Yesterday the paper featured on the front page (but not at all online) a new warning from "legendary climate scientist James Hansen": Things are heating up faster than the current standard forecasts say.
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| Front page yesterday |
On Monday our own Climate Action Plan Committee meets, and they might consider more strongly the urgency expressed in this comment from Hansen.
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| LA Times, Thursday |
On their agenda are several items that do not seem to communicate much urgency.
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| from the UO SCI Open House last month |
One item on the agenda is part of the University of Oregon Sustainable Cities residency. It is focused on "public relations," and an ongoing concern here is that the City fundamentally sees response to our Climate Crisis as a problem of public relations rather than a problem of reducing emissions.
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| from draft 2023 Annual Report |
It also appears to repeat the frame of individual responsibility, which you will recall is a discourse of delay.
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| "Individuals and consumers are responsible..." Individualism as Discourse of Delay |
If the City uses a PR campaign to build support for hitherto difficult policy actions like banning new methane "natural gas" hookups or ending the development of new gas stations, definite actions that reduce fossil fuels, then a campaign might be useful. But if the City sees PR as more of recommending better home composting and tree planting, or highlighting neato transportation "options" like biking to work, more bubbly social media, then it will be more a kind of greenwashing.
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| Eugene with lessons for Salem? (Oregonian, March 2023) |
Since the City of Eugene tried, and failed, to enact a ban on new home methane gas hookups, a more directly useful project might be an analysis of the public relations failure in Eugene and an improved public relations plan for a Salem ban on new methane gas hookups. The students had front-row seats. Why not leverage that? That's a worthy challenge!
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| Seems dismally low. |
As it is, the proposal for a PR campaign looks like basically an "Encouragement" project. We just saw a report from Cherriots on the statewide numbers for the "Get There Challenge" in October. It was a contest even, with prizes. The numbers were small.
By itself, encouragement programming has not moved the needle.
- On the ineffectiveness of encouragement programming see "Break the Annual Cycles of Bike Month," "On the Decline of Cycling and a Grant for Salem Bike Vision," and "The Limits of Bike Culture and Encouragement Programming."
So there are lots of reasons to be cautious, even wary, of this PR campaign approach.
Also in the meeting packet is a draft 2023 Annual Report. Its shape and tone remain frustrating.
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| Start of draft Annual Report |
The draft Report starts with the Climate Friendly rules. It says these changes are "intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," but the Report does not make any attempt to say whether they actually reduced or will reduce emissions. We are still privileging talk over walk, and proceduralism over results. (We see this wildly in the approach to designating Climate Friendly/Walkable Mixed Use Areas. Most recently and with links to previous posts see at Council, "Overlay Zones and Climate-Friendly Walkable Areas.")
The next item is totally empty:
TL 21: Follow new DEQ commute trip reduction rules.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) initiated a process to revise and expand the Employee Commute Options Program in May of 2022. This program presently requires that all employers in the Portland metropolitan area with 100 or more employees prepare a plan and provide incentives for reducing employee commute trips. From May 2022 through April 2023 Transportation
Planning staff participated on the Rulemaking Advisory Committee for the expanded rules. In May 2023, notice was sent to this Committee informing that the rulemaking process has been temporarily paused to allow time for DEQ staff to review stakeholder feedback and the draft rule concepts in more detail. No additional detail from the DEQ on when this rulemaking process might move forward has yet been received.
The City could have been working on its own commute trip reduction program. The City could have participated in and reported on that Get There Challenge! But since the DEQ project is stalled — whew, we don't have to do anything! No urgency.
The City should also be clearer about which actions follow state regulations and therefore are not anything initiated by or credited to the Climate Action Plan. The CAP should be more than merely a coordination and compliance plan, but it has settled into a comfort zone as it largely follows new state regulations. The point of a CAP was to be out in front of State and National regulations. It should be an instance of leadership. But at the moment we are mostly lagging behind and following, reactive rather than proactive.
The next two items in the Report show legit progress, with a definite plan for the first and concluded, adopted policy on the second (though this again follows State regulation and is nothing initiated by the CAP):
- TL 24: Charge for City-controlled parking (starting with on-street) in central business district.
