Letters to the editors can be the most important section of a newspaper or magazine. They are a prominent public space for community opinions and suppressed facts to be aired. With the Weakly, the two sections I scan each week are the letters (there is usually at least one or two bucking conventional wisdoms) and calendar section.

 

During the West Eugene Porkway debates, the Weakly wrote many articles from an anti-WEP point of view. However, none of these articles were completely accurate. The WEP was a Federal decision, not a local government decision. It was understandable that the pro-WEP Register Guard mangled the facts but harder to understand, at least at first, why the Weakly never mentioned this either. The only time the federal decision making role was mentioned in either paper was when I submitted letters and op-eds, never by their reporters or editorial boards. And to the best of my knowledge, neither paper dared quote anyone who opposed all of the WEP in any story they ran between 1999 and 2007. (They did interview a prominent environmentalist who promoted, briefly, an even worse version of the WEP than that planned by ODOT.)

After the No Build decision was made by the Federal Highway Administration in 2007, then Mayor Piercy claimed credit for the WEP's defeat. It was a partially accurate claim that was wrong. The City Council and Mayor did vote to remove the City's support for the project, but the "No Build" decision was made by the feds. Title 23, United States Code says that federal aid transportation projects are approved or rejected by the federal government.

A lingering consequence is continued polarization of Eugene: conservative pro-WEP constitutencies were told by their politicians that the non-binding advisory votes for the WEP (80% in 1986, 51% in 2001) determined if the road would be built even though the law clearly states the federal decision making powers, the road would have violated Section 4(f) of the 1966 Transportation Act (the strongest environmental law), and the City never appropriated any money toward construction costs. Fortunately, officials at US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, ODOT and BLM realized they would lose the proposed WETLANDS v. FHWA lawsuit, even if the Weakly, RG and City Hall declined to explain the reasons.

 

The Weakly's coverage of the nearby NuScale nuclear power company in Corvallis has been even worse. As far as I know there have been two mentions of this since the Obama administration gave NuScale almost a quarter billion dollars to help build a demonstration reactor. NuScale reactors would be "mini" nukes, 45 megawatts instead of close to a thousand. However, NuScale is designing them to be clustered in 12 packs, which would be about 540 megawatts, approaching "full size" nuke generation. These mini nukes are marketed as meltdown proof, but even if that is true (and it's not) there are still the unsolvable problems of uranium mine tailings (lethal for eons) and nuclear waste on the back side of the reactor fuel cycle.

In 2019, EW finally ran a full story about NuScale but did not interview opponents, an odd omission for a paper whose image is ultra "woke" about ecological and "social justice" concerns. The article mentioned there was a Republican State Senator (singular) who championed NuScale.

In reality, the State Senate voted almost unanimously in 2017 to gut a 1980 ballot measure that outlaws new nukes in Oregon so long as nuclear waste remains unsolvable. But if the Weakly had mentioned this it would have been harder to blame pro-NuScale efforts as solely sponsored by Republicans.

In 2013, the entire Oregon Congressional delegation praised the Obama subsidy for NuScale: 2 Democratic US Senators, 4 Democratic Representatives and 1 Republican Representative. It is likely if Oregon's federal representation was Republican the Democratic funded environmental groups might be more free to suggest starting a new nuclear industry is a dumb idea.

 

December 22, 2022 (submitted)

In a 12/22 letter, Debra McGee of 350Eugene claimed the city of Eugene works to protect us from climate change.

On December 20, the City announced their "urban reserves" plan to urbanize farmland was unanimously approved by the city and county planning commissions, with the politicians following suit in the new year. "Urban reserves" would extend Eugene to Junction City and toward Veneta — and I haven't found a single environmental group raising concerns. www.sustaineugene.org has details.

No climate activists spoke at the public hearing in October, but there were three farmers and rural residents who don't want to be forced into the city. An attorney objected on behalf of Wildish that wants to strip mine their land before it's urbanized. I spoke about recognizing limits to growth on an abundant, finite planet. We need to protect farmland so people can eat as fossils deplete. Heresy, I know.

Eugene once had an environmental movement watchdogging local government, now these groups are lapdogs. Local government promotes "climate" not to mitigate the sixth mass extinction we are co-creating, but as a marketing campaign to prop up local real estate. "Move to Eugene to be sustainable!"

The "electrification" campaign implies electricity means no fossil fuels. In reality, natural gas is the largest energy source for electric generation, not dams or wind farms. Unnatural gas combustion for electricity has increased substantially in recent decades. Peak electricity in Oregon and nationally was 2018. Prepare to use less. www.peakchoice.org has details.

Mark Robinowitz
Eugene

 

 

November, 2022

It is sad that the Register Guard's distant corporate owners ended letters to the editor and op-eds. These are critical parts of any newspaper's voice. They can promote perspectives sometimes absent in the rest of the paper.

My letters and op-eds to the RG were the only times they mentioned legal problems of the proposed West Eugene Porkway. I was involved in stopping the highway from 1999 through its cancellation in 2007 (various versions were considered since 1951).

The WEP would have violated federal laws including "section 4(f)" of the 1966 Transportation Act which bans federally funded roads through parks like the West Eugene Wetlands conservation park. This is why the Federal Highway Administration chose "No Build."

Section 4(f) may be the strongest federal environmental law — it requires avoidance, not mere mitigation — but it doesn't apply to the plan to widen Beltline highway across the river from 10 to 16 lanes for a third of a billion dollars. ODOT and FHWA approved this in March without public notice.

The RG has run stories about Beltline widening but the only dissent they have published have been my letters. As far as I know, the only time EW has mentioned this project have been similar letters.

My politics do not fit the conventional wisdom of either the RG or EW, so they relegated my contributions to the letters section, not as sources for news stories. SustainEugene.org has copies of the letters and detailed background.

Mark Robinowitz
Eugene

 

October 2020

The Holiday Farm fire in the McKenzie River watershed could have been called the Weyerhauser fire if the total acreage was the basis for the name. Most of the land that burned was corporate industrial plantations, far more than federal National Forests and private residences. I have copied a map showing ownerships at www.forestclimate.org

Lane County code 10.103-60 admits tree farms are more flammable than older forests with big trees. Monoculture young firs burn hot and fast.

Fires in the Santiam watershed burned more public land, but a lot of those forests had also been converted into tree farms.

In 2005, permaculture co-originator David Holmgren visited Eugene on his first (and last) trip to the USA. He noted the importance of protecting the last of the old growth forest but also the need to change practices on second (and third!) growth toward sincere sustainability. There are a few examples of selective forestry in Oregon but not many - and none are on corporate lands who have shareholders to satisfy.

John Sundquist's letter (9/24) decried SB 1602, a State bill, now law, that penalized objections to helicopter herbiciding of corporate clearcuts. SB 1602 codified an agreement made in February between 13 environmental groups, including Beyond Toxics, Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands, and 13 timber companies, including Weyerhauser. It would be nice for EW to ask these groups why they support continued clearcuts and aerial spraying via this agreement. Read their agreement (annotated) at www.sustaineugene.org

Mark Robinowitz
Eugene

 

 

submitted January 23, 2020

Edward Abbey said "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

The City's Envision Eugene program promotes gentrification, paving farmland, supersized sports stadiums, and a bigger Beltline highway.  These and other expansions are based on the lie that the economy can supposedly be decoupled from physical limits.

A pilot who ignores a "low fuel" warning risks disaster for all on board.

Cascadia's food delivery trucks are powered by Alaskan oil.  In 1988, the Alaska pipeline peaked at over two million barrels a day.  In 2019, the pipeline dropped below a half million a day.  The "low flow shutdown" may be about three hundred thousand a day, when it will no longer be possible to pump the contents in the Arctic winter.

Two thirds of domestic oil production is now from fracking.  (Conventional oil peaked in the US in 1970.). Two thirds of US "natural" gas is also fracked.  Charts at PeakChoice.org

In Canada, about two-thirds of their oil flow is from tar sands, an even dirtier process.

Fracked shale gas generates more electricity than dams, wind and solar combined.  Proposals to increase electricity usage ignore the inputs needed to run power grids.

Solar panels are great - I've used them since 1990 - but living on our solar budget would power a smaller, steady state economy.  "Smart growth" is an illusion if resource depletion is admitted.  We are past the limits to endless growth on an abundant, finite planet.

"Decarbonization" is a euphemism for "depletion."

Mark Robinowitz

 

https://www.eugeneweekly.com/2019/12/26/toxic-lies/

Toxic Lies

POSTED ON 12/26/2019

On Nov. 14, EW published a letter praising styrofoam from Tim Shestek, a lobbyist for American Chemistry Council in Sacramento.

I hope Eugene finally bans this useless, toxic crap, but it is worth remembering there were efforts to ban plastics three decades ago. Some campaigns elsewhere resulted in bans, but few were enforced and are now forgotten.

In response, the plastics industry rebranded their products as allegedly recyclable. Now that the illusion of plastic recycling has gone up in toxic smoke, the industry is promoting burning this waste to "recycle" its heat value. This is the meaning of "innovative plastics recovery technologies" in Shestek's letter.

Eugene based consultants "Good Company" says at www.goodcompany.com/projects.html they are working with American Chemistry Council on "Plastics to Fuel Technologies" — a euphemism for burning plastic garbage. CO2 is the least of the problems with incinerating toxic waste: incinerators create countless new cancer causing compounds that bioaccumulate up the food chain. (published version left out the specific page at goodcompany.com)

"Good Company" is also a consultant to the City of Eugene's Climate Inaction Plan 2.0. This plan claims buying carbon credits (promoted by Good Company) will help make City operations carbon neutral.

The plan ignores the proposed 12 - 14 lane widening of Beltline highway across the Willamette River for about a third of a billion dollars.

The plan ignores physical limits to growth: conventional oil and gas are in sharp decline. Fracked oil and gas fuel the illusion of continued growth, for now. Details at SustainEugene.org - "Greenwash is Sustain-a-bull" (published version left out the website link)

Mark Robinowitz

 

www.eugeneweekly.com/2019/10/31/jfks-paradigm/

JFK's Paradigm

POSTED ON 10/31/2019

Sept. 20 was the "climate strike" during the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

Climate movement leaders urge a "World War II" mobilization to address the countless challenges of climate chaos. I appreciate the intention but also like Albert Einstein's caution that a problem cannot be solved by the mindset that created it.

World War II gave birth to this country's Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Congressional-Financial-Media-University-Entertainment-Complex, including "three letter agencies" that are extrajudicial additions to government. Whatever mitigation is still possible for climate chaos, peaked everything, overconsumption, overpopulation and overshoot would require unprecedented cooperation.

The Manhattan Project to invent atomic bombs is not a good role model for living without toxic, depleting fossil fuels considering nuclear waste and our nuked democracy.

On Sept. 20, 1963, President Kennedy offered a different approach, speaking at the United Nations — "Why should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition?" — offering to convert the Moon race to a cooperative effort with the Soviets.

JFK called off the Cold War, converting militarism to address global poverty, public health, ecological agriculture and conservation, and using satellites for communication and weather information. Visit jfkmoon.org for the audio and text.

Mark Robinowitz
Eugene

 

Bad Green Deal

03/21/2019

"Green New Deal" is a great slogan. Unfortunately, the campaign ignores inconvenient facts.

We are beyond the limits to growth of non-renewable fossil fuels and of "renewable" resources such as forests, fish, soil, fresh water and food. Find details about overconsumption, overpopulation and overshoot at peakchoice.org.

Using unprecedented levels of energy does not mean there are equally sized alternatives to power the American Way of Life (AWOL). I have used solar panels since 1990; they are great but not as concentrated. It takes fossil fuels and mineral ores to make, move and install them. Claims we could have 100 percent of current consumption without fossil fuels don't describe how to heat cold cities during a "polar vortex."

We will live radically differently on the resource downslope, but the end of economic growth doesn't poll well in Democratic Party focus groups. Greenwashing and wishful thinking are popular but unable to sustain social safety nets.

Democratic politicians profess concern for climate while promoting highway expansions, urbanization and industrial clearcutting.

As the fracking bubble subsides (due to geology) we will enter the new world of permanent energy rationing, which will collapse the exponential growth economy and fuel scapegoating of whom to blame.

We are damned if we drill because of toxic pollution and climate chaos.

We are damned if we don't because fossil fuels power food supplies, keep cities warm in the winter, and run electric power grids.

Mark Robinowitz

Eugene

 

2018-12-27

Entropy Now

In 1990, I took my first class about solar electricity. The first lesson was to reduce consumption, which is important on the societal level, too.

350Eugene's Deb McGee and Jim Neu wrote letters (Nov. 21) claiming that the obstacle to ending fossil fuel use is political corruption and we just need a positive attitude. I wish I agreed, but using solar panels and studying how concentrated energy runs industrial civilization taught me the obstacle is physics.

McGee and Neu quote Peter DeFazio as saying fossil fuel use will not end in the next decade. I oppose DeFazio's promotion of highway expansions, clearcuts on federal forests, burning trees for electricity and the NuScale nuclear power startup in Corvallis. But here, DeFazio is correct.

