OPINION
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
A5
Choose forest protection over biomass energy
OTHER VIEWS
Carl Kiss
OTHER VIEWS
What
about our I
children?
Part 1
Marina Richie
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part
column, with the second part coming in an
upcoming edition of the Chieftain.
I
have a problem. I deeply care about
my fellow Americans. I especially
care about our children and grandchil-
dren, who are keenly observant sponges.
And I truly fear the lessons our children
glean from today’s politically motivated
behavior.
What lessons? Well, let’s consider the
millions in the United States, and the dis-
proportionately larger share of rural Amer-
icans, who live with family poverty and
food insecurity. So why would anyone in
Wallowa County support the recent end
of the 2021 Expanded Child Tax Credit,
when it reduced child poverty in our coun-
try by 30%, and helped to pay rent and
food costs for all impoverished American
families with children?
Every Sunday, our churchgoers hear
God’s second most-important command-
ment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself”. Yet Republican opposition to
continuing the 2021 Expanded Child Tax
Credit sent well over a million Ameri-
can children back into poverty. And your
children then learned that God’s second
most-important commandment is best
quickly forgotten upon exiting church.
(They know that political choices speak
louder than words emptied of meaning by
contrary actions.)
We all care, of course, about the eco-
nomic needs of our county. So why sup-
port today’s congressional Republicans’
priority to make President Biden look inef-
fectual by opposing everything he wants,
including the millions of high-wage,
green-energy jobs he wants to help cre-
ate? Don’t believe this? How about believ-
ing the potential Republican senatorial
candidates who, when asked to run, have
refused. Why? Because when they asked
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McCon-
nell for his legislative priorities before the
2024 election, he essentially responded:
“Kill whatever Biden wants. Period.”
Including those new high-paying jobs.
Why else would a party that seemingly
declared Infrastructure Week once a week
for four years, all while failing to pass an
infrastructure bill, consider disciplining its
members who recently voted for an infra-
structure bill, because passing it now con-
stituted a Biden success? Do your politics,
like your parties, also place party loyalty
above our country’s infrastructure needs?
Are you teaching your children to emu-
late today’s Republicans in Congress, by
prioritizing expressions of outrage at the
opposing party instead of legislation to
help American families address their very
real concerns? Remember, boys and girls:
If you want to feel powerful and always
right more than you want truth and solu-
tions addressing your concerns, frequent
displays of extreme anger are always pref-
erable to the rational pursuit of needed
help.
Speaking of displays of extreme anger,
let’s turn to the events of Jan. 6. Not what
Fox and Tucker told you happened, but
what your own eyes actually saw. Some
of you believe that those who gouged the
eyes, severed the fingers and injured the
brains of scores of Capitol police officers,
who smeared our Capitol’s hallways with
feces while chanting, “Hang Mike Pence,
Hang Mike Pence,” are true patriots. Does
that mean we should now cancel their real
status as traitors to our country, since they
tried to violate our Constitution by hand-
ing our presidency to the election’s loser?
Remember, boys and girls: being a bad
loser is good, but being a truly terrible
loser is even better.
How the heck did we get here? Well,
in a trend started by Newt Gingrich and
accelerated by the recent presidential
loser, conservatives have been increas-
ingly encouraged to hate and demean their
political opponents, and to mindlessly
accept their party leaders’ words. Exam-
ple? Well, there’s a sum total of zero evi-
dence that the last election was rigged, but
over 50% of Republicans believe it was
anyway because the bad loser told them
it was. So remember, boys and girls: You
must always believe today’s Republicans.
Especially when they lie to you. Like, for
example, when they call the Capitol riot of
Jan. 6 “legitimate political discourse.”
———
Carl Kiss is a lawyer living in Enter-
prise, and would welcome the opportunity
to discuss these ideas, and opposing view-
points, in Wallowa County classrooms. His
email address is ckisslaw@aol.com.
t’s no secret that the peaks and rivers
of Northeast Oregon are magnificent,
but there is a lesser-known wonder.
This corner of the state is poised to weather
climate instability better than most other
places. Why? There are still intact forest
headwaters holding and filtering waters —
vital to fish and farmer alike. The remain-
ing big trees and ancient groves are storing
tons of carbon dioxide, and sheltering both
wildlife and the human spirit, too.
That’s why we must choose protection
of our mature and ancient forests over false
promises of biomass — the burning of trees
as “renewable energy.” Biomass burning
power plants emit 150% the carbon diox-
ide of coal, and 300%-400% of the car-
bon dioxide of natural gas, per unit energy
produced.
