The BulleTin • Friday, July 2, 2021 A5
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
Legislators dropped
option to require
greener homes
N
o matter what side you are on going green, there is
something to like about the Oregon Reach Code.
It’s a building code for homes re-
quiring more energy efficiency. That
greater efficiency can save home-
owners money in the long run and
be better for the environment.
But if you don’t like the Oregon
Reach Code, you don’t have to fol-
low it. It’s optional.
That’s still true today, though, it
may not be optional in the future.
There was a move in the legislative
session that just ended to put more
teeth in the Reach Code. House Bill
2398 would have enabled cities to
adopt the Reach Code for their com-
munities. It wouldn’t require all cit-
ies to do it. City governments could
do it if they chose to.
Sally Russell, mayor of Bend, tes-
tified for the bill. “Stronger energy
efficiency standards in the building
code are one of the most powerful
tools we have for mitigating and re-
ducing emissions,” which is espe-
cially important in Bend because of
all the new construction.
The Environmental Center of
Bend testified for it. And Amy
Warren, the director of the Kôr
Community Land Trust in Bend,
which builds affordable housing,
also testified in favor.
She made the argument that Kôr
is able to build homes of signifi-
cantly greater efficiency than re-
quired by the Reach Code and also
manage to keep them affordable.
Many other cities testified for the
bill, as well.
Groups of contractors and build-
ers and NW Natural, the gas com-
pany, fought it.
They argued it imperiled the uni-
formity of state building code.
They argued there was nothing
stopping builders from using the
code. They argued Oregon’s building
code is already a green leader in the
nation.
Why exactly the bill died is, well,
not completely clear to us. It was
stuck in the House Ways and Means
Committee at the end of the session.
It may have been sacrificed as part
of a deal to get other environmental
bills passed.
For instance, House Bill 2021 sets
new state targets for overall reduc-
tions in greenhouse gases by elec-
tricity providers.
The failure of the bill is a lost op-
portunity to save energy and money
in communities that would have
gone on to adopt the Reach Code.
But it is still out there. Homebuyers
will have to hunt for homes built to
the standards they want. For many,
and in this housing market, that
means they will have to take what
they can get.
Should health workers be
required to get vaccinated?
O
regon has a seeming con-
tradiction in its laws for
immunizations.
Your employer can likely re-
quire you to get vaccinated for
COVID-19. Employers of health
care workers can’t require that health
care workers get vaccinated. That’s
the law.
Oregon Revised Statute 433.416
says that employers of health care
workers must provide preventive
immunizations to those workers at
no cost. But then it goes on to say:
“A worker shall not be required as
a condition of work to be immu-
nized under this section, unless
such immunization is otherwise re-
quired by federal or state law, rule or
regulation.”
Now that’s just strange. On the
front lines of the pandemic, health
care workers didn’t have to be vac-
cinated for COVID-19. Doesn’t
that put patients at greater risk? Yes.
Shouldn’t the Legislature have done
something about that?
The state is just shy of a 70% vac-
cination rate and the COVID-19 re-
strictions are, for the most part, over.
St. Charles Health System told us
Thursday 75% of its 4,668 caregivers
are vaccinated for COVID-19. Better
than the general population.
We hate to even think about it,
but this won’t be the last pandemic.
And it shouldn’t take a pandemic to
think about changing the law. Peo-
ple in the hospital are vulnerable.
A flu vaccination for a health care
worker can help ensure people don’t
get sick.
Former state Sen. Laurie Monnes
Anderson, D-Gresham, made a pass
at changing the law in 2012, aiming
to require unvaccinated health care
workers to sign a form stating why
they did not get vaccinated. But the
law is still essentially what it was in
1989. As Willamette Week reported:
“No bill to reverse the 1989 law was
introduced in the last legislative
session.”
Should Oregon change the law?
Or if health care workers get that
treatment under Oregon law, should
other Oregonians get that same
choice?
Editorials reflect the views of The Bulletin’s editorial board, Publisher Heidi Wright, Editor
Gerry O’Brien and Editorial Page Editor Richard Coe. They are written by Richard Coe.
My Nickel’s Worth
Bend should do more
on fireworks
After hearing that COCC-Red-
mond and Redmond Airport had
closed due to smoke from wildfires,
I had reason to visit Safeway, 27th
Street, Bend, where I came face to face
with a mound of fireworks. I spoke
to the store manager and expressed
my shock and disbelief that they were
being sold there. I asked why. He told
me that it was because they had not
been told not to. He knew of the city
of Bend ban on the use of fireworks,
but that it had not banned the sale of
them, as well. The pile was covered in
signs telling customers to not smoke
close to the pile. I suggested that it
might be of more use to put up a sign
telling customers of the $750 fine if
they use them before July 9.
On my way home, I passed two
more tents selling fireworks in park-
ing lots. Do the retailers, City Council
and charities who use the sale of fire-
works to raise money, not understand
what is at risk here? We have been
under an extreme heat advisory for
days — it will not end soon. Why has
the city come up with the arbitrary
date of July 9 for the “safe” use of fire-
works? Will Bend suddenly be soggy
and damp?
As much as I enjoy the display on
Pilot Butte, and am reassured that
safety protocols are in place, I think
that it should be canceled to set an ex-
ample to residents. (Ashland has can-
celedits show.) Please help me raise
awareness of the contrariness of the
city’s announcement. There are exam-
ples of Oregon cities that have banned
the sale and use of fireworks. Ashland
is one.