The reason we use fossil energy: It is more concentrated than living on our solar budget, especially this time of year.

Finite concentrated fossil carbon fueled our population increase from under a billion (before fossil) to approaching 8 billion today. Using remaining fossils to re-localize food production might ensure social cohesion on the energy downslope. Logistics matter more than protests, Eugene's law to buy "carbon credits" or lawsuits seeking governmental plans.

Post Carbon Institute in Corvallis (in DeFazio's district) is the leading group in the country integrating concerns about ecology and climate with the facts of peak everything and the limits to exponential growth on a round, abundant, finite planet. Their sites include postcarbon.org and resilience.org.

Entropy is not a good idea; it's the law!

Mark Robinowitz

 

2018-09-13

The Truth About Merkley

The Eugene Weekly's promotion of Senator Merkley to be a presidential candidate (cover story, 8/30) omitted key facts.

Merkley supported Trump when Congress met to ratify the Electoral College.

Congress, not the voters, makes the formal determination of who is president. When they met to ratify the result on Jan. 6, 2017, a few on the House side spoke in opposition to confirming the alleged electors due to suppression of minority voters (gregpalast.com) and voting machine tabulators that flipped the results in key swing states.

No senator, not even Merkley nor Wyden, dared join the dissidents on the House side and therefore no debate on Trump's illegitimacy was permitted. Therefore, Democratic senators share responsibility for the loser of the election being installed as the president.

Sen. Merkley, like the rest of the Oregon Congressional delegation, supported the Obama administration's $226-million subsidy of NuScale corporation, our local nuclear power startup. Since there is no "solution" to nuclear waste, generating more is a crime against future generations of all species.

"President Merkley" seems like wishful thinking. He is probably not enough of a militarist for the Pentagon and CIA to support. (Obama had a CIA background and escalated military interventions, including drone warfare.)

The last U.S. president who called for an end to militarism was extra-judicially removed from office on Nov. 22, 1963. No president since Kennedy has dared challenge the Empire in a meaningful way. Authentic political "change" would require honesty and courage about our predicaments.

Mark Robinowitz

 

 

 

2017-09-14

BAN AERIAL SPRAYS

The state of Oregon's new herbicide spray notification website ("The Spray Near You," Aug. 31) is an improvement over the old subscription system, but a poor substitute for prohibiting these abuses. We don't need better disclosure about the scale of poisoning; we need to ban aerial spraying of cancer causing biocides over corporate clearcuts.

The ballot initiative to ban aerial spraying in Lane County was mentioned parenthetically in a sentence, but the organizer, Freedom From Aerial Herbicides Alliance, was not. 

EW's article quoted Lisa Arkin, who runs Beyond Toxics. A casual reader might assume this group is part of this initiative effort, but Beyond Toxics has not (yet?) endorsed the spray ban, focusing instead on the more elusive, less effective goal of better regulation.

A similar group, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, helped ban aerial spraying on the federal forests in the 1980s. Now, NCAP claims a "300 foot" no-spray buffer supposedly protects salmon in streams from contamination. Helicopter rotors blow sprays far beyond intended targets, inflicting collateral damage on down-winders. Forest fire smoke reminds us air pollution crosses land ownership boundaries.

Better "regulation" is an illusion — prevention is the only solution to protect public health.

Elected Democrats in Salem and Lane County either support aerial spraying or are hesitant to oppose it. EW barely mentioned the initiative during the signature-gathering phase. I hope EW, Beyond Toxics and NCAP promote the proposed aerial spray ban before the election.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

Editor's note: In addition to mentioning the proposed ban in "The Spray Near You," EW did two stories on the ban in 2017 as well as running letters, activist alerts and a viewpoint.

 

2017-03-23

PROTEST ON THE TITANIC

Corporate and governmental climate denial is not rooted in failure to understand science, but recognition that our endless growth economy requires endless increase of resource use. As fossil fuels deplete, solar panels might keep society together but at a much lower consumption level. Solar panels and wind farms don't power airplanes and long distance truck networks. Relocalizing food production is more important than hoping for a techno-fix.

In the 1990s, Trump's advisor Steve Bannon was director of the Biosphere 2 project, an oil money funded effort to see if domed cities could shelter the super-rich while the rest of us succumb to eco-collapse. This is like the first class passengers on the Titanic getting in the lifeboats first, except we are all in the same boat of "Spaceship Earth" and there's no escape for anyone.

When energy rationing finally starts, due to geologic depletion, "stop drilling" groups may be popular scapegoats. Most people do not understand physical limits and may believe efforts to blame shortages on environmentalism. Protests do not substitute for the logistics of food distribution.

Instead of gimmicks for the billionaires or war preparations to grab remaining resources, we could implement large scale permaculture projects to improvise as many "lifeboats" as possible with the goal of rescuing everyone.  Protesting systems that keep us fed and warm, without making practical efforts to create sufficient substitutes, seems counterproductive. Relocalizing through local and global cooperation might work better than protesting the navigator of our sinking ship of state.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2017-01-19

ALL MEOW, NO CLAWS

Outgoing Mayor Kitty Piercy gave a speech last month to City Club of Eugene citing her alleged role in the cancellation of the West Eugene Porkway and subsequent "collaborative" that supposedly brought all sides together.

The Federal Highway Administration and ODOT chose "No Build" for the WEP bypass because Section 4(f) of the Transportation Act prohibits federally funded freeways through parklands such as the BLM's West Eugene Wetlands. Details at peaktraffic.org/4f.html and sustaineugene.org.

The collaborative to which Piercy referred included some of Piercy's conservative and liberal friends but excluded west-side neighborhood groups and West 11th businesses. That meant citizens who opposed a worse version of the WEP crafted by a couple of the mayor's liberal friends were not welcome. This group recommended spending a quarter billion to widen West 11th, more than double the EMX cost and more than the $169 million WEP estimate (only $17 million had been appropriated).

Piercy also cited her climate law as a laudable achievement, yet its only financial requirement is to spend public funds on carbon credits. The city's climate analyst said buying offsets for the planned 10- to 11-lane Beltline Highway widening would be ridiculous but he didn't dare say that in public. Similarly, the city of Las Vegas claims to be sustainably powered through credits, yet that desert mirage is probably the least sustainable city on the continent.

Piercy's greenwash rhetoric distracted from ugly sprawl (Capstone, et al.), widening I-5 and Beltline, and the growing number of warehouses on farmland (Envision Eugene).

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2016-06-02

SOLAR BUDGET 

The reason we use fossil fuels is they are more concentrated and easier to use than the alternatives. It would be nice to have simple replacements for this stored energy, but our growth-based economy requires ever-increasing use of resources.

Now that the "low hanging fruit" of easy-to-extract fossil fuels are in decline, replaced by difficult-to-extract energy such as offshore drilling, tar sands, fracked oil and gas, our economy is having increased difficulty sustaining continued growth. This is a deeper problem than the politics of oil company executives or corporate bribery of politicians.

Economic impacts of energy decline are leading to increased instability, with social chaos that can be as challenging as the ecological damage.

Financial hardships lead to demagogues — the classic example is 1930s Germany. Trump is indicative of the blaming likely to happen on the energy downslope.

Energy literacy about energy decline could be a partial antidote for scapegoating, but would require admitting we have reached the limits to growth on an abundant, round, finite planet.

Using solar panels for a quarter century taught me living on our solar budget will power a much smaller, steady state economy no longer based on exponential growth.

Moving beyond fossil fuels is not about electric cars, but relocalizing food production, since solar panels cannot power long-distance food shipments. That limitation is physical and logistical, not political.

Breeding plant varieties will probably be the most important adaptation to changing climates.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

 

2016-04-28

SUSTAIN-A-BULLSHIT

Recently, Bernie Sanders claimed that Hillary Clinton is not qualified to be president. While I am not a supporter of the Clintons (none of the above is my choice), I think Hillary is qualified to be the spokesperson for the National Insecurity State. She has decades of experience promoting wars, global domination and corporate corruption.

David Brower, one of the greatest environmentalists of the 20th century, said that Clinton and Gore did more damage to environmentalism than Reagan and Bush, because environmentalists let Democrats wreck regulations instead of taking a nonpartisan approach to public health.

Regarding the Ward 1 race, the establishment is promoting Josh Skov for his alleged environmental credentials. Skov was with the consulting firm "Good Company," which was hired by EWEB to claim that the Seneca Sawmill incinerator is clean and green. Good Company's website states they've helped other timber companies, ODOT's highway expansion program and other polluters supposedly go "green" through rhetoric, baby steps and carbon credits. My favorite analysis of "carbon credits" is at cheatneutral.com. 

Skov would be a great fit for the city of Eugene's strategy to go "carbon neutral" by buying carbon credits to supposedly offset the planned widening of Beltline highways and the overdevelopment boondoggles the planning department is pushing on reluctant neighborhoods.

Admitting that climate change is real while promoting pollution is sustain-a-bullshit.

Sincere environmental efforts would recognize we have passed the limits to growth on a round, finite planet.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2016-03-10

LIMITS ARE NOT ENOUGH

In the 1970s, some Oregon timber companies started spraying powerful herbicides from the air over their clearcuts. Rural downwinders led efforts to ban this abuse and stopped the sprays over federal forests in the 1980s, but were unsuccessful at ending this on corporate timberlands.

Now, Oregon's environmental groups are split between the downwinders who want an end to the poisoning and urban groups who merely seek better regulation. In 2015, Beyond Toxics pushed a bill in Salem to ask the state to determine acceptable buffers even though helicopter sprays drift for miles and mass spraying of forests poisons wildlife. A better bill, not championed by the establishment environmentalists, would have banned aerial sprays. Neither bill became law.

Oregon Wild and Mountain Rose Herbs staff are chief petitioners for a statewide ballot initiative to limit some sprays of poison over corporate clearcuts. This effort is marketed as a ban but would have loopholes large enough to fly helicopters through. Their initiative would still permit sprays over streams where salmon have been wiped out, where cities do not get their drinking water and where the state determines schools and homes are a "safe" distance away.

It is not too late to rewrite this initiative to prohibit all aerial spraying to protect wildlife and downwinder communities.

A Lane County initiative sponsored by Freedom from Aerial Herbicides would ban aerial sprays, not regulate them. See FreedomFromAerialHerbicides.org. 

Downwinders do not consent to being sprayed. Allowing the state to designate supposedly acceptable buffers just perpetuates the abuse. 

Mark Robinowitz, sustaineugene.org, Eugene

 

 

2016-01-28

A RIGGED ELECTION

When Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington, the local peace advocates were arrested for protesting the GE machine gun factory that was making death machines to send to Central America (guns for helicopters that were shooting at peasant villages). Sanders is like DeFazio — sounds good, but a mix of good and bad.

Bernie will win Vermont, south Eugene, east Portland and similar places. The Clintons will put nice rhetoric in the party platform for his supporters.

The presidential "election" is like televised wrestling — a bruising contest that is rigged in advance. 

I voted for the Clintons in 1992 and then got arrested protesting their hazardous waste incineration scandal in 1993. You can find the details at oilempire.us/wti/html. 

It is a relief that the campaign of John Ellis Bush (JEB) has evaporated. Trump is playing the role Sarah Palin played in 2008 — so ridiculous that the imperial Democrat looks good in comparison.

Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space says, "It is my belief that since the JFK assassination the secret government, the CIA and the [Military Industrial Complex], have been running the show. They have not allowed anyone to become president, from either party, that was not under their control." 

Obama has a CIA background. In Arkansas, the Clintons played a role in Iran-Contra (in cahoots with the Bushes). Sanders does not have that connection, so he won't be allowed to "win." Sorry.

None of the above is an honorable choice.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2015-05-07

FEAR AND DENIAL

EW co-owner Anita Johnson writes that it was "unlikely" that Sen. Wayne Morse was correct that "John Kennedy, had he lived, would have ended the Vietnam War" ("Reckoning with the Past" story, April 30).

On Nov. 12, 1963, Morse was the first member of Congress to be told by President Kennedy that he had decided to pull out of Vietnam. JFK signed National Security Action Memorandum 263 to start the withdrawal, a month before he was removed from office. A copy is archived at jfkmoon.org/vietnam.html.

I also heard Professor Christian Appy, subject of Johnson's book review, at a Morse Center event last year, but was less impressed. 

In most countries, when the military leadership and "intelligence" agencies assassinate the president and then reverse his policies, that is considered a coup d'etat. The biggest secret of the coup of Nov. 22, 1963, is the perpetrators knew they'd get away with it due to fear and denial. Two years ago, Robert Kennedy Jr. urged "all Americans" to read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters by James Douglass, the best introduction.

George Orwell wrote in 1984, "Who controls the past controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past."

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2015-01-15

FUTURE OF HIGHWAYS

EW's year-end issue Dec. 31 discussed some dreams for the region's rivers; here are two extra topics that are usually ignored. 

ODOT is plotting an 11-lane-wide Beltline bridge over the Willamette River. The city of Eugene and Lane County are collaborating with this scheme, which is estimated to cost over a quarter billion dollars.

