Monday Mailing
Year 20 • Issue 22 17 February 2014 1. Could Gold Hill Become A National Whitewater Destination? 2. Stunning Photos Of Earth From Above Will Change Your Outlook Of The Planet 3. Save the Date For A Night In Serve-Landia! 4. Interstate 84 Landslide Nearly 'Game Over' for Eastern Oregon Man 5. February 25 Featured Event on Rural Re-Electrification Act: A Vision for a Net-Zero Energy Gorge 6. Support for Environmental Initiatives in the Pacific Northwest 7. Google Public Alerts 8. Travel Oregon Matching Grants Program 9. True Cost Accounting: The Real Cost of Cheap Food 10. What is Walkability? 11. Poll Everywhere 1. Could Gold Hill Become A National Whitewater Destination? Ten years ago, Steve Kiesling bought 17 acres on the Rogue River. The land itself was not much to look at: it had been torn up by mining and was covered in blackberry bushes. But Kiesling wasn’t really interested in the land. He had plans for the water running through it.
Quote of the Week: "Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most." ~Siddhārtha Gautama
Kiesling is a lifelong kayaker and canoer. He was scheduled to go to the 1980 Olympics that the U.S. ended up boycotting — and he has hopes for his stretch of the Rogue River to become a state-of-the-art water park. An economic study by the Department of Agriculture seems to support his plan. It found that the area around his property on the Rogue could produce $6 million to $7 million annually if it was developed for kayaking and recreation. To access the full story and OPB radio segment, click here.
Oregon Fast Fact:
The world’s tallest barber shop pole stands in Forest Grove, Oregon.
2. Stunning Photos Of Earth From Above Will Change Your Outlook Of The Planet When astronauts first went to the moon, the sight of Earth as a tiny blue sphere was such a transformative experience that it was later given a name: The “overview effect.” Seen from a distance, surrounded only by a sliver of atmosphere, the planet suddenly seemed more vulnerable. Inspired by the same idea, a new website called Daily Overview also shows shots of Earth from above. “Unless you spend most of your time in an airplane, your everyday perspective is limited to the surface of the Earth, and specifically to your line of sight,” says Benjamin Grant, who launched the site last month. “From down here it’s impossible to fully appreciate the beauty and intricacy of the things we’ve constructed, the sheer complexity of the systems we’ve developed, or the devastating impact that we’ve had on our planet.” To access this stellar series of photos, click here.
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3. Save the Date For A Night In Serve-Landia! Oregon Campus Compact is pleased to announce our second annual fundraising event, A Night in Serve-Landia! We are continuing our goal to support Oregon students to become global, engaged citizens. Join us at Picnic House for drinks, snacks and revelry. Come out with us, bring your friends, and represent your school! Right now we are looking for energized and motivated people to be ticket captains for their schools. If this sounds like you, please contact Josh Todd, 503.406.3575, for more information. When: Thursday, April 24 from 7-9pm Where: Picnic House, 723 SW Salmon St, Portland, OR About the Event A Night In Serve-Landia is a celebration of all the good work of Oregon Campus Compact, its member campuses, our AmeriCorps members, and the legions of student volunteers they inspire. ORCC mobilized nearly 1000 students to give back to their communities on the MLK Day of Service. Our network helps students change lives through alternative spring breaks. ORCC AmeriCorps members work tirelessly to create service learning courses and mentoring systems to support underserved students. A Night In Serve-Landia is a tribute to this work and these campuses, communities and individuals who are devoted to making Oregon a better place. It is a call to the people who have passion for volunteering and giving back to come out and support a great organization working to place college students on a lifelong path of community involvement and service. 4. Interstate 84 Landslide Nearly 'Game Over' for Eastern Oregon Man Here's something Dan Koopman learned after walking away from a rockslide that dumped boulders the size of sedans into his path on a dark Oregon interstate: Car rental agents tend to be indulgent. "The Enterprise rental lady said, 'I'm gonna give you a car with a little more protection.'" But actually, Koopman didn't need any more protection than that afforded by his 11-month-old Ford Focus hatchback on Wednesday night. The totaled gray car weighs in at just under 3,000 pounds, a flea compared to the 9.8 million pounds of rock that tumbled into traffic from a cliff along the south side of Interstate 84. The stretch of highway was murky at 7:25 p.m and Koopman, associate vice-president of instruction at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, was midway into a 4.5 hour eastbound trek from daylong meetings in Salem to his home in Summerville. To access the full story, click here. 5. February 25 Featured Event on Rural Re-Electrification Act: A Vision for a Net-Zero Energy Gorge Join the GTA for our February 25th Featured Event with speaker Jonathan Lewis of Hire Electric's Renewable Energy Division. Jonathan will be sharing a brief history of electric power in the Columbia Gorge and casting a vision for advancing the Renewable Energy potential that this region holds. The Rural Electrification Act of 1935 changed life in the Gorge forever. Centralized power reaching out into the farmland opened land and industry for development. "Power to the People" was the motto. Today's technological advancements in distributed energy storage and production Page 2 of 4
make it possible for Gorge farms and businesses to contribute to a de-centralized grid, becoming net producers of energy. Come to the White Buffalo on Feb 25 at 6:30 pm to hear more and for some of the Gorge's best networking. Details: • • • • •
Tuesday, Feb 25, 6:30pm White Buffalo Wine Bar (4040 Westcliff Dr., Hood River) Free for GTA Members, $10 for non-members. Appetizers included; no-host bar. Networking round-robin - a chance to tell everyone about your business in a minute or less!
