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Natural
Resistance: Economy of Scale: Where is growth
taking us?
Viewpoint
: Inside the Biscuit: Fire is an essential part
of forest lifecycle.
Letters:
EW readers sound off.
Economy
of Scale
Where
is growth taking us?
Part 1 of a three-part series on economic growth,
military wars, and the public nature of private property.
Right now, the world needs you to look at, and
listen to, the world, and then think hard about economic growth.
The world needs you to consider whether economic growth deserves your
allegiance. And the world needs you to courageously stand up for the
world.
Here are three things that I believe are indisputable:
• Economic growth is humans buying more things
than they did in the past. It doesn't matter WHAT people buy
more of: AK-47s (the world's biggest business is the arms trade).
Legal drugs (the pharmaceutical industry has the highest profits of
"legal" U.S. industries). Tobacco stocks (they're "safe," because
they are based on addiction). Gravel for dumping into the last 0.01
percent of Willamette Valley's wetland/upland prairie that remains
after earlier economic growth (construction of farms, roads, housing,
factories) eliminated 99.9 percent of the prairie that once covered
a third of Willamette Valley. Surgical instruments to cut out tumors.
Even the "service economy" is ultimately based on the service providers
buying things.
• "Smart" growth and "sustainable" growth are
people buying more things than they did in the past, but at
a slower rate (or more people buying less per person, but cumulatively
buying more).
• Earth has a finite amount of water, land,
food-growing capacity, materials, and space. Economic growth
requires increasing the taking of finite land, food-growing capacity,
materials, and space — for humans.
I don't see any way out of the conclusion that while
a steady-state economy is sustainable for the long-term, economic
growth isn't.
But, but, but …
Don't I care about the half of the world's people
who live on less than $2 a day? Yes, but redistribution and focused
subsidies would help a lot more than economic growth, which at best
barely trickles down, and at worst increases the poverty of these
people. One percent of people in the U.S. own as much economic
wealth as that owned by the bottom 90 percent of the U.S. population.
Approximately 62 percent of the annual economic growth in the U.S.
goes to this 1 percent of U.S. people.
Don't I care about whether my community's children
have a job in the future? Yes, but I also care whether endangered
Fender's blue butterflies have a job, and neither one depends on economic
growth. Both depend on humans modestly sharing the world with each
other and all their relations.
As Robert Kennedy once noted, "The gross national
product [whose increase is called "economic growth"] includes air
pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear
our streets of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and
jails for the people who break them." But, he added, "The gross national
product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom
nor our learning, neither our compassion, nor our devotion to our
country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes
life worthwhile."
Since Kennedy typically focused on quality of life
for humans, I might add that the GNP also doesn't measure the presence
or health of jays, whales, butterflies and milkweed, who are our relations
and whom at least our children dearly love.
One morning recently I was in tears. "I am so ashamed
of my species," I said to a friend. "We are so many and we take so
much. " My friend reminded me that in fact that's what we are: one
species of animal. Our tendency to produce lots of children; spread
into any territory we can; even to be violent to our own kind, are
all behaviors we have in common with other animals (witness the studies
of how chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans behave). But we are also
a species capable of restraint, and even in this we are not alone
(witness studies of bonobos, a primate who evolved after we did, and
whose females restrain violent male behavior).
Society, if it is worth anything, is about ensuring
community as well as individual welfare. This is ultimately dependent
on restraint with regard to Earth, who is our heartbreakingly finite
partner. But if you still yearn for infinity, you can have it: Earth
has an infinite capacity to provide us with spirit and joy if we respond
to it and each other with care.
Mary O'Brien has worked as a public interest scientist
for the past 21 years. She can be reached at mob@efn.org
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Inside
the Biscuit
Fire
is an essential part of forest lifecycle.
Entering into the land of fire, I come under the
spell of a glowing umber cloud. The bright
blue day fades into dull red and ash falls like dirty snowflakes.
