January Best Bet: The Salem talk not to miss

Greg Craven, an Oregon HS teacher in Corvallis, wrote the one book to read on climate change if you're reading only one -- a concise, well-written, often amusing, and compelling argument for getting off the dime on responding to climate change.

He's going to speak here in Salem at an Audubon Society meeting and YOU are invited to attend this free event.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Audubon Society, Salem Chapter Meeting

Greg Craven will focus on the central themes of his just published book, "What's The Worst That Could Happen? A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate." He offers a concise way of thinking and making decisions about climate change amidst all the claims and counterclaims.

Bill McKibben, long time environmental activist and author, has said, "The book trumps most of our accounts of the global warming crisis, partly for its good humor and straight forward logic and partly because the author has actually figured out what actions make sense."

Greg Craven graduated from the University of Puget Sound with majors in Asian Studies and Computer Science and from Willamette University with a Master of Arts in Teaching.

Audubon Society chapter meetings are held in the Anderson Room, in the basement at the Salem Public Library on Liberty at 6:30 PM and the program generally starts around 7 PM.

Salem's Third Auto Bridge Fantasy is Finished. Kaput.

Image by climatesafety via Flickr

Story here.

Community garden for McRae Park?

An example of a community garden. Image by Sbocaj via Flickr

Residents of Northeast Neighbors (NEN) should note the following alert and call for feedback:

NEN Board seeks neighborhood input on idea for community garden in McRae Park

This fall, the City of Salem asked for ideas for Salem Park Improvement Fund (SPIF) projects, as the first step towards awarding what is expected to be around $60,000 in matching funds for projects in Salem parks. In October, the NEN Board passed a proposal to submit for review the general idea of converting the north-most section of McRae Park (where the horseshoe pits are now, north of the paved path) into a community garden area.

The SPIF reviewers have evaluated the ideas that various neighborhood associations submitted (an estimated $150,000 worth) and are preparing to call for the actual
applications towards the end of January 2010. A big part of the scoring for SPIF grant applications will be the level of support in the neighborhood for the proposed projects. So that's what we'd like to hear from you -- what you would see as the pros and cons of the idea.

Community gardens are typically mechanically deep-tilled by machine once a year, in the spring when the ground is dry enough to be worked. Compost is normally applied to all the plots at once, either along with the spring tilling or during the fall garden cleanup.

Except for tilling and composting, each gardener works their own plot, deciding what to plant and taking care of all the tending (weeding, watering, harvesting), although it's common for gardeners to help each other too. The gardeners work together to decide on things like the kinds of sprays and fertilizers that can be used, how big plots should be, how plots should be assigned, requirements for work parties, etc.

What would you think if the northern-most part of McRae park was turned into a community garden area, where people could grow annual flowers and vegetables in small plots? Note that this would require either totally removing or relocating the horseshoe pits within the park. The initial project costs, which would be funded from the SPIF grant, matched with volunteer labor, would include running a water source to the garden area, building some kind of secure storage for garden tools (probably just a secure fenced enclosure), and creating a bin system for recycling and reusing composted plant waste that the garden would generate. [Ongoing costs for city water would be paid by the gardeners at the site.]

The NEN Board will discuss this idea further and plans to decide whether to move forward with the SPIF application at the January 19th evening meeting, which starts at 6:30 p.m. at Willson House on Center Street. If you want to offer encouragement or raise concerns about the idea, you are invited to attend that meeting. If you are unable to attend but want to offer your views, you can contact any of the NEN board members and they will ensure that your thoughts are part of the discussion.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts about this idea.

gallons per mile better than miles per gallon

Image via Wikipedia

Although many of our problems are not easily solved, we can still make progress on most by paying attention to how our human perceptions and ways of thinking --- evolved for a very different, non-technological environment --- deceive us.

HOW WE MISREAD CAR FUEL CONSUMPTION

Duke University - Posting a vehicle's fuel efficiency in "gallons per mile" rather than "miles per gallon" would help consumers make better decisions about car purchases and environmental impact, researchers from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business report in the June 20 issue of Science magazine.

Inspired by debates they had while carpooling in a hybrid car, management professors Richard Larrick and Jack Soll ran a series of experiments showing that the current standard, miles per gallon or mpg, leads consumers to believe that fuel consumption is reduced at an even rate as efficiency improves. People presented with a series of car choices in which fuel efficiency was defined in miles per gallon were not able to easily identify the choice that would result in the greatest gains in fuel efficiency.

For example, most people ranked an improvement from 34 to 50 mpg as saving more gas over 10,000 miles than an improvement from 18 to 28 mpg, even though the latter saves twice as much gas. (Going from 34 to 50 mpg saves 94 gallons; but from 18 to 28 mpg saves 198 gallons).

These mistaken impressions were corrected, however, when participants were presented with fuel efficiency expressed in gallons used per 100 miles rather than mpg. Viewed this way, 18 mpg becomes 5.5 gallons per 100 miles, and 28 mpg is 3.6 gallons per 100 miles â€" saving 2 gallons, which, in today's gas prices, saves $8 over 100 miles and $800 over 10,000 miles. The improvement from 34 to 50 mpg reduces gas consumption from 3 to 2 gallons over 100 miles and saves only half as much gas and money.

