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About The independent. (Vernonia, Or.) 1986-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 2011)
Page 2 The INDEPENDENT, February 17, 2011 The INDEPENDENT Published on the first and third Thursdays of each month by The Independent, LLC, 725 Bridge St., Vernonia, OR 97064. Phone/Fax: 503-429-9410. Publisher Clark McGaugh, clark@the-independent.net Editor Rebecca McGaugh, rebecca@the-independent.net Mentor Noni Andersen Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based dyes Opinion Forest Health-Human Health About a year ago, Catherine Mater, a senior fellow at the Pinchot Institute, came to Vernonia with an idea to match family forest owners up with carbon credits to be used for health insurance. Pinchot’s specific area of interest was in keeping family forestland in the family, as many of the younger generation felt they were only one catastrophic health event away from selling the land. Another idea was using harvested timberland bio- mass to fuel biomass boilers in town. Phase I of the project interviewed family forest own- ers, particularly the adult children in those families, to identify their health needs. That identified not just health insurance, but also care for aging parents and other health needs not included in mainstream health insurance. There was an interest in some type of inno- vative program to help family forest owners keep the land and the family healthy. One downside for some is that the carbon credits are sold on the open market and purchased by those need- ing to mitigate their carbon emissions. In the words of one person, “We sell carbon stored in our trees so that someone else can pollute.” A meeting was held at Lincoln School last night with Mater, and partners in the project; including Western University of Health Sciences, and Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield, to announce Phase II of the project, funded by $200,000 in grants. Phase II will look closer at family forest owners and their willingness to participate in a project that trades their carbon holdings (primarily trees) for carbon cred- its to be used to purchase health insurance, for Health Savings Accounts, or some other option. Additionally, the biomass generated (think slash piles) from harvest- ing their timber would be used by the Vernonia School to fuel their biomass boiler, and perhaps for a project on Rose Avenue to heat and cool the Health Clinic, Vernonia Cares, and the Senior Center. There is also a possibility of 10-20% of the carbon credit money going to the Health Clinic (if the clinic becomes part of a Fed- erally Qualified Health Center) so the carbon investor can use that 10-20% as a tax deduction. Phase II also includes new scanning technology to be used by KLS Surveying to determine the amount of stored carbon and biomass available. The whole project is the first of its kind in the nation, and Mater told the 40 or so people attending last night’s meeting that already there are two other locations inter- ested in participating in their own Phase I evaluation. One forest owner at the meeting said, “It would be good if it works, but that’s yet to be proven.” Out of My Mind… by Noni Andersen Whatever else may be going on in this country, there is one thing that al- most everybody agrees is needed: JOBS! The number of unem- ployed recently dropped to 9% nationwide, but the in- crease in jobs isn’t enough to make that dif- ference. So, how much of that reduction in un- employment was the result of people being hired, and how much was the result of more “99ers” falling off the jobless roster? The title “99ers” is verbal shorthand for people who have been out of work for 99 weeks, at which time they automatically lose eligibility for even “extended” jobless benefits. The 99 weeks is nearly two years, a long time to be without a salary. Yet there are more than 13 million people in this country who want to work, and can’t find jobs. Is this caused by the recession? The reces- sion started in 2007 and, though not the only cause, it was triggered by predatory lending practices that put mortgages in the hands of peo- ple who couldn’t afford them. The mortgage bro- kers made their money and sold the paper to large and small banks, much of it to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, federally subsidized corpora- tions meant to help low-income home owners. Wall Street then “bundled” the bad loans with other unregulated securities and sold them to in- vestors around the world. When the inevitable happened (Can you say “default”?) the bottom dropped out of an already shaky economy. The financial industry was bailed out in late 2008, a bipartisan decision supported by both the Bush and the Obama administrations (and most of it has been paid back). Then, when the banks were stabilized, they refused to make loans to most other businesses. Without neces- sary cash flow, many businesses shut down. The current administration greatly lowered taxes in order to put more money in the hands of people and businesses, but the jobs didn’t start up. Big business is again profitable, though. Wall Street is booming; the income of top CEOs aver- ages 262 times more than that of average work- ers (during the Nixon administration it was 27 times more), and big businesses are sitting on nearly $3-trillion that could be used to get work going again. In 2009, they did create over 2 million jobs, about a million of them in other countries. Cater- pillar, for instance, built four new factories – in Siberia/Mongolia – and the cost of moving and building those factories comes off their taxable income as a business expense. In other words, we subsidize them to take jobs elsewhere. Big business uses a “lack of demand” to avoid putting Americans back to work, and cites in- creasing demand in other countries as justifica- tion. “Well, duh!” When people don’t have jobs they buy as little as possible; when people have jobs they can afford to buy goods. Please see page 3