According to ODOT, traffic peaked in Lane County in 2003, yet the Beltline study claims it will increase nearly a third over the next 20 years. Will we have traffic jams after the low-flow shutdown of the Alaska pipeline and the decline of the fracking bubble?

The millions allocated for this bogus Environmental Impact Statement would be better spent directly on the Beltline "low-build" safety alternative to fix the Delta/Beltline interchange.

One response to energy depletion and climate change would be better intercity rail. Funds to widen Beltline would be better spent replacing the worn-out railroad bridge across the Willamette between Junction City and Harrisburg. Details at peaktraffic.org/beltline.html. 

Perhaps the biggest damage to Oregon's rivers is from corporate clearcuts and helicopter herbicides. While National Forest logging gets some scrutiny, the bigger problem of corporate cutting and spraying is rarely mentioned. This damage is permitted by our Democratic governor via the Oregon Department of Forestry.

Deforestation doesn't only harm water quality, it also disrupts the hydrologic cycle, one of the factors behind climate change. Forestclimate.org has video from the "Clearcutting the Climate" conference that was held in Eugene in 2008. 

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2014-12-11

IGNORED FILMS

Two films recently screened at Bijou Metro were ignored by EW's reviews. Kill the Messenger is about reporter Gary Webb, who made the career-ending mistake of investigating the CIA's complicity with the cocaine trade in Central America in the 1980s. Profits from drug smuggling were used to fund the Contra terror war against Nicaragua, and the social consequences included the crack epidemic in the U.S. The film showed how mainstream media forced his newspaper to backpeddle and Webb was made persona non grata in the media industry. Perhaps if the film had glorified being stoned it would have been reviewed by EW.

Citizenfour profiles the whistleblowing of Ed Snowden. It shows the duplicity of the Obama administration, which is not politically correct for liberal Democrats.

The popular focus on corporate power is only part of the story; there are other tentacles of the Empire that deserve scrutiny. The National Security State's so-called intelligence community was born in World War II and came to full power with the coup d'etat of Nov. 22, 1963.

The differences between Bush/Cheney and Obama/Biden (and the factions they represent) are tactical disagreements about managing global domination, not war vs. peace.

EW's Dec. 4 Slant praised Obama's initiative to equip police with body cameras. It's no surprise Obama wants cops to have more cameras but he has declined suggestions to stop giving military equipment to police forces. 

Mark Robinowitz, oilempire.us, Eugene

 

2014-10-16

DISAPPOINTING DEMS

Some people suggest we should hold our noses and vote for Democrats because they are supposedly the lesser of evils. But a better description is they are the "good cop" to the Republican "bad cop."

The entire congressional delegation (all Democrats except for Greg Walden) supported the Obama administration's $226 million corporate welfare subsidy to NuScale, the nuclear power company in Corvallis. Gov. John Kitzhaber and his State Lands Board plan to sell the Elliott State Forest to timber companies at their Dec. 9 meeting (after his re-election). Peter DeFazio and the rest of the congressional Democrats are pushing to privatize the BLM forest lands, a gift to timber barons who overcut their own lands. Every Lane County Democrat in the state Legislature voted for funding toward the $4 billion Columbia River Crossing superhighway (which would be up to 16 lanes wide on the Vancouver, Washington, side).

In the unlikely scenario that a Republican replaced Kitzhaber, Jeff Merkley or DeFazio, the environmental groups would wake up and mobilize against them. With the Democrats, environmental groups are lap dogs, not watch dogs. The Republican challengers are straw men and women who provide the illusion of opposition. These incumbent Democrats are shoo-ins for another term due to demographics. Their party labels guarantee they will be in office as long as they want. They're far more effective than the Republicans could be regarding forest land privatization, subsidy for Oregon's NuScale nuclear power company, highway expansions and other anti-environmental policies.

Mark Robinowitz, Sustaineugene.org

 

2014-08-14

BEHIND WHOLE FOODS

The Eugene City Council's recent hearing about their sale of public land for a "Hole Foods" store in Eugene drew only three citizens to speak against it (I was one of them). Two previous attempts to bring Whole Foods were intensely controversial; one hearing was the most crowded I've seen. EW had a great cartoon about this on its cover, archived at sustaineugene.org/hole-foods.html.

Whole Foods is "the Walmart of health food." CEO John Mackey is a union buster who has said, "The union is like having herpes. It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover."

The local real estate company bringing us Whole Foods is owned by the Giustina family, a major donor to George W. Bush. Giustina also hires helicopters to spray poison on their clearcuts in the south hills. Will their association with Whole Foods inspire them to switch to non-toxic forestry, or is it just another example of "sustain-a-bullshit" greenwashing? Are their herbicide bottles half full or half empty?

The council also recently passed a Climate Recovery Ordinance that declares city operations will be carbon neutral by 2020. The ordinance bypassed mention of plans to widen Beltline to 11 lanes. Public funds will be given to consultants who market the sweet lie of "carbon credits" that supposedly neutralize fossil fuel pollution. A serious examination of this fraud is at carbontradewatch.org and a satirical view is at cheatneutral.com

Mark Robinowitz, SustainEugene.org

 

 

2014-03-06

PIPELINE SHUTDOWN

It was nice to see Tom Giesen's column "Game Over" [2/20] discussing oil depletion in the coming decades. Peaked energy and climate chaos are two aspects of the same problem — overshoot.

On Feb. 18, the Alyeska Pipeline company released the 2013 figures for the Alaska Pipeline, which declined another 2.5 percent last year. Alaskan oil powers nearly every motor in Oregon, including those of food delivery trucks. The Alaska Pipeline's shutdown is likely to impact Eugene more than construction of new pipelines in other time zones.

It was sad to read the article [2/20] about students condemning Lierre Keith's upcoming keynote speech at the PIELC conference for alleged "transphobia." Meanwhile, there's no student protest about James Hansen, who promotes new nuclear power as the supposed solution to climate change. Hansen cites ultraconservative Ann Coulter as a source for his claim that radioactivity might be beneficial, biologically, in small doses. He will share the stage with the David Brower awards even though Brower was an early opponent of nuclear power.

A disclaimer: PIELC 2014 rejected my panel requests: 1) "Running into the Limits to Growth: Peak(ed) Energy and Climate Chaos," 2) "Peak Traffic and Transportation Triage: a Legal Strategy to Stop Trillion Dollar Highway Expansion Plans and Prepare For Post Peak Travel," and 3) "The Surveillance State is the Military Industrial Complex's Preparation for Climate Chaos."

I hope these topics become acceptable to the fossil fuel foundation funded environmental establishment before gasoline rationing arrives.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene, PeakChoice.org

 

 

2013-08-22

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Sept. 20 is the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's second and final speech to the U.N. He called off the Cold War and offered to convert the Moon Race to a cooperative effort with the Soviet Union. What would the world be today if this had happened in JFK's second term? What would have happened if the trillions spent on endless war had been used for peaceful purposes? What are the lessons for the peace movements for this missed opportunity?

The full speech is worth reading at this anniversary since it's by far the most profound and visionary statement from any president, by orders of magnitude beyond any other efforts.

In early October, we can observe the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's order to withdraw all troops and advisors from Vietnam.

The biggest secret of the removal of JFK from the presidency is not how many gunmen were firing but that the perpetrators knew the American public would largely acquiesce to the coup. There are some disturbing understandings about the nature of the U.S. empire from this recognition, which is why it is not a topic for polite conversation.

I hope the upcoming International Day of Peace will include a focus on these important events and paradigms to facilitate broad understanding. In particular, the anniversary of Kennedy's support of Sen. Wayne Morse's efforts to end the war in Vietnam is of special relevance for Eugene.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2013-03-14

PLANETARY TRIAGE

Trying to mitigate peak oil and climate chaos separately makes both worse. Focusing on energy shortage while ignoring ecology led to the false solutions of tar sands, shale gas, offshore drilling, liquid natural gas, biomass electricity, mountaintop removal and nuclear power.

Focusing only on "carbon" while ignoring energy limits is one of the reasons for the political backlash against climate change awareness. Environmental groups frame these concerns as we should reduce energy consumption instead of we will reduce consumption because we cannot burn fuel that does not exist. 

Framing the question as how we will use the remaining oil could bypass the problem of climate change denial. We will reduce our "carbon footprint" whether we want to or not. How many governments or corporations will still exist in 2050 when our footprints are supposed to be smaller? How much oil will be left in 2050 to extract?

Our exponential growth economy has hit the end of growth of resource consumption, imposed by nature as well as politics. Building lots of wind turbines, railroads and relocalizing agriculture would require reallocating resources used for endless warfare and wasteful consumerism. After "peak everything" there will be fewer resources available for transition. We need triage on a planetary scale to wisely use the remaining fossil fuels and minerals. 

Living on our current solar budget would power a smaller, steady state economy. We will live on our solar budget as the oil, unnatural gas and coal go away. Future generations need us to choose wisely and use remaining fossil fuels for relocalization and power down. We are past the limits to growth on our round, finite planet.

David Holmgren, a co-originator of permaculture, is author of Future Scenarios: How Communities adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change (see futurescenarios.org):

"Economic recession is the only proven mechanism for a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions ... most of the proposals for mitigation from Kyoto to the feverish efforts to construct post Kyoto solutions have been framed in ignorance of peak oil. As Richard Heinberg has argued recently, proposals to cap carbon emissions annually, and allowing them to be traded, rely on the rights to pollute being scarce relative to the availability of the fuel. Actual scarcity of fuel may make such schemes irrelevant." 

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2012-10-11

NONE OF THE ABOVE

The Peter DeFazio campaign owes an apology to Art Robinson for claiming in 2010 that only Robinson would bring us more clearcuts and nukes.

DeFazio's so-called forest "trust" would privatize much of our BLM federal forests, a gift to timber barons who turned their forests into tree farms. Privatization of public resources used to be solely a Republican goal; now, it's bipartisan.

Last year, DeFazio praised the NuScale company in Corvallis which is seeking an Obama administration grant to build prototype modular nuclear power reactors (45 megawatts). Future generations won't care about Democrats and Republicans, but they will curse us for the nuclear waste we leave for them. See http://wkly.ws/1d4 for DeFazio's promotion of NuScale.

I gave up on DeFazio years ago when he told a town hall meeting that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was "legal" because Congress endorsed it. I guess he never heard of the Nuremberg trials. DeFazio is a reason I support term limits.

I'm disappointed that Corvallis City Councilor Mike Beilstein won't be on our ballot this time as the Green candidate for Congress. From his website newmenu.org/mikebeilstein: "Resource limits will not allow us to return to the economy we knew before 2008. ... the earth cannot continue giving resources at an ever increasing rate. The work of national leaders should be to start imagining how we can meet human needs in an era of diminishing resources."

My vote will be "none of the above," an honorable choice.

Mark Robinowitz, SustainEugene.org

 

2012-08-30

SPENDY BUS LANE

I wanted to support the West Eugene EmX. I spent years exposing the problems of the proposed West Eugene Porkway. Documenting the WEP's illegalities helped persuade the Federal Highway Administration to reject the project. But I have read the EmX Environmental Assessment and can't support this project either. 

Public transit can be planned well and it can be planned poorly. It can be designed to be cost-efficient and it can be grossly overpriced to give megabucks to road construction companies. Journalists have an obligation to describe the difference if they are watch dogs and not lap dogs.

Oregon law requires coordination of transportation and land use. In 2002 the State Supreme Court upheld Hood River's restriction on big box megastores. The city of Eugene rubberstamped more big boxes, both under Republican Mayor Torrey and under Democrat Mayor Piercy.

The west Eugene line would be about $100 million, a bit spendy for a bus lane that is partly in mixed traffic, especially since giant bridges and overpasses are not planned.

The EmX study ignores the fact that car traffic has peaked in Lane County, Oregon and the U.S., according to the Lane Council of Governments, ODOT and FHWA websites. The rise in the price of petroleum forced some reduction in travel demand. Nearly all of Oregon's oil comes from the almost depleted Alaska Pipeline and transportation planning — for EmX or for widening highways — must consider oil depletion when estimating future needs. 

Mark Robinowitz, PeakTraffic.org, SustainEugene.org

 

 

2012-02-16

NOT JUST BLOWBACK

Sept. 11 is a political Rorschach Test. Most perspectives about 9/11 contain pieces of truth but are wrong.

The official story that there are Muslims who want to attack the U.S. has some truth but ignores how that anger is a reaction to U.S. intervention in the Middle East. The 9/11 Commission claimed the feds were too incompetent to "connect the dots" and creating a surveillance society is needed to prevent a repeat attack.

Many liberals/ leftists/ progressives highlight "blowback" — the attackers were motivated by revenge for U.S. policies. But blowback alone does not explain how the attacks were allowed to happen. U.S .allies provided specific warnings about who, what, where and when. The FBI agents who tried to stop the attacks were blocked by headquarters, which was obstruction, not incompetence.

The 9/11 truth movement correctly says there was a deliberate conspiracy but their most popular claims contain discrediting disinformation. Mixing true conclusions with false evidence — conspiracies to make fake claims of conspiracy — is an effective way to cover up conspiracy.

