Crater Lake Photo by Alan Journet

Michael Kohn The Bulletin May 31st 2023

Rampant inflation over the past year may be hitting pocketbooks hard, but most Oregonians still support rules and regulations that protect the environment over those that prioritize economic development.

That’s according to a recent poll conducted by the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center, a Portland-based nonpartisan group that surveys Oregonians on a range of economic, environmental and social issues.

In a March-April survey, the center found that more than two-thirds of respondents prioritized environmental protection over economic development and job growth.

More

Photo-by-Kristijan-Nikacevic

Michael Kohn, The Bulletin, September 15th

A state program that helps pay for the cost of repairing wells could receive additional funding next year. That’s good news for the scores of homeowners who have seen their wells dry up amid drought and climate change challenges.

Rep. Mark Owens, R-Crane, is seeking $2 million to $3 million during the legislative short session, which will occur in February or March. Owens said he is looking for support from colleagues in the Legislature.

More

Photo from Creative Commons courtesy of Ali Hadbe

Cassandra Profita, OPB  September 18, 2023

Rancher Jeanne Carver threw her leg over a fence lining her property in Central Oregon.

“Let me go first,” she said. “It’s snake season.”

Watching for rattlesnakes, she led the way into a field her family converted back into grassland after a century of crop production.

Homesteaders cleared the rocks and plowed this field to plant grain and hay on what is now the Imperial Stock Ranch, which grazes sheep and cattle and grows wheat and hay in Maupin.

“This was tough country to farm,” Carver said. “They had to pick areas where they had more soil than rocks.”

More

Boardman coal-fired power plant, Photo by Alan Journet

A coal plant seeking hundreds of millions in public funding submitted an analysis riddled with mistakes, according to a former Energy Department official. But the government published it anyway.

Nicholas Kusnetz  Inside Climate News September 16 2023

A former Energy Department official is warning that the government may not be prepared to assess the effectiveness of new clean energy projects, pointing to what she called serious errors in a recent analysis of a major carbon capture and storage proposal in North Dakota.

The errors came in what’s called a life cycle assessment, or LCA, published by the department last month for a $1.4 billion effort that would remove and store millions of tons of carbon dioxide annually from the smokestacks of a coal plant.

The assessment is meant to help estimate and compare all the ways a project could increase or decrease pollution. In this case, however, it was riddled with mistakes, said Emily Grubert, an associate professor of sustainable energy policy at the University of Notre Dame and former deputy assistant secretary of carbon management at the Department of Energy, where she oversaw certain carbon capture programs until last year.

More

 

Tony Boom RV-Times, September 16th 2023

After 11 years as a volunteer-run operation, Southern Oregon Climate Action Now is looking to hire its first employee.

The group has raised more than half of a $90,000 funding campaign target and hopes to post a job listing for an executive director in November and fill the position early next year.

“We are taking SOCAN to the next level by hiring a first executive director,” said Alan Journet, who co-founded the group with his wife, Kathy Conway. The pair have served as co-facilitators.

“The executive director will take over day-to-day management. We won’t withdraw.”

that will force big companies to fully disclose their climate emissions and climate-related financial risks.

Bill McKibben initiated the ‘divest from fossil fuels’ campaign over a decade ago.  Now, Third Act is trying to move the campaign forward as follows:

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Here’s perhaps a weird ask: we need all of you across the country to sign this petition to the governor of California about two somewhat obscure pieces of legislation you’ve probably never heard of, together known as the Climate Accountability Package. Oh, and you need to do it today. I know there’s a lot going on, but this is big, and we need your help.

Governor Gavin Newsom is a national political figure, with national ambitions. California has the 5th largest economy in the world, meaning that any law passed here has not only national but also global ramifications. And these two laws—SB 253 (Wiener) and SB 261 (Stern)—are so important because they will force big companies that do business in California to stop greenwashing and report publicly on their climate emissions and climate-related financial risks.

In fact, if he signs them, it would turbocharge our campaign to stop the
banks from funding fossil fuel expansion. In particular, SB 253 would force big companies to fully disclose all of their emissions, including the “Scope 3 emissions” from their supply chains.

In fact, if he signs them, it would turbocharge our campaign to stop the
banks from funding fossil fuel expansion. In particular, SB 253 would force big companies to fully disclose all of their emissions, including the “Scope 3 emissions” from their supply chains.

This means that Apple, say, would have to disclose all the emissions that come from its bank service providers—i.e. the emissions that stem from leaving its money on deposit in banks that lend it out for dirty pipelines, fracking, and oil drilling. The best estimate from The Carbon Bankroll report is that disclosing the emissions associated with their cash in banks ups their total carbon footprint by…64%. Anyway, companies like Apple—which has pledged to go net zero by 2030—would then go to work pressing Citi and Chase and the rest to do the right thing. Otherwise Apple has to report all this pollution that stems from its banks’ funding of dirty fossil fuel projects.

Governor Newsom is heading to “Climate Week” in New York and has said that he will make a big public announcement about climate this Sunday. Please sign the petition today—and add your personal comment—and our partner California Climate Action will deliver our thousands and thousands of signatures to Governor Newsom before he leaves the state so that he knows the whole country is watching him. We want to make sure that the Governor includes in his Sunday announcement that he will sign these two game-changing climate bills.

