere in the world.

A conveyor shutdown--or even a significant slowdown--could cool the North Atlantic region even as global temperatures continue to rise. Other challenging and abrupt climate changes would almost certainly result...As the conveyor grows quiet winters become harsher in much of Europe and North America, and agriculture suffers.

...Uncertainties abound, and although a new ice age is not thought credible, the resulting changes could be notably larger than they were during the Little Ice Age, when the Thames in London froze and glaciers rumbled down the Alps.

City Council shooting Salem in the foot

Here’s an open secret: Salem, Oregon is an unappealing city. Here’s another: the Salem City Council is determined to keep it that way. Crazy. Salem already is crippled by poor planning, lack of creativity, and a boring downtown. Yet the City Council is busily engaged in shooting the city in its foot to hobble it even more.

As I said in “Salem City Council knows zilch about sustainability,” state planners have rejected Salem’s land use policies as being inconsistent with good mixed-use development. Rather than doing the right thing and fixing the plan, the City Council is appealing to the state Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA).

That’s a waste of money. Also, a waste of all the time and effort that went into the Salem Futures planning effort. The Statesman-Journal editorial board agrees. Today’s paper says that “Effective land-use planning is key to Salem’s future.” Right on.

This isn’t rocket science, befuddled City Council members. Just think about where you like to go when you’re on vacation or driving through a new town. “Wow, take the next exit, dear! Look at that sprawling subdivision…and the strip mall. And…oh my god, it’s a bunch of big box stores! Wal-Mart. Target. Costco. It’s all so…beautiful.”

No, my friends. This isn’t reality.

What you actually do is stop in Sisters on the way to Bend because the stores are so unique, there’s a strict “Western only look” zoning code, and no garish signs. Or, on the coast, you drive right though butt-ugly unplanned Lincoln City and head for oh-so-charming Cannon Beach, where you can have a pleasant time walking around downtown and not take your life in your hands to cross a four-lane highway.

The Statesman-Journal editorial is fine as far as it goes, but it omitted mention of downtown Salem’s notorious lack of vitality. Finally some of the boarded-up buildings are being renovated, but there’s not much to draw people to the city’s core.

Several times a week I go to a Tai Chi class on Court Street. Mondays Laurel and I now go to a tango class at 7:00 pm. So for the past few weeks I’ve been looking for something to eat when Tai Chi is over at 6:00 pm and I’ve got an hour to kill. The first coffee house I went to said, “We’ve stopped serving food.” The second one told me, “We’ve shut down the stove, but it’s still warm and we’ll make you a hot sandwich if you can wait a while.”

I look at my watch. It’s 6:15 pm, not midnight! But in downtown Salem the sidewalks roll up really early, so it might as well be. Mostly those sidewalks are inhabited by street youth after the sun goes down, and they aren’t big spenders. If people actually lived downtown, things would be different.

But, ooh, that would mean mixed-use planning, and the City Council doesn’t want to have anything to do with evil commie socialistic bureaucratic anti-free market planning. So the City Council fiddles with its LUBA appeal while Salem burns.

And bores.

Salem City Council knows zilch about sustainability

It wasn’t a surprise. In today’s Salem Statesman-Journal this headline hit my eyes: “State rejects city’s review of land-use policies.” A shock it was not: the Salem City Council is notoriously tone deaf when it comes to singing tunes of sustainability and environmentalism.

But even though my expectations of council members are low when it comes to all things Green, the lack of understanding of Council President Jim Randall still was shocking. I read:

The Salem City Council thinks that a voluntary, market-based approach with minimal planning is the only way to promote dense mixed-use development of the sort proposed by the Fairview development in South Salem, Council President Jim Randall said.

My wife and I are investors in this development, Sustainable Fairview. We know a lot about it. And we totally disagree with the notion that a “voluntary, market-based approach with minimal planning” is the way to foster further dense, mixed-use development akin to Fairview.

This definitely wasn’t how Sustainable Fairview came to be. The project flowed out of intense state, city, and community planning. It required a complete rezoning of the 275 acres that used to comprise the Fairview Training Center to assure that development would proceed in line with principles of sustainability (energy use, wastewater management, de-emphasis of auto transportation, and so on).

Here’s how the Sustainable Fairview web site’s “Planning and Development” section describes the history of the project:

The Fairview Master Plan is consistent with Oregon’s most forward-thinking visions and goals for sustainable development. From its inception in 2001, Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA) used the Governor's Quality Development Objectives, the City of Salem’s long range planning effort, Salem Futures, and the Governors Sustainability Executive Order as guidelines for its development program. Likewise, SFA has relied on local, regional, national and international expertise in planning, engineering and design (see Land Planning Team).

Finally, community charrette and numerous public forums were used to both inspire and refine the elements of the plan to be innovative, yet practical and economically exciting for the city in which we live. The Fairview plan has generated development of new mixed-use zone ordinances and aspires to be a model for facilitating new development patterns that create a strong sense of place and community.