The media correctly state that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, thermite isn't used to demolish buildings, and the firefighters watched the Twin Towers and Building 7 lean before they fell down. They ignore the suppressed warnings, the best evidence of complicity.

Neither the media nor some of the conspiracy crowd highlight the CIA's "plane into building" exercise and the NORAD war games that morning — the real failure to connect the dots.

Mark Robinowitz, www.oilempire.us, Eugene

 

2011-10-06

THINK BEFORE INK

When I was in college, I was privileged to hear famous "'60s radical" Abbie Hoffman. One highlight of his speech was a caution that "fashion" and "fascist" are next to each other in the dictionary. Our "brave new world" has perfected social control through entertainment and distraction. 

I thought of this warning when I read EW's Fashion issue (8/11), especially the article promoting tattoos. Perhaps it is a consequence of EWtaking ads from tattoo parlors but not from dermatologists — it is not in EW's financial interest to suggest there might be medical problems from this practice.

The Food and Drug Administration report "Think Before You Ink: Are Tattoos Safe?" warns there is no regulation of inks injected into skin. The report says "Many pigments used in tattoo inks are industrial-grade colors suitable for printers' ink or automobile paint." See http://wkly.ws/14a 

I have had a basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer) sliced off my body. Anyone who sticks needles into someone should have medical training and a good reason.

It is ironic that some who object to artificial colors in food see no problem permanently putting paint into the body's largest organ: skin.

The tattoo fad reminds me of the crowd scene in Monty Python's The Life of Brian: "We're all individuals." James Kunstler (www.kunstler.com) has wry commentary on the sociological significance of tattoos. Their increasing popularity is an indicator that our culture no longer has a sense of a future. 

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

EDITOR'S NOTE: EW is perfectly happy to take ads from dermatologists too.

 

 

2011-09-01

WHY OUTSOURCE DESIGN?

Your profile of the UO's next edifice complex ("New Plans for Old Dealership," 7/14) did not mention that the Lorig company (which will design it) is the genius behind Broadway Pepper Spray Place, a development that has never had full commercial occupancy. Has EW lost its institutional memory?

Why is You Owe ignoring talent they allegedly have in the School of Architecture? Is it a message that aspiring architects should move to Seattle to work for a Big Shot firm there if they want to design condos in Eugene? 

It is inappropriate for You Owe to outsource architecture work when the taxpayers of Oregon funded an institution there to teach architecture.

Lane County didn't shift to the right, the true state of affairs is merely clear now. Disillusionment means removal of illusions, which is a good thing. 

Did anything shift when the liberals allegedly controlled the County Commission majority? Ideology is not the same as courage to look at structure. 

Entrenched bureaucracies run city, county, state and federal governments. No one should be disappointed with Biden and that other guy. As CIA director Allen Dulles said, "that Kennedy, he thinks he's president!" 

I'm glad it's Mayor Piercy praising the police auditor for sabotaging outside investigations of police abuses. Perhaps Eugene liberals would be more upset if it was a Republican giving this guy a hundred thousand public dollars a year to thwart accountability. Thank you sir, may I have another. Good cop, bad cop. Lucy's football.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2011-07-07

WHAT IF?

The Oregon Country Fair is thought to be a legacy of the 1960s. But what would the legacy of the 1960s be if initiatives to end the Cold War in 1963 had been allowed to continue?

On Sept. 20, 1963, the day before I was born, President Kennedy gave a speech to the U.N. calling off the nuclear arms race and converting the "moon race" to a cooperative venture with the Soviet Union. You can read and listen to the speech at www.oilempire.us/moonrace.html

In October 1963, JFK ordered a troop withdrawal from Vietnam and started an effort to resume diplomatic relations with Cuba. What would "The Sixties" have been if the war on Vietnam had ended in 1965 and the military industrial complex had been converted to peaceful purposes?

JFK's change on the moon race was part of a broader effort to turn off the Cold War, the reason JFK was removed from office. JFK called for scattering the CIA into a thousand pieces and the CIA scattered JFK into a thousand pieces.

The military and financial powers which prevented the President from ending endless war are the same who have ignored decades of warnings about ecological, energy and financial overshoot. The political autopsy starts with Nov. 22, 1963, but it is too important to mention in polite conversation.

We need a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission about the National Security State's coup in Dallas.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2011-06-23

REAL CARBON STORAGE

Two inconvenient truths about the EW cover story "Carbon Nation: CO2 injection hits the Northwest" (6/16).

Your story interviewed OSU professor Mark Harmon but did not mention his extensive research on forest sequestration of carbon. He has documented how old forests store far more carbon than tree farms.

In January 2008, Harmon and his colleague Olga Krankina spoke at the "Clearcutting the Climate" conference (which I co-organized). The videos of their presentations are available at www.forestclimate.org In summary, if the environmentalists really want to see carbon levels decrease we would need to have the tree farms grow back into old forests, but that would require challenging the Democrats in Salem who give carte blanche to the timber barons to level Oregon's forests. The so-called industrial forestlands are where most of the logging (and all of the herbiciding) happens are given permission to do so by Dr. Kitzhaber and his appointees.

Second, fossil fuel reduction is happening due to resource depletion and economic contraction, not environmental concerns. We cannot burn fuel that does not exist, and now that we are past peak oil, increased consumption of oil is not physically possible. Peak natural gas in the U.S. was 1973, and peak coal is probably in the next decade (although opinions on the precise timing vary).

We have passed the limits to endless growth on a round, finite planet, but neither the industrialists nor the foundation funded environmental groups are willing to discuss the obvious implications.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

EDITOR'S NOTE: The article cites Mark Harmon as a researcher of CO2 in forests. See more on Mark Harmon's work in the field of forest carbon in our "Biomess" cover story, http://wkly.ws/12m

 

 

2011-05-05

PEAKING OUT

The Fukushima multiple meltdowns have economic and political fallout along with the radioactive plumes. Peak electricity, globally, was probably March 11, 2011, the day of the earthquake (www.oilempire.us/peak-electricity.html has details). One impact for Oregon, the proposed liquid natural gas terminals on the coast, is less likely now.

Japan is the biggest importer of LNG since Japan's geology (like Oregon's) did not create fossil fuels. They now have more motive to outbid other importers to get LNG for their electric grids now that Fukushima Daiichi is offline permanently. There's still pressure to bring in more gas for the California power grid but Japan is desperate to pay more for the same, declining fuel source.

"Peak natural gas" in the U.S. was 1973. The U.S. now imports about half of Canada's natural gas production. Drilling in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico shows the easier gas (and oil) has declined. The new technology of "fracking" of shale gas is a short-term activity, not "100 years" of gas as the drilling industry claims. Shale gas wells deplete faster than conventional gas wells (documentation at www.oilempire.us/shalegas.html).

This winter, a cold snap in New Mexico forced some industries to close since there was not enough natural gas to go around. LNG opponents (EW, 3/31) who say these terminals might export natural gas should consider the political impact of gas depletion. Will the U.S. government allow exports when supplies here are harder to sustain?

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2011-02-11

A BAD JOKE

EW recently reported that The Nation magazine considers Mayor Piercy the country's most valuable local public official. 

In 2007, Piercy voted for the Regional Transportation Plan highway expansions. She supports the new Seneca Sawmill forest incinerator even though it will increase deforestation and air pollution. Claims that Eugene is concerned about human rights did not result in public explanations of why police sheltered criminals on the force. Perhaps EW could investigate the sales job that resulted in The Nation's award, since it probably avoided these inconvenient truths.

Carbon credits for highway widening is a bad joke.

I first subscribed to The Nation in 1983. I found it useful for understanding the Reagan regime. They run some authors I like, notably Jeremy Scahill and Michael Klare. But I dropped my subscription during Bill Clinton's time since their partisanship ignored the crimes of the Democrats and worse, they attacked Oliver Stone's excellent film JFK. 

Sorry that I don't trust "liberal" magazines who side with Allen Dulles and Gerald Ford in their promotion of the official story of the military coup of Nov. 22, 1963, even if some of their other views are good. See www.oilempire.us/the-nation.html for details.

I hope there will be at least one city in the U.S. that drops highway plans due to peak oil and climate chaos before gasoline rationing starts, but it probably won't be Eugene.

The writer Ed Abbey said "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2010-12-23

MANIPULATING TERRORISTS

The FBI's recent encouragement of a wannabe terrorist to pretend to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland could be a scene from Brazil, the movie by Terry Gilliam. Several reviews are at www.oilempire.us/brazil.html

If the accused was planning mass murder, the FBI should have arrested him once he "crossed the line" into making attack preparations. Allowing him to try to carry out the attack makes the FBI a co-conspirator, a risky decision if the attacker turns out to be competent enough to commit the crime.

In 1993, the FBI had an informant in the group that bombed the World Trade Center. The New York Times later reported that his handlers told him not to interfere; they could have stopped it if they wanted.

In 2001, FBI field agents investigating flight schools that the 9/11 hijackers were training at were thwarted by FBI headquarters in D.C. from stopping the attacks. In Minnesota, the FBI arrested Moussaoui, one of the plotters, after the flight school he was training at turned him in because they feared he wanted to fly a plane into the WTC. FBI field agents wrote an affidavit to get a judicial warrant to search his computer, but it was gutted by headquarters, so they did not get a warrant because probable cause was removed. After 9/11, the FBI searched his computer and found incriminating evidence.

Endless war is needed by police state agencies that manipulate terrorism for Orwellian purposes.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

 

2010-07-29

MORE THAN DEBRIS

I'm glad the Weekly finally covered the burning issue of forest incineration ("Biomess," 7/22). Why did EW wait until after Seneca got its permit to pollute our air?

Seneca states they will burn 280 thousand tons of trees per year in their incinerator (it's not a "plant," it will burn lots of plants). Seneca owns 165 thousand acres of tree farms (which they clearcut and helicopter spray with 2,4-D, aka Agent Orange). Therefore, they need 1.7 tons per acre per year. This is roughly the growth rate of "marginal forest" under Oregon state law, so the incinerator will need much more than discarded branches and mill trimmings.

Three people profiled in the article spoke at the "Clearcutting the Climate" conference in January 2008 — Mark Harmon, Samantha Chirillo and Doug Heiken. I was a co-organizer of that event and gave a presentation on "Peak Forests."

The forest activists against this new motive for deforestation are generally volunteers not dependent on foundation grants. Oregon Toxics Alliance was the only foundation-funded group that objected to the Seneca incinerator, but they're focused on pollution, not deforestation. Heiken's Oregon Wild is promoting Sen. Wyden's awful logging bill to accelerate deforestation on public lands in Eastern Oregon, even though Heiken's presentation at "Clearcutting the Climate" noted that logging increases carbon pollution. It is greenwashing to call logging "carbon neutral."

One reason timber barons want to burn trees for electricity: They've lost their market for building condos in the desert.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

EDITOR'S NOTE: We did run numerous news stories, op-eds and letters against the plant. We editorialized repeatedly against its construction and urged LRAPA to deny a permit. Search our archives for "Seneca biomass."

 

2010-07-10

TOKEN ACTIONS

Three reasons I'm voting "none of the above," not for Peter DeFazio's reelection.

• DeFazio is chair of the House Transportation Committee's subcommittee on highways. He makes nice noises about better trains but also pushes highway expansion even though we are past peak oil and peak traffic. In 1998, Clinton's highway bill had more than $100 billion for roads (with a small amount for transit). In 2005, Bush's bill had more than $200 billion for roads. Obama and DeFazio want about $500 billion for transportation, mostly for new and expanded roads.

• DeFazio hopes to designate the Devil's Staircase Wilderness, a largely inaccessible area that escaped clearcutting due to convoluted topography. Meanwhile, he wants accelerated logging for "forest biofuels" that threatens our air and water with massive deforestation. A small, token "wilderness" designation is a nice gesture, but the real issue is the new threat of forest liquidation for forest biofuels.

• DeFazio opposed Cheney's invasion of Iraq but in more recent public events has suggested the war was legal because Congress authorized it, which ignores the Nuremberg Code, the Genocide Convention and other standards created by the United States to prevent "aggressive war." Politicians are not against war if they vote to fund it.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

www.eugeneweekly.com/2010/05/06/letters.html

May 6, 2010

BIPARTISAN BOONDOGGLE

The controversy over spending a quarter million dollars to rename Beltline highway after Randy Papé overlooks the state’s plan to spend a thousand times more to widen our Beltline.

ODOT is spending millions to study expanding Beltline to 11 lanes wide, which would be the biggest road between Seattle and Sacramento. In November 2008, the Governor's "Transportation Vision Committee" said this would cost $250 million, part of an $18 billion plan for new and wider state highways.

In June 2001, Randy Papé, Jim Torrey and Bobby Green were part of the "West Eugene Charette," an intergovernmental summit that concluded the West Eugene Parkway was illegal and overpriced. Papé and other promoters then changed their minds and pushed through an advisory vote which split 51-49, claiming "the money is there" even though it was not. He then had ODOT spend $3 million to "study" the WEP despite knowing it couldn't be built — money that could have fixed the West 11th intersections.

