TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
A4
Write a letter
news@bakercityherald.com
EDITORIAL
EOU
provides a
path forward
The new major created by Eastern Oregon Uni-
versity that focuses on agriculture entrepreneurship
is not only a good thing — it is one of those innova-
tive ideas that occasionally comes along with bright
prospects for the future.
The four-year program will begin in 2022 and will
mix pieces of agriculture science and business and
include courses in marketing, fi nance and human
resources along with farming and biology.
The idea is such a good one it is diffi cult to under-
stand why it wasn’t developed before now. Such a
program fi ts perfectly into the predominant economy
— and culture — of Eastern Oregon, and it will also
be a solid platform for other like programs in the
future.
Driving the move was input from major agricul-
ture businesses in the region — such as J.R. Simplot
Co. — that communicated a need for workers with
specifi c skills the program will be able to teach.
In a sense, the new degree is a mix of education
and business and is exactly the right program at
exactly the right time that will help students across
the region who might not otherwise see college as a
way forward.
That problem — fi nding a path to higher educa-
tion for some students who are geared toward agri-
culture — isn’t just a local challenge. Across Eastern
Oregon hundreds of students each year graduate
and don’t choose college because they don’t see it as a
match for their skills or interests.
Yet this program can provide part of the answer.
The program will provide students with a viable
path toward higher education, and they will be able
to enter the workforce with a specifi c set of abilities
that match our biggest industries.
Agriculture throughout Eastern Oregon is the
predominate economic engine. To ensure that engine
continues to function at a high rate, we need more
younger people who are interested in agriculture.
Another key element to the program is that
agriculture has changed. Now, it isn’t enough to have
a desire to farm or ranch or to move into an existing
family business. Today, our farmers and ranchers
need to have a good business background and know
their science. This program will help develop those
skills in students.
Agriculture, food and fi ber account for 9.1% of
Oregon’s overall economy, fueling 371,300 jobs. That’s
a big footprint in our state and our region.
Eastern Oregon University made a wise choice
with this new program, and we are excited to see
how it will pan out in the future.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker
City Herald. Columns, letters and cartoons on this
page express the opinions of the authors and not nec-
essarily that of the Baker City Herald.
Letters to the editor
• We welcome letters on any issue of public interest.
Customer complaints about specifi c businesses will not be
printed.
• The Baker City Herald will not knowingly print false
or misleading claims. However, we cannot verify the
accuracy of all statements in letters to the editor.
• Writers are limited to one letter every 15 days.
• The writer must sign the letter and include an address and
phone number (for verifi cation only). Letters that do not
include this information cannot be published.
• Letters will be edited for brevity, grammar, taste and
legal reasons.
Mail: To the Editor, Baker City Herald,
P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814
Email: news@bakercityherald.com
From COVID to climate change,
what are we actually trying to say?
By LUCERO CANTU
While it is nonsensical to try to pre-
scribe a diagnosis to America’s current
state of civic discourse — from dumping
manure on the White House lawn in the
name of climate action to attending the
Met Gala to demand we “tax the rich”
— we often blame partisan politics. But
what if part of the problem is that we lit-
erally cannot understand one another?
And, perhaps worse than that, the
institutions we trust to lead the public
have stopped trying to communicate to
be understood.
Let’s get the fi gures out of the way.
The Organization for Economic Coop-
eration and Development found that
50% of U.S. adults cannot read a book
written at an eighth-grade level. The
National Institute of Literacy estimates
that the average American reads at a
seventh- to eighth-grade level. Despite
these concerns, an analysis of 21 major
media outlets found that consumers
require a 10th grade reading level to
comprehend any of them.
Most notably, Fox News and NPR
ranked at an 11th grade level, while out-
lets like MSNBC and Politico exceeded a
12th grade level. This is not an isolated
issue. Both the government and media
fail to meet Americans where they are
in terms of knowledge and vocabulary
on critical subjects, such as the CO-
VID-19 pandemic or climate change.
In 2010, President Barack Obama
signed the U.S. Plain Writing Act,
requiring “federal agencies use clear
government communication that the
public can understand and use.” While
the intention was to ensure government
institutions communicated with na-
tional literacy and comprehension rates
in mind, the COVID-19 pandemic has
illuminated that some issues cannot
be merely legislated away. A fall 2020
analysis of federal and state websites
related to COVID-19 failed to meet the
standards for communicating with the
public identifi ed by leading institutions
such as the American Medical Associa-
tion and National Institutes of Health.
These concerns can also be applied
to how we talk about climate change.
Climate change is a scientifi c concept at
its core, which means it’s spoken about
in scientifi c terms. When vital infor-
mation about climate change is being
communicated to the public through
words like “mitigation,” “adaptation,”
“carbon neutral,” or, even worse, “carbon
negative,” Americans are lost.