Jim Randall and the rest of the Salem City Council members need a crash course in land use planning and sustainable development. Otherwise Salem is going to continue to have its land use policies rejected by the state, which, entirely appropriately, expects that local jurisdictions demonstrate at least minimal competence in planning.

[Next day update: A few additional thoughts, spurred in part by Max’s comment that Salem planners don’t have a supportive environment. Absolutely. I wasn’t being critical of the professional planning staff, who I’m sure could come up with a great mixed-use vision for Salem if they were working for a City Council and Mayor who valued sustainability.

Salem is a backwater. It’s frustrating for me to have lived here for 29 years and see an area with so much potential remain the ugly duckling to Portland and Eugene’s swan. By and large Salem’s civic leaders have precious little imagination, creativity, and daring. Their motto is, “Even if it’s broken, why fix it?”

Concerning market-based approaches to mixed-use development, a phrase from my old Systems Science program days comes to mind: “discounting the future.” Meaning, a bird in hand is worth two or more hiding in the brush that you aren’t aware of yet. So the future is given less value than the present. Making money now is a higher priority than investing in the future.

That’s an incredibly selfish attitude, especially over the long run. The “present” I’m living in is going to run out, almost certainly, before the present of my daughter does. So the world I’m helping to form now is going to be the world she inherits. If that world isn’t capable of sustaining human civilization, then I’ve failed her.

This is what sustainability is about: assuring that future generations have the same opportunity to live a good life—or an even better life—as we have now. That takes planning, because the free market discounts the future. It is present oriented. Make money now. Consume limited resources now.

So Jim Randall’s idea that limited or non-existent planning is going to result in a positive sustainable future for Salem is ridiculous. It likely flows from two sources: (1) ignorance of what sustainability means and how important it is, and (2) a political unwillingness to embrace planning even if he overcame that ignorance.

Sad. I just hope that Salem voters will recognize how poorly they are being served by the current City Council and kick as many members as possible out in coming elections.]

[Further update: Sustainable Fairview Associates (the group developing Fairview) has sent a letter to Mayor Janet Taylor and the Salem City Council that emphasizes the need for planning in support of mixed-use development. Hopefully it will help open some minds.
Download sfa_city_council_letter.pdf

The letter is mentioned in today's Statesman-Journal story, "Board rejects using Salem Futures outline," about the Council's ill-advised decision to throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless volunteer hours that went into the Salem Futures planning effort.]

Property rights and wrongs

Oregon is in the midst of a fierce battle between property rights fanatics and reasonable people, like moi, who recognize that a unfettered right to do whatever you want with your property is actually a wrong.

I hope the “Big Look” task force that will be holding hearings around the state and recommending changes in Oregon’s land use laws will pay as much attention to broad philosophical issues as narrow legalistic points. For disagreements over values are at the root of property rights debates.

What value does land have in itself, absent development? How do we value the needs and desires of surrounding property owners when deciding how a piece of land should be used? Should people be able to undermine someone else’s values in pursuit of their own satisfaction?

In other areas of life, questions like these can be resolved without the shrill “don’t tread on me!” attitude exhibited by property rights extremists. Smoking was banned on airplanes a long time ago. Everyone, including most smokers, came to understand that your right to smoke is subservient to my right to breathe.

But strangely, a person’s ability to use his or her land without restraint is too often viewed as some sort of sacred right. I say “strangely,” because if anything should be used for the common good, rather than private gain, it is land.

Cigarettes are made by people and for people. They are a human invention. So the cigarette you put in your mouth took skill, time, and money to manufacture. I think it’s stupid to smoke. However, you have the right to buy cigarettes and others have the right to sell them, just like other artificial commodities.

Land is different. The “Creator” made it (leaving aside who or what the big “C” is). Just like the oceans. Just like the air. We don’t allow the oceans to be sold, nor the air. People have the right to use these public goods, but no one can own them. Yet land is treated differently, in our modern societies at least.

For reasons I haven’t been able to understand, someone who owns land tends to think, “This is mine, mine, mine! I should be able to do with it whatever I want, regardless of how my doing affects other people.” Given the interrelatedness of natural and social ecosystems, this attitude is as nonsensical as the owner of a fishing fleet saying, “I can catch fish until they go extinct!” or a power plant operator saying “I can pollute as much as I please!”

My wife, Laurel, and I own ten rural acres. We live next to a couple who own five acres adjacent to a commonly owned lake. Last summer they became indignant when willows along the lakeshore grew so high their view of the water was impaired. Laurel oversees maintenance of the common property in our development and arranged to have the willows cut down. The couple was happy. They enjoyed their view of the lake and felt that it was their right to continue to enjoy it.

Then, in the fall they started construction on a detached garage. A large garage. A garage right in front of our own best view of the lake. We used to enjoy looking at the lake as we walked along the edge of our property. Now we don’t enjoy looking at their new building.

A small skirmish in the land use war. Legally, our neighbors had the right to build whatever they wanted, wherever they wanted. Ethically, that’s another question. For it was evident that they weren’t adhering to the Golden Rule: what they didn’t want done to them, view-wise, they did to us.