Global oil production peaked in 2008, so planning bigger highways for the downslope of energy production is a waste worse than signs to honor a campaign contributor to the governor. If governments were really concerned about "sustainability," they would cancel plans to widen highways. ODOT doesn't even have the funds to study upgrading the railroad between Eugene and Portland to have high(er) speed rail, which would be more useful during the twilight of the oil era.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

[update: in 2018 ODOT released their study for upgrading Portland Eugene train service to six round trip trains a day, the levels we had in 1940. ODOT hopes to have this upgrade ready by 2035, likely after the start of permanent energy rationing.]

 

2009-12-03

RIVERFRONT GARDENS

The EWEB headquarters relocation to the West Eugene Wetlands is not a done deal; no money has been appropriated. If EWEB and the city thought the energy crisis needed immediate action, they would invest in energy efficiency and solar hot water panel manufacture and keep EWEB's headquarters downtown. 

Our riverfront between EWEB and the UO could become community garden space, since the energy crisis is more about food production and distribution, not personal transportation. Lane County only grows a tiny part of what we eat, and riverfronts have the best soils. It's dumb to build along a riverbank downstream of dams not built to withstand earthquakes.

The West Eugene Bus Rapid Transit (EmX) wouldn't work on either the Amazon or the West 11th only routes. Section 4(f) of the 1966 Transportation Act bans federally funded transportation projects in parks (the reason the West Eugene Porkway wasn't built). Paving Amazon Creek for a zig-zagging bus route would violate 4(f). There is no room on West 11th between Seneca and Garfield to widen the road for more lanes, and no one lives on West 11th west of Garfield. 

A practical west Eugene route would be 6th and 7th Avenues to Highway 99 and Bethel, where people live. Who is going to use the bus to buy plywood at Home Depot or Lowe's? Some cities have banned more big box stores, since they are hard to service with transit and drain local economies. Rising gas prices and oil depletion will reduce traffic more than BRT.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2009-10-29

SUSTAIN-A-BULLSHIT

Neal Spangler's critique (10/1) of my letter (9/17) opposing false dichotomies reinforced dualistic frameworks that distract from understanding our predicaments.

The fake debates between alleged opposites — Democrat/Republican, good cop/bad cop — are part of a psychological warfare against the public that ridicules examination of political collapse. Nothing the Republicans have done in recent decades could have happened without the collusion of the national Democratic party. The Democrats refused to impeach either George Bush. They helped cover up political assassinations (JFK, MLK, RFK), the 1980 October Surprise, Iran-Contra, 9/11 and the peak oil motive for invading Iraq. The Democratic Party died in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. See www.oilempire.us/fake-debate.html

The D's have nicer rhetoric than the R's, but neither political party has launched any meaningful climate initiative, nor will they admit we are at peak oil.

The Clinton/Gore administration man-aged to shred as many environmental laws as Reagan/Bush, mostly because environmental groups are too partisan to object when "their side" does bad things. Most environmental groups are quiet about Eugfield Springene's billion dollar highway expansion plan, Gov. Kulongoski's $18 billion highway expansion plan and Obama and DeFazio's $500 billion transportation bill.

Torrey didn't start any sustainable initiatives, but Mayor Piercy claims "carbon credits" can make the city of Eugene carbon neutral, so there's no need to stop widening highways. It's sustain-a-bullshit.

If you were lost in an unpleasant place, would you want a map of Disneyland or a map that told you where you were?

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2009-09-17

REGIME ROTATION

I'm not disappointed in the Obama-Biden administration.

They promised to oppose single-payer health care, and they are against it now. They promised to expand the wars on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and those conflicts are now getting worse.

No one should be surprised that the new administration supports Bush-era policies on rendition, warrantless wiretapping, increased military spending, corporate welfare for Wall Street, highway expansion and official silence about peak oil.

It is encouraging that some Obama voters wonder why their team is "regime rotation" instead of regime change. The explanation takes more than a letter to the editor. In summary, our political system has been on autopilot for decades, especially since Nov. 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was removed from office for wanting to stop the Cold War. The failure of our political system to address that crime is why the Democrats will not change imperial policies.

The Democrats and the Republicans are like two sides of a Mobius strip: It looks like two sides, but they are on the same side. The "elections" resemble televised wrestling: It looks like a bruising contest, but they are fake, rigged in advance. Good cop, bad cop.

Sarah Palin was put on McCain's ticket to ensure that he would lose since Wall Street wanted the Democrats this time.

I voted for Cynthia McKinney for president. While in Congress, she stood up to Bush on the deepest issues, and both parties joined forces to defeat her.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2009-08-13

PEAK MONEY

The writer Ed Abbey said, "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."

Democratic politicians from the city of Eugene to Washington, D.C., shed crocodile tears over climate change yet push plans for highway expansion. Rep. Peter DeFazio's highway committee is shepherding a half trillion-dollar transportation bill, mostly dedicated to road construction. Gov. Kulongoski is pushing a long-term goal of $18 billion for highway expansion. Eugene, Springfield and Lane County want about a billion dollars for bigger roads.

DeFazio and Mayor Kitty Piercy feign interest in mitigating climate change while supporting burning trees for electricity. Oregon's Democratic Party establishment supports clearcutting our state forests and allowing corporate timber barons to clearcut and spray herbicides.

Greenwash is more dangerous than denying environmental problems since it lulls people to sleep thinking the crises are being addressed when they are not.

Proposals for "cap and trade" are scientifically illiterate. A great parody is at www.CheatNeutral.com

Both political parties are subservient to Wall Street and the monetary system's requirement for continued endless growth. Money is made the old fashioned way — it is loaned into existence based on the promise of future economic expansion. Now that we are passing peak oil, the economy will be smaller in the future, not bigger. The pretense that we are merely in a cyclical recession is dangerous disinformation that obscures root causes.

James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, states, "This is not so much financial bad weather as financial climate change."

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2009-03-26

IT'S A FED DECISION

Recent EW articles (2/26, 1/22) about plans to widen I-5 included errors.

Title 23, U.S. Code, mandates that the Federal Highway Administration has the authority to approve boondoggles such as the widened I-5 Willamette bridge, the $4.2 billion Columbia River crossing between Portland and Vancouver, Wash., and other federal aid highways — they are not local initiatives requiring City Council approval.

Lane County and the cities of Eugene and Springfield are united in supporting about a billion dollars in highway expansions in our metro area. These projects include widening Beltline ($250 million), Route 126 in Springfield ($200 million), I-5 Beltline interchange ($175 million), I-5 Willamette bridge and Franklin interchange ($200 million?) and I-5 from I-105 to Route 58 ($100 million).

Gov. Kulongoski wants $18 billion for "modernization," more than half for Portland area highways. These projects have bipartisan support from politicians who claim concern for climate change while funding highway expansions.

Climate change is not the primary issue for the I-5 widening approvals. Federal transportation law requires that planners consider the traffic demand 20 years in the future. Since we are past peak oil, the continent-wide rush to build more bypasses, wider bridges, outer beltways and NAFTA superhighways will not be needed.

No U.S. community has cut plans for more highways because of peak oil and climate change.

Local, regional and national highway plans are detailed at www.sustaineugene.org and www.peaktraffic.org

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2009-01-15

NOT QUITE RIGHT

EW's cover story (12/31) urging policy changes was good, but some suggestions need fact checking.

The article claimed that most of our global warming pollution comes from driving, but industrial deforestation also pumps huge amounts of carbon into the air and disrupts rainfall patterns.

EW's proposed bus line to the greenhouse gas-spewing Eugene airport would be a little used distraction. Oil depletion will reduce airplane travel. Instead, better bus service to the populated Bethel area would be a better use of our money. Preventing cuts to existing bus routes should be a higher priority than Bus Rapid Transit.

It is nice that EW opposes the highway expansions in the Regional Transportation Plan ($817 million), but Mayors Piercy and Leiken joined forces to pass it, which gave Springfield the authority to ask DeFazio for federal earmarks. EW also bypassed scrutiny of the Lane County request in September to ODOT for highway funds to widen Beltline, I-5, Route 126 and rebuild Franklin Boulevard (again) to subsidize the new arena.

It's good to see EW mention the neglected plans for a Cascadia high speed rail system, but this system could not connect Eugene and Portland in "30 minutes." The Amtrak Cascades train can go 124 mph (200 kph), at least in theory. If the tracks are ever upgraded for faster service along most of the route, then the train would take about a little over an hour to get to Portland.

Obama wants money for "bridges to everywhere," and Kulongoski's Jobs and Transportation Act has a half billion dollars for highway expansions and toll roads.

Mark Robinowitz

 

2008-12-08

MORE VOTES THAN PIERCY

In his post-mortem on the November election, Alan Pittman writes ("Obama-ville," 12/4) that 72 percent of Eugene voters supported Obama. It was interesting that Obama was 20 percent more popular than Mayor Piercy and more than 4,000 voters "undervoted," refusing to select either candidate.

A friend who volunteered for the Piercy campaign was shocked when they asked her not to submit a letter to the R-G about Torrey's record on the West Eugene Parkway. They claimed it would be "divisive" to tell the public that Torrey encouraged ODOT to waste millions studying the WEP even after he had admitted the highway was unlikely to be approved by the FHA due to its illegalities. She still voted for Piercy against Torrey, but that is a negative goal, not a positive one.

In November 2007 nearly all of Eugene rejected the mayor's proposal to spend tens of millions to subsidize chain stores to take over downtown. Two days after this defeat, Piercy cast the swing vote at the Lane Council of Governments Metropolitan Policy Committee in favor of a long-term Regional Transportation Plan to allocate $817 million in highway expansion funds to widen highways in the metro area. This is not "sustainability."

I appreciated Bonny Bettman's op-ed (11/26) opposing efforts at City Hall to undermine the police review process that are being pushed by Piercy and most of the council. Police accountability was more popular with Eugene voters than re-electing the incumbent mayor.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2008-11-13

CAN'T HAVE IT ALL

I look forward to the day when politicians will not merely admit climate change is real — but will redirect highway expansions funds to public transit, ban clearcuts and discuss how "economic growth" is the problem, not the solution. Pentagon think tanks have released reports on the "security" implications of climate change, and that is part of the reason for the bipartisan shredding of the Constitution. See www.oilempire.us/peak-fascism.html for details.

EW's interview with Rep. Peter DeFazio (11/6) had a lie worthy of George W. Bush. DeFazio claimed "We're not about to begin a major new initiative of building a whole bunch of new freeways in this country" In reality, the 2005 SAFETEA-LU transportation law had 80 transportation corridors listed as national priorities, including the widening of I-5 from Canada to Mexico. SAFETEA-LU included about a quarter trillion dollars for countless bypasses, road widenings, outer beltways and the I-69 "NAFTA Superhighway" from Indiana to Texas. A map of these corridors is at www.naftahighway.org

The difference between the Democrats and Republicans on transportation is that while both want more road pork, most Democrats want road pork plus transit expansions and most Republicans just want the road projects without the transit. But the economic and energy crises mean we cannot have "all of the above." A sincere approach to climate change and peak oil would redirect highway expansion funds to public transit, Amtrak and road maintenance (not expansion).

Politicians who get more than 80 percent of the vote and lack a major party challenger don't have public pressure to tell the truth.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2008-10-30

SUSTAINABULLSHIT

The only surprise about the global financial crash is that it took this long for it to start, since something that is "unsustainable" is not merely a bad idea but unable to continue indefinitely. Most media reports on money problems, including the recent EW cover story (10/9), ignore the root causes and avoid even approaching needed solutions.

Our monetary system is based on debt and compound interest, which results in an ever-expanding amount of "money" chasing dwindling natural resources on our finite planet.

The geologist M. King Hubbert, who invented the methods to model the rise and fall of fossil fuels, wrote eloquently about how sincerely sustainable solutions would require money that was no longer based on debt and instead used natural resources as the basis for a steady state economic system. This would be considerably more sophisticated than the old gold standard.

Many well-meaning environmentalists, such as the city's Sustainability Commission, promote the concept of the "triple bottom line," an effort to include social justice and ecology into economic decisions. But the environment is not a co-equal concept — energy creates money, not the other way around. Former World Bank economist Herman Daly has written eloquently about how "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron, and a steady state economic model would be needed for genuine sustainability.

As collapse becomes more obvious, there has been an increase in distracting greenwash to confuse concerned citizens — "sustainabullshit."

See www.oilempire.us/peak-money.html for information about steady state, sustainable economics.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2008-09-11

LOCAL GREENWASHING

One form of greenwash is the focus on individuals to become more environmental while ignoring corporate and governmental policies. This narrowness resembles the U.S. government's claim that poorer countries need to reduce consumption before the U.S. will agree to reductions. Some greenwashers also claim we need to make "baby steps" toward sustainability — www.oilempire.us/baby-steps.html has some examples and explains why this is inadequate (our society spent decades ignoring peak oil; now it's here, and we're unprepared).