A pungent mist of burning cedar and myrtle fills my
lungs. Passing through the roadblock, I drive through smoldering gullies,
past charred, smoking trees, and skirt fumaroles where Biscuit still
burns.
Largest in Oregon's Euro-history, the Biscuit Complex
is a patchwork of burns throughout a half million acres of equally
complex forest types. This huge fire burned almost entirely in the
public's woods, much of it designated wilderness. Biscuit will smolder
until late fall's cold days and rains quench it.
Cresting a ridge, the breeze shifts and lifts a fog
of smoke, allowing me startling views into thousands of acres. Far
from creating a wasteland, fire has returned this land to a state
closer to it's natural self — a mosaic of trees, meadows, and
savannahs. There is, however, no denying that parts of Biscuit burned
unusually hot. I visited supernatural territories where, during fire's
reign, elements were transmuted and forest transformed back into rock
and carbon. A multitude of reports and theories will never describe
the forces that worked within this fire or resolve the condition they
left the forest in.
Big fires provoke the same fears in us as they did
in our ancestors. The communities threatened by Biscuit weren't consoled
by economists debating costs or scientists proclaiming fires natural
events. Nope. Their fears were calmed by the firefighters who scraped,
burned, and sweated to redeem forest homes from a fiery judgment.
Washing like a wave of flame across the landscape, the same fire has
purified a forest corrupted by a century of human management.
Within days after the blaze passed over, blades
of native grass spear up through the ash. Oaks, toasted black
above ground, push green shoots up from below, tender leaves unfurling.
Woodpeckers flit through burned trees, feasting on larva exposed under
heat-curled bark. Grey squirrels scamper about, hoarding windfalls
of roasted acorns. A pair of gold eagles cruise the ridge, dropping
occasionally to capitalize on the rodent feeding frenzy. In these
mountains for 35 years, this is the first time I've felt the forest
breathe.
The Siskiyou is an ancient forest that began with
lichens and ferns clinging to rocks that rose earlier from an ancient
ocean. Renewed often by fire, it has been through early succession
many times over the eons. Fire is an essential part of its lifecycle,
how it refreshes itself through its many generations. Even though
Biscuit burned hotter than it might've had we not suppressed fire,
scorched and dead trees will, over time, reconstitute themselves.
Indeed, the real danger to this "should have been
a national park" forest is not fire, but more roading and logging
in the name of "salvage." Having surveyed forest fires for 20 years
throughout the West, salvage logging has been the most destructive
part of every burn I've visited. What gross irony to use the old French
word "salve," meaning to save or heal. Let's call it like it is —
"pork" logging in reference to the politicians who promote it.
Inside Biscuit, post-fire logging will target burned
stands of valuable mature timber on typically steep and thinly
soiled slopes that bake-off every summer. Many of these older trees
were established during a 17th century cooling period, the Little
Franklin Ice Age. To become viable forest stands again, they must
re-establish in a dramatically warmer climate. Even the "gentlest"
logging will disturb what little insulating duff is left, reduce shade,
accelerate erosion, increase fine fuels, and spread noxious weeds
to compete for scant moisture. On many sites, logging will be the
final blow, interrupting the resurrection of the next forest, condemning
it to brush fields for centuries more.
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If we must respond to forest fires to protect homes
and "help" heal burns, there are opportunities that are benign, perhaps
even beneficial. Leaving large, standing dead trees will provide covering
shade. When they fall to the ground, their boles will store and hold
the moisture essential to reforestation. We may be able to speed reforestation
by replanting hot spots where natural seed was volatized. Already
downed logs could be repositioned by forest workers to reduce erosion.
Off-season firefighters might cut, lop, and scatter the multitude
of small standing dead stems that can fuel re-burns. For a culture
grown weary of corporate plundering, true salvage would be a socially
refreshing and ecologically welcome change.
