Lloyd’s post on Crude prompted me to look around to see if I could find what Oregon’s plan is–how are we going to keep your kids and grandkids from living in a world of hurt, in other words.

Well, as best I can find, this is the plan for Oregon with respect to global warming: to view with murmurs of concern, but to avoid doing anything that might, you know, interfere with business as usual.

Even worse—and this is a classic characteristic of governmental reports like this—there is no ongoing tracking for progress against even these tepid (or even directly counterproductive, see TRAN-3) actions.

In other words, random bits of it are being enacted (especially the parts that funnel money to business without doing anything about global warming), but mainly the report is on the proverbial shelf gathering dust, and Oregonians don’t have any way to easily find out that were not doing much of this (and that what we are doing is not even close to the scale of response required). Just for fun I’ve highlighted all the waffling and temporizing in italics [with my annotations in brackets].

Integrating Actions

IA-1 Recommend the Governor adopt near-term, intermediate and long-term greenhouse gas emissions goals for Oregon. [The committee that was supposed to provide cover for the politicians instead punts back to the Gov.]

IA-2 Urge the Governor to renew the charter of the Advisory Group on Global Warming (or a successor body) to continue the Advisory Group’s unfinished agenda. [Why?]

IA-3 The Oregon University System should develop strategic and targeted research, development and demonstration (RD&D) programs for greenhouse gas reduction technologies. [If, you know, it's not too much trouble.]

IA-4 The Advisory Group should work with state agencies, colleges and universities, schools, non-profit organizations and businesses to develop a global warming education program that will provide information and outreach to the public. [This would be a lot easier if we had something concrete to communicate.]

Energy Efficiency

EE-1 Meet the Northwest Power and Conservation Council goal of implementing cost-effective electricity efficiency measures for electric users and an equivalent goal for natural gas users. [In other words, business as usual---don't require any recognition that, until carbon emissions are taxed, we need far more efficiency than just the "cost-effective" stuff.]

Electric Generation and Supply

GEN-1 Increase the renewable content of electricity.

GEN-2 Recommend the Governor create a special interim task force to examine the feasibility of, and develop a design for, a load-based greenhouse gas allowance standard.

GEN-3 Support Oregon PUC’s review of rules and tariffs for renewable and combined heat and power facilities.

Transportation

TRAN-1 Convene an interim task force to recommend a proposal for the Environmental Quality Commission or the Governor and the Legislature to adopt emission standards for vehicles.

TRAN-2 Integrate land use and transportation decisions with greenhouse gas consequences.

TRAN-3 Promote biofuel use and production. [Nuts. But profitable!]

Biological Sequestration

BIOSEQ-1 Reduce wildfire risk by creating a market for woody biomass from forests. [Last I checked the forests DO provide a market for woody biomass.]

BIOSEQ-2 Consider GHG effects in farm and forest land use decisions.

BIOSEQ-3 Increase forestation of under-producing lands.

Materials Use, Recovery and Waste Disposal

MW-1 Achieve the waste generation and recycling goals in statute.

MW-2 DEQ should develop guidance to clarify alternative final cover performance at larger landfills: Demonstrate control of gas emissions comparable to geomembrane cover.

MW-3 Provide incentives for larger landfills to collect and burn a minimum percentage (65 percent to 80 percent) of methane generated. [How about a stiff tax on methane emissions from landfills? That ought to do it.]

State Government Operations

GOV-1 State agencies should use their agency Sustainability Plans as the tool for agencies dynamic involvement in greenhouse gas reductions with respect to both their internal operations, and their external program or regulatory activities. [Pure gobbledygook.]

GOV-2 Through a collaborative effort, the Departments of Energy,
Environmental Quality and Administrative Services should develop a process to educate agency personnel about opportunities for GHG reductions including how to set goals and calculate GHG reductions. [Ditto.]

Let’s compare that summary from the plan to the characteristics of effective goals, like The 5% Solution to Global Warming:

A SMART goal is

• specific (permits no waffling about progress)
• measurable (can be charted and tracked)
• appropriate (addresses the root problem)
• realistic (doesn’t overwhelm)
• timed (allows progress during the task to be assessed)

Mushy goals like the ones quoted above are worthless as prods to action, and overly ambitious goals (like “80% by 2050″ or “90% by 2030″) just persuades people that the task is too big.

But the vast majority of Oregonians know they could get by just fine while emitting only 95% of this year’s greenhouse gas emissions. And that’s true every year–as people learn to live better while emitting less greenhouse gas, they become motivated to continue.

That’s why The 5% Solution is the kind of hard goal we need for Oregon.

The rest is detail.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 9:07 am and is filed under Disaster Preparedness, Economy, Energy Future, Environment, General, Health Care, Livability, Take Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.