On Wednesday, Sept. 3, the Lane County Commission held a hearing on their request to ODOT for nearly $200 million for road expansion funds. Rob Bolman and I spoke against this plan, talking about peak oil, peak traffic and the need for transportation triage. Details are at www.sustaineugene.org/roads-2010-2015.html

Three of the five commissioners admitted during the hearing that peak oil is real and asked the staff to rewrite their letter to ODOT. Will they still ask ODOT for money to widen Beltline, I-5 and Hwy. 126 and rebuild Franklin Boulevard (again!) even though traffic has peaked? Rep. DeFazio sits on the Transportation Committee and needs to be pressured to prioritize road maintenance, Amtrak and public transit instead of more superhighways when the new transportation bill is written in 2009. The Oregon Highway Plan claims to prioritize maintenance before expansion, but it is just empty rhetoric that lacks legal power.

I urge everyone to take the Eugene Sustainability Quiz at www.sustaineugene.org, which focuses on the full scope of the problems and some sincere steps toward solutions.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2008-08-28

CHOICE OF WARS

Paul Prensky's Aug. 7 letter worried that the Bush regime might declare martial law if Obama is selected in November. 

However, we have been under partial martial law since November 22, 1963, the coup d'etat against President Kennedy (he was removed from office after he turned against the Cold War). Eisenhower's 1961 warning about the "military industrial complex" is now our reality.

Obama wants to increase troops in Afghanistan, to maintain Bush's military bases in Iraq and would be a better president than McCain to sell increased intervention in West African oil fields. Obama's advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski helped create the "Rapid Deployment Force," the predecessor of the Central Command, the military department that occupies Iraq. Obama offers a choice of wars, not a choice against war.

The financial elites are not going to remove the illusion of democracy as long as the "president" is subservient to the Empire. 

Carroll Quigley was one of Bill Clinton's teachers at Georgetown. Quigley wrote in Tragedy and Hope that, "The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy."

Richard Nixon signed the primary environmental laws of the environmental era — because there was massive public pressure. I look forward to the day when environmentalists and peace advocates equally pressure both corporate funded political parties.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

www.eugeneweekly.com/2008/06/26/letters.html

IT’S A FED DECISION

Why is EW, which is campaigning for Kitty Piercy’s re-election, echoing one of Jim Torrey’s biggest lies? The June 12 cover story by Alan Pittman noted that there is rhetoric that "Kitty Piercy killed the West Eugene Parkway" but the "reality" is "It would have died anyway" Pittman stated that "Even Torrey acknowledges that the WEP might not have been built anyway due to federal environmental problems with building the highway through protected wetlands."

However, the real issue is that the WEP, like all federal aid transportation projects, was a federal decision not subject to local votes (of the public or the City Council). I've only tracked the WEP since 1999, but the only times I am aware of EW mentioning that the WEP is a federal decision is when I have published letters to the editor and opinion pieces in EW. The Weekly has also refused countless requests to profile the WETLANDS alternative to the WEP — West Eugene Transportation, Land and Neighborhood Design Solutions.

On June 19, 2001, then Mayor Torrey was part of an intergovernmental decision of the city, Lane County, state of Oregon and federal government that admit that the WEP could not be legally built. It is hard to find a rational explanation for the refusal of the Piercy re-election campaign to highlight how Torrey subsequently encouraged the state to piss away millions more on bogus "studies" after Torrey admitted the highway was toast.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: It’s our understanding that for the WEP to be built it would have had to be included in the local TransPlan, approved by the Metropolitan Policy Committee, have an environmental impact statement drafted by ODOT and approved by the FHWA, needed an act of Congress or federal waiver to cross protected BLM wetlands, be approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Improvement Program, etc. In short, the city or feds can kill such a project, but neither alone can force it to be built. And it appears the WEP would have faced serious funding and environmental obstacles at the federal level if it had passed local scrutiny.

---

A reply to the Eugene Weekly's Editor's Note:

The FHWA can approve a federal aid highway even if a local government opposes it -- one of the best examples is Interstate 476 in the Philadelphia suburbs. The local government that owned the park (that was in the way) blocked it, but the FHWA used eminent domain, won in court and the highway was built.

The BLM parklands would require a waiver from the BLM (not Congress) to be used for a highway. The primary issue with the BLM property was not "wetlands" - it is the purchase of land with Land and Water Conservation Funds. The "wetland" legal issues were the domain of the Army Corps of Engineers, which grants wetland destruction permits under the Clean Water Act.

Section 4(f) of the Transportation Act of 1966 was the strongest obstacle to the project, since it forbids federal aid transportation projects (road, bus or rail) through parkland unless there is not a prudent and feasible alternative. This is why I documented the outline of a prudent and feasible alternative and publicly opposed the Mary O'Brien / Rob Zako / Rob Handy proposal for a worse so-called alternative in 2002 - since their strawman option would be worse than ODOT's preference, and therefore would have nullified our 4(f) claims in Federal court.

The main reason the WEP decision was "No Build" is FHWA realized they would lose in Federal court. In 1996, they withdraw their 1990 Record of Decision a month after Barbara Kelley filed a notice of intent to sue (since they knew they'd lose). My WETLANDS vs. FHWA lawsuit had more legal hooks than her effort, and privately the agencies knew I was right. They will never publicly admit this, but it is the truth.

 

2008-04-03

WISHFUL THINKING

Obama's meteoric rise to front-runner status is partially due to the psychology of projection — wishful thinking that he supports ideals that a majority wants after the countless abuses of the past seven years (and past seven decades). But there's a Grand Canyon-sized gap between the rhetoric and the reality.

Obama's first act as a senator was to endorse the racist disenfranchisement of African-American voters in Ohio. On Jan. 6, 2005, only one senator, Barbara Boxer of California, voted against seating the fraudulent electors from Ohio — which gave Bush and Cheney a second stolen term.

Obama says he wants to stop global warming (as if that goal is physically possible at this late date) and also supports an increase in coal mining.

Obama has voted repeatedly to fund the war on Iraq. Obama's chief foreign policy advisor is Zbigniew Brzezinski, who crafted previous plans for the peak oil wars when he helped design the Rapid Deployment Force in the late 1970s (now called Central Command, the military command that attacked Iraq). Brzezinski's 1997 book The Grand Chessboard helped lay the foundation for the current imperial atrocities, predicting that "as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." 

I will write in Dennis Kucinich in the primary and vote for Cynthia McKinney in November.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2008-02-28

RITUAL SIGN-WAVING

The LCC Peace Conference and the peace rally on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq have good intentions but avoid the reasons for the resource wars marketed as the "War on Terror." Being against war is admirable, but that does not stop war.

The LCC event has a speaker from United for Peace and Justice, a national group that has the "Communist Party USA" (whatever that is) on its steering committee. UFPJ is silent about how 9/11 was allowed to happen to create a pretext for the Peak Oil Wars. The real purpose of the war on Iraq is to create ethnic cleansing to redraw the boundaries to consolidate control of the oil. See the maps at www.oilempire.us/new-map.html The Take Back America rally will be another ritualistic waving of signs at an empty Federal Building while listening to speakers tell us things we already know.

One speaker is Mayor Piercy, whose police department just bought Taser torture devices. She voted for the Regional Transportation Plan for $817 million more in highway construction through the rest of the oil era. Nice speeches distract from governmental budgets.

It's good that the city of Eugene calls itself the "Human Rights City" since otherwise people might think the city endorses fascism by subsidizing upcoming Olympics games. The Beijing games is one of the worst examples of fascism in sports since the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Countless Chinese citizens have been evicted from their homes for Olympics facilities. Beijing is installing an ultra-sophisticated Orwellian surveillance system to suppress dissent.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2007-08-23

BROADWAY BOONDOGGLE

It was sad to see EW editorialize against democratic decisions regarding plans to bulldoze part of downtown and subsidize new chain stores and condos (Slant, 8/16). EW condemned plans for a ballot initiative (i.e. democracy) to ask the taxpayers if they want to give this boondoggle $50 million — almost $400 from each citizen. The unfolding real estate crash shows it is nuts to promise more corporate welfare for development speculators — we could build a covered Farmers' Market, new parks, improve bus service and restore school services for less money.

It was nice to see EW's cover story that college football is not really academics. Watching mass events involving extreme competition for territory teaches passive acceptance of automated warfare. Perhaps the UO football department could be spun off as a separate corporation, keeping academics and industrial pseudo-sports separate.

Football is such a state religion in this country that it's even used as an indicator of presidential selections. From 1936 to 2000, when the Washington Redskins team won the game before the "election," the president or his successor was re-elected. When the Redskins lost the game before the "election," then the president or his successor was defeated. The odds of this being chance (17 times in a row) is less than one in 100,000. The U.S. presidential election is decided before votes are cast, and the rigging of the football game is an inside joke for the financial elites. More details are at www.oilempire.us/elections.html

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

EDITOR'S NOTE: For the record, what we said in Slant last week regarding the proposed public-private partnership downtown was, "Let's gather more information before we as a community decide to kill it."

 

 

2007-07-26

GREEN DELUSIONS

In the comic strip Peanuts, Lucy promises Charlie Brown that she will play fair, but each time he runs to kick the football she is holding, she pulls it away and he falls down. His unhealthy infatuation with her is delusional naïveté, similar to what many Democrats have with the ongoing collapse of our political system.

If Eugene's liberals are really upset about continued corporate welfare for distant speculators who seek further homogenization of the city, then it's time to find a mayor and council who match "green" rhetoric with sincere policies. The city is promoting sports arenas, big box stores, three-quarter-billion dollars worth of new and wider highways in the metro area, and its "West Eugene Collaborators" have interesting loopholes for reviving part of the West Eugene Porkway.

The Weekly's complaint (Slant, 7/19) about our governor's flacking for the grass seed industry would have been more useful before his re-election. Perhaps they could examine how the statewide environmental groups endorsed his re-election despite his awful environmental policies (clearcuts and superhighways).

Democratic Party apparatchik Dan Carol's plea to Senator Obama to be more "green" failed to mention that Obama is in favor of burning more coal and is funded by polluting transnational corporations. But as bad as Obama's record is, it seems more likely that the Empire has picked Hillary, since she is even more compromised by her associations with Wal-Mart, toxic waste incineration and financial powers who also back the Bush crime family.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2007-05-17

IMPERIAL HILLARY

Deb McGee wrote (4/26) that "it's not OK to have the Democratic National Convention in a nonunion hall owned by one of the Wal-Mart oligarchs."

While I share her distaste for Wal-Mart, I think it would be appropriate to enthrone Hillary in a Wal-Mart connected facility since she was on the Wal-Mart board of directors while Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas.

Barring a miracle, it is likely that Hillary will be the next emperor — she probably has already been selected by the power elites. ("Voting" doesn't really determine who gets to be president.) www.oilempire.us/hillary.html links to documentation of the Bush/Clinton business ties and Hillary's connections to the hazardous waste incineration industry. I also recommend Barry and the Boys by Daniel Hopsicker, which is available at Tsunami Books. It describes how the Iran-Contra scandal flew drugs into Mena, Ark. — and that the "deep politics" of that scandal makes a Hillary presidency almost a certainty. The Bush/Clinton connections make her too compromised to be able to prosecute the current regime for its war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and New York City.

The only Democratic presidential candidate who deserves a vote is Dennis Kucinich, who recently introduced a resolution to impeach the de facto president, Richard Cheney.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2007-03-22

CONNECT THE DOTS

Four years after the invasion of Iraq, most U.S. citizens now oppose the occupation. However, the violence continues to escalate, and there is the potential for a much larger regional war. Understanding why the war was triggered and the ultimate goal of the oil empire is important if there is a chance for a cease-fire and shift toward sanity.

Dick Cheney calls the "War on Terror" a war that will not end in our lifetimes because it will take decades to use up the oil in the Middle East. The neo-conservatives call this conflict World War IV — in their view, World War III was the Cold War from 1945 to 2001.

In June 2006, Armed Forces Journal published an article by Ralph Peters, a pro-war neo-conservative strategist. Peters drew a map of the Middle East showing a redrawing of the borders of many Middle Eastern countries, especially Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Most of the region's oil would be in a new "Arab Shia State" — since the oil is largely concentrated along the Persian Gulf and the Iraq-Iran boder. The Sunni Iraq, Saudi Homeland, Islamic Sacred State (around Mecca and Medina) and the bulk of Iran (which is not Arab) would be left without much oil — which is why Team Bush is exacerbating ethnic and religious tensions throughout the region. A copy of this incriminating map is at www.oilempire.us/new-map.html If the war on Iraq expands into a war on Iran, the escalation could make the situation far worse. Nearly half of the world's oil supplies float through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, and a U.S. attack on Iran could trigger global economic meltdown as oil shipments are reduced or cut off by naval conflict.

Oil we are saying is give impeachment a chance!

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2006-12-14

STILL NOT BURIED

At its most recent monthly meeting, the Oregon Transportation Commission removed the West Eugene Parkway from its highway construction list. OTC Commissioner Randy Papé, one of the main WEP boosters, made the motion to kill the project, which was approved unanimously.

The WEP is not quite dead yet, but it is in hospice. I've put my legal files into boxes but not (yet) into the woodstove.

The money appropriated toward initial construction costs needs to be transferred to other projects, ideally fixing West 11th and Beltline (that intersection was approved in a 1995 environmental assessment).