People concerned about the condition of the forest
have asked me what I've discovered inside the Big Biscuit and what
they can do. "It's awesome … beautiful, you need to see it when
it cools!" I exclaim. Then I remind them, these rightfully apprehensive
owners of America's heritage forests, "Remember, only you can prevent
salvage logging."
Roy Keene is a local forester, forest activist and
real estate consultant.
LET
IT ALL END
This upcoming Sept. 11 marks the one-year
anniversary of a horrible, despicable and shocking attack on America.
It also marks the anniversary of 12 months full of rampant anti-Arab/anti-Muslim
hate speech by many mainstream American columnists, politicians and
"Christian" televangelists. One thing leads to another: Maybe next
year will be full of anti-Jewish rantings and ravings. I hope not.
I just want all the hate and the anger and the stench
and the ugly to be over — let the racist hate drift away in
the dust of the structures destroyed by the terrorists.
Nadia Sindi
Eugene
WASTEFUL
FOLLY
The idea of developing a hospital site alongside
the McKenzie River is, of course, absurd.
The area is not centrally located, is subject to flooding,
will have access only to three of four sides, has poor transportation
options, is not near the population it will serve, has no real logical
sense in locating in a so-called "healing environment," will be destructive
to an ecosystem that is intimately associated with the river, etc.
Aren't there regulatory agencies that oversee and
prevent such wasteful folly with critical public facilities?
With the $89 million spent on the football palace
and now $350 million for a grandiose "campus" for healthcare, you'd
think money grew on trees and there would be no problem funding such
things as schools and parks. The big money has escaped the public
good and now resides in the hands of those with perverted priorities;
what will it take to regain prudence?
Fred Felter
Springfield
PARADE
MADNESS
I have been a member of the Eugene Highlanders
Bagpipe Band for about 20 years, and as a result, I have been in many
parades over the years. I have always felt that the Eugene Celebration
parade is, far and away, the most diverse, eclectic and downright
fun parade to be in and watch. Eugene has always had the largest turnout
of enthusiastic folks of all ages of any parade I've been in. I look
forward to it every year.
Now, it has come to my attention that someone rescheduled
our Eugene Celebration parade to 8 am. It seems that there is a football
game scheduled for the same day and there is a conflict with the availability
of police to help coordinate both (or some lame excuse like that).
Never have I been in a parade that has started at 8 am. Most start
between 10 am and
noon.
There is an enormous amount of work that goes into
staging such an event. Many participants come from far away. We would
have to stage at 6:30 am. Parents would have to drag their kids out
of bed before 7 am to be able to attend. I find this extremely discourteous
and disrespectful of our citizens and parade participants. Try rescheduling
the football game. What genius scheduled them on the same day?
As a result, I have informed the pipe major that I
refuse to participate in this year's parade. I really enjoy piping
for you — all of you.
Robert J. McCarthy
Veneta
PEE
PEACE
There is no magic barrier that will keep
bad guys out of a woman's room. You are overly optimistic if you think
a bathroom door will keep you safe from an angry ex-boyfriend. Gender
identity and/or gender presentation have nothing at all to do with
sexuality, or criminality, for that matter.
Paige Lehmann (8/22) is lucky to be secure in her
gender identity. I'm secure in mine — it's just not the same
as the gender I was labeled as a newborn. We envy you bio-girls and
bio-boys who, though maybe not happy with your breast or biceps size,
are blissfully unaffected by conflict between your core identity and
biological body.
Trans-people need safe space, too. A bathroom stall
is often the most secure, private and public space, as Paige pointed
out. Like it or not, everyone has to use the bathroom.
And trans people feel far more frightened of public
bathrooms than you can possibly imagine — trans children, androgynous
people who may not identify as trans, people who don't look like they
were born to the gender they present. Our fear dwarfs your little
shudder at the thought of using a stall next to someone in size 14
pumps.
Gender identity disorder is "incurable" in that no
one has successfully aligned an identity to a birth gender. The body
must be aligned to the identity. Life would be easier if everyone
understood the horror of waking up in the wrong body and the courage
it takes to face the world every day. But really, all we want is a
safe place to pee.
