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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 8, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian 7hursday, October , Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Red flags waving on Pendleton airport project close to four years. So why the rush 7he champagne was uncorked to spend money and dig up dirt? after a million project was 7here are real questions about announced for Pendleton’s long- the feasibility of a data center at empty airport industrial ground, along the long-derided Airport Road the airport. But those questions are magni¿ed because Makad is leading extension. the effort. Pendleton city councilors gave 7his newspaper is doing its due the developers from Washington- diligence on Makad, a process that based Makad Corporation a round takes a lot of time and work. We of applause after the company will publish our ¿ndings when we said the huge data center would have the full story. employ people. Currently, we’re Pendleton economic through development and Real questions digging ¿les at the Secretary airport director remain about of State’s of¿ce, Steve Chrisman said talking to public in a report that the the feasibility and private groups project would raise that have dealt with , in tax of the project in the past. revenue per year, as —and the city Makad 7hus far, some have well as rental fees of roughly , shouldn’t spend good things to say paid to the city and some don’t. more money annually. 7he company’s Champagne development history until those is surely apropos is clearly checkered questions are if that’s the case. in Eastern Oregon Pendleton has seen — one project was answered. revenues stagnate built and Àourished, for decades, so another was built the shot in the arm is desperately but never operated, and a third needed. And development begets project — the most ambitious — development, so a huge initial never amounted to anything. And project can spur more growth at the Makad has never developed a data airport industrial park. Offering two center, anywhere. years of free rent and a reduction in We understand there is some development fees are things a city con¿dentiality that needs to be can and should do to attract large involved in economic development. investments. You can’t give away your secrets But there are real questions about to potential competitors. And we the feasibility of this project. Mostly also understand that economic because the developers are still development is not for the meek. doing their own feasibility studies. Eventually you have to throw the As we learned at 7uesday night’s dice and take a risk. But we hope city council meeting, Makad is not that Pendleton city councilors had yet sure how — and whether it is more time to do their own due possible — to get all the power diligence on this company — and they need to the site. 7hat’s kind of the contract — they signed 7uesday important; the success of the project night. depends on it. We’d be ecstatic if this project But that kind of potential hurdle goes forward. 7he city desperately didn’t stop the city from spending needs the revenue and the money like the project is a sure development. But consider us thing. It will cost roughly , skeptical. Right now, Makad has no to connect sewer and water to the skin in the game — they just got the site, and that construction is already city of Pendleton to lay out , underway even though Makad says on the off chance the stars align and the data center would not operate for the project goes forward. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS Stuff happens W ith both China and India state of the planet we know for sure having just announced major can support the modern world as we plans to curb their carbon know it.” It ¿nally gave us “a stable emissions, the sound you hear is a equilibrium of forests, savannahs, tipping point tipping. Heading into coral reefs, grasslands, ¿sh, mammals, the United Nations climate summit bacteria, air quality, ice cover, meeting in Paris in December, all the temperature, fresh water availability world’s largest industrial economies and productive soils.” are now taking climate change more It “is our Eden,” Rockstrom Thomas seriously. 7his includes the United Friedman added, and now “we are threatening States — except for some of the to push Earth out of this sweet spot,” Comment knuckleheads running to be our starting in the mid-s, when the next president, which is not a small Industrial Revolution reached most problem. of the rest of the globe and populations and When, at CNN’s GOP presidential debate, middle classes exploded. 7hat triggered the moderator Jake 7apper read statements “the great acceleration” of industrial and from Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state farming growth, which has put all of Earth’s George Shultz (who drives an electric car ecosystems under stress. 7he impacts now are powered by solar panels on his home’s obvious: “climate change, chemical pollution, roof) about how Reagan urged industry to air pollution, land and water degradation … proactively address ozone depletion, and why and the massive loss of species and habitats.” Shultz believes we should be just as proactive 7he good news is that in this period many today in dealing with climate change, he got more of the world’s have-nots have escaped the usual know-nothing responses. from poverty. 7hey’ve joined the party. 7he Sen. Marco Rubio said, “We’re not going bad news, says Rockstrom, is that “the old to destroy our economy the way the left-wing party” cannot go on as it did. 7he Earth is very government that we are under now wants good at ¿nding ways to adapt to stress: oceans to do,” while Gov. Chris Christie opined of and forest absorb the extra CO; ecosystems Shultz, “Listen, everybody makes a mistake like the Amazon adapt to deforestation every once in a while.” and still provide rain and fresh water; the 7hey sure do, and it’s not Shultz, who Arctic ice shrinks but does not disappear. has been wisely and courageously telling But eventually we can exhaust the planet’s Republicans that the conservative thing to adaptive capacities. do now is to take out some insurance against We’re sitting on these planetary boundaries climate change, because if it really gets right now, argues Rockstrom, and if these rocking the results could be “catastrophic.” systems Àip from one stable state to another Hurricane Sandy — likely ampli¿ed by — if the Amazon tips into a savannah, if warmer ocean waters — caused over $36 the Arctic loses its ice cover and instead of billion in damage to Christie’s own state, New reÀecting the sun’s rays starts absorbing them Jersey, in . in water, if the glaciers all melt and cannot But hey, “stuff happens.” feed the rivers — nature will be ¿ne, but we 7here was time when we could tolerate this will not be. kind of dumb-as-we-wanna-be thinking. But “7he planet has demonstrated an it’s over. 7he next eight years will be critical impressive capacity to maintain its balance, for the world’s climate and ecosystems, and using every trick in its bag to stay in the if you vote for a climate skeptic for president, current state,” explains Rockstrom. But there you’d better talk to your kids ¿rst, because are more and more signs that we may have you will have to answer to them later. reached a saturation point. If you have time to read one book on this Forests show the ¿rst signs of absorbing subject, I highly recommend the new “Big less carbon. 