It's time -- no, way past time -- for community leaders here in Salem, Oregon to answer three questions about climate change/global warming.
(1) Do you believe that global warming is occurring, and is causing the Earth's climate to change in various ways?
(2) Do you believe that humans are mostly responsible for the global warming/climate change that is occurring?
(3) Do you believe that humans need to engage in actions to deal with both the causes of global warming and its detrimental effects on humanity?
These are the questions I asked Salem's Mayor, City Manager, and city councilors about a year ago. (See "I ask Salem-area leaders about climate change.")
Only two city councilors out of the ten City of Salem officials responded to me. They agreed with the scientific consensus, saying "Yes" to each question.
The others wimped out, probably because they fear being held accountable for City Hall's environmentally destructive policies: pushing for a billion dollar sprawl-inducing carbon-spewing unneeded Third Bridge; allowing large, beautiful, healthy trees to be cut down for no good reason; ignoring the urgent need for bike lanes and pedestrian safety while throwing big bucks at 1950's style autocentric road projects.
it isn't only City officials who are in the environmental dark ages. Salem Hospital, the Chamber of Commerce, and other corporate types are acting just as destructively.
This was the theme of my most recent Strange Up Salem column in Salem Weekly, "Salem fiddles while the planet burns." Excerpt:
Officials at City Hall currently are led by a Mayor, City Manager, and city councilors whose general attitude toward caring for our one and only Earth is decidedly at odds with the values of most local citizens and Oregonians as a whole.
Last year I wrote to them, asking if they believed global warming was happening, humans are mostly responsible, and we need to do something about it.
Only two out of the ten top City of Salem officials said “yes.”
The rest cowered in a science-denying hidey-hole, unwilling to admit that their support for environmentally destructive actions was at odds with the obvious necessity to do everything possible to avert catastrophic changes to the ability of our planet to support human civilization.
So while both the Earth and the western United States experienced record warmth in 2014; while ski resorts in Oregon face steadily declining snowpacks as hotter air causes more precipitation to fall as rain; while drought becomes an ever-increasing threat to farmland and forests…
Salem’s clueless politicians and corporate executives go on their merry Screw the Planet way.
I'm hoping that our local chapter of 350.org will take this on as a project -- pressing local leaders to make clear how they regard the most important issue of our time, keeping the Earth a friendly place for civilization to prosper.
Since global warming obviously is a planet-wide problem, there's no place to hide from the consequences of human-caused climate change.
LIkewise, government, corporate, and non-profit leaders at every level, including local, can't be allowed to hide when asked whether they believe in the scientific consensus underlying my three questions.
If they don't accept that consensus, so be it. If they agree with the consensus but aren't willing to act in accord with it, so be it. Best of all, of course, is for them to both agree with the reality of human-caused global warming and accept the need to vigorously act to reduce its already-disastrous effects.
I'll share my entire Salem fiddles while the planet burns column as a continuation to this post.
Salem fiddles while the planet burns
Profanity spewed from a moving car missed its point. “Hey, you $@&#, if you use wood products, you’re in favor of killing trees!”
I heard this as I was about to join several dozen people carrying picket signs along Mission Street. We were protesting the needless destruction of beautiful ancient trees by Salem Hospital.
My sign said, “More trees, less parking lot.” A woman held up a message that could be re-used for other environmental outrages in this town: “I’m really MAD!”
Some of the trees were over 250 years old.
They survived from before the American Revolution through floods, fires, windstorms, and so much else. But City officials and Salem Hospital finally succeeded in killing them. Shameful
They weren’t considered to be “significant” by heartless corporate executives at the hospital. So the chainsaws and logging equipment came out, even after a recent legal ruling required Salem Hospital to reduce the size of its parking lot, allowing many trees to be saved.
If they hadn’t been cut down already.
This sort of giving-the-finger to people who care about preserving what’s left of the natural world may play well in Texas, but its become a major irritant to environmentally-minded Salemians.
Officials at City Hall currently are led by a Mayor, City Manager, and city councilors whose general attitude toward caring for our one and only Earth is decidedly at odds with the values of most local citizens and Oregonians as a whole.
Last year I wrote to them, asking if they believed global warming was happening, humans are mostly responsible, and we need to do something about it.