The “renewable” argument goes this
way — trees grow back and will then once
again store carbon. But trees burned today
release carbon dioxide today — and seed-
lings take a long time to grow and cannot
come close to rivaling the carbon storage of
trees that are even 30 years old, let alone a
century or more. Scientific studies are con-
clusive that the older and bigger trees store
far more carbon and for longer than young
trees.
I am mystified why biomass energy
is taking off in Northeast Oregon with a
heavy reliance on subsidies — it’s not cost
effective. There’s also the insidious argu-
ment that biomass simply uses up excess
pieces of wood that would otherwise go to
waste. No. Biomass creates a huge drive
for wood, wood and more wood to burn.
That wood comes at the expense of fish and
wildlife habitat, functioning ecosystems
and carbon sequestration.
Why would we want to add even more
carbon dioxide into our atmosphere with
some vague notion we will lower it later?
Here in the West, we are in the worst mega-
drought in 1,200 years, according to a Feb-
ruary 2022 report in the journal Nature Cli-
mate Change.
And that’s not all — the Intergovern-
mental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC)
just released findings showing we are in big
trouble — with billions of people around
the world already suffering from sea rise,
heat, flooding and extreme weather. We’re
seeing the effects here, and it’s not going to
get better with false solutions.
We must move quickly to reduce fos-
sil fuel emissions and safeguard our car-
bon-storing trees. Instead, we’re adding a
staggering 40 billion metric tons of carbon
dioxide per year to the atmosphere, while
we’re destroying the forests that are our
allies.
But, what about the wildfires? Don’t we
have to thin forests in response and why
shouldn’t we then burn those trees for bio-
mass? But here’s the problem — thinning
is often a term for industrial logging that is
applied not just at the wildland urban inter-
face but across wide swathes of forests and
in the backcountry. Logging makes wild-
fires — and the climate crisis — worse.
Wildfires may billow smoke, but the
vast majority of forest carbon stays on site.
Not so for biomass burned to completion.
Yes, there will be more wildfires, but we
live in ecosystems that have evolved with
fire, but not logging. The key is to pro-
tect our communities by using our lim-
ited resources to thin small trees close to
homes.
We can still keep Northeast Oregon cli-
mate-resilient and beautiful — if we act
now. Protect our mature and older for-
ests and big trees on federal lands. Explore
mechanisms to pay private landowners well
for keeping their trees standing. Embrace
solar, wind, and energy conservation — in
ways that preserve our natural ecosystems
that are our last best hope.
I think we all want future generations to
know the vanilla scent of a centuries-old
pine and to be able to dip their toes into
clear, cold, fish-filled rivers.
———
Marina Richie is a natural history
writer, journalist and author of the forth-
coming book, Halcyon Journey in Search
of the Belted Kingfisher. She is a prior res-
ident of La Grande, and now makes her
home in Bend.
What is driving gas prices, and what should we do?
OTHER VIEWS
Jan Blair
T
wo pieces in the March 16 Chief-
tain intrigued me: one by a reporter
for the EO Media Group, with the
somewhat misleading headline “Gas Prices
soar as Russian Invasion in Ukraine contin-
ues;” and the other Rich Wandschneider’s
excellent column titled “Six-dollar gas and
the war in Ukraine.”
In the first, a woman from Moses Lake,
Washington, was interviewed at an Island
City diesel fuel station by the EO Media
reporter, asking her about the price of die-
sel. “It’s a bad deal, and I don’t think it
would be this way if Trump would’ve
stayed in.” Setting aside the unlikeli-
hood of NATO and the EU nations stand-
ing shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S.
against Vladimir Putin’s invasion, which
Trump described as “genius” and “savvy,”
most people who agree with that Washing-
ton driver probably didn’t bother to read
the rest of the article, that quite clearly
showed there’s far more to the high prices
of gas and diesel than Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine.
On CBS Sunday Morning, David
Pogue interviewed two experts who gave
a crash course in “Economics 101 — Sup-
ply and Demand.” In a nutshell: Fuel use
(demand) dropped precipitously in 2020
when COVID hit, the lockdowns began
and travel stopped. Oilfield workers no
longer came to work because of the drop
in travel and rigs were shut down (supply).
With the end of COVID lockdowns, people
have more money to spend and are eager to
begin traveling again (demand). The petro-
leum industry began ramping up supply,
but demand was spiking all over the globe.