Jesse Davis
Eugene
TIMBER
TALKS
President Bush is calling for an "aggressive
forest management policy" to prevent future fires, but at what cost?
He made clear in his speech Thursday (8/22) that his motives go beyond
thinning small, unmarketable trees by allowing timber companies to
"keep wood products in exchange for the service of thinning trees
and brush and removing dead wood." He's capitalizing on the nation's
fire hysteria to open our national forests to more logging.
The USDA released a report in September 2000 that
found "the removal of large, merchantable trees from the forest does
not reduce fire risk and may, in fact, increase such risk."
Are we supposed to trust the big timber companies?
Certainly they have shown that their bottom line is the almighty dollar,
and they are willing to lie, cheat and steal to maximize their profits.
Bush's plan allows them to indiscriminately cut down our forests as
they see fit. They don't care about their workers, the environment
or the cost to the American taxpayer. They only care about money,
and they'll do anything to get it.
Michelle Page
Eugene
PEE
HERE NOW
Ms. Lehmann (8/22), So, you're a tolerant
person? You've argued for equal rights for gay couples, you've seen
cross-dressers, you've danced at gay pride parades — you're
even from the Bay Area. You're so progressive! But, of course, you
just can't pass up the opportunity to make a little fun at "Joe Shmoe,
the transgender barber," can you? Hey, that's all right. I mean, nobody
would think someone as broad-minded as you would mean any harm by
a light-hearted crack or two about someone a little "bizarre."
Other people, people not as forward thinking as you,
might not be so good-humored, though. Transgender men and women suffer
a statistically high number of hate crimes, even higher than that
of biological women and girls. The transgender woman you would insist
"piss in [her] own bathroom" runs a very high risk of also undergoing
such horrors as violent rape and death.
Psychopaths do target women and young girls. You're
right about that. I wonder, though, how so many other countries in
this world can have unisex bathrooms without the serious problems
you envision? If you think the current system of segregated bathrooms
means no one has to "scope" out bathrooms now, that they're all perfectly
safe, I'd love to know where you live. It's not a safe world for anyone,
but for some it's even worse.
And Ms. Lehmann, if you really think you're such a
tolerant woman …well, I suggest you hang out at few more gay
pride parades. But maybe you should go to the bathroom before you
leave your house.
D. Haraburda
Eugene
CAN'T
STOP JERKS
Regarding opening women's bathrooms to transgender
women: While I agree with Paige Lehmann that the world is unsafe for
women, I think her contention that sharing bathrooms with trans-women
makes it even less safe is unsupportable. She appears to confuse transgender
people who identify and live as women with abusive men in dresses.
Her "what if?" scenarios seem fear-based, and, while not impossible,
highly implausible.
It's more likely that the ones in danger are the transgender
women currently using men's bathrooms, where they are vulnerable to
harassment, slurs and physical violence. To address Paige's question:
Why can't men piss in their own bathrooms? Because someone with male
genitalia is not necessarily a man. Because men who transgress gender
"norms" rightly fear male violence. Because until there are more bathroom
alternatives than skirt- or pants-wearing stick figures, transgender
people should be free to choose the door that most matches their gender
identity.
In the meantime, what's to stop jerks in skirts from
invading bathrooms? Perhaps a psychology that makes it unlikely for
oppressor men to take on — publicly, no less — the trappings
of the femininity they seek to dominate. Or maybe those who are already
watching out for women and girls in an unsafe world and who will intervene
in arguments, report abusive behavior to security or scream bloody
murder when someone fucks with them. It is not how people express
their gender but how they express their anger that is the real issue
here.
Kristine DiPalma
Eugene
OFFENSIVE
ADS
In regards to those who are against the
"explicit sexual" ads in the EW — Bonnie Robbins (8/15)
included — I have two words: Lighten up.