When Bertelsen Slough, an important but polluted tributary of Amazon Creek, is transferred to the Bureau of Land Management's West Eugene Wetlands project, then and only then will the WEP be 100 percent dead.

It is a shame that the June 2001 promise for "no build" made by ODOT, Federal Highway Administration, BLM, Lane County and the City of Eugene was not implemented — better late than never, but we would have saved millions wasted on more "studies" and kept unnecessary divisiveness from splitting the community.

Thanks to everyone who stayed resolute and refused to compromise away the wetlands over many, many years despite considerable pressure to capitulate. There are many dedicated citizens who worked hard to prevent the so-called Parkway, but if Barbara Kelley had not filed suit against the project (in 1996), it would have been built.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2006-05-04

WETLANDS ALTERNATIVE

On June 19, 2001, the City of Eugene, Lane County, the Oregon Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Bureau of Land Management reached consensus on selecting "no build" for the West Eugene Parkway (WEP), and decided to finish Beltline highway as part of an effort to find practical solutions to west Eugene traffic. Documents from that decision are archived at www.sustaineugene.org/nobuild.html

It is nice that Mayor Piercy says she wants to look at alternatives to the WEP. However, since local governments do not make federal highway decisions, the City Council vote last October against WEP lacks legal power to stop it, just as the 51-to-49 citizen vote in favor of the WEP in November 2001 cannot force the FHWA to approve the porkway.

It is weird that the Mayor, who has been a WEP opponent for many years, is avoiding the fact that there are already practical alternatives. After the State of the City speech in January, she tried to persuade me that the June 2001 inter-governmental "No Build" consensus did not happen (it was never implemented, but the agreement did happen). The mayor has declined to mention the WETLANDS alternative, which is largely based on the June 2001 consensus. If the city really wants to stop the WEP, it would transfer its properties bought for WEP to the BLM's West Eugene Wetlands project for conservation and restoration, which would make WEP even more illegal to approve.

The WETLANDS alternative — West Eugene Transportation, Land and Neighborhood Design Alternatives — is described in detail at their website: www.sustaineugene.org/wetlands.html

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2006-01-12

FEEDING CYNICISM

Mayor Piercy's Sustainable Business Initiative (SBI) is a project, with great intentions, that is dangerously misleading.

On Friday, Dec. 30, SBI Task Force Co-chair Rusty Rexius told the Eugene City Club that the local timber industry was already practicing sustainability. Perhaps he has not seen the massive clear-cuts visible from satellites, or is unaware that nearly every timber company in the region is spraying cancer-causing herbicides, even in the watershed that supplies Eugene's drinking water.

At Mayor Piercy's State of the City address Jan. 5, she gave an award to the local Staples franchise, despite the fact that their use of recycled content paper is minimal. (They sold higher-content recycled paper and rechargeable batteries for flashlights a decade ago. Staples sells crap made in China, styrofoam cups and toxic cleaners — not sustainability.)

Perhaps these pseudo-environmental efforts misunderstand what "sustainability" means. It does not mean nice rhetoric and smug self-congratulation. It does not mean merely being slightly more efficient in our consumption of non-renewable resources. 

Sustainability would require living without fossil fuels and other practices that degrade the biosphere's ability to sustain life. While it is important to recognize steps away from the brink, we must be honest about the vast gulf between our addiction to destructive behaviors and what sustainability would require to implement.

Promoting vague ideals of "sustainability" without making serious changes to city policies, tax codes, building standards, land use patterns and other structural shifts is unlikely to accomplish much. "Sustainability" rhetoric that praises corporate greenwash and deforestation will merely create more cynicism.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2005-12-05

SUSTAINABLE CITY

Michael Cockram's commentary about urban design (12/1) recommended increased density as a partial solution to environmental ills. But this analysis only focused on part of the problem. Calculating the environmental "footprint" of a community is not merely an issue of how much personal transportation is used by individual citizens — the impacts of delivery trucks transporting food grown in distant bio-regions, electrical generation, water consumption, sewage systems, garbage production and many other things need to be examined.

Having everyone live in downtown apartments might reduce the per capita usage of personal automobiles, but it could increase the dependence on transportation systems for food and other necessities if these citizens eat food grown in California, Mexico or Chile, instead of converting their lawn into a garden. A "sustainable" city would be one where a substantial percentage of food is grown in or near the town, something rarely included in surface level descriptions of sustainability.

If the city wants to move toward sustainability, it could change the building code to require passive solar design for new buildings, encourage or require solar panels in new construction, create more community gardens and help teach gardening skills, ban franchise stores and begin a process to attract renewable energy industries to the region. All of these (and many more) policies have been enacted in other communities and there is no technical or legal reason why they could not be implemented here.

Some additional solutions at the local, bio-regional and global levels are posted at www.permatopia.com

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

2005-11-23

BETTER READING?

It would be interesting to read EW columnist Sally Sheklow's insights about closeted gays in the Bush regime. The chair of the Republican National Committee is gay. The Bush White House had a male prostitute posing as a journalist (under the nom de guerre "Jeff Gannon"). U.S. torturers at Abu Ghraib engaged in sexually explicit sadistic torture. Cheney's chief of staff, the indicted "Scooter" Libby, wrote a 1996 novel titled The Apprentice with a pedophilia and bestiality theme (yuck!). These hypocrises in the ruling elite would be more interesting topics than Ms. Sheklow's domestic life.

EW columnist Mary O'Brien could explain how she promoted a new, worse route for the West Eugene Parkway in September 2002. This option was developed by Crandall-Arambula, a Portland architecture firm which was also working for the PeaceHealth relocation project. Their proposal recommended 10 miles of new expressway construction (ODOT only wants six miles) and would have undermined nearly all legal objections to the WEP, should the project be challenged in federal court. This option threatened the Royal Blue Organics farm and would have clearcut more forest and paved more wetlands than ODOT's proposal. Details are at www.sustaineugene.org/crandall.html At the Nov. 10 Metropolitan Policy Committee meeting, State Rep. Robert Ackerman claimed that the environmentalists say a new expressway is needed, and the main promoters of this now withdrawn Crandall-Arambula option declined the opportunity to publicly refute this claim.

Environmentalists and "progressives" need to discuss why we usually lose in order to move past failed paradigms so our shared visions will have a chance of implementation.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

2005-06-23

LITTLE TEXAS

The new downtown neighborhood around the new federal building should be named "Little Texas." All of the new "edifice complexes" planned for that area are extensions of Texas politics and economics.

Our new "Homeland Security" courthouse building is from the Texas-based Bush regime. It is a component of a repressive preparation for the economic crises of Peak Oil — to enforce the new bankruptcy laws, the PATRIOT Act, etc.

The proposed sale of the EWEB complex to the Texas-based Triad corporation — at fire sale prices — would further cement acquisition of strategic Eugene real estate by Texans. (Having both of the region's primary medical facilities along river fronts could result in loss of hospitals during major floods or if a major earthquake destroyed upstream dams.)

The city wants to swap publicly owned land with the Giustina family in order to bring in Texas-based Whole Foods, a company nicknamed the "Wal-Mart of Health Food" for their predatory business practices. The Giustina timber company is a massive sprayer of highly toxic herbicides in Lane County forestlands and was a huge financial contributor to the Bush-Cheney campaign. Whole Foods is vehemently opposed to unions and has a track record of destroying locally owned food businesses — this would be a disaster for Eugene. The city also wants a new parking garage next to the Whole Foods big box, right next to the new Bus Rapid Transit line. This parking garage would be completed just in time for peak oil and subsequent higher gas prices (and possibly gas rationing).

I urge everyone who voted for Mayor Piercy to urge her to shun Texas-based union busters and support local businesses as part of a peaceful preparation for peak oil.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene

 

 

 

2004-02-12

BEST DEMS CAN DO?

During the Watergate scandal, Nixon's team coined the term "limited hang-out" to describe the tactic of fessing up to a small crime to avoid full exposure. Several recent articles in the Weakly fit the "limited hang out" pattern.

EW's de facto endorsement of Dean carefully avoided Dr. Dean's history in Vermont. Gov. Dean worked with Gov. Bush to dump Vermont's nuclear waste in west Texas (stopped by outraged citizens of both states). Dean and President Bush bypassed normal environmental review of the Interstate 289 around Burlington. If you're against the west Eugene parkway, you can't vote for Dean! Dean gutted environmental enforcement, gave corporate welfare to polluters, brought Wal-Mart to Vermont, and covered up the police execution of peace activist Robert "Woody" Woodruff (see www.oilempire.us/dean.html). Dan Carol's "Kumbaya Dammit" column has had numerous errors. His Dec. 4 column called 9/11 a "sin of omission" and "At this writing, several congressional investigations and commissions are hard at work on this matter and may prove that the president could have done more to stop 9/11 from happening." This is part of the cover-up, since the deliberate "stand down" of the Air Force is one of many facts that prove 9/11 was not an intelligence "failure" but rather an intelligence crime. There is only ONE official investigation currently underway, chaired by former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a former business partner of Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law. See www.oilempire.us/investigation.html. Carol's company works for MoveOn.org, whose film Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, did not even hint at the subject of oil. See www.oilempire.us/moveon.html for a review.

Your cover story (1/22) praises the work of Clinton's EPA chief Carol Browner, who gutted environmental enforcement, food safety, toxic regulations and promoted biotech phood. If this is the best the Democrats can do, then we're doomed to have four more years of Bush.

Mark Robinowitz, Eugene 

sent September 25, 2020

The Holiday Farm fire in the McKenzie River watershed could have been called the Weyerhauser fire if the total acreage was the basis for the name. Most of the land that burned was corporate industrial plantations, far more than federal National Forests and private residences. I have copied a map showing ownerships at www.forestclimate.org

Lane County code 10.103-60 admits tree farms are more flammable than older forests with big trees. Monoculture young firs burn hot and fast.

Fires in the Santiam watershed burned more public land, but a lot of those forests had also been converted into tree farms.

In 2005, permaculture co-originator David Holmgren visited Eugene on his first (and last) trip to the USA. He noted the importance of protecting the last of the old growth forest but also the need to change practices on second (and third!) growth toward sincere sustainability. There are a few examples of selective forestry in Oregon but not many - and none are on corporate lands who have shareholders to satisfy.

John Sundquist's letter (9/24) decried SB 1602, a State bill, now law, that penalized objections to helicopter herbiciding of corporate clearcuts. SB 1602 codified an agreement made in February between 13 environmental groups, including Beyond Toxics, Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands, and 13 timber companies, including Weyerhauser. It would be nice for EW to ask these groups why they support continued clearcuts and aerial spraying via this agreement. Read their agreement (annotated) at www.sustaineugene.org

Mark Robinowitz
Eugene

 

March 12, 2020

Your tepid article about the pandemic in 3/12 EW is by far the worst journalism I've seen in your paper in 20 years.

The Ducks are stopping audiences for their games, U of Nike is partially closing, bans on public gatherings all over the country, and your article includes how a sex shop is seeing the crisis?  I would expect this from The Onion.  You couldn't even bother to put a disclaimer in BOLD TYPE last week that the environmental law conference was canceled so people wouldn't waste their time and risk their health going over there.  (A mention in tiny type in Slant doesn't count as a warning.)

Meanwhile our chain paper (R-G) has covered this somewhat, not perfect but better than EW.

Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress on 3/11 that mitigation is like expert hockey playing.  You don't skate to where the puck is, but where it will be.  Dismissing this as "we don't have a confirmed case yet" ignores exponential growth and the almost complete lack of testing underway in the community.

Now that containment failed, the only remaining way to reduce the health disaster is social distancing.  Stay home.  Cancel everything.  We need to slow the spread to support the nurses and doctors who are about to be overwhelmed, as they are now in Italy.

The refusal to treat this seriously is a devastating case of moron-a-virus.

It's not the end of the world but it could be the end of complacency.

Mark Robinowitz

 

March 5, 2020

As of March 6, Seattle is our country's hot spot for coronavirus. Today, cases in Washington State are about where Italy was two weeks ago.  Now, Italy's hospitals in the hot zone are starting to be overwhelmed and travelers from Italy have spread The Disease all over Europe, into Brazil, Rhode Island and elsewhere.

EugeneWeekly.com has only has two mentions of the escalating epidemic.  Last week's press statement from the governor announcing Oregon's first confirmed case and a Slant mention of the cancellation of the Public Interest Environmental Conference.

Yesterday, the City of Seattle urged everyone to work from home if possible.  Today, the University of Washington canceled in person classes.  Cancellations of events, conferences, concerts, etc. are happening faster than anyone can track.

By next Thursday, the scale of the pandemic, the scale of the pandemic could be substantially bigger.  Testing has finally started in Oregon.

It's a weird disease.  80% have mild to moderate cases, but the other 20% need medical care, and some of them need the intensive care unit due to the lung damage.  We have about a thousand ICU beds in Oregon, which won't be enough after it spreads more.  Gov. Brown just asked the feds for 400,000 respirator masks, 100 ventilators (to help sick patients breathe) and other stuff.