"The reality that few people appreciate is that improving fuel efficiency from 10 to 20 mpg is actually a more significant savings than improving from 25 to 50 mpg for the same distance of driving," Larrick said.

Soll noted that replacing a large vehicle that gets 10 mpg with one that gets 20 mpg reduces gas use per 100 miles from 10 gallons to five, a 5-gallon savings. Replacing a small vehicle that gets 25 mpg with one that gets 50 mpg reduces gas use per 100 miles from 4 gallons to 2, a saving of only 2 gallons.

"Miles per gallon is misleading and can play tricks on our intuitions," Soll said.

"For families and other owners of more than one type of vehicle, the greatest fuel savings often comes from improving the efficiency of the less efficient car," Soll added. "When fuel efficiency is expressed as gallons per 100 miles, similar to what is done in other countries, it becomes clear which combination of cars will save a family the most gas.

"We believe that everyone should try to be as fuel efficient as possible. For some people, that may mean driving the most efficient car available, such as a small hybrid car, but for others it may mean finding the most efficient option possible within their chosen class of car," Soll said. "There are significant savings to be had by improving efficiency by even two or three miles per gallon on inefficient cars, but because we communicate in miles per gallon, that savings is not immediately evident to consumers."

The authors recommend that consumer publications and car manufacturers list efficiency in terms of gallons per 10,000 miles driven. "This measure makes it easy to see how much gas one might use in a given year of driving and how much gas, and money, can be saved by opting for a car with greater efficiency," Larrick said.

A most telling graphic

Planning to Fail While Not Failing to Plan

The guiding image of Salem's transportation planning. Image by sameold2008 via Flickr

There's a saying popular in the self-help press that "Failure to plan is planning to fail." Of course, sometimes planning is used to chart a course towards failure anyway --- as with Salem's fetishistic attachment to the bizarre notion of a third auto bridge across the Willamette, a fantastically expensive and wasteful idea that completely ignores the reality of our energy future and the need to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Someone in Seattle puts it best, speaking of their latest carhead boondoggle, a huge tunnel right next to the soupy soils abutting Puget Sound. The point is that the technocratic planning bureaucracy is fundamentally unable to respond to an existential challenge like the climate crisis because the technocrats working in the trenches use the analysis tools designed for business as usual to estimate the effects of all the proposals. And none of those tools are programmed to offer a "survival of civilization despite ourselves" pathway.

Seattle's viaduct replacement debate has generated an untold volume of analysis, opinion, and argument. It's also generated at least one PhD dissertation.

Kevin Ramsey, a geography student at the University of Washington, takes a look at the way that concerns about climate change have been deployed in the debate over the replacement. (Abstract; summary; full text.) I'll confess that I haven't made my way through the entire 250 pages, but it strikes me as providing some fascinating analysis of the politics:

. . . agency planners incorporated concerns about climate change through an extension of their own established logics of transportation planning rather than through a fundamental reconsideration of Seattle’s automobile-centric transportation system.

More surprisingly, I found that stakeholders themselves helped make this happen. They did so by supporting (and even advocating) the use of travel demand models to predict the quantity of future greenhouse gas emissions from alternative viaduct replacement scenarios. Isolating the consideration of climate change to this single evaluation measure essentially enabled the issue to be treated as an afterthought in the planning process, rather than a motivator for reformulating the planning process altogether. It also ensured that the calculation of future greenhouse gas emissions was subject to the same kinds of assumptions regarding demand for automobile travel that activists had already contested for years. These assumptions were reflected in the agencies’ findings: all proposed viaduct replacement scenarios (including three that do not include a highway) were predicted to increase greenhouse gas emissions in the Seattle region to 14-15% above current levels by the year 2015.

The upshot, according to Ramsey, is that highway planners were able to essentially co-opt concerns about climate emissions into a business-as-usual approach to road building. The antidote, he says, is for advocates to level more fundamental challenges to the large systems that provide for automobile-dominated infrastructure.

Save the dates: Salem Progressive Film Series - Winter/Spring 2010

Thursday, January 14, 2010 --
Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives-The Environmental Footprint of War

In all its stages, from the production of weapons through combat to cleanup and restoration, war is comprised of elements that pollute land, air, and water, destroy biodiversity and entire ecosystems, and drain our limited natural resources. This outstanding, timely, new film explores the crucial need for public scrutiny of the ecological impact of war and reminds us of the importance of accountability and sustainability.

Thursday, February 11, 2010 -- A Sea of Change

This documentary broadens the discussion about the dramatic changes we are seeing in the chemistry of the oceans, and conveys the urgent threat those changes pose to our survival, while surveying the steps we can take to reduce the severity of climate change. It offers positive examples of new technologies and effective changes in human behavior that we all must choose before the oceans are lost.

