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-
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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-