LET TERS
OUR SWEET, OLD WORLD
Thanks for the information-rich cover
story “Extinction Sucks” July 16. As
our planet continues to move inexorably
toward its sixth mass extinction, we Homo
sapiens who acknowledge our collective
responsibility for the unfolding tragedy
look for ways to express our great guilt and
boundless sorrow.
“Be here now,” the brief mantra Ram
Dass urged us to embrace in the ’60s,
suggests a behavioral pattern for today.
We cannot live in the future nor dwell on
the past, yet to be truly present we must
fi nd a way to grieve, to express the often
overwhelming emotions we feel now.
In the July 20 issue of Truthout,
journalist Dahr Jamail has written an
important piece titled “Mourning the
Changes that Surround Us: Readers Speak
Out on Climate.” In the section titled
“Environmental Melancholia,” Jamail
refers to Regan Rosburg’s master’s thesis
in progress.
Rosburg suggests allowing ourselves
to feel the loss of each “mini-death” we
personally experience, such as when we
notice that the birds or bees that have
always come have now vanished from
our garden. Maybe it’s a way to mourn
our larger existential loss and to help us
experience our grief for this sweet, old
world in a personal way.
Lois Wadsworth
Eugene
A FESTIVE SUNDAY
Kudos to organizers, sponsors and
volunteers of the Eugene Sunday Streets
event July 26. It was a really festive,
entertaining and educational event. I
walked the route — which started close
to my home — where I met neighbors
for the fi rst time, bumped into some old
friends and enjoyed the various demos
and entertainers at Monroe Park and
along Broadway. I loved the house parties
of onlookers and pop-up garage sales!
I stopped short of Kesey Square
to have some tea and sit outside at
Noisette for a while to people watch.
There were so many smiling faces —
very young, very old and everyone in
between. Many sweet families! I think it
was the perfect way to spend a Sunday
afternoon. Thanks to everyone involved.
Michele Postal
Eugene
PERSISTANT POISONS
Have you been enjoying watching the
furry bumble bees visiting your garden
fl owers? Despite their love fest with your
oregano and echinacea, native and wild
bee populations are in serious decline.
Researchers are fi nding that bumbles
and other native bees are in jeopardy from
environmental stresses including habitat
loss and pesticides. An estimated 100,000
native bumble bees died from seven
acute neonicotinoid pesticide exposures
in Eugene and parts of Portland between
2013 and 2015.
Unlike honey bees living cooperatively
in hives with many worker bees, most
native bees are solitary. If the mother
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JULY 30, 2015 • EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
bumble bee is poisoned and does not
return to her nest, all her offspring and
future generations perish. The survival of
each native bee is essential to ecosystem
biodiversity.
Last month, Beyond Toxics received
a call from a Portland resident who saw
bumble bees dying on a sidewalk. We
reported it to the Oregon Department of
Agriculture, who investigated by sampling
plants and dead bees for neonicotinoid
pesticides. Their laboratory analysis indeed
showed the presence of neonicotinoid
pesticide residue in plants as well as
the dead bees. Then the investigators
discovered the plants had been sprayed a
year ago.
That means a neonicotinoid pesticide
applied to a plant in 2014 is still potent
enough to kill bumble bees in 2015!
We want to encourage individual action
and better policy to reverse the decline of
native bee populations. Please stop using
pesticides. To help save Oregon’s bees
we’re putting on a series of events during
our “Summer of Bee Love,” including the
third annual Beauty of the Bee photo and
video contest. Vote for your favorite on our
Facebook page and contact us at info@
BeyondToxics.org to request information.
Lisa Arkin,
Executive Director
Beyond Toxics
IS 350 IN DENIAL?
I’m a reporter in Toronto, Ontario.
One thing struck me about your article
July 16 on the radical predictions of Guy
McPherson: The reaction from members
of 350 seemed to deny the possibility of
McPherson’s predictions of near-term
human extinction, “no room for doom
and gloom,” a thread of hope/window still
open and the “disservice” McPherson does
by not mentioning carbon sequestration
out of the atmosphere, etc.
But why should 350 members reject
his predictions? If they were to accept his
predictions, would it motivate them to be
a little less reformist and more radical in
taking action to avert the same crisis they
are working to fi x?
By making predictions that the
climate crisis is more serious than
commonly thought based on the positive
feedback loops that could lead to abrupt
change, it seems McPherson’s is the
conservative approach rather than
assuming a margin of error based on many
unknown and unprecedented models for
anthropomorphic climate change.
Zach Ruiter
Toronto, Ontario
BUSINESS AS USUAL
After the Civic Stadium fi re the Eugene
City Council voted 8-0 to ban playing with
fi reworks in south Eugene, a rare example
of cooperation across political divides.
Actual progress on the biggest problems
we all face would require transcending
partisanship. Alleged efforts for climate
“action” pretend that Republicans are the
problem and Democrats are the solution.
