Bend sets goals for climate change. Salem's City Council sits on its butt.

As a long time Salem-area resident, I'm used to having my town's environmental reputation kicked in the ass by more with-it Oregon cities like Eugene, Corvallis, and Portland. 

But now also Bend?

Geez, Bend is in Deschutes County, central Oregon, which used to be reliably Republican. And hence, not much concerned with supposedly optional niceties such as protecting the livability of our one and only planet Earth. 

With a lot of new people moving to Deschutes County, though, the gap between Democratic and Republican voter registration has shrunk considerably in recent years. 

So this helps explain why today's Bend Bulletin newspaper has a story, "Bend City Council wants feedback on climate change plan."

Bend residents have a chance this week to give the City Council input on how Bend should combat climate change.

On Thursday, the council plans to hold a special meeting to get the public’s feedback on a resolution that sets goals to reduce carbon emissions and prevent climate change.

Considering a large part of Bend’s economy is based on outdoor recreation on the river and in the mountains, it’s important the city takes a proactive approach to protecting the environment, said Nikki Roemmer, of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. Other cities such as Eugene and Boulder, Colorado, have adopted similar measures, she said.

“This really just says, ‘We care, and we care enough to do something about this global problem,’” Roemmer said.

The effort came after environmental groups asked the city to develop a government policy that addresses climate change, said Gillian Ockner, a senior policy analyst for Bend. The City Council responded by forming a group that started working to draft the resolution in May, she said.

One of the goals in the draft plan is to make all city facilities and operations “carbon neutral,” meaning city operations would emit no greenhouse gases or would get offsets — such as through tree plantings or purchasing renewable energy — for any emissions.

Meanwhile, the resolution would also ask the city to reduce fossil fuel use by 40 percent by 2030. And by 2050, it would have to reduce fossil fuel use by 70 percent, according to the plan.

My first reaction after reading this was envy. 

Envy that the Bend City Council is willing to go on record that climate change is a serious problem that has to be addressed by politicians at all levels, local, state, regional, national, international. Because 7 out of 9 members of the Salem City Council won't even admit that climate change/global warming is happening and humans are responsible for it. (See my blog post, "How Salem's candidates and other local leaders look upon climate change.")

Envy that Bend has environmental groups that are willing to push their city government to develop a climate change policy. Because environmental activists in Salem haven't shown much of a willingness to get involved with City of Salem goings-on, leaving our right-wing Mayor and her current City Council majority distressingly free to pursue anti-environmental policies. 

Envy that City leaders in Bend are willing to set goals for reducing carbon emissions. Because here in Salem, community leaders have a head-in-the-sand attitude toward climate change and the urgent necessity of stopping global warming before it is too late for civilization as we know it. As I said in my 2015 "Salem leaders need to say where they stand on 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."

Salem is a great town. I've loved living here for the past 39 years. However...this city also regularly drives me nuts. Or rather, nuttier than I am in my normal nutsy state of being.

Salem is the state capital of Oregon, a state with a well-deserved reputation for being on the cutting edge of wise environmental policies (for example, our marvelous farm/forest-preserving land use system with strict urban growth boundaries). Yet Salem lags far behind other neighboring Willamette Valley cities when it comes to ecological awareness, alternative/public transportation, and local government commitments to reduce this area's carbon footprint.

If the Chamber of Commerce types who run Salem -- hopefully not for much longer, given the encouraging election of three progressive City Council candidates in the last election -- think having a 1950's "pave it over" mentality is helping Salem compete for new residents and businesses, they really need to think again. 

Bend is on the right track, even though the latest version of the climate change policy document is weaker than it should be.

Here in Salem, the Mayor and City Council aren't even trying to look like they care about the environment and dealing with climate change, much less actually do something about preserving the habitability of Planet Earth.

Comments

[Jim Scheppke]

Brian, your criticism of "environmental activists" in Salem is not really accurate. A number of us worked hard to form a Sustainability Commission a few years ago. Laura Tesler tried to push it through before she retired from the Council. Tom Andersen, her successor, took it on but ran into a brick wall with the conservative council majority and a mayor who would not even support an Urban Tree Commission. Our new Mayor-elect has shown some interest in a Sustainability Commission. You are right in seeing that with three new progressive City Councilors coming in next year, we may finally be able to do something.

[Brian Hines]

Jim, the effort to get a Sustainability Commission was admirable. I'm not aware, though, of any local branches of environmental organizations (like 350.Org) getting behind the effort. Or did they?

Also, I've been to a lot of City Council meetings, and heard a lot of testimony on various issues that have an environmental component. Rarely, if ever, do I remember a local environmental organization (again, like 350.org) weigh in a policy issue like bike lanes/alternative transportation, the importance of preserving trees, the folly of building an unneeded Third Bridge, or such.

I tried to get the local chapter of 350.org involved in querying the City Council, other City of Salem officials, and various community leaders about three key climate change questions. But the local leader wasn't interested in this -- which surprised me, given the effectiveness on the national level of pointing out irrational global warming denialism among elected officials.

So, yes, environmental activists are doing some good things here in Salem. I just feel that local organizations aren't doing much to affect City of Salem policies, and are missing opportunities to bring up the connection between global climate change and how Salem needs to do its part to keep our planet habitable for humans.

