Applegater Winter 2015
21
MY OPINION FROM BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR
The new normal
BY CHRIS BRATT
Evidently the sky is not falling
like Chicken Little once thought. But
it does look like our world really is
warming from greenhouse gasses that
humans spew into the sky. Despite
congressional skepticism and naysaying
about global warming, I got the word in
mid October that Medford (including
Applegate) is soon going to be the new
Redding, California, temperature wise. I
don’t know about you, but starting last
summer I thought we were already living
in Redding. Our family and neighbors
sweated through about three months of
extremely hot weather (many days over
100 degrees F), unrelenting drought, and
degraded air quality while we watched
wildfires raging north and south. Is this
the new normal for our area?
To find out, I attended a
Rogue Basin Conference on “Our
Critical Climate,” sponsored by Southern
Oregon Climate Action Now (SOCAN)
on October 13 and 14 at the Inn at the
Commons in Medford. What I and
about 175 other participants heard at
this two-day exploration of climate
change trends, impacts, and solutions
was that this warming trend is expected
to continue throughout the Rogue
Basin. Some climate models now forecast
worldwide temperature increases of as
much as five and nine degrees F by the
year 2100. Keynote speaker Dr. Phil
Mote, director of the Oregon Climate
Change Research Institute and science
professor at Oregon State University, said
that “very low snowpack, big wildfires,
[and] problems with irrigation water
supply” will become more normal for
the Northwest. Dr. Mote also said that
science tells us that coastal impacts such
as erosion and rising sea levels and forest
mortality from drought, forest fires, and
insect attacks “will become increasingly
a problem.” He stated further that these
are “things that we’ve already observed.”
These scientific forecasts of
projected climate changes are
unsettling for most of us, especially
if you experienced last summer’s record
warm temperatures or other extreme
weather patterns and changes. But this
conference was not devoted to raising
fears about climate change or beating
up climate change deniers. Rather, it
was more about developing adaptation
strategies, actions, and collaborations
to protect people and natural
resources from the harmful impacts
of a warming climate. Presentations
focused on building alliances between
individuals, government agencies,
private businesses, schools, hospitals,
Our Critical Climate:
A Rogue Basin Summit
BY ALAN JOURNET
A seventeenth-century philosopher-
mathematician, Blaise Pascal, is the
source of the argument known as Pascal’s
Wager. Basically, Pascal argued that if one
doubts God’s existence, the possibility of
eternal damnation should be enough to
persuade one into believing.
Muc h li k e o u r m o d e rn - d a y
Precautionary Principle, which argues we
should always err on the side of caution
when making difficult decisions, Pascal’s
Wager can be applied to many difficult
choices. For example, when diagnosed
with a life-threatening disease, we have
to decide whether we should accept
the diagnosis or not. Pascal’s Wager
encourages us to incorporate into our
thinking the potential costs of accepting
versus denying the medical advice.
Pascal’s Wager can also be applied
when evaluating the evidence on regional
climate trends and impacts presented at
Our Critical Climate: Trends, Impacts
and Solutions—A Rogue Basin Summit.
During the Southern Oregon Climate
Action Now-sponsored event, attendees
learned much about the grave threats we
face as a result of regional climate trends
and their impacts.
Although some local
residents might ignore the array of
climate trends currently affecting the
Rogue Basin, conference presentations
made it clear that our basin is currently
in the grip of several trends likely to
compromise both the beauty of our
region and the very way of life we cherish.
Prudence and Pascal’s Wager suggest we
address the problem.
Attendees gained clear glimpses of
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planners, transportation designers, and
the community at large. All the speakers
were certain that climate change is
occurring and reported on how their
agency or job is adapting to these
changing conditions. Many spoke about
what actions they were taking to reduce
our regional contributions to the more
damaging global problems.
A good example of this
coordination and cooperation
between our state and local
government is already happening in
Jackson County. As part of a two-year
collaboration, Jackson County and the
Oregon Health Authority Public Health
Division developed a climate change
adaptation plan to protect the health
of our community. A five-step program
was implemented to provide an overview
of local climate change and health
projections. This Climate and Health
Action Plan considers risks of injury and
death, water and vector-borne diseases,
respiratory diseases, malnutrition and
food security, and mental health. This
was just one of the many projects
outlined in the conference. Very good
and important work, I’d say.
The conference also stressed the
need to continue reducing our CO 2
emissions in Oregon, America, and the
world. It is not
enough to just
Chris Bratt
try to anticipate
the risks of a
changing climate and prepare to adapt
to the consequences. We must accept
the fact that human activities worldwide
are increasingly warming the earth. We
must do everything we can to reduce our
fossil-fuel emissions and sequester carbon
here in the United States. We are making
some progress: US CO 2 levels have been
reduced by about 12 percent since 2007,
and Oregon is down about 16 percent
during the same period.
But this is not the time to
dillydally. Devastating consequences
are on the horizon if we can’t reach
reduction agreements with the rest of
the nations in the world (especially
China and India). The United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change is preparing to meet in Paris this
December to negotiate the reduction of
carbon emissions. Hopefully, our country
can convince the other nations that we
have a common stake in finding and
using new energy sources and reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.
I think I’d like to be part of the old
normal. What about you? Let me know.
Chris Bratt • 541-846-6988
the critical and threatening trends and
projections: increasing temperature with
an increasing number of really hot days,
reduced snow pack, serious drought,
increased fire risk, steady rainfall annual
averages but with dryer summers and
moister winters. Only by focusing on
just one of these trends and ignoring the
rest is it possible to argue that we have
experienced these conditions before.
Only if we look at all the trees, can we
see the forest. Only if we see all the dots,
can we connect them.
Attendees learned how these
trends are compromising:
• our domestic and agricultural water
supplies particularly for our small
farmers, orchardists, and wine growers
• our aquatic and terrestrial natural
resources including our forests
• our tourism and recreation
• our health
• the lives of Native Americans
We also learned that these problems
are basin-wide, extending through
Josephine and Curry counties.
The second day of the conference
began with comments from Oregon
Senators Merkley and Wyden offering
glimpses into what is happening (or more
correctly, not happening) in Congress.
Attendees learned about some of the
many efforts already under way in the
region that are helping communities
respond to the climate threats. These
included discussions of many great
projects, including what Eugene is
doing and what is happening locally
in terms of domestic and agricultural
w a t e r m a n a g e m e n t , re c re a t i o n ,
renewable energy and construction, and
transportation. State Representative
Peter Buckley and State Senator Alan
Bates also offered thoughts on what is
happening at the state level and what
might be expected in the forthcoming
legislative session.
During the Wednesday afternoon
breakout sessions, many further ideas
were initiated in the areas of forest health
and fire, human health, recreation and
tourism, agriculture, transportation,
water, and individual and collective
action. SOCAN will be supporting
members of these breakout sessions as
they further develop the ideas.
Area residents interested in joining
any of these discussions are encouraged
to contact SOCAN at socan.info@
gmail.com. Conference information,
presentations, and details regarding the
breakout session projects can be found at
http://socanclimatesummit.info.
Alan Journet • alanjournet@gmail.com
Co-Facilitator, Southern Oregon
Climate Action Now