Hopefully the Big Look task force will help the citizens of our state understand that Measure 37 tilted the land use balance way too far in the direction of individual property owner rights. The rights of neighbors and other people have to be considered also when determining how land can be used. I doubt that even the most zealous property rights proponent would be overjoyed to hear that a motocross course is going to be built right next to his home.

And then there’s the whole question of whether it even makes sense to own land at all. We just leased a car. We will be using it for three years. We won’t own it during that time. Who cares? What we want is the use of a car, not the ownership of a car. Similarly, if land were used for a price, not owned, the feeling of “this land is my land” would be lessened, and an attitude of “this land is our land” fostered.

When I was involved with an effort to form a sustainable development where homes would have been built on leased lots, I considered whether humanity valued land ownership to such a degree that we’d agree to sell the entire Earth. Though some might view this as a reductio ad absurdum argument against unfettered property rights, I think it is the Oregonians in Action types who are reasoning absurdly.

Here’s an excerpt:

Who would agree to selling the Earth? Leaving aside such practicalities as settling on a purchase price, and securing clear title to the 126 billion acres of land and water, is the Earth for sale?

We might imagine a interstellar entrepreneur landing in her spaceship, and making humankind a generous offer for the third planet from the sun. Would we accept it, or would we be outraged at the very idea that anyone would view our terrestrial home as a commodity with a price tag attached, like a toaster?

It is exceedingly difficult to envision Earth being put up for sale, either to a terrestrial or extraterrestrial entity. Yet bits and pieces of Earth are sold all the time, some large and some small. Generally, this raises no alarm. But perhaps it should.

“I wish to buy this 20 square mile island.” “Very good, sir. I will prepare the papers while you write the check.” This interchange seems completely normal to us.

At what scale, though, does a property purchase become unthinkable, a moral outrage not far distant from selling the entire Earth. Could someone buy a substantial nation? A minor continent? The southern hemisphere? When is it right to convert land to private ownership, and when is it wrong?

There is no simple answer to this question. However, whatever the answer may be, clearly global sustainability is intimately connected with a communal land ethic. Every person depends on Earth for his or her survival. So the idea of making a commodity out of the foundation of life is repellant.

Nonetheless, most people have no problem with making a commodity out of acreages that are parts of the foundation of life, with some mightily resisting as “socialist” or “communist” the notion that land ever should belong to all, and not just to a few. These same people, though, almost certainly would reject the interstellar entrepreneur’s offer to buy the entire Earth.

Auto-wise, we can’t get much Greener

Saturday a 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV came into our lives, joining its 2004 Prius sibling. We are so green, the Kyoto protocol oozes through our pores.

I’ve been feeling superior to just about every car on the road during the Highlander Hybrid (HiHy) driving experiences I’ve had so far. HiHy is bigger, tougher, and faster—7.3 seconds 0 to 60—than every other hybrid on the road today (it ties with the Lexus hybrid that, basically, is an identical twin).

As a HybridCars.com review of HiHy said:

A Prius looks and feels like a hybrid. When you drive one, you scream, “I’m a geeky enviro-weenie” from a mile away…The speed and normal-ness of the Highlander should take its appeal beyond the most ardent supporters of hybrid technology. If you must have a SUV, you must.

Absolutely. But large non-hybrid SUVs scream “I’m an oil-waster, greenhouse gas producer, and OPEC supporter” from a mile away. So I also feel superior to the obnoxiously over-sized Excursions, Tahoes, Suburbans, Hummers, and such that pull up next to me with a 120 pound woman and two grocery bags inside.

Thus I rule the road both enviro-ethically and enviro-machoey. In my own mind, at least, where it counts.

I’ll share more impressions of HiHy after I’ve lived with it longer. First impression: great car, though not without some annoying quirks. These annoyances bother us more because we’ve got our almost 100% positive Prius experience for comparison. The Prius cost $23,000 and the leased Highlander Hybrid $37,000 and change. (We paid MSRP at Capitol Toyota in Salem both times through easy-to-work-with Kelly, the Internet sales guy).

Consider HiHy’s clock. It looks like Toyota got these at a Nabisco warehouse sale, when the “clock inside every box” Wheaties promotion was discontinued. The fuzzy green numbers aren’t due to my taking a bad photo. That’s the way they really look. Toyota, for $37,000 can’t we have a clock with a display that looks at least as good as a $15 Timex?

And then there’s the atrocious “Multi-function display” that you get in the HiHy if you don’t opt for a navigation system and a touch-screen. It’s that gray box, which reminds me a lot of the screen on an old Kaypro computer that I owned in the technological dark ages, except the Kaypro had a green screen and appeared more modern than this.

Our Prius gives us precise running feedback about the mileage we’re getting at any moment. Like, 45.6. With HiHy you get a tiny bar graph that tells you very roughly what mileage the car is presently getting, and no info at all about how you’re doing since the last fill up. Reach for a calculator and a piece of paper; that’s how you figure your mpg in the base HiHy. Ridiculous. Especially considering that this is an SUV being marketed for its fuel economy.