This was especially clear when a
Twitter user recently pointed out that
his milk boasted being “carbon positive”
by 2045. Unsurprisingly, the replies
were full of confusion and differing dic-
tionaries of climate jargon. The general
consensus was that Horizon Organic
really meant “carbon negative,” or that
the company will capture more carbon
than it emits, but didn’t want negative
language on its branding materials.
Other users also mentioned that the
terms “carbon negative” and “carbon
positive” actually mean the same thing,
which, of course, is problematic for the
average citizen just trying to make
sense of it all.
When the words we use to discuss
one of the biggest problems of our life
do more to confuse than inform, it’s
not a mystery as to why climate action
has stalled for decades. From 3D data
segmentation to workforce solutions
and now climate action, I have spent
the past fi ve years creating accessible
digital media on behalf of organizations.
No matter the complexity or mundanity
behind policy or scientifi c information,
one thing remains the same — lan-
guage that requires highly specialized
knowledge is found everywhere, and it
is intentionally alienating people.
To be clear, the goal is not to make
every American an epidemiologist or
climate scientist. Instead, communi-
cators in the space need to be more
deliberate with the language they use
and its readability. At the pandemic’s
beginning, media outlets came under
fi re for hiding their COVID reporting
behind a paywall. Similarly, if we as
science and policy communicators do
not work to deliver our information in
a way that is accessible to the public,
our words are also hidden away, just in
plain sight.
Lucero Cantu is the digital director
at the American Conservation Coalition.
OTHER VIEWS
It’s time to eliminate the debt ceiling
Editorial from The Baltimore Sun:
All the back and forth between
Democrats and Republicans over rais-
ing the federal debt limit — as the Oct.
18 default date loomed — has been
exhausting. Though lawmakers struck
a short-term deal Thursday, avoiding
a government shutdown, the bickering
is likely to start up again two months
down the road, as the new December
deadline approaches.
If left unresolved then, it’s going to
extract a terrible fi nancial toll on the
nation, not just because of potential
delays in much-needed benefi ts from
Social Security and Medicaid and in
payments to states for basic services
from schools to roads, but because
it’s going to shortchange bondhold-
ers — and their wrath will have
consequences. Just the brinksmanship
that’s been played so far over the debt
limit may well prove costly in higher
interest rates on downgraded U.S. debt
for years to come. The world expects
the United States to pay its bills and
if it doesn’t (or even acts like it won’t),
there are global repercussions.
The most ridiculous part about
such standoffs is that there is noth-
ing gained from it. That’s because
the debt limit has nothing to do with
future spending. Let’s underscore that
point: This isn’t about how or how
much the federal government spends
from now on, this is about paying
bills that are already due. Requiring
congressional approval of borrow-
ing started around World War I, and
the debt ceiling has been raised 100
times — almost always routinely and
in a bipartisan fashion. Even when
Congress last found itself debating
the debt ceiling in 2019, it was raised
with Democratic and Republican
votes. Republicans didn’t seem quite
so upset about paying debts when they
had a fellow Republican in the White
House who would have been seri-
ously inconvenienced by an impasse.
Now, it appears they think Americans
will hear trigger words like “debt”
and “spending” and fi gure this is just
liberals run amuck. And that would
be an understandable criticism of the
pending infrastructure and budget
reconciliation bills that potentially
represent trillions of dollars in added
spending — if it weren’t incorrect.
The problem is that one has nothing
to do with the other. It’s more akin to
already having a $28 trillion balance
on your credit card. The bank expects
you to eventually pay it off and instead
of keeping that commitment and at
least paying the interest, you toss the
bill in the trash. Your debt doesn’t
cease to exist. The money is still
owed. Denial isn’t a sound repayment
strategy only a costly one. You think
members of Congress don’t know this?
Of course, they do. And yet here we
are anyway because some think they’ll
be rewarded by their supporters for
showing faux toughness. Filibustering
a bill to raise the debt limit? That’s
just insanity, but that’s exactly what
Senate Republicans are willing to do. If
Democrats have to go it alone to raise
the debt limit, they absolutely should.
Someone has to act responsibly. Chalk
it up to the rule that two wrongs don’t
make a right.
We don’t often fi nd ourselves in
complete agreement with both JPM-
organ Chase Chief Executive Jamie
Dimon and U.S. Treasury Secretary
Janet Yellen, but they are correct in
their views expressed separately this
past week that the whole debt ceiling
concept needs to be put aside. These
periodic and totally unnecessary
standoffs are just partisan politics and
a particularly costly form of it. Con-
gress can’t be trusted to raise the debt
ceiling — we’ve now seen ample proof
of that — so let’s get rid of it entirely
or at least make increases automatic
whenever a spending bill is approved.
If Americans oppose new spending
or new tax policies, they can always
kick their elected offi cials out of offi ce.
That’s the real check and balance
on budgetary decisions and sticking
with that kind of fi scal and political
discipline will surely result in fewer
self-infl icted economic crises coming
out of Capitol Hill.