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About Applegater. (Jacksonville, OR) 2008-current | View Entire Issue (July 1, 2018)
18 Summer 2018 Applegater OPINIONS Thompson Creek neighbors mobilize to deny permit More fake climate change information BY JOAN PETERSON BY ALAN VOETSCH A recent public hearing went like a textbook example of what a public hearing should be: the people spoke, the commissioners heard them, and a permit was denied. Here is the story. When Christopher and Kirsten Shockey received notice in the mail that the Apple Jam Music Festival had applied for a permit with Jackson County to hold their May 18 - 20 concert on a property adjacent to the Shockeys’ home, they were stirred into action. Kirsten alerted neighbors by email, and the word began to spread. Eighteen people showed up for a meeting at a neighbor’s home, petitions were passed around, and the work began. The Apple Jam Music Festival has been held for the past nine years, most recently near the Provolt Store, and the attendance has grown every year. When Apple Jam began, it was a small gathering with a few bands and a local audience. By last year, the attendance had grown to 2,300 people, camping out in tents, RVs, pickups, campers, and cars. Along with the numbers came alcohol and substance abuse that disrupted and alarmed the community. The Thompson Creek neighbors banded together with the idea that this shouldn’t be allowed to happen in their neighborhood of farmers, ranchers, livestock, children, and retirees, all connected by a narrow country road. With less than a week before the hearing at the Jackson County Courthouse, over 200 signatures were collected by the Thompson Creek neighbors and dozens of letters were written to the Jackson County Development Department giving reasons why the neighborhood along Thompson Creek Road wasn’t an appropriate venue for the Apple Jam Music Festival. On April 5, the day of the hearing, Thompson Creek neighbors lined up at the door of the courthouse auditorium. The room filled to capacity, and many people signed up to speak. The county administrator read from the application and explained that the Apple Jam promoters had met all of the legal requirements and conditions for the permit to be approved. One after another, for over 90 minutes, residents spoke of the dangers of holding an event at the edge of Jackson and Josephine counties on a narrow, winding road where there is little or no cell-phone service, extreme fire danger, and difficulty getting emergency vehicles in and out in a timely manner. After the testimony from residents of Thompson Creek, Blake Norris, one of the event organizers, took the podium. He listed the conditions that he and his partner had met in preparation for the event and explained how this event would benefit the community economically. He told the audience that the event managers had passed all of the county’s requirements to hold the Apple Jam Music Festival on Thompson Creek. And then, to everyone’s surprise, he asked the Board of Commissioners a remarkable question: If the Apple Jam Music Festival withdrew its application, would his $2,500 deposit be refunded? The audience gasped. The county administrator explained that if the county commissioners voted against the event, the deposit would be refunded minus the county’s costs for work already done on the permit. Mr. Norris then stated that he didn’t want conflicts and that an alternative site was already being considered. The deliberation continued until a vote was taken by the commissioners, who denied the permit by a vote of two to one. (Roberts and Strosser in favor of denial; Dyer opposed.) The audience cheered and applauded the commissioners’ vote, and the meeting was adjourned. Outside the courthouse a few Thompson Creek residents thanked Blake Norris for his generous offer and declared themselves ready to pass the hat among their neighbors to help defray the costs that he and his partners might have lost for having made this application. It seems that the Apple Jam Music Festival will go on, but at another venue—not, to the residents’ relief, on Thompson Creek. Joan Peterson and Larry Francis 541-846-6988 I see that the previous issue of the Applegater carried an article that mentioned global warming and climate change several times but offered zero proof that can separate human-caused climate change from naturally occurring climate change. And that, folks, is exactly why my last Applegater article was titled “Real climate change versus fake climate change.” Thank you, contributor, for proving my point that almost all climate information provided to the general public is useless and meant to accomplish a political agenda. I like what Carl Sagan said: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” I believe in the scientific method; I just don’t believe in unproven alarmism from environmentalists with political agendas. And it appears that that same contributor has also read some of my past articles here and has found out that the planet has been warming since the last ice age ended. I’ve already covered this, but nice to see we’re all caught up. I’m going to include a temperature graph of the last 10,000 years since that ice age ended for all to see. Look at the patterns that happen every 1,000-plus years. We’re currently at the far right—see how warm the last 10,000 years have been? See how the pattern would seem to indicate that another warm period should be happening about now? Strange, isn’t it? It’s called natural variability, and it is not caused by humans—unless our ancestors had gigantic organized bonfires every 1,000 years since the ice age. These warmings are most likely the result of two different solar cycles—the 87-year Gleissberg cycle and the 210-year DeVries-Suess cycle—that combine every 1,470 years. My guess is that we have more warming coming our way based on past history. (See graph below.) So the truth is that those of us here in the Applegate Valley are not in any more danger from forest fires simply because we choose to live in a civilized society and enjoy some of the comforts available to us. Most warming occurs naturally, and some people want to take political advantage of Mother Nature. A large increase in CO 2 may raise temperatures slightly, but CO 2 is only a weak greenhouse gas and an essential trace gas for plant life. Methane is 20 to 30 times more potent, and water vapor is far more plentiful and by far the most influential greenhouse gas. Much of the temperature record has been corrupted. Check out this online article on how and why past temperatures are “adjusted” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association: investors.com/ politics/editorials/the-stunning-statistical- fraud-behind-the-global-warming-scare. And a link so you have insight into the 97 percent “consensus”: youtube.com/ watch?v=SSrjAXK5pGw. Now, I’m adding some quotes from some powers that be in the climate industry to show what their real agenda is. Quote by Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.” Quote by Chris Folland of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office: “The data don’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations [for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions] upon the data. We’re basing them upon the climate models.” Quote by Christine Stewart, former Canadian environment minister: “No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits...climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Quote by Ottmar Edenhofer, high- level official of the United Nations- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy...Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization...One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.” New books to read: The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science by Tim Ball, PhD, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, Eco-Tyranny by Brian Sussman, and The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert by Donna Laframboise. Alan Voetsch alan_voetsch@yahoo.com Temperatures over the past 10,000 years recorded in the GISP2 Greenland ice core. Church yard sale Friday and Saturday, July 27 - 28, 9 am - 3 pm Applegate Community Church 18960 N. Applegate Road, Grants Pass Free community website • Calendar of Events • Directory of Organizations Applegate Valley Connect • Community Projects • News and Stories applegateconnect.org
