10A | SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2021 | SIUSLAW NEWS
Community Voices
Editor’s Note: Community Voices is a
monthly feature in the Siuslaw News. It
consists of viewpoints from people in the
Siuslaw region. Siuslaw News welcomes
these opinions as part of its goal to encour-
age community discussion and exchange of
perspectives, but they should not be inter-
preted as the views of the News or its staff.
Threads of Activism — Persistence
By Michael Allen
Activist
Special to Siuslaw News
little over a year ago
on July 18, 2020, the
Siuslaw News published
my Guest Viewpoint titled
“What a Difference a Year
Makes.” It summarized all
the actions we took over
the course of one year to
get Mayor Joe Henry and
the Florence City Coun-
cilors to recognize we
were in the midst of a cli-
mate crisis and needed to
develop a comprehensive
climate action plan.
I will take this oppor-
tunity to bring you up to
date on actions taken in
the second year.
My wife Pat and I decid-
ed to adopt the approach
used by the young Swed-
ish climate activist Gre-
ta Thunberg — climate
strike. We committed our-
selves to striking in front
of Florence City Hall every
Friday until we got a posi-
tive response from the city.
This month on Sept. 10,
we will have conducted
two years of climate strikes
— many in rain, wind and
A
cold, a total of 104 and
counting.
What have we accom-
plished? Did we realize our
primary goal? If you mea-
sure it against the goal of
getting action from Henry
and the city council, then
the answer is NOT YET.
Have we made progress
in educating and rallying
the community behind
our cause? The answer is
YES.
One of the first to re-
spond to the need to act
was then-Councilor Ron
Preisler, who presented a
climate proclamation at
a council meeting in July
2020 that was crafted with
the help of members of the
Environmental Manage-
ment Advisory Committee
(EMAC).
Henry objected saying
it was “too political” and
that proclamations were
his sole prerogative.
The next opportunity
for a climate discussion
by the council came in
December 2020, when
then-Councilor
Joshua
Greene added it to the
agenda during his final re-
port as councilor. Greene
asked the council to create
a committee with commu-
nity members to address
the climate crisis. I also
submitted our petition at
the public input that also
asked for a climate com-
mittee and 23 area resi-
dents submitted letters of
support. Henry was not in
favor of such a committee,
but opened the door for
consideration of a sub-
committee at EMAC.
Jump ahead to Feb-
ruary 2021, when Hen-
ry appointed four new
members to EMAC and
appointed newly elected
Councilor Sally Wantz as
liaison.
Councilor Wantz pre-
sented a request to the
City Council for a climate
subcommittee to be estab-
lished by EMAC. Henry
said it was not up to him
to direct EMAC to do
this but would consider a
recommendation for the
work plan from them.
Nine climate activists sub-
mitted letters of support
for the subcommittee.
Lisa Walter-Sedlacek,
a new member of the
EMAC, after being elected
chair, proposed again that
the EMAC create a sub-
committee to address cli-
mate issues. Her proposal
was deferred to a special
session.
The special session nev-
er happened.
In March, four EMAC
climate deniers chose to
boycott the meeting, re-
sulting in no quorum.
This disruption occurred
despite the fact 30 activists
submitted letters to EMAC
asking them to form a cli-
mate subcommittee. The
mayor ignored the boy-
cott, stating the missing
members had already
made their case.
The City of Florence’s
work plan is locked in for
the next two years, mak-
ing it unlikely that EMAC
will become the vehicle to
address the climate crisis
head-on.
We returned to the orig-
inal demands of our peti-
tion which called for an
independent commission.
Our persistent activism
with letters to the editor
and the city council drew
out opposition, not with
well thought out, val-
id facts, but with attacks
filled with falsehoods rem-
iniscent of what has been
used before. The reaction
from climate activists was
to resubmit the climate
petition to the council in
July with nearly 500 sig-
natories and to conduct a
pre-council rally with over
20 participants.
Our consistent message
and actions have been cov-
ered by the Siuslaw News
over the last two years.
The Register-Guard in a
front-page feature arti-
cle highlighted our 83rd
climate strike as part of
their Earth Day coverage.
KXCR Community Radio
has twice interviewed me
about our climate emer-
gency campaign for their
Community
Conversa-
tions program. Our strikes
were also covered mul-
tiple times in the Elders
Climate Action national
newsletter.
Interest in our strikes
has expanded internation-
ally. Nico Mira, a gradu-
ate student in Japan, has
scheduled an interview
with me to explore the
topic of climate action
among elders. Nico’s re-
search is inspired by Greta
Thunberg and her call for
greater climate commit-
ment. Her research will be
presented in a symposium
and later for publication in
academic journals.
Have our strikes made
an impact? YES.
More and more area res-
idents and civic leaders see
the injustice of our local
leader’s refusal to act on
climate change. They are
becoming more educat-
ed about the immediate
threats and willing to be-
come activists.
Will it take another year
for the city to act? Perhaps.
Electing climate activists
to local and county level
positions can make a big
difference.
