VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, August 21, 2021
East Oregonian
A5
BETTE
HUSTED
FROM HERE TO ANY WHERE
The power of
stories to pull
us through
L
ocal columnists had chosen titles
that revealed the perspectives of
their voices: From the headwa-
ters of Dry Creek; From the tractor seat;
From sunup to sundown. Since I would
be writing about the power of stories,
I decided to call mine From here to
anywhere.
Sometimes stories take us to fright-
ening places. Years ago, I severed two
tendons in my left hand, and I remember
the helpless shock of not being able to
flex my fingers. This month my husband
had a similar experience when suddenly
he couldn’t move his legs. All summer
we’d been walking around Community
Park, and now — the future looked dim.
But after 15 calls, St. Anthony Hospi-
tal finally found a hospital with room to
accept one more patient, and he was on
the helicopter to Seattle and life-renew-
ing surgery.
We were among the lucky ones. A
few days later, according to the East
Oregonian, the St. Anthony Emergency
staff would call 20 hospitals for a patient
who needed a transfer, this time without
success.
This shortage of hospital beds is,
of course, the result of two conflicting
stories. Stories have power: Can anyone
doubt that, now? Power to destroy as
well as create. Hoping for solace as we
waited for a post-surgery rehab bed —
they were full, too, all over the North-
west — I turned to the books I’d stuffed
into my pack just before the hurried
drive over Snoqualmie Pass.
One was a collection of poems by
Maggie Smith. You may have found
“Good Bones” on Facebook last year —
to many people, it seemed the perfect
take on 2020. “Life is short,” she wrote,
“though I keep this from my chil-
dren. … Life is short and the world /
is at least half terrible, and for every
kind / stranger, there is one who would
break you, / though I keep this from my
children. I am trying / to sell them the
world. Any decent realtor, / walking you
through a real sh*thole, chirps on / about
good bones: This place could be beau-
tiful, / right? You could make this place
beautiful.”
The other book in my pack was David
Treuer’s “The Heartbeat of Wounded
Knee” — a title echoing Dee Brown’s
famous “Bury My Heart at Wounded
Knee.” Published in 1970, Brown’s book
contended that in the 30 years before the
1890 massacre at Wounded Knee, “the
culture and civilization of the Ameri-
can Indian was destroyed … if readers
should ever chance to see the poverty,
the hopelessness, and the squalor of a
modern Indian reservation, they may
find it possible to truly understand the
reasons why.”
Imagine being a Native college
student reading that sentence. No
culture? No civilization? Nothing but
poverty, hopelessness, squalor?
Treuer’s own book tells a different
story: a story of survival, resilience, and
adaptation —“the sound of a heartbeat
going on” — even through genocidal
attacks and the greed of unscrupulous
agents, through boarding schools and
the Allotment Act, from the Court of
Indian Offenses to the 1978 Religious
Freedom Act, through two world wars,
termination and relocation, AIM and
Standing Rock, casinos and tribal capi-
talism and digital connectedness. As he
travels the country listening to stories
of people from several reservations and
cities he shared his own experiences
from his Leech Lake Reservation child-
hood and beyond.
During his travels he realizes that the
descendants of Wounded Knee survi-
vors — and other Indian communities
around the country who have had their
own holocausts — “survived to make
mistakes and to recover from them.
They survived to make history, to make
meaning, to make life ... and in doing so,
to make the story of the country itself.”
In other words, he says, he has “tried
to catch us not in the act of dying,
but, rather, in the radical act of living.
Because at the heart of the political
convulsions that now grip the country
we love lies a human question. A simple
one. What kind of country do we want
to be?”
As I closed the book, I heard the man
in the next bed struggling to breathe.
I can only hope the stories we listen to
now will be stories of compassion for
our neighbors and unvaccinated chil-
dren. And should you need one, I hope
there will be a bed for you.
———
Bette Husted is a writer and a student
of tai chi and the natural world. She lives
in Pendleton.
Climate crisis: We did this to ourselves
CYLVIA
HAYES
OTHER VIEWS
he devastating findings recently
released by the Intergovernmen-
tal Panel on Climate Change really
shouldn’t surprise anybody. But it should
break our hearts. It does mine. Mountains
of real-world scientific evidence already
showed we are nowhere near the level
of action needed to prevent catastrophic
climate change and its consequences.
Look no further than our own home, the
Pacific Northwest. An unprecedented heat
dome broke temperature records, killed
hundreds of people and even baked mussels
and clams alive in their shells. Mount Rain-
ier lost a third of its snowpack in that one
heat event. There simply isn’t enough water
for rivers, fish and farmers, at least the way
irrigation is currently conducted. Forests are
stressed by drought and burning at massive
rates and intensity. Smoke, haze and
unhealthy air is our new summer norm.
Sadly, these kinds of catastrophes and
challenges are happening all across the
globe.
We did this to ourselves. We failed to
act, at scale, because we are all addicted to
fossil fuel and the insane concept of a limit-
less growth economy on a planet of finite
resources. Even those of us who have been
trying to get attention and action on this
issue for over 30 years are part of the same
addicted system. Now, because we didn’t
act, the scale and scope of action required is
staggering.