Anita Williams
Eugene
RICHARD
WHO?
I just read Richard Alevizos' viewpoint,
"Dirty Business" (8/29). As a Pacific Green Party member, Green activist
and co-chair of the Marion/Polk chapter of the Green Party who has
attended every PGP convention since February 2001, I have to say that
I don't remember this guy. Apparently he was at the PGP convention
at Camp Myrtlewood last summer, 2001, but did not actively seek an
official endorsement.
We've had well over a dozen requests from potential
candidates for public office, who have wanted either Green Party endorsements
or who have wanted to run as Green Party candidates. We were very
careful to select people who were qualified to represent the party.
As long as a person was articulate, presented themselves well and
could support the party platform, they received our support. For example,
Dale Matthews for state representative in the 3rd District and Tom
Matosec for Coos County commissioner were among the candidates who
best met these criteria, and they have received our full support.
Some others did not receive support because, frankly, they would have
been an embarrassment to the party.
Given the large number of progressive groups who declined
to support Mr. Alevizos, I suggest he meditate for a time on the concept
that it is he, and not the movement, who needs to change.
Daniel F. Bonham
Woodburn
NO
HOPE
Imagine living in a country that made sense.
It would make sure all its citizens felt safe and loved and needed.
It would have a plan for the future that gave the citizens hope and
inspiration. Its leaders would be chosen from among the smartest and
most compassionate of all the citizenry. No one would lack for food,
clothing, shelter, medical care, transportation and a guaranteed job
to earn what was needed.
National health care would be available to all. Everyone
would be asked to serve his/her country for a period of time, and
as a result, everyone would feel a sense of unity.
I've rambled through mental hospitals, rescue missions,
universities, military barracks and other such places where the herd
is gathered. I have seen thousands of people in times of terrible
stress and I have rarely seen them given a sense of hope or safety
by this country.
The poor are asked to understand that their plight
is their fault; if they were smarter, worked harder or were less crazy,
then the gates of paradise would open. They are asked to understand
this country is too poor to offer national health care, or guaranteed
jobs or low cost housing. They are asked to understand they will be
sent to fight wars over oil because there is no way to lower the population
or to reduce need. Ask yourself what level of fear, humiliation, poverty
and alienation it would take to get you to rob a bank or shoot someone.
When you see that, you see the inevitability of crime in America.
Or don't you think it could happen to you?
Hugh Massengill
Eugene
SPACEY
POSSIBILITIES
I didn't get to the April 25 Disclosure
Project event Robert Bolman talks about (6/20), so I'm not so much
of a believer. But I'd like to look at some possibilities.
Science fiction has pointed to at least four ways
that we could be visited by interstellar travelers, without offending
conventional science by breaking the speed of light limit or otherwise:
"time dilation," by traveling near the speed of light, perhaps using
interstellar hydrogen as fuel; suspended animation; a "generation
ship" that travels for several generations; or perhaps a species that
lives a very long time, or an artificial intelligence that thinks
nothing of spending 100 years or so on a ship.
Why bother to "... imagine a civilization 10,000 years
more technologically advanced than ours ..."? We can't hope to imagine
what ours will look like only 100 years from now.
Can anyone seriously ask how such a story could stay
covered up in light of the level of secrecy and misdirection in our
culture today?
I don't think (human-guided) "therapy" can do much
to help humanity advance its consciousness. Only a public event that
gives us a new perception of life and/or the universe can do that.
Question your paradigms!
Dan Robinson
Eugene
EDITOR'S NOTE: This letter was misplaced in
our files and recently resurfaced. Our apologies for the delay.
MURKY
EXPLANATIONS
I'm confused. Ballot Measure 19 takes $150
million of principal from the Education Stability Fund (ESF). It then
increases the ESF by $10 million per year. Won't it take 15 years
to replace that spent principal?
The State School Fund (SSF) and economic development
get lottery fund cuts. Doesn't the SSF also support schools? Measure
19 cuts lottery education bond payments and college scholarships $7
million. Won't other taxes be needed to pay the bonds?