Remdesivir, an experimental drug, seemed to cure the first Seattle area patient a month ago.  Chloroquine (anti malarial) also works.  We need to slow the spread to give time for the drugs to be made.

Mark Robinowitz
Eugene

op-eds

 

www.eugeneweekly.com/20140213/guest-viewpoint/grading-curve

Grading on a Curve

Enviro ‘champs’ ignoring the biggest issues

ARTICLE | FEBRUARY 13, 2014 - 12:00AM | BY MARK ROBINOWITZ

On Nov. 27, EW’s Slant profiled the “Environmental Scorecard” of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. EW drew attention to “the relatively high scores racked up by state reps and senators in our part of the valley.” Unfortunately, OLCV was grading on a curve to make Democrats in Salem look better than they are.

One of the most important votes of the 2013 session, not included in OLCV’s scorecard, was to appropriate $450 million toward the Columbia River Crossing (CRC), a $3 billion to $4 billion dollar boondoggle that would widen I-5 to 16 lanes north of the bridge. The Oregon House voted 45-11 in favor and the Senate voted 18-11 in favor. Only two Democrats in the House and one in the Senate voted “no.”

EW highlighted Rep. John Lively’s 94 percent OLCV rating, but did not mention his vote for the CRC nor his previous promotion of bigger roads while working for ODOT.

OLCV’s website cites 10 state reps as environmental champions, but only one of those 10 voted against the CRC. Designating highway expansion supporters as “environmental leaders” suggests political partisanship has become more important than environmental protection.

The only legislator representing Lane County who was against CRC was Rep. Bruce Hanna of Roseburg, a Republican. Some Republicans expressed dislike of the token transit component. Republicans were freer than Democrats to oppose Gov. Kitzhaber’s campaign for CRC.

CRC is now bogged down in financial chaos since Washington state legislators did not appropriate anything for it. However, the project is legally approved and an Obama administration priority.

 

In November 2008, Gov. Kulongoski’s Transportation Vision Committee released a report that called for $18 billion in new and expanded state highways, including over $1 billion in Eugene and Springfield. 1000 Friends of Oregon, Oregon Environmental Council and Environment Oregon were part of this committee, but they were window dressing to show that all points of view were supposedly considered. If these groups had a minority report to dissent from the highway promotion, they kept it very quiet.

In 2013, ODOT started building two new highways: the Newberg Dundee Bypass (through farmland) and the Sunrise Freeway in Clackamas County. Both projects only have part of their funding, so ODOT is building segments and hoping for the rest of the money in the future. I attended public hearings for both of these bypasses and did not see any environmental groups at either event.

Also in 2013, ODOT approved a new freeway in Medford, the Route 62 bypass. I didn’t attend the hearing. The only environmental group that sent comments was Rogue Valley Audubon Society, which complained construction would harm birds.

Federal aid highways such as CRC have to plan for traffic two decades in the future, not current congestion. Our transportation plans ignore the fact that traffic levels peaked in Oregon in 2003 and Oregon’s main fuel source, the Alaska Pipeline, peaked in 1988 and has dropped three quarters since then. It’s anyone’s guess how much energy will be available for traffic in the 2030s, but it will be much less than the current flow, especially if the Alaska Pipeline closes due to “low flow.” Current levels are just above the minimum threshold needed for the pipeline to operate in the Arctic winter.

Here in Eugene from 1999 through 2007, I was the “road scholar” for a proposed lawsuit that prevented the West Eugene Porkway, a bypass of West 11th through the West Eugene Wetlands. WETLANDS vs. Federal Highway Administration was not filed because the feds withdrew the project and selected “no build.” Details are at SustainEugene.org.

The lawsuit focused on legal precedents, including Section 4(f), which prohibits federal aid highways through parks. But it also would have tried to have set a new precedent combining the facts of peak oil and peak traffic as reasons the 20-year planning rule no longer justifies highway expansions.

Since then, I have looked for other freeway fights around the country that could use this legal strategy to create a precedent. A state-by-state list of plans for $1 trillion of highway expansions across the country is at PeakTraffic.org.

The most energetic environmental efforts against new roads are often in places where liberal Democrats are surrounded by conservative Republicans (Bloomington, Ind., and Louisville, Ky., are examples). The professional environmentalists in these places know the state government is not their ally (nor their funder).

While trains and transit could play important roles for post-peak transportation, recognizing we’re passing the limits to growth and relocalizing food production are probably the most important responses to peaked traffic and peaked energy.

About the Author
Mark Robinowitz of Eugene is author of “Peak Traffic and Transportation Triage: a Legal Strategy to Cancel Trillion Dollar Highway Plans and Prepare for Post Peak Travel,” at PeakTraffic.org.

• 1 Comment

peakchoicedotorg • 17 minutes ago

Sent to me from "a long time environmental activist and former OLCV board member" - I sent him this op-ed and this was his reply:

I hope they print it.

OLCV continues to disappoint me. I wrote them after the special session in which local control over genetic engineering was thrown under the bus and told them they should target on a Democrat architect of that compromise for defeat in the primary, just to show that environmentalists mean business. I received no reply. That they left off the CRC from their list of counted votes doesn't surprise me in the slightest. They are an arm of the Democratic party and deathly afraid of organized labor.

 

2007-11-01

Fake Debates
Beyond binary thinking
BY MARK ROBINOWITZ

Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. — George W. Bush

The Bush administration states that everyone on Earth must choose between supporting their policies or supporting Islamic terrorism, when nearly all of the world rejects both. A peaceful approach compatible with the survival of civilization cannot support either the War on Terror nor the Iraqi insurgency, neither the U.S. occupation of Afghan poppy fields nor the Taliban. 

Establishment politics in the U.S. seek to confine discourse toward whether one supports the Republicans or the Democrats even though there is a much more diverse range of opinions. While the two parties differ on some social policies, they are nearly identical on the core issues of expansionist empire (even though the Republicans are usually worse).

Some in the Democratic Party imply that if you support a stronger role for women in politics you have to support Hillary Clinton even though many feminists (female and male) are repulsed by her shilling for corporate polluters and efforts to further shred the social safety net. Margaret Thatcher's terms as prime minister in England proved that gender does not determine policies.

The mainstream view of environmentalism suggests that those concerned about pollution changing the climate should embrace Al Gore's nonelectoral political campaign even though he helped make the climate crisis worse while vice president. And some far-right wing anti-environmental voices suggest that because Al Gore has some unpleasant politics, therefore climate change is a hoax — as if atmospheric chemistry were dependent upon a particular politician or political entity

The loudest voices in support of the paradigm that the Bush administration was complicit in 9/11 argue for "no planes" (the plane crashes were faked, or substitute planes were used). The debunkers in the media accurately point out that these no-plane claims are nonsense but then claim that because this claim is false, therefore there was no official conspiracy to permit the attacks to happen. Few on either side mention the well-documented evidence that there was complete foreknowledge at the highest levels of the administration.

On Nov. 2, the Pacifica Forum is sponsoring a white supremacist neo-Nazi to speak at the UO on the topic of the Israel lobby. This is about as ridiculous as inviting KKK leader David Duke to talk about human rights abuses in Darfur or Zimbabwe. Zionists and extreme anti-Semites each tell their supporters that they can only support Israeli apartheid or Holocaust denial, and that the presence of the other is a reason to support them. However, within Israel there is a much broader range of opinions about the morality of Israeli policies than within American politics although most American Jews do not support the Likud (ultra-militarist) faction in Israel. We don't need neo-Nazis to tell us that Israel violates human rights. It is possible that some of the Holocaust deniers are provocateurs intended to give uncritical supporters of Israel an excuse to avoid examining human rights abuses against Palestinians, among other contemporary crimes.

Finally, the statewide Measure 49 campaign poses a false choice for voters concerned about rampant overdevelopment. The Yes on 49 campaign claims their measure would protect the qualities that make Oregon special. While pro-49 rhetoric campaign is laudable, the details are less impressive. Measure 49 would block some of the worst parts of Measure 37 (passed in 2004), but also cement into law the regulatory repeal of Measure 37 and set a horrible precedent for future environmental rollbacks.

The Yes on 49 groups are spending more energy on 49 than they exerted to stop Measure 37. The lead group for 49, 1000 Friends of Oregon, promotes timber industry representatives on their "Envision Oregon" website — Hal Salwasser (OSU Forestry dean) and the Oregon Forest Resources Institute. Every strip mall, freeway, subdivision, paper mill and toxic dump currently littering the countryside is in compliance with existing Oregon land use laws — a reason to strengthen protections, not negotiate them away to appear reasonable. Further details about Measures 37 and 49 are at www.sustaineugene.org/measure37.html

Mark Robinowitz of Eugene is publisher of oilempire.us, which has a longer version of this article.

 

 

 

 

Eugene Weekly, September 26, 2002
Viewpoint
By Mark Robinowitz

Reasonable Alternatives
We can do better than WEP or Crandall Arambula.

Last week's article "Fork in the Freeway" discussed an approach to the West Eugene Parkway (WEP) that claimed to be "wetland friendly." However, the proposed new route would pave more acres of protected wetlands, cut more forests, cost more and threaten the Royal Blue Organics blueberry farm on Royal Avenue.

The original idea for this report from Portland architects Crandall Arambula (CA) was to draft an alternative similar to the Land Use, Transportation, Air Quality (LUTRAQ) study in Portland. LUTRAQ substituted a new rail line, transit-oriented zoning and modest work on existing roads instead of a giant Western Bypass from Wilsonville to Vancouver. Instead, the report developed an "alternative route" that would cause more environmental and community havoc than even the plans ODOT is finalizing, which makes the official plans look more reasonable.

During consideration of alternatives, highway departments often propose deliberately worse options in order to make the preferred route seem acceptable in comparison. In this case, the WEP would build six miles of new expressway (not including the future extension to Veneta). The CA report recommends 10-1/2 miles of new expressway, although some of that would only be for buses. At CA's presentation to the Eugene Planning Commission, Eugene highway planner Dave Reinhard remarked that the report's recommendation of bus-only roads (between Danebo Road and 99) should be built for all traffic modes.

The report also included a bus-only expressway for three miles outside the Urban Growth Boundary (through farmland) along Green Hill Road to the Eugene Airport.

If built, this new road would faciliate the UGB expansion into farmland, and after converted to mixed use (cars and buses) would likely be the first leg in a Eugene "Outer Beltline" through Santa Clara and ultimately to I-5 at Coburg.   (The Lane Council of Governments "2050" report  proposes expansion of the Eugene UGB to Junction City and Coburg, and to Coburg and Pleasant Hill to the south.)

On Sept. 21, The Register-Guard ran an article about CA's $30,000 contract with the city of Springfield to help design the pedestrian-oriented villages that will be constructed as part of the PeaceHealth hospital. Some of these new subdivisions would be in the McKenzie River floodplain, and are unlikely to mitigate the traffic impact of relocating this major facility from downtown Eugene.

Over the next few months, a new project titled WETLANDS (West Eugene Transportation, Land and Neighborhood Design Solutions) will develop a sensible alternative to the WEP that would not pave parklands or disrupt existing communities, would address traffic bottlenecks and poor road designs, and cost less.

An outline for the WETLANDS alternative was suggested in June 2001. At that time, prospects for the WEP looked bad, and ODOT suggested widening West 11th west of Beltline, and Beltline itself, to address the state's concerns about through traffic. Shortly afterwards, on July 25, Councilor Pat Farr said that an obvious alternative to the WEP would route traffic from West 11th to Beltline to Roosevelt to Highway 99. Roosevelt near Beltline is already close to expressway standards and is not crowded during rush hour. Using this existing road instead of building the WEP would require upgrades to key intersections of 11th, Beltline, Roosevelt and 99. The WETLANDS alternative proposes shifting the $17 million already allocated for the WEP's first phase toward this construction and for added shoulders on West 11th/Highway 126 from west Eugene to Veneta. (The full WEP cost, officially estimated at $88 million, would exceed $150 million when the full Veneta to I-105 route is considered.)

The most important parts of an alternative would be fixing the existing problems on West 11th and shifting the zoning to support an integrated approach to transportation and land use. Much of the problem with the West 11th strip malls was caused by haphazard planning that placed too many driveways along the road, which reduces the traffic capacity and increases the potential for accidents. The city is required to spend at least $2.2 million to extend Terry Street to the WEP for the highway to function properly — this money would go a long way toward consolidating driveways, adding turn lanes at congested intersections, making the area less hostile to pedestrians, and other, relatively cheap solutions.

In addition, Eugene could pass a moratorium on new Wal-Mart type big-box franchise stores that damage the local economy (this has been done in many other communities).

The parking lot behind Fred Meyer is planned for yet another out-of-state chain store. If the zoning was changed to residential, this lot could be used to establish a neighborhood node that encourages residents to walk to shopping and jobs and would be served by the Seneca transit station (which may be upgraded to Bus Rapid Transit in the future). Intelligent re-use of abandoned parking lots is preferable to paving wetlands.

At 1 pm Sunday, Oct. 13, at Wallis and Fifth Avenue, WETLANDS and the Green Party will lead a tour through forested wetlands on the WEP route between Bertelsen and Seneca roads.

under construction