It’s easy to ridicule Republicans denying
that digging up a hundred million years’
worth of stored energy is altering the
biosphere. It’s more complex (and less
popular) to challenge the pandering and
the greenwashing of Democrats.
Ted Taylor’s cover story profi le July
16 of Guy McPherson’s recent speech on
potential near-term extinction discussed
McPherson’s perspective that we’re all
doomed — versus the slow and steady
approach of mainstream environmentalism
that hopes to save us before it’s too late.
Even if climate change were magically
fi xed, there are other components to mass
extinction. We have all lived under the
threat of nuclear annihilation since Aug.
6, 1945. Habitat destruction includes
deforestation, urbanization, industrial
agriculture. Clearcuts cause desertifi cation.
Toxic and nuclear wastes threaten the
gene pool. Militarism. Overpopulation.
Overconsumption. Overfi shing.
Peaked energy and climate chaos are
two aspects of ecological overshoot. See
peakchoice.org/peak-climate.html.
We need the consciousness shift
recognizing the limits to growth on a
round, fi nite planet. The oil wells are half
empty, so business as usual is no longer
physically possible. The oil wells are half
full, so we have some resources for the
transition, if we all choose wisely.
Mark Robinowitz
Eugene
SPLINTERED APPROACH
On July 6, the Legislature passed
HB 2828, which was signed by Gov.
Kate Brown July 22. This bill is one
of the most important bills to pass the
Legislature in this session. It will fund a
study to determine the most effective and
economical way to deliver health care
services to all of Oregon’s residents. The
implementation of the results of the study
has the potential to be transformative. It
could end the economic and emotional
terror associated with needing health care
that is unaffordable.
Health care-related bankruptcies in
Oregon could become a thing of the past,
and implementation in Oregon could lead
to change nationally.
Oregon has implemented many
innovative health care programs, but the
splintered, non-comprehensive approach
seems to continually leave the end product
— universal, comprehensive health care
services for all residents — out of reach.
This passage of this bill is a major step
toward making this long sought-after care
a reality in Oregon.
Marc Shapiro
Eugene
WE CAN MAKE CHANGES
Extinction does suck! Thanks for your
informative but alarming article July 16 on
Guy McPherson’s talk giving us so little
hope to change a climate disaster. Will
he wake up those in power or does it take
everyone making a change in how we live
each day?
I only wish the pope would visit Oregon
and spread his message for carbon fees
with no time-consuming carbon trading!
I’ve read many summaries of the pope’s
amazing talk, and only The New York Times
mentioned how he discounted carbon
trading and urged a direct carbon fee. What
happened to the rest of the media and all
those groups with their response leaving
out the pope’s direction for meeting the
climate crisis? I’ll be listening to his
message when he comes to our country in
September.
I urge everyone to read UO associate
professor Kari Norgaard’s book Living in
Denial: Climate Change, Emotions and
Everyday Life. She spoke July 26 at the
Unitarian Church. I do believe we can
make the changes needed!
Ruth Duemler
Eugene
PSYCHIATRY AND TORTURE
While it is great that groups representing
psychologists are speaking out against
collusion with torture, this can potentially
expose a whole iceberg of human rights
violations.
For about four decades I have worked
as an activist for a peaceful revolution
in the mental health industry. This U.S.
government scandal reveals that we
have collectively been far too soft on
psychologists while focusing instead on
psychiatrists. For instance, my friend
and author Bob Whitaker has just co-
written a book about corruption in
psychiatry. Yes, Whitaker and his blog
“Mad In America” are today’s leaders in
this reform fi eld. But psychologists need
to speak out about way more, including
rampant abuse throughout mental health
care and even the way trauma caused by
oppression holds us back from addressing
crises in our world such as global warming.
David W. Oaks
Eugene
NATURAL DEFENSE
I just read the article about pigeons July
23. Something about it didn’t seem right.
It looked like the writer was struggling
to create controversy with the comments
about selective breeding to force the “roller
pigeons” to do something that is unnatural
and dangerous to them.
It’s been many years, but as a teenager,
I kept pigeons and had friends who kept
pigeons.
In my coop, among the dozen or so
that I had, my favorite was one which
the person I bought it from called a
“highfl ying roller.” I didn’t really know the
complete signifi cance of that name at fi rst.
Some of my friends had “parlor rollers,”
which would spin around on the fl oor
like little feathery pinwheels in reaction
to loud noises or other threats. I always
fi gured it was a defensive adaptation,
and completely natural. It certainly didn’t
appear to hurt the birds to do it. They’d just
rearrange their feathers, and hop back on
their perches afterwards. It would certainly
confuse a fox or raccoon trying to make a
meal out of the pigeon.
I never saw my highfl ying roller do
anything like that. What I did see was that
he’d fl y way up in the air and just fl y lazily
around in circles. Sometimes for an hour
or more.
Then one day he showed me the other
aspect of his name: He was attacked by a
red-tailed hawk that lived in a broken-top
fi r tree on the back side of our property
overlooking outer Fox Hollow Road. That
hawk was probably never the same after