7he oceans are rapidly acidifying World, Small Planet,” by Johan Rockstrom, as they absorb more CO, harming ¿sh and director of the Stockholm Resilience coral. Global average temperatures keep Center, and Mattias Klum, whose stunning rising. photographs of ecosystem disruptions 7his is what will greet the next president reinforce the urgency of the moment. — a resilient planet that could once absorb our Rockstrom begins his argument with excesses at seemingly no cost to us, suddenly a reminder that for most of the Earth’s tipping into a saturated planet, sending us .-billion-year history its climate was “daily invoices” that will get bigger each year. not very hospitable to human beings, as it When nature goes against you, watch out. oscillated between “punishing ice ages and “For the ¿rst time, we need to be clever,” lush warm periods” that locked humanity into says Rockstrom, “and rise to a crisis before seminomadic lifestyles. it happens,” before we cross nature’s tipping It’s only been in the last , years that points. Later will be too late. We elect a we have enjoyed the stable climate conditions president who ignores this science at our peril. allowing civilizations to develop based on Ŷ agriculture that could support towns and Thomas L. Friedman won the 2002 Pulitzer cities. 7his period, known as the Holocene, Prize for commentary, his third Pulitzer for was an “almost miraculously stable and warm The New York Times. He became the paper’s interglacial equilibrium, which is the only foreign-affairs Op-Ed columnist in 1995. YOUR VIEWS We can preserve gun rights and innocent life It is not political to see a tragedy and work to prevent another one. It is not pro-life to see a tragedy and refuse to help prevent another one. It is also not pro-death nor shortsighted to worry about a loss of freedom. Surely the Second Amendment can be interpreted in such a light as to allow weapons for hunting and self-defense while simultaneously making mass shootings more dif¿cult. 7here must be a way to have a reasoned discussion on this topic, not just at a national level, but also here, among friends and neighbors. Surely media coverage can refuse to give the gunmen the infamy they seek. Perhaps the main stories can be about the people who died, the people who were injured and, particularly, the people who risked life and limb to try and stop further carnage. 7hose stories are fascinating and can make it easy for youth to study and want to be like the heroes. For many decades there was nearly unfettered access to guns, yet mass shootings were rare. What has changed? What steps can we take to strengthen family and social ties, which can help both prevent and treat isolation and loneliness? Access to mental health care is easier than ever before; how can we make it easier to admit to a problem without risking your own future? It is a favorite pastime to complain about how partisan Congress is and how they do not work together to solve our problems. Yet, as I listen to people discuss these shootings, it sounds like perhaps we may have the leaders we deserve. Just because someone disagrees strongly with you does not mean they are automatically stupid, evil, ignorant, or even misinformed. We all stand on common ground in wanting these killings to end. We have no room to complain about our legislators when we ourselves are throwing around insults and casting blame instead of listening to the other side and answering politely. We must build up trust and civility locally if we want to see it nationally. So please, the next time a conservative tells you we must put no restrictions of any kind on any weapons, or the next time a liberal tells you we must ban all weapons including the common jackknife, listen. Converse. 7hey might learn something. You might learn something. And perhaps Eastern Oregon can help show how to combine a positive gun culture with a decrease in gun, and other, violence. Patricia Case Helix Obama using grief to promote gun control According to the East Oregonian and President Obama the “country has become numb to gun violence.´ 7o declare that the American people do not care or feel the grief of those suffering from these senseless murders is callous and manipulative. Barack Obama freely admits “7his is something we should politicize.” Obama will go to Roseburg to press his gun control agenda and newspapers like the East Oregonian will help sensationalize the grief of a community in order to rede¿ne the “broadest possible reading of the second amendment.” Fortunately, the civic leaders of Roseburg still honor the Constitution and adamantly oppose politicizing the grief of the suffering for political gain. “Our Douglas County commissioners, along with Douglas County elected sheriff who is very popular, and our chief of police all came to a consensus language about him (Obama) not being welcome here to grandstand for political purposes.” Roseburg newsletter editor David Jacques expressed the sentiments of those that abhor politicizing grief. “So now he wants to come to our community and stand on the corpses of our loved ones to make some kind of political point.” America has become numb, not to senseless mass murders, but rather to the sanctity of human life. We routinely murder over a million babies every year. Abortion on demand for any reason at any time is the leading cause of death in America. We allow harvested baby parts to be sold for pro¿t yet you will never hear a word of outrage from our local newspaper or our President rushing to Roseburg to capitalize on grief to promote gun control. A nation that will not protect the sanctity of life in the womb will create an environment where no life is respected. A nation that will remove all values, morals and Godly standards from schools and government will reap a whirlwind of sick individuals that have no respect for human life. Our forefathers recognized the danger of such a government. George Mason, a key author of our constitution, warned “7o disarm the people … is the most effective way to enslave them.” Patrick Henry said it best. “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect anyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force you are ruined.” Stuart Dick Irrigon