We will persist with Fri-
day climate strikes and ac-
tivism as long as necessary
to get our city government
to wake up to the threat to
our city. We all must act to
mitigate the effects of cli-
mate change right here in
Florence.
Will you join Pat and me
in future climate strikes
for the fight ahead?
Conservative Corner — Dead Sea Scrolls and Modern America
By Joel Marks
Conservative Historian
Special to Siuslaw News
I
n 1947, during the final
months of Great Brit-
ain’s mandate in then-Pal-
estine, which is today’s
Israel, a young Bedouin
shepherd named Muham-
mad edh-Dhib made an
astonishing find in the
caves of Qumran, south
of Jericho adjacent to the
Dead Sea.
Excavations had come
and gone, and 1,800 years
after the Jewish people’s
exile from Jerusalem post
the Bar Kochba revolt,
Dhib threw a stone into
a cave and heard a clunk
instead of a thud. He
climbed inside, discover-
ing a jar full of scrolls.
From 1951-56, 11 more
caves have brought forth
hundreds of scrolls and
thousands of fragments
updating the history of
this great people of God.
There are now over 10,000
fragments, including cop-
per and parchment scrolls,
which when studied have
rocked the world’s con-
ventional wisdom.
Of course, the suppres-
sion of these scrolls by
Christians, Jews, Protes-
tants and Catholics alike
was simply astounding.
No one seemed to like
what was being discov-
ered, as it did not neatly fit
the templates of anyone’s
doctrinal
understand-
ings. After centuries of
tenets taught to parishio-
ners and students alike,
it is quite understandable
that the changes the Dead
Sea Scrolls espoused on a
Messianic theme nurtured
by the House of Israel be-
fore the first century CE
would be blasphemous as
well as heretical to both
Jew and Gentile today.
American History has
had a similar experience.
In the beginning of our
nation, like the found-
ers and translators of the
Dead Sea Scrolls, Ameri-
ca had discovered truths
— which the ages have
attempted to stamp out.
This has been largely un-
successful.
America was founded
on the idea of freedom
and liberty for and by the
people and “dedicated to
the proposition that all
men are created equal.”
Fondly we hope and
fervently we pray that this
propositional experiment
will not perish.
The Founders, Fram-
ers and President Lincoln
all knew that if America’s
destiny was to make the
world a better place to live
and succeeded in taking
a 5,000-year leap in time
and history, the citizenry
would have to believe. No
longer would we be sub-
jected to the barbarism
of autocracy, tyranny and
totalitarianism, but a new
idea was created.
American history, to
be fair, has always had
its stops and starts. It has
seen the dark days of bias
towards Italians, Irish the
Slavic peoples of Eastern
Europe, Indians, Africans
and many others. Finally,
working and fighting to-
gether, we all decided that
we weren’t so bad after all.
Prejudice perished and
skyscrapers were built,
oil gushed, autos traveled,
planes flew and Marion
Anderson sung. Yes, we
had bullets, black codes
and homegrown bolshe-
vism. But we also had
moon landings, citizen
balloting and VE day.
Freedom is a priceless
gem and it was the gen-
eration of Washington,
Jefferson and Madison
that accomplished a great
miracle, which our won-
derful young people are
not learning enough of in
our schools. If our young
people of this and gener-
ations future do not learn
the lessons of the Revo-
lutionary War, the Con-
stitutional
Convention
or the War of 1812 and
General Andrew Jackson,
what will our world look
like in years hence?
In our system, people
have the opportunity to
Food share garden offers
‘bear aware’ composting class
The Oregon State University Extension
Program and Master Composters are
offering a free composting class on Sat-
urday, Sept. 18, from 10 a.m. to noon at
the Florence Food Share Garden, located
directly behind the Florence Food Share
building at 2190 Spruce St.
Master Composters will discuss and
demonstrate various techniques of com-
posting, methods of vermicomposting,
and hot and cold composting.
Bears can be a problem when com-
posting in Florence, so the presenters
will focus on techniques that would be
less likely to attract bears. One method
of “bear aware” composting is bokashi.
Rodney Bloom, a bokashi expert, will be
there to discuss this method.
The Master Gardeners will also be
there to offer soil pH testing if you would
like to bring a sample of your own gar-
den soil. The test requires ¾ cup of dry
soil. There is a $2 cash only fee for the
pH test. The Master Gardeners will take
the samples back to their lab and call or
email the results.
Due to COVID-19, masks and social
distancing will be required.
Visit us online: www.TheSiuslawNews.com
vote based on principles
and knowledge, not feel-
ings.
Of course, we the peo-
ple only have ourselves in
a looking glass to reflect
the elected officials who
we transport to office. It
is we and our understand-
ing of America and its his-
tory — both majestic and
flawed — that will deter-
mine who will represent
our Republic to which we
pledge allegiance.
As Jewish history was
revived from the Dead
Sea, may American his-
tory never die, but be re-
vived from the living God.
May He save this great
and promised land we
hold so dear. May God
bless America.