Eugene weekly., October 13, 2011, Page 8, Image 8

FORMER BLACK PANTHER SPEAKS
The city of Eugene is making progress on reducing
greenhouse gas pollution, but the tough, substantial action
may lie ahead.
Last year the Eugene City Council voted unanimously
in favor of implementing a Community Climate and
Energy Action Plan created with the involvement of more
than 500 citizens.
After a year of progress in implementing the plan,
“clearly we are on the right track,” city climate and energy
coordinator Matt McRae told the council this week.
McRae projected a graph showing that motor fuel use,
the leading indicator of local greenhouse gas pollution, has
declined with the recession but was already on a declining
trend before the housing collapse. He also said the city has
made progress in the last year on moving forward with a
majority of the actions called for in the climate plan, while
a quarter remain unchanged.
But the biggest council actions on climate change could
come in the next six months when elected offi cials will set
the city’s growth and transportation policy for the next 20
years. The council will vote on whether to hold the existing
urban growth boundary or allow more urban sprawl under
its Envision Eugene process. Also, the council will decide
whether to continue to spend heavily on freeways and roads
or whether to emphasize biking, walking and buses as part
of a new Eugene transportation plan.
The climate plan has three goals: reducing Eugene
greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels
by 2020; reducing fossil fuel use 50 percent by 2030;
and identifying strategies to adapt to climate change and
increasing fuel prices.
A key part of the plan is a 20-minute neighborhoods
strategy of compact places where residents have easy
access to grocery stores, restaurants, schools, parks and
other services by bike, car and transit and without having
to rely heavily on cars. The neighborhoods are served by
bike lanes, sidewalks and bus routes that enable alternative
transportation.
“We’re certainly not suggesting that everybody has
to give up their car,” McRae said. The neighborhoods
envisioned “really focus on the ability to make trips
without a car.”
McRae provided a long list of advantages to the walkable/
bikeable neighborhoods including: reduced congestion,
reduced crime from eyes on the street, access to affordable
transportation, disabled access, reduced city transportation
costs, reduced individual transportation costs, healthy
fi tness and reduced auto accidents. By allowing people to
purchase less gas, the mixed-use, compact neighborhood
strategy will spur the local economy by keeping money
here, he said. More than two-thirds of the $200 million
spent locally on gas every year leaves the community,
McRae said.
Downtown Eugene is a good example of “being able to
meet a lot of your needs without having to hop in to a car,”
McRae said. Other examples are in the Royal Avenue node
and at 24th and Hilyard, he said.
Councilors appeared to support the climate plan and
20-minute neighborhood strategy.
“It is a measurable good,” Councilor George Poling said.
“We are going in the right direction,” Councilor Alan
Zelenka said. He said the plan will save money on gas,
new roads and heating. “We will have more money in the
pockets,” he said. “It will be a very powerful story to tell
in fi ve years.”
Councilor George Brown pointed to fi gures indicating
that energy use had declined even with a growing
population. “That’s impressive,” he said.
8 OCTOBER 13, 2011
EUGENE WEEKLY
PHOTO BY TRIP JENNINGS
CLIMATE ACTION
Former Black Panther, Louisiana prison activist and co-founder of the Common Ground Collective Malik
Rahim (born Donald Guyton) will speak 7 pm Friday, Oct. 14, at First Christian Church about preparedness in
what he calls “turbulent times.”
Rahim is a recipient of the Thomas Merton Award, an internationally renowned accolade awarded to
individuals who strive to enact change and social justice.
“It’s about recognizing that this isn’t really a war on terror but a
war on terra, against the Earth itself and all the living things it
contains, so somebody can make a buck,” coordinator Gordon
Sturrock says of Rahim’s Building on Common Ground
event. The Common Ground Collective has distributed aid
and facilitated community health clinics throughout the
United States.
“I think he’ll make a convincing case that this is a
time for reaching out across all of our divides,” Sturrock
says of Rahim. — Dante Zuñiga-West
PROTEST FOR THE FOREST
Over the dissent of more than one hundred protesters, Oregon’s State Land Board voted to drastically increase
the clearcut logging on the Elliott State Forest on Oct. 11. Protesters organized by the Friends of Oregon’s Forests
rallied at the Salem meeting in an effort to persuade the board, which is made up of the governor, secretary of
state and state treasurer, to look for other ways of managing the forest.
The Elliott is Common School Fund land, meaning profi ts from the forest go to fund K-12 schools. “We want
to see schools adequately funded but not at the expense of irreplaceable older rainforests,” says Josh Laughlin of
Eugene-based Cascadia Wildlands, one of the groups participating in the rally.
Laughlin says there are “24,000 acres of commercially viable plantations on the Elliott.” He says these 30- to
60-year-old trees could be sustainably logged rather than clearcutting the older native and mature forests. “Better
forest practices translate into improved fi shing, recreation and carbon storage,” he says.
Rally participant Trip Jennings says the land board’s vote was “more representative of the interests of a special
few, rather than the general public,” and he says rally participants were frustrated by the vote.
As the State Land Board left the meeting after the vote, protesters asked the members, who are all elected
offi cials, “Who do you work for?”
Protesters at the rally held signs with slogans including “Save our salmon,” “Carbon not clearcutting” and
“Timber barons are the 1 percent.” Kate Ritley, also of Cascadia Wildlands, says the vote was “a huge step in the
wrong direction.” But she says forest groups plan legal challenges as well as future protests. “We’re not going to
go down without a fi ght.”
As the rally ended, in response to cry of “I think we know what to do next!” the crowd shouted, “Occupy,
occupy!” — Camilla Mortensen
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