Posted inEnvironment National politics

Democrats need to take a stand for the natural world

We live in increasingly artificial times. The most obvious sign of this is the rise of Artificial Intelligence, A.I. While A.I. has a lot of potential to improve human life, the dangers are obvious: gosh, what could go wrong if Artificial Intelligence is in control of society's crucial elements -- the internet, power production, business, education, the military, politics? Answer: a lot. What's especially worrisome, stepping back and looking at our current situation more broadly, is how technology is separating us from the natural world. An article by Jill Lepore in the November 11, 2024 issue of The New Yorker,…
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Posted inDonald Trump Environment National politics

Trump acting like a jerk in politicizing Los Angeles wildfires

No big surprise, but really disturbing nonetheless. Donald Trump, who recently was elected president of the entire United States, all 50 of them, is acting like the non-empathetic jerk that he is by making completely unfounded criticisms of California's governor regarding the wildfires that are devastating the Los Angeles area. If Trump had one ounce of decency in his flabby body, he'd be making statements like any other president-elect would. Like: "My heart goes out to everyone suffering from the fires in southern California. I assure you that once I become president I'll order my administration to do everything possible…
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Posted in2024 election Donald Trump Environment

Climate is best reason to vote for Harris, and nobody’s talking about it

There are many strange things about the current presidential campaign, including: how Harris suddenly became the Democratic nominee after Biden withdrew; how the Republican Party could happily get behind Trump, a convicted felon who lost the last election; how neither campaign is speaking much about the climate crisis, even though it is by far the most important long-term issue.  I've watched all of Harris' debates and major speeches. Her silence on global warming is deafening. So is Trump's, but that's to be expected. Based on his first term in office, and what he's saying now, if Trump is elected it's…
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Posted inEnvironment

Owner of property where Liberty Fire began allowed use of ATVs that started fire

Thanks to an informative story by Capi Lynn in today's print edition of the Statesman Journal, we learned the cause of the August 23, 2023 brush fire in south Salem known as the Liberty Fire, because it was adjacent to Liberty Road. The fire grabbed the attention of me and our neighbors out here in rural south Salem because we live off of Liberty Road about five miles from where the fire started. Yes, that's quite a ways, but brush fires can move very rapidly under windy conditions. And of course the fire was of vastly more concern to the…
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Posted inEnvironment

Check out these visual facts about electric vehicles in Oregon

They (whoever they is) say that a picture is worth a thousand words. So rather than describe last Friday's Salem City Club presentation about electric vehicles in Oregon, I figured it would be better to share some screenshots from the report the presentation was based on, the Oregon Department of Energy's 2023 Biennial Zero Emission Vehicle Report. I didn't read the report. I just looked at the pictures and chose the ones that I thought were most interesting and could be grasped at a glance. My commentary will be brief. BEV stands for Battery Electric Vehicle. PHEV stands for Plug-in…
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Posted inEnvironment National politics

Climate change was scariest moment of Republican debate

To preserve my mental health, I've been watching my recording of the first Republican presidential debate in short chunks. So far I'm up to an hour of the two hour debate.  The scariest moment of the debate that I've seen so far -- and I'm pretty sure it will remain on top of my fear factor after I've seen the whole thing -- was the horrendous answers given to a question posed by a young Republican. He said: Polls consistently show that young people's number one issue is climate change. How would you, as both president of the United States…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Environment

Time for Salem to ban fireworks, sale and use

Yesterday the City of Salem banned the use of fireworks, as did two fire districts adjoining Salem. Now the City Council should implement a permanent ban on the sale and use of fireworks. The reasons given for yesterday's ban only scratch the surface of what's wrong with fireworks. Sure, high temperatures, low humidity, and wind gusts make setting off fireworks especially dangerous in terms of starting fires. But those conditions are the new normal for early July in this era of rapidly accelerating global warming. Yesterday, Tuesday July 4, was the hottest day on record for our planet. The average…
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Posted inEnvironment