Meantime, Russia invaded Ukraine and
most of the NATO and EU nations stopped
ordering Russian oil. As Jason Bordoff, a
Global Energy Policy specialist at Colum-
bia University, described it, “the global
market was hit with a ‘double whammy’ —
first the pandemic, and then the invasion of
Ukraine. ... There was less oil in the global
bathtub of oil.” The U.S. gets (according
to Bordoff) only about 3% of its oil from
Russia (the EO Media article put it at 8%);
other nations get much more of their oil
from Russia than does the U.S. so those
nations had to find other sources.
When asked if President Biden should
be blamed, Bordoff described it this way:
The president is “a small cog in a big
wheel. The president may try to steer one
wheel of an 18-wheeler, but he can’t steer
it alone. The market is the predominant
control.” Nor should gas station owners
be blamed. Patrick DeHaan, chief analyst
with “Gas Buddy” (helps people locate the
cheapest gas in their area), says there are
very few, if any, incidents of price goug-
ing. The price at the pump is set by the
price of oil on the global market. Recently,
China went into full lockdown again due to
a spike in the latest COVID variant, and oil
prices on the global market dropped 30%,
Bordoff said.
I hope that everyone read Rich Wand-
schneider’s column. It is a great history
lesson, and a lesson in patriotism, akin to
the economics lesson described above.
He imagines being Biden’s speechwriter.
“Vladimir Putin is the darkest thing that
has happened to Russia and neighboring
countries since Hitler’s siege of Leningrad
and Stalin’s wholesale killings and relo-
cations of real and perceived enemies.” ...
“There is an unholy echo in Putin to these
ruthless predecessors.” ... “This is the big-
gest threat to all of us since Hitler and Sta-
lin. Buck up and join the world in putting
down this international menace. Put a but-
ton on your chest and pay $6 for your gas.
We’re all in this together.”
My son, husband and I are with the 63%
of Americans who say they are willing to
pay more at the pump. As Rich describes
it:
“...yes, a few people will be hurt. Give
them gas coupons, a practice we developed
in WWII and Safeway uses now.”
Thank you, Rich, for your column.
———
Jan Blair lives in Joseph. She is a retired
senior legal secretary for a large law firm
with offices in three states and the District
of Columbia, and is a deacon at Lostine
Presbyterian Church.
Visitor Guide inside this week’s Chieftain, ready to go
FROM THE
EDITOR’S
DESK
Ronald Bond
W
e have several major projects we
take on over the course of the
year here at the Chieftain.
Easily the most daunting of all, though,
is our annual Visitor Guide.
This is a major heft, one that requires an
all-hands-on-deck mindset. And for good
reason. It is a product that not only gets
into the hands of our subscribers — they
are inserted in today’s edition of the Chief-
tain, so get a copy if you are not a sub-
scriber — but into the hands of thousands
who visit the county throughout the year
(hence the name).
The aim of the Visitor Guide (as is each
edition of the Chieftain) is to inform. To
give those embarking on a summer trip —
whether it is their first time here or their
71st — ideas of activities they can under-
take. It tells of the many popular events
that come here each year (which, side note,
it’s exciting that those events appear to be
on schedule this year after two years of dis-
ruptions and/or cancellations due to the
pandemic).
In addition to the information about
what events are taking place and what
activities can be done are several stories
that dive a little deeper. One looks at the
growth of the JB Railriders as it becomes
a reason on its own to visit the county.
Another digs into the recent happenings
involving the Wallowa Band of the Nez
Perce Tribe and its efforts to return home.
A third looks at the next 75 years of Chief
Ronald Bond/Wallowa County Chieftain
Shown is one copy of the new 2022 Wallowa County Visitor Guide among more than 15,000
other that arrived at the Chieftain office last week. They are available now, and are in today’s
edition of the newspaper.
Joseph Days. And there is much more than
just these.
Alongside the stories are dozen of
vibrants ads for numerous businesses in the
county — and if they were not a part of it,
there is no way this product would happen.
I will say, from a personal standpoint,
it was impressive to arrive to the office
last week and see two pallets containing
between them more than 15,000 copies of
the Visitor Guide to disperse through the
county in the coming weeks and months.
We are quite pleased with the way it turned
out, and we hope you are as well. And, we
hope that the information inside is infor-
mative, not only to those coming here
this year to visit, but also to our loyal
subscribers.
If you are a business who would like
to have a box of visitor guides to give out,
please reach out at editor@wallowa.com.
———
Ronald Bond is the editor of the Wallowa
County Chieftain.