Thursday, March 11, 2010 -- Manufactured Landscapes

From its stunning eight-minute opening shot to the remarkable documentation of China's Three Gorges Dam, Manufactured Landscapes is an impressive experience. That's partly due to the size and space of the landscapes, but mostly because of the beauty of the images--their composition and color. The goal of the photographer is to portray humanity's relationship to nature as we pursue progress. His images are striking and picturesque, leaving viewers on their own to comprehend the negative global ramifications. [Truly a stunning film; can't wait to see it on a full-size screen.]

Thursday, April 8, 2010 - Secrecy

With homeland security and the war on terror becoming increasingly important issues, the U.S. government has grown more and more secretive, allegedly to protect the country and save lives. But is this culture of secrets at odds with democracy? This documentary examines both the pros and cons of government concealment by focusing on classified secrets and the arguments the government makes in the name of national security.

Thursday, May 13, 2010 - Good Food

For decades small family farmers have been disappearing, but there is new life in the fields, orchards and pastures of the Pacific Northwest and in the business community to help sustain them. In Good Food we see the beautiful landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and meet some of the leaders in bringing good food to tables across the region. The film makes the important personal connection between the source and your table.

Yes, please! Utility-provided solar hot water --- mmmm, mmmm, good!

Evacuated tube solar hot water panel much like those providing much of the hot water used every year at LOVESalem HQ. Image by guate84105 via Flickr

Just got a survey from NW Natural (the gas company) -- it was all about whether NW Natural would find a receptive market for an offer to put a utility-installed, -owned, and -maintained solar hot water heater on the roof here at LOVESalem HQ in return for a monthly hot water service fee (presumably it would have a natural gas backup).

That's a GREAT idea. As the survey pointed out, Salem gets about the national average in solar energy flux, so we're not nearly as deficient as you might think during a few months in the winter. I'd leap on this in a minute -- if LOVESalem HQ didn't already have a nifty solar hot water heat system provided by Salem's own Ron Summers of Summers Solar. But had NW Natural's offering been available, there's no doubt we'd have gone that way.

This is something we need to see a lot more of from every institution -- utilities especially, but also city and county governments: figuring out ways to get homeowners and renters over the financing barrier that makes renewable energy and efficiency improvements such a high hurdle. The hot water system we installed cost $8100, but the final cost after the federal tax credit, Oregon tax credit, and the Energy Trust of Oregon rebate was only $3700. We were lucky in that we had the cash from a prior home sale available so we could swing the $8100. But not a lot of people have that kind of cash sitting around just after buying a house -- and even those who could swing the $3700 final cost would have cash-flow problems with the up-front $8100.

By setting up a revolving loan fund for renewables and efficiency improvements, Salem could tie payment for the systems to the property tax bill and collection system and wind up helping the whole community, combat economic insecurity, raise property values, provide good local jobs, and reduce the amount of money that leaves the city every month for utilities. What are we waiting for?

The discussions we need to be having before we need them

Image by Flatbush Gardener via Flickr

Have you prepared your end of life care instructions?

Because, if not, you risk winding up getting what someone else thinks is the right thing for you. Unless you make your wishes known, you could be turned into a hockey puck for monstrous, morally bankrupt and vicious people to try to use to score political points.

Ending on a good note!

May it echo from a thousand overpasses, and then in coffeehouses, and then in legislatures all across the land. Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

Whoa, a local political body has actually noticed one of the key ingredients needed for a renewal of political and social well-being: stop honoring the legal fiction that property can acquire constitutional rights. More like this, please!

This Resolution was passed by the State Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Oregon on Dec. 6th, 2009.

This is not an official copy but should be pretty close
2009-043: Opposing Corporate Personhood
RESOLUTION 2009-043
A RESOLUTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF OREGON

WHEREAS, (as stated in the preamble to our Oregon State Democratic Platform) “...as Oregon Democrats, we assert that the citizens of our state and our country ARE the government, we hold up the Bill of Rights and derived civil liberties as the enduring standard of liberty, and we firmly oppose abrogation of those rights and liberties in the name of governmental convenience or security....” [emphasis added.] and

WHEREAS, The basis for establishing rights as “persons” for corporations under the U.S. Constitution has been and currently is based upon a questionable interpretation of the Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886, and

WHEREAS, Our country and the world have suffered catastrophic economic devastation as a result of the ensuing imbalance of political and economic power, and

WHEREAS, Corporations, relying on the Supreme Court's Buckley vs Valeo decision, now wield undue political influence since they are allowed to use money to exercise their putative first amendment rights.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED AS FOLLOWS:

1. We strongly urge our state legislators to submit and vote for a State constitutional amendment that declares that in the State of Oregon corporations shall not be recognized as persons nor accrue the rights of persons under State laws.

2. We strongly urge our Representatives to the U.S. Congress as well as our Senators to the U.S. Congress to submit an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which declares that “the rights and privileges granted by this document shall accrue to natural persons only.”

3. We strongly urge our State Legislators to begin the U.S. Constitutional amendment process in our state and urge other states to do likewise to achieve a two thirds majority of states.

Submitted by Richard Harisay, Delegate to the State Central Committee and Delegate to the State PRC.
Date approved : Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Resolution sponsor(s)
Richard Harisay, SCC Delegate
Marion County Democratic Central Committee