I urge all residents concerned for
their safety and that of their neighbors
to contact Bend City Council at coun-
cil@bendoregon.gov
— Pauline Wilson, Bend
Not so fast on pump your own
Hello, if you think pumping your
own gas will lead to lower gas prices,
then all you need do is check out Cali-
fornia. Isn’t going to happen.
What pumping your own gas will
do is put many many gas station at-
tendants out of work and increase the
revenue of the gas station owners.
As a “seasoned” citizen, I appreciate
having my gas pumped. Especially in
cold wet weather or when it’s 90-plus
degrees out.
As for liquor, I’ll not weigh in on
that, since I don’t use the stuff, but I’m
fairly sure that Oregon has a real pur-
pose in maintaining state-controlled
liquor stores. Even if it’s only for the
revenue.
— Diana Hopson, Redmond
Use caution with ‘net zero’
Lately, we have seen an uptick in
global warming articles and editori-
als addressing emissions (primarily
CO2). Most authors use the term “net
zero” to imply that all will be well if we
could only reach that goal. Somehow,
the general public is supposed to feel
that natural fuels (all those that burn)
will disappear or, at least, be very sub-
stantially reduced.
Since natural fuels will be contin-
uously used in cargo transport by
truck, train or ship, as well as air and
sea human transport, the reduction in
generated CO2 will be much less than
wished for. So what do we do to make
this rate of CO2 generation become
“net zero?”
Just to divert a little: “Net zero” in
science and mathematics means just
that. The sums of all quantities added
together equals zero. However, when
the term is associated with “global
warming,” it has an entirely different
meaning.
What it really says is that while
CO2 is continuously generated, we
will somehow figure out how to re-
move it. The term “sequestration”
was resurrected to solve this problem.
So as long as the ”environmentalists”
throw this term around with aban-
don, the problem is solved. Everyone
is happy.
One problem, however, remains.
Nobody knows how to accomplish
this task with any sort of functional or
economic efficiency.
— Jay Feinsten, Bend
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Humans caused climate change, fire severity and the heat dome
BY JAMES COLLINS
B
y my count, the print edi-
tion of the June 30 Bulletin
featured six stories that ad-
dressed various impacts of climate
change, including the abnormally
early start to our wildfire season and
the unprecedented, deadly
heat event upon us here in
the Pacific Northwest. I was
heartened to see that the pa-
per’s lead story — at least as
it appeared in the print edi-
tion — made clear the ex-
plicit link between weather
Collins
events such as this deadly
heat dome, increased fire
severity and human-caused
climate change.
The present events leave those
of us in the scientific and emer-
gency response communities with
virtually no doubt that the human
release of fossil fuels into the atmo-
sphere has helped bring about these
events, and that the changes hu-
manity has caused are making heat
events, fires, hurricanes, and floods
more extreme, and more dangerous.
Unfortunately, several national me-
dia outlets reporting on the “heat
dome” this week failed to acknowl-
edge these causal linkages, even in
passing.
Instead, many of these
stories and their accompa-
nying photographs — in-
cluding a locally focused
story here in that recent
Bulletin — framed the
event for readers as just an-
other unpleasant bout of
heat whose effects might
be mitigated by the con-
sumption of shave ice or a refreshing
float down a river. In The Bulletin’s
case, the paper’s other reporting
did provide the missing scientific
context for readers of the print edi-
tion; unfortunately, those who con-
sume their news online might very
well have read only the local arti-
GUEST COLUMN
cle, which did not mention climate
change.
The context is critical because the
reality is stark: We should be facing
these agonizing days as a horrifying
and sobering harbinger of far worse
things to come in our very near fu-
ture.
Human-caused climate change
has raised average temperatures
across the Pacific Northwest by
nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit over
the past century, and made nearly
all forms of extreme weather more
likely. The High Desert region
southeast of Bend that encompasses
Lake and Harney counties has seen
even more extreme change: Average
temperatures there have risen be-
tween 3.8 and 3.9 degrees Fahrenheit
since 1895, making it one of the top
10 fastest warming regions in North
America.
These events and trends will con-
tinue to cost society billions of dol-
lars in property and infrastructure
damage and cause human death and
suffering. In addition, we can expect
the disruption of complex ecological
and geochemical systems that pro-
vide us with critical services such as
water for drinking and irrigation.
As an MIT-trained oceanographer
and earth system scientist, military
veteran, and certified Incident Com-
mander serving in the U.S. Coast
Guard Reserve, I grapple with these
realities throughout the globe and
Western Hemisphere as a climate ex-
pert and as a first responder to hur-
ricanes and other natural disasters.
As a father, husband and resident of
Bend, I face these consequences here
personally in the High Desert along-
side all of The Bulletin’s readers.
There is some time left to mitigate
the worst possible consequences of
our fossil fuel addiction. Some of the
best minds in the world are work-
ing on nature-based and engineered
solutions that might help us reduce
and then eliminate our reliance on
oil, coal and natural gas — all while
trying to remove from the atmo-
sphere and oceans some of the car-
bon dioxide we have emitted.
But make no mistake: We are
grappling with an existential threat
to our planet and society whose con-
sequences are deadly serious. Apart
from perhaps only nuclear holo-
caust, climate change is the most sig-
nificant and all-encompassing threat
we have ever faced.
Media have a duty to report on
the present weather in this awful and
serious context so there can be no
doubt, excuses or dangerous climate
denialism in the minds of readers
and viewers. I was heartened to see
that The Bulletin continues to take
this duty seriously.
e
Jamie Collins, Ph.D., is a climate scientist, an
oceanographer and president of Summit to Sea
Solutions. He lives in Bend.