Poor people pay because they disproportionately gamble
on the lottery, right? Then the kids of these poor people can't get
scholarships to go to college. Fair?
Maybe the businessmen, administrators, teachers, our
state treasurer (who claims 19 will strengthen the state's bond rating
— how?) can explain this again. Don't lottery funds also dip
like income tax in a recession? I want to support public schools,
but is this measure anything but a shell game disguised as support
for public schools?
Ethen Perkins
Eugene
EXPECT
A FIGHT
That was good news (EW 8/22) that
U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio feels there is a real need to reform the health
care delivery system and that he will continue to support efforts
in Congress to enact a universal health care system.
Last year, it seemed like he was giving up on his
efforts. He said — in a public forum in answer to my question
— that he felt nothing was going to happen on the federal level
from either party, as "the largest single contributors to campaign
finance were the insurance companies and the pharmaceuticals." And,
of course, they are the big losers in Healthcare for All's Measure
23, which we will vote on in November, which will provide universal
single-payer health care in this state.
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security
and Medicare reports that there are now 623 registered drug lobbyists
working in Washington. That is more than we have legislators there.
They have spent more than $170 million in lobbying efforts in the
last two years. I wonder how much will be spent in this state in an
effort to fight the success of Measure 23. Watch your dollars being
spent on TV.
Bob Cassidy
Eugene
TO
THE POINT
What the world needs is a regime change
in Washington.
Helmut Plant
Eugene
QUIET
SKIES
Like most people, I enjoy marking the anniversaries
of events that bring back pleasant memories for me. With that in mind,
I am looking forward to this coming mid-September.
Just one year ago, for the better part of a week,
I was able to look up into the sky for the first time in my life and
not see a single aircraft or the condensation trails that some aircraft
leave behind. Also missing was the engine noise that always accompanies
these aircraft. What tranquility!
I was not alone in this observation. Relatives in
upstate New York (where air traffic is usually very heavy) told me
that they stood out in their pasture and took photographs of the pristine
skies to show to their grandchildren someday. And friends who live
under the flight path to and from Sea-Tac airport in Seattle rejoiced
to sleep soundly, for once, without jets rumbling overhead all night
long.
Don't get me wrong. I take a plane trip every now
and then, and so do my friends. It's just that we had become so accustomed
to the constant presence of aircraft that, until they were all grounded,
we never knew how serene life could be in their absence. Wouldn't
it be wonderful if each year, for a few days at least, we all took
a break from air travel and once again enjoyed the peacefulness that
existed before the advent of machine-powered flight?
Whitey Lueck
Eugene
WHERE
TO PARK?
With all of the exaltation surrounding the
new public library, have you book readers — especially the elderly,
poor and the disabled — realized that there will be no free
public parking to access the new library?
Contact your city councilors and make them aware of
this situation.
Joseph Siekiel
Eugene
GO
SPEEDWAY
Thank you for printing the article about
the speedway (8/22). My family races at Grove (Sportsman Class and
Caged Karts). I would like to thank Nate Puckett for having an open
mind (at least at the end) and seeing the sport for what it is: great
family fun! I would also like to invite Nate out this Friday to the
Outlaw Caged Karts to see the future of our sport.
Not a lot of people think about this sport as being
a sport that children can do, but it is. My son started racing carts
when he was 10 in the 5 hp open class and now, at 12, he races in
the 500cc open class. Our pee-wee class has kids as young as 4 years
old. If at all possible, we would like the people who are trying to
close down the speedway to know it's not just the adults they're trying
to shut down, it's our children, too!
Thanks again for a wonderful article!!
Kathy Miller
Eugene
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics
and will print as many as space allows. Please limit length to 250 words,
keep submissions to once a month, and include your address and phone
number. E-mail to editor@eugeneweekly.com,
fax to 484-4044, or mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.
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