Oregon’s snow and cold fits with global warming

This morning my wife and I woke up to a winter wonderland. Our ten acres in rural south Salem looked beautiful, as did most of the rest of western Oregon after arctic air flowing southward collided with a low pressure disturbance rolling into the northwest from the Gulf of Alaska. But with that beauty came a lot of problems. Many accidents on roads and freeways. Clogged traffic as people traveled the day after Christmas. And for us, five and a half inches of snow on our steep, long driveway. After lunch I got out our ergonomic snow shovel (with a…
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Posted inEnvironment Land use

Thirty-acre Meyer Farm property in south Salem may be developed

If you drive past Trader Joe's on Hilfiker Lane SE, on your left you'll see a surprising urban sight: thirty acres of beautiful undeveloped land.  Unfortunately, there's a decent chance that before too long this property will become thirty acres of much less beautiful developed land. But not if a group of people devoted to seeing the land remain as natural as possible succeed in their effort to stop the planned subdivision. Consider joining the Friends of The Meyer Farm Facebook group if you share their goal. The Statesman Journal has done some good reporting on plans for the Meyer…
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Posted inCity Council City of Salem Environment

City Council needs to strengthen Climate Action Plan

I admire how the Salem Breakfast on Bikes blogger told it like it is in a recent post about the Salem Climate Action Plan that's up for discussion by the City Council on Monday. This is a devastating criticism from someone who knows what he's talking about. The Breakfast on Bikes blogger has followed progress on the Climate Action Plan much more closely than I have, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions has been a longtime crusade for him. So when he says it's a dud, the City Council needs to wake up and pay attention. There's still time to alter…
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Posted inEnvironment National politics

Chris Hayes features extreme Oregon heat on MSNBC

This afternoon I felt good for a couple of reasons. Marine air coming from the south finally lowered Salem-area temperature from about 113 to the mid 90s.  And the first 20 minutes of MSNBC's All In With Chris Hayes featured the crazily high Northwest temperatures we've been suffering through as obvious evidence that dealing with climate change has to be the top priority in any Congressional infrastructure bill or bills. So that's one good thing that came out of the past three days, when an amazing number of cities in Oregon and Washington not only broke their all-time high temperature…
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Posted inEnvironment Oregon politics

Time to really freak out about climate change, Salemians

I'm a big believer in global warming. But until this weekend the stark reality of what climate change means for everybody on our planet hadn't really hit home for me. Sure, last September Oregon suffered through devastating wildfires exacerbated by drought conditions and rare high winds. My wife and I breathed a lot of smoke as our furnace filters turned black. And February of this year saw an unusual ice storm that cut off power to hundreds of thousands of Oregonians. We had no electricity for eleven days and got to be best friends with our wood stove and Honda…
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Posted inEnvironment Oregon politics

PGE’s storm communications are astoundingly inept

Along with a disturbingly large number of other people, my wife and I have endured a full week of no electricity after the February 12 ice/snow storm devastated much of Oregon. (Our dog is doing just fine.) How much longer will our electricity be off? Starting last Monday, Portland General Electric, or PGE, has considered this to be a secret not to be disclosed to their customers.  Whenever I log into my PGE account, I'm met with a cryptic "not available at this time" in the Estimated Time On part of our outage report. OK, I can understand that PGE…
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Posted inCity of Salem Environment

Hazardous waste from Santiam Canyon fire may have polluted Salem

A few days ago the Statesman Journal ran a story about clean-up efforts after hundreds of houses were destroyed in the Beachie Creek fire that ravaged the Santiam Canyon in early September.  KATU News photo Here's some excerpts from "EPA hauls hazardous waste from homes burned in Beachie Creek fire." Static from Geiger counters and creaks from metal echoed as crews in hazmat suits carefully inspected and sorted rubble where a house once stood off E. Central Road in Gates.  The property, devastated by the Beachie Creek Fire in early September, is one of many sites across the state being cleared of hazardous waste by…
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