When you add your personal comment on the petition, perhaps tell Governor Newsom that you admire his past work on climate issues, but that this may be the largest step of all. And tell him you know that the American Petroleum Institute and the Chamber of Commerce are pressuring him to do the wrong thing, but that he shouldn’t fear because the rest of us have his back.

Thanks for your speed—this is a huge opportunity! The three Third Act California Working Groups have been doing a bang-up job that helped these bills pass the legislature, but they need our support from around the country.

Thank you!

Bill McKibben for Third Act

‘This campaign is for our futures’: Ashland students see small success with natural gas ordinance

Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news September 15, 2023

“This campaign is for our futures. We want a future where our communities and the places that we love can thrive. We also deserve to bring clean air into our homes,” said Piper Banks, a student at Ashland High School.

Banks stood with other young women in the shade of a tree while an audience of around 40 people formed a half circle around them listening, clapping and cheering Wednesday afternoon as the Ashland Youth for Electrification Campaign with Rogue Climate Action Team held a rally just inside the entrance to Lithia Park to show their support for a proposed ordinance which aims to prohibit natural gas in new residential construction.

More

Photo by Dasja Dolan

Organization, which promotes awareness of global warming science, launches a fund drive to hire an executive director to boost its strength

By Alan Journet Ashland.News September 14th 2023

Eleven years ago, among the wide array of local nonprofits in Southern Oregon, something was missing. SOCAN was the first organization to step in to fill the void in the grassroots climate action arena.

For over a decade, SOCAN (Southern Oregon Climate Action Now) volunteers have dedicated themselves to accomplishing its mission of promoting awareness and understanding of the science of global warming and its climate change consequences and, within the framework of promoting social justice, to motivate individual and collective action to address it.

More

Local Group Reaching for a New Level of Climate Action

Alan Journet, SOCAN Press Release, September 11,2023

 

 

Press Release: For immediate release

 

 

 

 

Eleven years ago, among the wide array of local non-profits in Southern Oregon, something was missing. SOCAN was the first organization to step in to fill the void in the grassroots climate action arena.

For over a decade, SOCAN (Southern Oregon Climate Action Now) volunteers have dedicated themselves to accomplishing its mission of promoting awareness and understanding of the science of global warming and its climate change consequences and, within the framework of promoting social justice, to motivate individual and collective action to address it. They have marched in the streets, given presentations throughout the region, held monthly meetings on topics related to climate change, run for local office, established climate action teams in communities across the Rogue Valley, developed a Master Climate Protector course, lobbied the Governor and state legislators to take climate action, and taken the tools, inspiration, and dedication they learned at SOCAN to establish other climate organizations in the region. The impact of SOCAN and its volunteers has been so pervasive regionally that one can hardly attend a local public event without seeing a sea of the non-profit’s trademark orange t-shirts.

SOCAN is now ready to move from its grassroots origins as a volunteer-driven organization, led by co-facilitators and co-founders Kathy Conway and Alan Journet, by hiring its first Executive Director. To hire its first full-time staff member, the board has initiated a Fall 2023 fundraising campaign entitled ‘SOCAN: Reaching a new level of Climate Action.’ The strategy involves enhancing their grant-seeking activities and encouraging greater support from individual donors and regional businesses. With an initial, substantial grant from the Portland-based Oregon Raindrop Fund, the group is already making good progress.

On Saturday, September 9th, members of the Board of Directors were joined by long-time SOCAN friends, volunteers and supporters in the delightful backyard of two local super-volunteers in west Medford. Oregon House District 5 Representative Pam Marsh, who serves on SOCAN’s advisory board and is one of the most stalwart climate champions in the state legislature was on hand to help make the case for an expanded, sustainable SOCAN. Representative Marsh gave a brief history of her connection to Kathy and Alan, while emphasizing the impact SOCAN has had on elevating the discussion of climate change locally and urging passage of climate legislation at the state level.

SOCAN has now raised over $50,000 towards its $90,000 goal. In the coming months, SOCAN will be holding further fundraising activities, notably a donated concert on November 11th at the Bellview Grange in Ashland, by the local, Grateful Dead cover band, ‘Shine On’.

For further information or to make a donation, please visit https://socan.eco/2023campaign/

 

Most seafood is more climate-friendly than its terrestrial counterparts. But the latest controversies run deeper than simply wild-caught vs farmed.

Mark Harris, Anthropocene Magazine: September 11, 2023

Seafood production has quadrupled over the past 50 years, and almost all the extra fish have come from a rapidly growing aquaculture industry. Wild fish catches have remained largely stagnant since the 1990s. So, what does that all mean for carbon?

Currently, if you swap a weekly beef burger for a fish sandwich, you’ll slash your meal’s carbon footprint by a factor of five and significantly reduce your chance of dying from heart disease to boot.

That’s great. But there are many moving parts in the blue food equation. Overfishing and declining stocks mean that every fish takes more energy to catch than it did before. Fish farmers promise lower carbon seafood from ever larger operations, but they also have huge problems sourcing sustainable feeds. And then there’s the elusive white whale of zero-carbon seafood alternatives that avoid the ocean altogether.

More