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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 30, 2015)
• A panel discussion on “Interfaith Perspectives: The Weight of the Encyclical’s Call” at 7 pm Thursday, July 30, at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 13th and Chambers. Sponsored by Interfaith Prayer Services International of Eugene. Panelists include Rabbi Jonathan Seidel (moderator), Rabbi Ruhi Sophia, Mel Bankoff and Father Thomas Yurchak. Free. • Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemorations begin this week and continue next week. Local peace groups are presenting a Kamishibai (paper story) video, remembering the atomic bomb victims, as part of the Last Friday Art Walk, from 6 to 9 pm Friday, July 31, at CALC, 458 Blair Blvd. The video was created by students of Sakurababa Junior High School in Nagasaki. At 6:30 pm until dusk Thursday, Aug. 6, near the Alton Baker duck pond will be an annual gathering calling for action “to help ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again.” See details next week or call CALC at 485-1755. • A “Save the Bees” gathering and picnic is planned for noon to 3 pm Sunday, Aug. 2, at Washington Park in Eugene. Activities include free honey tasting, pollinator plant sale and talks about preserving our pollinators. See healthybeeshealthygardens.com or call 914-2225. POLLUTION UPDATE The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is accepting comments through 5 pm Tuesday, Aug. 4 on an application from Hayden Homes for Clean Water Act permitting of discharges of construction- related stormwater pollution from Phase 1 of Rolling Meadows, a 39-lot residential development located at 10th Avenue and Oklea Drive in Junction City. Visit goo.gl/Yp4iAK for info on commenting. Doug Quirke/Oregon Clean Water Action Project LANE COUNTY AREA SPRAY SCHEDULE • ODOT is currently spraying roadsides. Call Tony Kilmer at ODOT District 5 at 744-8080 or call (888) 996-8080 for often inaccurate herbicide application information. I-5 was recently sprayed. • Joanna Lovera, 206-8827, plans to hire Oregon Forest Management Services to spray 46.6 acres south of Fox Hollow Road near Murdoch Road with Glyphos X-TRA, Polaris SP, Oust Extra and Opensight. See ODF notification 2015-781-09139, call Brian Peterson at 935-2283 with questions. • M Three Timber Co., 767-3785, plans to spot spray 104.9 acres near Muslin Creek with Garlon 3A, Polaris AC and/or Induce. See ODF notification 2015-781-10839, call Brian Peterson at 935-2283 with questions. • Giustina Land & Timber Co., 345-2301, plans to hire Northwest Forest management Services, Inc., 344-4991, to spray 144.6 acres near Hamm Road with triclopyr, imazapyr, glyphosate and/or Dyne-Amic. See ODF notification 2015-781-10785, call Brian Peterson at 935-2283 with questions. • Weyerhaeuser Company, 744-4600, plans to spray 502.2 acres in several locations west of Cottage Grove, west of Lorane, and near Battle, Beaver, Letz, Norris and Douglas creeks with glyphosate, imazapyr, triclopyr, Forest Crop Oil, Crop Oil Concentratem MSO Concentrate and/or Insist 90. See ODF notification 2015-781-10585, call Dan Menk at 935- 2283 with questions. 6 Americans tend to have our heads in the sand when it comes to climate change, but we are not alone in the world. Even in Norway, where snows are coming two months later, and where there is no organized and well-funded disinformation campaign, most Norwegians just shrug and go about their business. What’s going on? “Why are people so apathetic?” asks Kari Norgaard, an associate professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon. “It’s a paradox. There is all kinds of in- formation from the scientific community about climate change, but very little public discussion.” Norgaard spoke July 26 to a packed room of about 180 people at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Eugene. Her talk on her 2011 book Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life followed the June 24 lecture by professor Guy McPherson in the same room. But Norgaard did not focus on McPherson’s dire predictions of near-term human extinction (see our cover story July 16). Rather, she examined the sociological patterns and significance of do- ing nothing in the face of catastrophe. Norgaard chose her ancestral home of Norway for research for her critically acclaimed book. Norwegians are affluent and educated, and cli- mate change in Norway is evident and dramatic. Is there an international recipe for denial? Whether we are Americans