Monday Mailing 022519

Monday Mailing

Year 25 • Issue 23 25 February 2019 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

The Future Climate For Western Oregon? California’s Central Valley (Michael Hoch) We Must Address The Climate Crisis – Which Requires Changing Transportation And Land Use (Bayoán Ware) Four-Day Week: Trial Finds Lower Stress And Increased Productivity (Emily Bradley) Should Young Americans Be Required To Do Public Service?

Federal Panel Says Maybe Land Use Planning Tools To Reduce Wildfire Risk Verdict Is In: Food Stamps Put Poor Kids On Path To Success (Caitlin Seyfried) Oregon And Washington Lawmakers Consider Statewide Plastic Bag Bans The Benefits Of Volunteering Get Renewed Attention Climate Change Enters Its Blood-Sucking Phase WEBINAR – Proactive Communication And Conflict Resolution For Redevelopment (Ariel Kane)

1. The Future Climate for Western Oregon? California’s

Central Valley

Quote of the Week:

“Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.”

- Carol MoseleyBraun, politician and lawyer

Oregon Fast Fact #23

Oregon's second highest waterfall is Salt Creek Falls in the Cascade Mountain range. It drops 286 feet.

At our current rate of climate change, many cities in western Oregon could come to feel a lot like the Central Valley of California over the next 60 years.

A new analysis looking at climate projections for urban areas across the United States and Canada predict substantial changes in local temperatures and precipitation rates for Northwest cities.

“We were trying to communicate these forecasts of global climate for the future into something that’s less abstract, less distant and more local and more relevant to personal experiences,” said University of Maryland ecologist Matt Fitzpatrick, co-author of the study.

To do this they used the average of 27 different climate forecasts to figure out what current geographic location most resembles the future climate of a city.

To access the full story, click here.

2. We Must Address The Climate Crisis – Which Requires

Changing Transportation And Land Use

The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gasses in the United States and it’s also the one that federal officials have the most control over with the power of the purse. Yet the Green

Page 1 of 5

New Deal is largely devoid of the bold reimagining of federal transportation spending which encourages more roads, more driving, more sprawl, and more emissions.

Yesterday, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Senator Markey (D-MA) introduced the much anticipated Green New Deal resolution. The brains behind the Green New Deal (GND) should be commended for treating the climate crisis as the existential threat it is. As a policy framework, the GND acknowledges the need to use cleaner fuels and invest equitably. But like most conversations around climate change, it gives only a glancing mention to the transportation system and completely ignores the role development patterns play in driving the climate crisis.

Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gases (GHG), outpacing the power sector and comprising at least 28 percent of the United States’ total GHG emissions. Surface transportation represents 83 percent of transportation emissions, and transportation has now surpassed electrical generation as the top emitter. Pollution from transportation comes from three drivers: the efficiency of vehicles, the carbon content of fuels, and the distance people travel. And transportation emissions keep climbing in spite of the fact that vehicles are getting more efficient and fuels are getting cleaner because people are driving more and further.

To access the full story, click here.

3. Four-Day Week: Trial Finds Lower Stress And Increased Productivity

The founder of one of the first big companies to switch to a four-day working week has called on others to follow, claiming it has resulted in a 20% rise in productivity, appeared to have helped increase profits and improved staff wellbeing.

Analysis of one of the biggest trials yet of the four-day working week has revealed no fall in output, reduced stress and increased staff engagement, fueling hopes that a better work-life balance for millions could be in sight.

Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand financial services company, switched its 240 staff from a five-day to a four-day week last November and maintained their pay. Productivity increased in the four days they worked so there was no drop in the total amount of work done, a study of the trial released on Tuesday has revealed.

To access the full story, click here.

4. Should Young Americans Be Required To Do Public Service? Federal Panel Says Maybe

Should the U.S. require its citizens to perform public service? Should its young women register for the draft?

A federal panel says it is working on answers to those questions — and is considering how the nation could implement a universal service program and whether it should be mandatory or optional.

Page 2 of 5

"In a country of more than 329 million people, the extraordinary potential for service is largely untapped," said Joe Heck, chairman of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. On Wednesday, he and his fellow commissioners unveiled the panel's interim report to Congress.

An overarching goal of the commission, Heck said, is to "create a universal expectation of service" in which every American is "inspired and eager to serve."

The challenge to realizing that potential, Heck and other commissioners said during an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., is how to increase awareness and access to opportunities to provide public service — and to make those options more attractive.

To access the full story, click here.

5. Lane Use Planning Tools To Reduce Wildfire Risk

The President issued an executive order last month that instructs federal land managers to treat 8.45 million acres of land and cut 4.4 billion board feet of timber. But land use planning, not logging on federal lands, is a more effective tool to confront future wildfire disasters.

This President’s executive order represents a significant increase in timber harvest compared to recent years—roughly 80 percent more than was cut on U.S. Forest Service lands in 2017—but is minor compared to cuts in the 1980s, which reached more than 12 billion board feet.

Timber management on federal lands can be justified for valid reasons—including watershed protection, wildlife habitat conservation, and overall forest health— but it rarely helps our communities confront looming wildfire disasters in the face of a warming climate and continued home building on fire-prone lands. Better land use planning and improved design of our built environment is our best bet at reducing risk from wildfires.