[LaurieD45]

Brian, of course you wouldn't know if 350 Salem OR was involved in support for the sustainability commission, or any other Salem issues because you're never there - not at 350 meetings or Salem Sustainability Network meetings. It seems that what you want us to do is get into some smackdown with the mayor and city council so when they smack us back (or more likely ignore us) you can snarl your snark some more. What exactly is the point?

I'm tired of you picking on our 350 chapter here in Salem for not doing what you want done. We have a small core group of people that works hard on a lot of issues. I haven't seen you there. Some of those issues are here in Salem, some statewide and some beyond; what we don't do is butt our heads up against that brick wall that Jim Scheppke talked about over and over again. What exactly would be the point of that? Now that the tide has turned on the city council, we have a chance to make some progress (and that tide turned thanks to a lot of hard work by a lot of people, Jim being one of the hardest working.) As well as continuing to support the sustainability commission effort, I hope we can work on developing a Salem Climate Action Plan
And here's the thing - it takes work, not snark, work - time, effort and commitment. You can rattle off a laundry list of Oregon cities that have programs on climate change. That was easy. I know several climate activists in those cities. I know they didn't get things done with snark. And, even though at times they ran into obstacles or slow-moving bureaucracies, they weren't battling hostile or apathetic city officials. In Eugene, Mayor Kitty Piercy led the charge for sustainability initiatives starting with a year-long fact-finding commission that reached out to literally hundreds of residents and businesses. The Corvallis city administration has a long history of engagement with sustainability and climate change issues both in its own operations and in coalition with community groups. We have a long way to go here in Salem; a lot of work to do; and too few people who get what it takes to organize and mobilize.

To formulate a climate action plan to bring to the city council, 350 Corvallis was instrumental in pulling together a community task force that spent months developing and refining a set of criteria, goals and tasks for each of several topic areas (energy, land use, water, waste mangement, etc.) and more months educating and mobilizing the Corvallis community. (I'll email you some research I did for the Salem Sustainability Network on the history, structure and operations of climate and sustainability initiatives in Corvallis and Eugene. This is what it takes. Not an occasional slap on the wrists of recalcitrant public officials. It takes work and time and commitment.)
When I first moved here in 2011, I googled Sustainable Salem, Try it. I got so excited - there's a whole section of the city website on this - that has not been updated in the five years since I first found it. One of our members came across it more recently and made inquiries to city staff - to no avail.

I am real tired of hearing you carp about what we in 350 Salem OR do not do. Did I mention we have a small core group of committed people who work hard on a lot of things. Did I mention I never see you there? We meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday each month at 7 pm at the Ike Box at Cottage & Chemeketa Streets NE - EXCEPT PLEASE NOTE that the next meeting on Tuesday July 26 will be at 6:30 pm, a fresh air meeting in Bush Park on the SW side near Church and Laffell Streets S. You're welcome to come. Bring a picnic supper, and roll up your sleeves, but leave the snark at home.
Laurie Dougherty, Coordinator 350 Salem OR

[Brian Hines]

Laurie, thanks for sharing your point of view. You and I just disagree on what is "butting heads" and what is standing up for our one and only Planet Earth. That's fine.

I strongly believe that politicians and government officials should be open and upfront about their position on important scientific issues. If Salem's Mayor and City Councilors don't accept the scientific consensus about global warming, citizens need to know this -- because their votes on key environmental issues will reflect what they know, and don't know (or pretend they don't know).

Here's a previous blog post where I mentioned a brief conversation with OSU's Jane Lubchenco:

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2014/02/i-ask-salem-area-leaders-about-climate-change.html
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Since Lubchenco mentioned climate change often in her City Club talk, I wanted to ask her if she could think of any reason why local public officials shouldn't be willing to say whether they agree with the scientific consensus about climate change/global warming.

"No," she told me. Which is the answer I expected, since she'd just said that science isn't political.
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Regarding "leave the snark at home." Um, this blog is called Salem Political Snark. Why are you surprised that my posts have some snark in them?

I appreciate everything that the local chapter of 350.org is doing. Keep it up. And when you can, do more. That's all I was trying to say in this post.

[Salemander]

lol I like that conservative republican frequent commenter Harry Vanderpool actually tangibly does more to help the environment in Salem by driving around his car full of honeybees than liberal progressive Brian Hines does.

[Harry Vanderpool]

Thank You, Salemander!
Here is a little picture of hauling bees around in a car:
[IMG}http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Shallotman/New%20Image_zpsbldnyigj.jpg[/IMG]
Also your key word, "tangible" carries a lot of weight.
Conservatives live in the real world dealing with the tangible, factual, scientific truths.
NOT the wacky, cockamamie craziness that the ultra, ultra, ultra liberal loons loudly spew.

Here is a picture of my brand new "car" that I will be hauling bees on:
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v202/Shallotman/DSC01268_zpszx93smrd.jpg[/IMG]

[Salemander]

Thank you for the cool beemobile pictures Harry keep up the good bee work!

But in my imagination you will forever be driving around in some hatchback with just a ton of loose bees buzzing around all over inside.