or Norwegians, we are burdened and paralyzed, she says, by guilt for our materialistic lifestyles, fear of the future and a sense of helplessness to do anything about it. “These troubling emotions,” she says, “lead to cognitive dissonance.” Denial is both individual and collective, she says. We try to normalize our lives in the face of danger by controlling our exposure to informa- tion, thinking it’s better to not know everything, avoiding thinking too far ahead (live for today) and “having knowledge but living in a complete- ly different world.” So what can we do as individuals and as a society? Norgaard calls for us to get busy and “try to change the conversation.” She advocates for a “real discus- sion” of the issues on every level from city to global. “We need to understand how society works and how we can mobilize action,” and we need to tap into our imaginations to create alternatives, and find our place in a new and rapidly changing world. “There are many things we can do and we can do them together,” she says. “That allows us to feel less alone and it’s not so terrifying.” A follow-up interfaith panel discussion on this topic will be Thursday, July 30. See Activist Alert. — Ted Taylor HOBBIT HUTS PROPOSAL PUT ON HOLD FOR NOW Trash continues to pile up along the Willamette River this summer, mostly from homeless campers but also from local residents recreating on the river and careless anglers. Action is being taken, but it ap- pears to be mostly by volunteers, and more help is needed. The “Hobbit houses” proposal to station home- less veterans in huts along the river to keep an eye on campers is still alive, sort of. “I tried to bring this up to the various community members I work with, but it sounds like this is a very divisive issue,” says Tim Angle of St. Vincent de Paul. “I am not making any progress and its seems like it is not going to happen any time soon.” The issue came up recently in a Homeless Action listserv post by Art Bolman talking about “the divi- sive Hobbit hut scandal that rolled though the activist community a few months ago.” Bolman says, “The opposition by Alley Valkyrie and a number of home- less people at a Human Rights Commission meeting seems to have killed it, but St. Vinnie’s seems to have revived it.” St. Vinnie’s Executive Director Terry Mc- Donald delegated the project to Angle to track. Bolman says that “forcing homeless people to snitch on other homeless people as a way of get- ting shelter is unethical and predatory,” and he also questioned the motivations of Hobbit hut advocate John Brown, saying supporters have “ignored that he JILL TORRES BY PAUL NEEVEL HAPPENING PEOPLE Compiled by Jan Wroncy and Gary Hale, ForestlandDwellers.org, 342-8332. SOCIOLOGIST ASKS WHY WE IGNORE CLIMATE CHAOS July 30, 2015 • eugeneweekly.com Though she was born in Los Angeles, Jill Torres has lived in Eugene since age 3 when her parents separated and she moved north with her mom. She went from Meadowlark Elementary to Crest Drive when her mother remarried, then to Jefferson Middle School. “It was a wonderful environment,” she says, “with a lot of social justice activists.” Meanwhile, her mother got a degree in education and began teaching fifth grade at Oak Hill School. “I had the opportunity of free high school at Oak Hill,” Torres says. “My graduating class was 10 people.” She studied Spanish at Jefferson and continued at Oak Hill, where her teacher was Armando Morales. “He got me reconnected to my Latino culture and heritage,” she says. “He challenges students to do things outside the classroom.” She and Morales’ daughter Victoria became hosts of segments on Morales’ Sunday night KLCC radio Latino music program Ahora Si! “We played more modern music,” says Torres, currently in her 11th year of hosting the program. “We recruit students and train them to do radio.” She majored in Spanish and psychology at the UO, worked three part-time jobs and also volunteered with Sexual Assault Support Services (SASS) and with Ganas, an after-school mentoring service for Latino middle-schoolers. “Ganas channeled me into teaching,” says Torres, who completed a master’s in education and now teaches Spanish-immersion fifth grade at River Road Elementary. “I’ve become my mother!” She has been active with the teachers’ union in founding the Community Alliance for Public Education, a group opposed to standardized testing and privatization of education. Know anyone whose good work deserves attention in this space? Call the editor at 484-0519 or email editor@eugeneweekly.com.