To access the full story, click here.

6. Verdict Is In: Food Stamps Put Poor Kids On Path To Success

Congress is expected to vote this week on a new farm bill, which includes changes to the food stamp program. Lawmakers should take the time to read up on recent research about the program’s effects. Innovative research has demonstrated convincingly that young children whose families receive food stamps benefit later in life.

Food stamps, technically known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is the nation’s most important anti-hunger program. Last year, more than 40 million low-income working families, people with disabilities and poor seniors received assistance, averaging about $125 a month. Roughly 70 percent of the participants live in families with children.

The classic problem in teasing out the impact of something like food assistance to poor working families with children is the old adage about correlation versus causation. Because we don’t randomly assign families to the program, it can be hard to tell what impact the program itself had. But the researchers – led in particular by Hilary Hoynes of the University of California at Berkeley and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach of Northwestern University – have a clever way of getting around that problem.

Page 3 of 5

The food stamp program was established on a pilot basis in eight poor counties by President John F. Kennedy in 1961; the pilot was expanded to more than 40 counties in the early 1960s.

The Food Stamp Act of 1964 then authorized the creation of a program in every county in the nation, at the county’s option. More and more counties adopted the program, and legislation in 1973 then mandated that every county participate by 1975. So between 1962 and 1975, the program became available in an increasing number of counties.

To access the full story, click here.

7. Oregon And Washington Lawmakers Consider Statewide Plastic Bag Bans

Lawmakers in both Oregon and Washington are considering bills that would ban single-use plastic bags statewide to reduce plastic pollution.

Right now, bills in both states would prohibit retailers from giving out single-use plastic checkout bags and require them to charge a 10-cent fee on paper bags.

Washington lawmakers have already passed two versions of the bill out of the committee.

Oregon’s House Committee on Energy and Environment took up the bill on Tuesday.

A statewide law could replace local ordinances that also ban plastic bags.

Shawn Miller with the Northwest Grocers Association said his group wants to avoid a patchwork of conflicting local restrictions with 16 local governments in Oregon already having passed their own plastic bag bans and more considering the idea.

To access the full story, click here.

8. The Benefits Of Volunteering Get Renewed Attention

In a recent report entitled Where Are America’s Volunteers: A Look at America’s Widespread Decline in Volunteering in Cities and States, researchers Robert T. Grimm and Nathan Dietz found that despite experiencing historic highs in the amount of charitable donations and the number of volunteer hours contributed to nonprofits, the country is simultaneously experiencing a two-decade low in the percentage of Americans that volunteer or donate to charity.

In an opinion piece written for The Hill, Myung J. Lee and Marc A. Ott, executive directors of Cities of Service and ICMA respectively, see this as surprising, given that voter participation is higher than ever. The 2018 midterms proved to be a monumental year, with more than 100 million citizens voting—the highest voter participation rate in US history in 50 years. Younger Americans and suburban and rural voters were critical to the uptick, but these were also the same constituents to see noticeable declines in volunteer engagement.

Since volunteering is just one of many forms of civic engagement, the authors argue that similar strategies to bring out reluctant voters can be used to engage citizens in volunteerism. In order to increase volunteer rates throughout the country, Lee and Ott suggest organizing a “call to service” that consists of three components.

To access the full story, click here.

Page 4 of 5

9. Climate Change Enters Its Blood-Sucking Phase

We found the moose calf half an hour in. He lay atop thin snow on a gentle slope sheltered by the boughs of a big, black spruce, curled up as a dog would on a couch. He had turned his long, gaunt head to rest against his side and closed his eyes. He might have been sleeping. The day before, April 17, 2018, when the GPS tracker on the moose’s collar stopped moving for six hours, this stillness had caused both an email and a text to alert Jake Debow, a Vermont state field biologist who stood next to me now with Josh Blouin, another state biologist, that moose No. 75 had either shucked his collar or died.

“You want pictures before we start?” Debow asked me. He’s the senior of the two young biologists, both still in grad school, both in their late 20s, young and strong and funny, from families long in the north country, both drawn to the job by a love of hunting and being outside.

Debow had always wanted to be a game warden; in college, he “fell in love with the science.”

His Vermont roots go back 10 generations. “Jake Debow,” Josh told me, “is about as Vermont as you can get.” It was Debow’s second season on the moose project, and Blouin’s first. This was the sixth calf, of 30 collared, that they’d found sucked to death by ticks this season. They were here to necropsy the carcass, send the tissues to a veterinary pathology lab in New Hampshire, and try to figure out as much as possible about how and why these calves were dying.

To access view the resource, click here.

10. WEBINAR – Proactive Communication And Conflict Resolution For Redevelopment (February 24 from at 11am PST to 12:15pm PST)

Conflict is part of human existence, and there’s no denying that it can be unpleasant, but with tools and perspective from professional facilitators, there’s no reason to be afraid. We have to work through conflict to get to a better outcome, whether that’s a vision for a site or area, an agreement about remediation plans, or anything else.

How can you improve your conflict management and mitigation practices? Come away from our webinar with the skills to plan for and productively manage disagreement. This webinar builds on a popular panel that was presented at the California Land Recycling Conference in 2018.

To register for the webinar, click here.

Page 5 of 5