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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 25, 2018)
LET TERS A FUTURE TO BELIEVE IN Imagine: The next breakthrough in clean, renewable energy could be formu- lating in the minds of a Lane County high- schooler right now. What can we do to fos- ter that idea and bring it to reality? The Clean Energy Jobs Bill to be con- sidered in the legislative short session is a recognition of the increasing risks climate change represents. Lane County will ex- perience more fires, reduced snowpack, drought and other severe weather events like the ice storm as global temperatures continue to increase. The impacts of cli- mate change can no longer be ignored, the solutions no longer delayed. Now is the time to act. With proper planning and preparation, Lane County can position itself as a leader in Oregon for clean-energy technology and infrastructure. A trained workforce is essential to maximizing impact in a clean energy economy. Students in our high schools should be prepared for these jobs and for higher education programs at community colleges and universities. No high school graduate should have to go to California to gain the skills for building energy efficient housing, installing solar and wind energy projects, and how to utilize our timber and agricul- ture lands as a sustainable, carbon seques- tering force against climate change. We envision Oregon leading the way in green energy jobs, in being prepared for and recovering from increased fires, drought conditions and changing rain pat- terns. With the best-educated and trained workforce and investments in clean energy jobs, we can assure a bright future for our children and grandchildren. James Barber Candidate for East Lane County Commissioner Walterville PROTESTING TOO LOUDLY It seems the vigor with which the City Council resists an independent, voter-ap- proved auditor suggests that is precisely the solution that Eugene needs. Carol Lavery Eugene NUCLEAR LEGACY Thanks to Bob Warren for telling the story (“They Saved Our Butts,” 1/18) of the citizen’s group that defeated EWEB’s plan to build a nuclear power plant on the coast in the early ’70s. I’ve been in Eugene since the late ’80s and I’ve never heard that story. Remembering our history can help prevent us from repeating it. In the scramble to come up with solu- tions to climate change, some people are promoting nuclear power. But if the green- house gases emitted in all the stages of the lifecycle of a nuclear power plant are calculated, the carbon footprint of nuclear power is above the recommended 2030 threshold of 50 gCO2/kWh. And let’s not forget that there is still no national spent-fuel repository in the U.S. The waste from the closed Trojan Nu- Encircle Films Presents or fro m ld beads Starting Over Begins Within: Rethinking Freedom Inside and Out of a Texas Jail w a ro und the Thursday, Feb. 1st • 6PM Bijou Art Cinemas, 492 E. 13th Avenue 2833 Willamette • (541) 683-5903 DISCUSSION AND Q&A AFTER www.harlequinbeads.com HEDCO Autism and Research Training Center RECEIVE UP TO $150 WWW.ENCIRCLEFILMS.ORG Do you have a child on the autism spectrum between the ages of 3-7 years old? Does your child communicate verbally but have some diffi culty labeling things or answering questions about their environment? in gift cards FOR FULL PARTICIPATION If you would like your child to experience teaching strategies designed to teach language skills, please join our research study. CONTACT TRISH ZEMANTIC TO LEARN MORE! Email: zemantic@uoregon.edu Phone: 203-314-7474 *This is a dissertati on study being conducted by Patricia Zemanti c, M.S. from the School Psychology Program at the University of Oregon, work- ing under the supervision of Laura Lee McIntyre Ph.D., BCBA-D. 4 What the study will involve? • Answer questions about you and your child • Provide feedback about the teaching strategies we use • Drop your child off at a clinic at the University of Oregon 2 to 4 times per week for 2 to 2 ½ hour appointments • We expect the study will take between 7-16 weeks January 25, 2018 • eugeneweekly.com clear Power plant is still stored along the Columbia River, where it is vulnerable to natural disaster and terrorist attack. Nuclear waste takes 700 million years for its radiation to drop by half. What arro- gance for us to subject our descendants and all the life on this planet to such extreme toxicity! Last year, the Oregon Senate passed a bill that would have ended our state ban on nuclear power. Currently, EWEB is the largest buyer of nuclear power from the Columbia nuclear power plant in Wash- ington. Please contact your state senators and representatives and EWEB and tell them you don’t want nuclear power. The climate solution is renewables and energy conser- vation. Sharon Blick Eugene TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS What has died at South Eugene High School is this: In 1926, a brave boy stood up and read two poems by Walt Whitman to his E-Club mates: “The Song of the Broad-Axe” and “The Song of the Exposi- tion.” The boy gave an inspired dramatic read- ing because he imagined Whitman’s words had created the ability for a boy to become a man by self-proclamation. His mates were convinced. Joining together, they all became bold and named themselves “the men of the axe.” Hence, Axemen were born. Circumstantial evidence is enough to make that story probable, even if it can- not be proven true. But who cares anymore about Walt Whitman and his Leaves of Grass, his grand visions for America, even along the “Willamette” (River) “in Or- egon” where “cheerful axemen are Wield- ing all day their axes” — should anyone care? If the old mythology is now dead, a new mythology needs to be born. In light of the needs of those who want change, I propose that the South Eugene High School Axe- men should be renamed the Ursula K. Le Guin “High School Fantastics.” Steven A. Sylwester Eugene NEW MASCOTS Living in a city with such a deep his- tory involving the timber industry, I am in- terested in a name for South Eugene High School that is aligned with the our state’s beautiful forests, but without logging’s harmful environmental and ecological im- pacts. For instance, the South Eugene Hoe- dads — the Hoedads were a Eugene-based, worker-owned tree planting collaborative. For many years they were the largest work- er-owned collaborative in the nation, noted for their groundbreaking environmental- ist and feminist actions. Since 1971, their reforestation work has had innumerable positive affects across the state. Another idea is the South Eugene Spot- ted Owls — strix occidentalis is an endan-
