4A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • FEBRUARY 20, 2019
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Political/Election Letters:
Report card on planet’s environment? Not good
(Editor’s Note: Viewpoint submissions on
this and other topics are always welcome as
part of our goal to encourage community
discussion and exchange of perspectives.)
T
he World Economic Forum’s Global
Risks Report for 2019 indicates that most
experts point to environmental problems
as being the most serious threats to global
stability — just as they found in the previ-
ous two years. Th at report follows on one in
October 2018 by the UN Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
It said with “high confi dence” that
at the current rate of greenhouse gas
emissions, “global warming is likely to
reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it
continues to increase at the current rate.”
Avoiding the worst-case consequences
would require measures that have “no
documented historic precedent.”
As Americans see the evidence of cli-
mate-infl uenced destruction, they’re on edge:
Seventy-two percent of those polled late last
year considered climate change “important,”
a 15-percentage point increase over 2015 —
and the news is worse this time around.
2018 was the fourth-hottest year on
record; 2015-2017 are the other three. Th e
Arctic experienced its second-warmest year
ever. Th e head of the World Meteorological
Organization said: “Th e 20 warmest years on
record have been in the past 22 years. Th e
degree of warming during the past four years
has been exceptional, both on land and in
the ocean.”
Rising sea levels, according to the IPCC,
“will continue beyond 2100 even if glob-
al warming is limited to 1.5°C in the 21st
century (high confi dence). Marine ice sheet
instability in Antarctica and/or irreversible
loss of the Greenland ice sheet could result in
multi-metre rise in sea level over hundreds
to thousands of years.”
Antarctica’s enormous ice reserves are
melting six times faster now than they were
between 1979 and 1989. Glacier melting in
the Himalayas, on which South Asian agri-
culture is heavily dependent, is proceeding
at a very fast pace — so much so that by the
end of this century, two-thirds of the glaciers
may be gone at current climate change rates,
and one-third under the most optimistic
climate change scenarios.
Ocean temperatures are the warmest on
record, and the warming is occurring at a
terrifying pace: 40 to 50 percent faster than
the United Nations had previously estimated.
Th at could spell trouble for marine ecosys-
tems, phytoplankton in particular. Th ese
Guest Viewpoint
By Mel Gurtov
Professor Emeritus of Political Science,
Portland State University
basic food organisms sustain the underwater
food chain. If they die off or shift , as is al-
ready detectable in changing ocean color, the
impact on fi sheries will be catastrophic.
Rising seas also threaten water supplies
and U.S. military installations. And they
can wipe countries off the map. Kiribati, the
island group in the southwest Pacifi c, is a
case in point. A nation disappearing due to
climate change is something that’s never hap-
pened before and, so far, is something people
seem unable to imagine.
Planet-wide environmental deterioration
is happening faster — much faster — than
scientists had anticipated. Th e kind of dete-
rioration now taking place, involving oceans
and glaciers in particular, tell us that life itself
is already endangered in many parts of the
globe.
And some consequences of climate
change, such as rising seas, are irreversible.
In addition, resistance to scientifi c fi ndings
and their implications for political, economic
and social changes constitutes nothing short
of criminal negligence — and people are
more aware of and concerned about climate
change than ever before.
As challenging and pessimistic as the news
is on the environment, remedies are available
now to keep climate change at 1.5°C. In
the U.S., the renowned environmentalist
Bill McKibben suggests two priority steps:
switching immediately away from fossil fuels
and protecting cities and coastal areas from
ocean inundation.
Strict effi ciency standards for industry and
autos, and a carbon tax — such as have been
enacted in Europe — would signifi cantly
reduce carbon emissions.
Th en there’s the Green New Deal resolution
introduced in the U.S. Congress by Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed
Markey. Th e resolution, which begins
by citing the IPCC report, calls for a
“10-year national mobilization” to bring
carbon emissions down to zero via a
combination of renewable energy, infra-
structure repairs and community-level
projects.
Th ese ideas would require a political mir-
acle to achieve implementing legislation in
the U.S. and cause parties to the Paris climate
change accord to deepen their commitments.
As the IPCC report makes clear, climate
change mitigation involves across-the-board
and multilevel changes, from sustained
international cooperation, including funding
the most aff ected developing countries, to
addressing poverty and health care defi cits
Political leaders, who always have excuses
for ignoring problems that will outlive them,
can point to other issues that require their
immediate attention. Even the most liberal
among them hesitate to embrace the up-front
fi nancial costs and social challenges of a
serious climate change agenda, though they
know full well that the benefi ts of a green
economy — in energy and waste savings and
public health, for instance — will outweigh
the costs.
If political leaders won’t act, and in some
cases won’t even acknowledge the problem,
it is hard to imagine that all the wonderful
grassroots environmental and energy ini-
tiatives underway around the world will be
enough to save us and future generations.
LETTERS
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HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS
Oregon state
representatives
Oregon federal
representatives
• Sen. Floyd Prozanski
District 4 State Senator
PO Box 11511
Eugene, Ore. 97440
Phone: 541-342-2447
Email : sen.fl oydprozanski@
state.or.us
• Rep. Cedric Hayden
Republican District 7 State
Representative
900 Court St. NE
Salem, Ore. 97301
Phone: 503-986-1407
Website: www.leg.state.or.
us/hayden
Email: rep.cedrichayden@
state.or.us
• Rep. Peter DeFazio
(House of Representatives)
405 East 8th Ave.
#2030
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: defazio.house.gov/
contact/email-peter
Phone: 541-465-6732
• Sen. Ron Wyden
405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: wyden.senate.gov
Phone: (541) 431-0229
• Sen. Jeff Merkley
Email: merkley.senate.gov
Phone: 541-465-6750
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Lane County continues to
get it wrong
Th ere is a perception that a judges’
ruling is self-validating and beyond re-
proach. Judges are people who come to
the bench with their own biases and are
oft en subject to manipulations by sil-
ver-tongued corporate-backed attorneys.
Th at’s why two judges won’t always
agree and could render opposing deci-
sions. As it is said in life and with judges,
“it’s the luck of the draw.”
And the people of Lane County are ex-
periencing really bad luck in Judge Chan-
ti’s decision (2-11-2019) to deny ballot
access to the Right of Local Community
Self-government Charter Amendment
(RLCSG), which legally authorizes citi-
zens to write and pass laws.
Oh, you thought that the initiative sys-
tem already did that?
Not in Lane County.
Lincoln County’s aerial spray ban in-
cluded a RLCSG provision and sailed
onto the ballot, begging the question,
“What’s going on in Lane?”
Lane courts continue to get it wrong
and are complicit in denying the rights of
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the people to our own initiative system.
Th ese administrative reviews are about
procedure, but have been used as an ex-
cuse to deny the substance of the law.
Lane courts are blocking an amend-
ment that’s about our right to be deci-
sionmakers in “the democratic process.”
Obstacles to the citizen’s initiative pro-
cess have been steadily gaining traction
ever since it became clear that the citizens
intended to use the system to insert our-
selves into the decisionmaking process.
People must continue to fi ght for jus-
tice to get this measure on the ballot.
—Michelle Holman
Deadwood
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