- TL 40: Amend City code to eliminate parking minimums.
Apparently the new Climate Action Plan Manager will start at the City on November 6th, so that introduction will be interesting. That person is not named on the staff portion of the agenda.
There's also still no concrete information on the Riparian Goal 5 inventory. This has been a real stealth process.
In the draft Annual Report is another chart of emissions, and it should be underlined to the public that according to it driving creates ten times the emissions of garbage. Recent headlines might have made it seem like garbage was a much greater problem. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide, but driving is still a greater source than garbage.
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| Driving's still worse! |
Not on the agenda at all, but related, at Vox were a couple of recent and relevant articles of interest:
- Yet another piece on why EV mania is not enough, and we have to drive much less, even when driving is electrified. "Why Norway — the poster child for electric cars — is having second thoughts"
- And on ways the eco-NIMBY sentiment for open space, green space, and tree planting is insufficient. "It takes more than trees to build a livable city: Why green cities might not be the panacea we think they are."
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| A new remand on the Meyer Farm? |
Late last month LUBA published a mysterious final order on the Meyer Farm, "the parties request that the decision challenged in this appeal be remanded."
That debate on that development had seemed to be settled; this new appeal, and then new agreement for a remand, is a little surprising. Hopefully more definite information will emerge on it. But already local eco-NIMBY advocates are calling for open space (and its corollary, less proximity for useful things and more autoism) rather than for housing. This is not very helpful.
Back to the agenda and draft Annual Report, even when individual items seem laudable, the overall CAP still seems slack and lacking urgency. Maybe 2024 will change that.
The Climate Action Plan Committee meets Monday the 6th at 10am.
4 comments:
An important note: The City of Salem, and all jurisdictions within the 9th Circuit, may NOT regulate which appliances people use and what method they use to heat or cool their homes or businesses. In preparation for our meeting last quarter, which included a presentation on heat pumps, we learned that the 9th Circuit court of Appeals had determined that federal law pre-empted states or local jurisdictions from regulating appliances, such as stoves and furnaces, and method of heating (i.e. natural gas). Eugene's ban on new natural gas hookups was struck down as part of a decision in a WA state case. Please check the presentation on heat pumps from the last meeting.
Thanks. I was not following the court cases, and that is important information.
The RG's piece is paywalled, but at Eugene Weekly, Eugene Mayor Vinis in July addressed the situation of home appliances and fossil fuel infrastructure, "Eugene’s Fossil Fuel Repeal and Climate Change Future."
A PR project to build support for a new methane ban might not be directly helpful, but a PR project focused on policy and regulatory change, change at scale, rather than discretionary personal and household change, still seems more valuable. Good climate policy will work for climate denialists and non-virtuous people, and should not depend only virtuous individual choice.
A PR campaign that points to energy efficiency resources that most people don't know about is a valuable step. And as long as we are burning fossil fuels (including coal!!) to get our electricity, a gas ban mostly just makes us feel better about ourselves instead of meaningfully reducing emissions.
Here's some more on the Meyer Farm...
From the Salem Reporter neighborhood association update, republishing text supplied by the NAs, in this case Morningside:
To try and protect the large Oregon white oaks on the property, the Friends of the Meyer Farm fought the subdivision approval all the way through the state Land Use Board of Appeals and the Court of Appeals and lost. However, recently they were successful fighting a property line adjustment separating the farmhouse and its 5 acres from the other 25 acres that had been approved by the city, and LUBA remanded that application back to the City....
The future of the remaining 5 acre parcel around the original farmhouse and remaining stand of large oaks is unknown, but there are three possible scenarios:
1. The plan, as announced by Councilor Trevor Phillips, is for the city to purchase the 5 acre parcel around the farmhouse.... That would add 5 acres to Hilfiker Park, and the city also wants to acquire an access strip to create a path to Hilfiker Park for the neighbors entering from the west.
2. The family wants to purchase the 5 acres back from the Meyer Family Trust....
3. The third possibility is that the developer gets to acquire and keep the 5 acres....
The property line adjustment process did not require a full Public Notice process apparently, and that is why it was unnoticed here. So clearly there will be more to say later.
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