6. Support for Environmental Initiatives in the Pacific Northwest The mission of the Bullitt Foundation is to safeguard the natural environment by promoting responsible human activities and sustainable communities in the Pacific Northwest, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, coastal Alaska from Cook Inlet to the Canadian border, and British Columbia. The Foundation's current focus is on the following programs: The Urban Ecology program strives to advance policies to create affordable, diverse, healthy, and environmentally beneficial communities. The Ecosystem Services program aims to protect the ability of Northwest ecosystems to sustain healthy human communities and a sound economy. The Energy, Industry, and Technology program promotes policies to harness the entrepreneurial power of business to create competitive industries built on ecological principles and sustainable technologies. The Leadership and Civic Engagement program works to nurture leadership, strengthen organizations, and broaden the coalition to create a more dynamic constituency for environmental responsibility. Proposal inquiry forms should be submitted by March 15, 2014 to be considered for the May 1, 2014 proposal deadline. Visit the Foundation’s website for detailed information about each of the grantmaking programs. 7. Google Public Alerts If you’ve ever searched for news on a looming emergency, you’ve likely been forced to sift through a deluge of results to get the info you need. Now skip all that. Google Public Alerts is a powerhouse of emergency information culled from authoritative sources, easily searched by category, and mapped. The concept is as simple as it sounds, but for the full skinny on all the bells and whistles, you can read Google’s blog post here. 8. Travel Oregon Matching Grants Program The Travel Oregon 2014/2015 Matching Grants Program makes awards available to eligible applicants for projects that contribute to the development and improvement of local communities throughout the state. These projects support Travel Oregon’s mission of ‘a better life for Oregonians through strong, sustainable local economies.’ The 2014/2015 cycle has $120,000 available for grant awards. The funds will be available in amounts not less than $2,500 or more than $20,000. An applicant may apply for one grant per cycle and must match the grant amount awarded, dollar for dollar. Up to 50% of the match may be in-kind. For more information, click here. 9. True Cost Accounting: The Real Cost of Cheap Food The Lexicon of Sustainability's Know Your Food short film series premieres this month on PBS Food. One film will be released every Thursday until June 19, 2014. Click here to watch! Can learning the meaning behind terms help change the way we buy food? ITVS and the Lexicon of Page 3 of 4
Sustainability are excited to present the first short “True Cost Accounting”. Go beyond the price tag and explore the people, words, and ideas behind sustainable agriculture. Know Your Food is a short film series that introduces consumers to key terms and principles that can help them make more informed decisions about the food they eat. Each of the 20 short films touches on an important theme in America's food system. "Local vs. Organic" will be the second film to be released on PBS.org on Thursday, February 13. See a list of the upcoming episodes here. 10. What is Walkability? Humans are creatures of intention. We use our language to communicate thoughts and ideas in a deliberate way. But our language is imperfect, and sometimes the intention of our communication is muddied by the words we use. Confusion can result when we use a single word that is a stand-in for a larger set of ideas. Here, nuance and caveat become increasingly important if one hopes to convey precisely what they are meaning. Take, for example, the word “sustainability” – a term often used in the world of development and planning, but rarely, we would argue, given the space, meaning and understanding to properly convey an intended set of ideas. And so it is with a new term: Walkability? To access the full story, click here. 11. Poll Everywhere On the surface, Poll Everywhere is a simple application that works well for live audiences using mobile devices like phones. People participate by visiting a fast mobile-friendly web page for your event, sending text messages, or using Twitter. Instructions are displayed on-screen. The poll that is embedded within the presentation or web page will update in real time. Advanced uses include texting comments to a presentation, texting questions to a presenter, web voting, and SMS interactivity in print, radio, and TV. To access more information about this resource, click here.
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