Only two out of the ten top City of Salem officials said “yes.”
The rest cowered in a science-denying hidey-hole, unwilling to admit that their support for environmentally destructive actions was at odds with the obvious necessity to do everything possible to avert catastrophic changes to the ability of our planet to support human civilization.
So while both the Earth and the western United States experienced record warmth in 2014; while ski resorts in Oregon face steadily declining snowpacks as hotter air causes more precipitation to fall as rain; while drought becomes an ever-increasing threat to farmland and forests…
Salem’s clueless politicians and corporate executives go on their merry Screw the Planet way.
Pushing an unneeded billion dollar Third Bridge that would encourage more carbon-emitting autocentric sprawl. Cutting down precious trees for parking lots and “just because we want to.” Stifling adequate mass transit bus service. Pouring many millions into highway projects while ignoring the need for safe bike lanes, sidewalks, and pedestrian crossings.
The guy who yelled at picketers didn’t realize that this protest wasn’t just about the trees.
It was about much more — putting the need to prevent further climate change and environmental destruction at the forefront of Salem’s must-do list, rather than an afterthought.
There’s a book about the reality of global warming called “This Changes Everything.” So far in Salem, it hasn’t.
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Strange Up Salem seeks to lift our city’s Blah Curse. Give us a Facebook like. Brian Hines blogs at hinesblog.com
Hello Brian,
As coordinator of 350 Salem OR I did contact the Mayor months ago with a question about the city's climate change policy but she did not respond. Our chapter stays informed about and supports efforts like No 3rd Bridge and the Salem Sustainability Network and there is a lot of cross-fertilization between our 350 chapter and other Salem organizations with related objectives. We are also connected with other 350 chapters and climate activists in Oregon and with the global network and mission of 350.org.
One project 350 Salem OR is involved with is opposition to the onslaught of fossil fuel export and transport through the Pacific Northwest. Research from Sightline Institute shows that if all the coal, oil and natural gas projects now on the drawing boards in Oregon and Washuington were to be completed, they would have the climate change impact of 5 Keystone XL pipelines.
http://www.sightline.org/press/releases/report-pacific-northwest-coal-oil-and-gas-exports-would-have-carbon-equivalent-of-more-than-five-keystone-xl-pipelines/
Coal exports and oil trains have received a lot of exposure (and effort on our part), but we are also trying to get the word out about proposals to export Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from two Oregon ports, one in Coos Bay on the southern Oregon Coast and one on the Columbia River near Astoria. These projects would involve building new pipelines to carry natural gas for hundreds of miles through forests and farms and under the Columbia; and building energy-intensive, greenhouse-gas-spewing facilities to compress the gas to a liquid state for shipping. We are allied with activists and communities fighting these projects and hope people in Salem will join the opposition. Columbia RIverkeeper and Rogue Riverkeeper have excellent information about the Astoria and Coos Bay projects respectively, along with links to submit public comments to state and federal agencies reviewing permit applications.
Columbia Riverkeeper http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/50797/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=12041
Rogue Riverkeeper
http://rogueriverkeeper.org/what-we-do/hot-topics/proposed-liquified-natural-gas-pipeline-lng
Anyone who wants to help define the projects that 350 Salem OR takes on is welcome to attend our meetings on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 7 pm at the Ike Box Cafe at Cottage and Chemeketa Streets NE in Salem.
Laurie Dougherty, Coordinator 350 Salem OR
Posted by: Laurie Dougherty | January 28, 2015 at 01:39 PM
Sometimes when I read what you write, I am reminded of Don Marquis’ Archy and Mehitablel (and parenthetically wonder if there is anyone alive who has read his priceless writings).
I tried to take this column and imagine that you were writing at the time of Galileo, posing questions to the Vatican bureaucracy. Or maybe you might have been reporting about the Scopes trial.
You are picking at the political scab that encrusts policy discussions in this century. Truth is immaterial; only rhetoric matters.
Maybe I went too far back into history. Daily Kos recently published an article on Oregon as a racist utopia. Let’s imagine you asking questions during the 30’s, 40s’, or 50’s of these people. My sardonic opinion is that they would have waffled then as they waffle today.
Posted by: Richard van Pelt | January 31, 2015 at 05:29 PM