OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, July 28, 2018
East Oregonian
Science Says record heat, fires across
the globe worsened by climate change
according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.
The explanations should
sound as familiar as the
crash of broken records.
“We now have very
strong evidence that global
warming has already put
a thumb on the scales,
upping the odds of
extremes like severe heat
and heavy rainfall,” Stan-
ford University climate sci-
entist Noah Diffenbaugh
said. “We find that global
warming has increased the
odds of record-setting hot
events over more than 80
percent of the planet, and
has increased the odds of
record-setting wet events at
around half of the planet.”
Climate change is mak-
ing the world warmer
because of the build-up of
heat-trapping gases from
the burning of fossil fuels
like coal and oil and other
human activities. And
experts say the jet stream
— which dictates weather
in the Northern Hemi-
sphere — is again behav-
ing strangely.
“An unusually sharply
kinked jet stream has been
stuck in place for weeks
now,” said Jeff Masters,
director of the private
Weather Underground. He
says that allows the heat
to stay in place over three
areas where the kinks are:
Europe, Japan and the
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AND FRANK JORDANS
Associated Press
Heat waves are set-
ting all-time temperature
records across the globe,
again. Europe suffered
its deadliest fire in more
than a century, and one of
nearly 90 large fires in the
U.S. West burned dozens of
homes and forced the evac-
uation of at least 37,000
people near Redding, Cal-
ifornia.
Flood-inducing
downpours have pounded
the U.S. East this week.
It’s all part of summer
— but it’s all being made
worse by human-caused
climate change, scientists
say.
“Weirdness abounds,”
said Rutgers University
climate scientist Jennifer
Francis.
Japan hit 106 degrees
on Monday, its hottest tem-
perature ever. Records fell
in parts of Massachusetts,
Maine, Wyoming, Colo-
rado, Oregon, New Mexico
and Texas.
And then there’s crazy
heat in Europe, where nor-
mally chill Norway, Swe-
den and Finland all saw
temperatures they have
never seen before on any
date, pushing past 90
degrees. So far this month,
at least 118 of these all-
time heat records have been
set or tied across the globe,
Page 9A
FUNDING:
Had a year
to gather
signatures
Continued from 1A
AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
Visitors rest in the shade in the midday heat at Cheonggye stream in downtown
Seoul, South Korea, Monday. The temperature in a city north of Tokyo reached 106
degrees Fahrenheit on Monday, the highest ever recorded in Japan, as a deadly
heat wave gripped a wide swath of the country and nearby South Korea.
western United States.
The same jet stream pat-
tern caused the 2003 Euro-
pean heat wave, the 2010
Russian heat wave and
fires, the 2011 Texas and
Oklahoma drought and the
2016 Canadian wildfires,
Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity climate scientist
Michael Mann said, point-
ing to past studies by him
and others. He said in an
email that these extremes
are “becoming more com-
mon because of human-
caused climate change and
in particular, the amplified
warming in the Arctic.”
Climate scientists have
long said they can’t directly
link single weather events,
like a heat wave, to human
caused climate change
without extensive study. In
the past decade they have
used observations, statis-
tics and computer simula-
tions to calculate if global
warming increases the
chances of the events.
A study by European
scientists Friday found
that the ongoing European
heat wave is twice as likely
because of human-caused
global warming, though
those conclusions have not
yet been confirmed by out-
side scientists. The World
Weather Attribution team
said they compared three-
day heat measurements
and forecasts for the Neth-
erlands, Denmark and Ire-
land with historical records
going back to the early
1900s.
“The world is becom-
ing warmer and so heat-
waves like this are becom-
ing more common,” said
Friederike Otto, a mem-
ber of the team and dep-
uty director of the Environ-
mental Change Institute at
the University of Oxford.
issues for us is it forces the
state to set a dangerous prec-
edent by cherry picking
what will and won’t be cov-
ered by insurance,” McLain
said.
She said public employ-
ees, teachers, nurses and oth-
ers serving the state would
be affected if the measure
passes because their insur-
ance would no longer cover
abortions. The measure also
“targets the most vulnera-
ble and low-income Orego-
nians,” McLain said.
The Oregon secretary of
state’s website showed Fri-
day that petitioners gathered
117,799 valid signatures,
just over the 117,578 needed
to qualify for the ballot.
The effort had a year to
gather signatures, Shannon
said, in contrast to previous
efforts when challenges left
backers with too little time
to gather enough signatures.
Oregon is one of a hand-
ful of states that allows pub-
lic funds to pay for abortions
through its Medicaid pro-
gram, with the full cost paid
by Oregon taxpayers.
“We think public funding
of abortion is wrong,” Shan-
non said.
In 1969, Oregon became
one of the first states to
decriminalize
abortion,
four years before the U.S.
Supreme Court’s Roe v.
Wade decision that affirmed
a woman’s right to abortion.
POOL: The most common way to pay for an aquatic center is via public bond
Continued from 1A
He and parks and recreation
director Larry Fetter have
been working with consul-
tants from ALSC Architects
of Spokane to put together
a report about preliminary
designs, and what the Herm-
iston-area market would
support.
“They’ve helped us work
through a lot of analysis,”
Smith said.
He said the city was
looking at the indoor pool in
the context of a “health and
wellness center” that would
provide other recreational
opportunities beyond year-
round swimming. He said
the city would need to deter-
mine what the project would
include before looking at
possible locations.
After the consultants’
part of the study is put
together, city staff plan to
do further work looking at
possible financing options.
Smith said there probably
wouldn’t be much in the
way of grants available for
the project.
The most common way
for cities to pay for aquatic
centers is through bonds.
The city has been paying off
its bond obligations for the
Hermiston Family Aquatic
Center — which opened
in 2004 — using Transient
Room Tax funds assessed
on local hotel stays and an
increase in the city’s oper-
ating levy. Two separate
attempts at a bond failed to
pass). The indoor Boardman
Pool and Recreation Cen-
ter that opened last sum-
mer was paid for by a bond
levy passed by voters in
2014, adding a property tax
of 95.5 cents per $1,000 of
assessed value.
Another option that has
been discussed is creation
of a recreational taxing dis-
trict that would possibly
include Umatilla, Stanfield
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and Echo.
Hermiston had a small
privately owned indoor
pool at the Columbia Court
Club until 2016, when the
workout center had a fire
that destroyed much of the
inside of the building. After
two years of fighting with
insurance companies, owner
Steve Watkinds posted on
Facebook in May that he
would likely not rebuild.
Hermiston also lost
another year-round swim-
ming option when the Blue
Mountain Community Col-
lege pool in Pendleton
closed. The Hermiston High
School swim team had been
commuting to Pendleton to
practice there.
Briana Cortaberria, exec-
utive assistant to the super-
intendent for Hermiston
School District, said the dis-
trict “fully intends” to have
a high school swim team
in the coming year, but
the details were still being
worked out. In the Washing-
ton Interscholastic Activ-
ities Association, which
Hermiston just joined, boys
swim season is in winter and
girls swim is in fall.