It’s Getting Hot In Here

When Oregon’s 2009 legislative session starts in January, it’s going to be one long party - with environmental activists pressuring our elected officials to deliver concrete solutions to global warming and our energy policies in this state. But we can’t do it alone. For real progress to be made, we need students, major environmental groups, labor organizations, and businesses working together to create a better future for us all. That’s why I need YOU to invite a major player in Oregon’s economy to join the party, and help this state move toward a clean energy future.

The biggest private employer in Oregon is computer chip manufacturer intel Corporation - and Intel has gone to great lengths to present itself as sustainable and a “good corporate citizen.” But at the same time, Intel is a member of Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities (ICNU) - a highly anti-environmental business association that lobbies against laws which seek to control greenhouse emissions.

Right now you can encourage Intel to live up to its green image and break away from ICNU – by sending the company an e-invite to the clean energy “party” that starts January 12.

Find out how to help below the fold…

Continue reading ‘Invite Intel to Oregon’s “Party for Clean Energy”!’

Burying a “take action” link at the very bottom of a blog post is a horrible way to generate Internet activism.  So instead of having you read this whole post before you finally find out how to email the Oregon DEQ and tell them to shut down the Boardman coal plant, I’ll give you the email address now: bartcomments@deq.state.or.us Details on the issue are, of course, below.

I’m sitting in a non-air conditioned building in a Portland suburb, on the third day of the Portland area’s worst heat wave since 1994; in other words, global warming is sounding even less attractive than usual.  More importantly, though, on the desk beside me is an Oregonian editorial about the Boardman Coal Plant - the only major coal plant in Oregon, and our state’s largest stationary source of greenhouse emissions.

I have to admit, I’m disappointed.  The editorial, “Finally, a plan to clean up the coal plant,” applauds an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality proposal to “clean up” certain pollutants from the Boardman plant over the course of ten years.  The Oregonian editors seem to feel the DEQ is standing up to big polluters and doing what it should to reduce pollution from coal; what they fail to grasp is that the DEQ plan calls for a reduction in mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxides from Boardman, but seems to do nothing to address the most important greenhouse gas of all: carbon dioxide itself.  If you believe, as I do, that “carbon sequestration” at coal plants is an expensive farce, then we’re left with only one alternative: it’s not enough to “clean up” Boardman - the coal plant must be completely shut down. Continue reading ‘The Boardman Coal Plant: Don’t “Clean it Up” - Shut it Down!’

While many adults in the US are still in a state of denial over global warming, young schoolchildren in villages deep in the Peruvian Amazon are learning about the effects climate destabilization is likely to have on their way of life.

That’s just one thing I learned during a recent three-week trip to the Loreto region (northeast corner) of Peru, with a Peace and Conflict Studies class from Pacific University in Oregon. We spent much of our time in Peru staying in small villages, where we learned about the culture and way of life of the people there – as well as the threats they are likely to face in coming years. Based on my, admittedly very brief, exposure to life in Peru’s Amazon, it seems climate destabilization is not a “debated” issue there; people in the rainforest make their livelihoods mostly through small-scale farming, fishing, and hunting—and living so close to the land, they know their ability to make a living will be affected by changes in climate. Already, during our stay, it turned out that water levels in the river are lower than normal for the time of year.

Talking to one of the Loreto region’s chief conservationists – Gilberto Guerra Reátegui, founder of the “Isla de los Monos” conservation project – we learned how higher global temperatures are causing glaciers in the Andes Mountains to melt, contributing to lower water levels in the country’s rivers. This is bad news for wildlife, but also for the dozens of villages that look to the rivers as everything from a source of food (fish) to their main means of transportation, by boat. Further, changing weather patterns in the area will affect the forest in ways that are difficult to predict—but in the likely scenario that the local climate becomes dryer, entire rainforest ecosystems that depend on frequent rains will be put at risk. And if the forests and the myriad plants and animal species in it begin to die, so too will the thriving cultures that dot the Amazon and other rivers. Continue reading ‘Climate, Trees, and People in the Peruvian Amazon: Toward a Sustained Rainforest Movement’