But action is still possible. There is still
a small, small window to slow climate
change to a level that we and many other
species can adapt to. The science is really
clear: Every fraction of a degree of addi-
tional warming makes the future worse,
which means every fraction we avert makes
it better.
So, what is needed? At a policy level
we must drastically reduce greenhouse
gas emissions immediately and get on a
path toward zero net emissions by 2050.
T
We already have the ability to do this but
have lacked the collective and political will,
nationally and globally. Steps to take:
• Massive investment in clean energy
technologies, combined with unprecedented
policies such as government buy out of old,
inefficient cars so that people can afford to
upgrade to electric, low-emission options.
• Cap methane leaks at all fossil fuel
extraction sites, immediately. Methane is a
far more dangerous climate change pollut-
ant than CO2.
• Let the so-called free market actually
work. Stop keeping gasoline artificially cheap
at the pump. Just recently President Biden
asked oil producers to increase production to
bring down gas prices. That might feel nice
to all of us who aren’t rich, but it’s a bonehead
move if we want a livable planet.
• Relocalize the economy. Rebuild local
supply chains. Stop burning fossil fuel, and
the planet, shipping stuff across the globe.
At the personal level we all need to
reduce our energy consumption, drive
less, etc. — the things we already know we
should do.
More importantly, in my opinion, and
I’ll probably tick some people off here, we
need to stop buying stuff we don’t need,
stop indulging in retail therapy. Every item
that includes plastic, or metal, or glass, that
is shipped or trucked contributes to climate
change. Buying used and buying local is
every bit as big a positive action as driv-
ing less. Finally, and I’m sure to really tick
some folks off here, eat less meat. The meat
industry is one of the biggest contributors of
climate change pollution in the world.
Lastly, the most important action is to
finally start treating this like the urgent
crisis it is. We do not have time for the
luxury of apathy, denial, or overwhelm. The
COVID-19 delta variant may be devastat-
ing, but a destabilized planet is far more
deadly. My fervent hope and affirmation is
that the uncomfortableness of our new norm
will move us to create a saner trajectory
going forward — we still have that option,
for a very little while at least.
———
Cylvia Hayes is CEO of 3EStrategies and
founder of The ReThink.
Look for the positives in a gloomy world
ANDREW
CUTLER
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
T
here is a lot to be depressed about
right now.
The debacle in Afghanistan
continues to spill out across TV screens,
online and in print.
Fires rage and drought has a strangle-
hold on much of the western United States.
COVID-19 cases continue to climb —
and Umatilla County recorded its 100th
death from the infection recently — even
as a vaccine remains readily available.
Yes, no one must look very far to find
something to be angry, depressed or sad
about. Yet, the world isn’t all doom and
gloom. I think from time to time we forget
that fundamental axiom.
Our national economy seems to be
doing well and ahead lies autumn, and
the local area will have a whole lot to look
forward to when September rolls around.
The Pendleton Round-Up will kick off
its week-long run in September, and there
is nothing that excites me more than the
prospect of a full Round-Up Grounds in
September.
The Round-Up is an iconic fixture for
not only Umatilla County and the North-
west but for the entire nation. The event
will offer up a variety of special events —
including the world-renowned rodeo —
that should spell a whole lot of fun.
There is nothing quite like the
the Argus Observer are gone or have been
Round-Up, and every year I discover some modified.
What I think I remember the most about
element to the event that grabs my interest.
those Friday nights and Saturdays was the
Fall also means the start of school and
purity of the competition. I wasn’t cover-
that, in turn, will translate into a full slate
ing players making
of high school
millions of dollars, but
sports across the
watching young men
region.
WE CAN ALL STOP
and women compete
As an old
EVERY DAY AND SEE
and win.
sportswriter, not
We can all stop
much is as dear to
AND REMEMBER ALL every
day and see
my heart than the
THE THINGS THAT
and remember all the
memories I hold
things that are going
from the countless
ARE GOING WRONG
wrong in our world.
football games,
That’s why it is so
volleyball matches
IN OUR WORLD.
important to stop and
and cross-country
THAT’S WHY IT IS SO
reflect on the good
meets I attended
that we must
when I worked in
IMPORTANT TO STOP things
choose from.
Malheur County for
Go to the
the Argus Observer.
AND REFLECT ON
Round-Up — albeit
Granted, that
THE GOOD THINGS
safely — and have a
was a long time ago,
good time. And, if you
the beginning of my
THAT WE MUST
want to, check out a
newspaper career,
prep soccer, football
but there is some-
CHOOSE FROM.
thing special, some-
or volleyball game
thing hard to define,
this autumn. At the
about the start of high school competition
very least those types of events will help
in the fall.
you forget, if for only an hour or two, the
I can remember countless nights stand-
negative elements to our world.
ing under the bright stadium lights as prep
———
Andrew Cutler is the publisher/editor of
football teams competed, or striding into
the East Oregonian and the regional edito-
gyms on a Saturday to watch volleyball
rial director for the EO Media Group, over-
teams go head to head. A lot as change
seeing the East Oregonian and five more
since then. While all the teams remain,
many of the leagues that I covered while at newspapers in Eastern Oregon.