Sustainability

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission is hard at work spending taxpayer money on a nonexistent problem. Contract employees using hounds will be used to kill 66 cougars in three areas. These 66 cougars aren’t problem cougars. They’re just plain cougars. They haven’t been caught killing livestock or otherwise causing a nuisance to humans. In its idiocy, the Fish and Wildlife Commission came up with a cougar management plan that doesn’t seek to control problem cougars, but rather kills the animals en masse in areas where cougar complaints and purported cougar predation exceed 1994 levels. Gosh, what a great concept.…

This being the holiday season, a time of brotherhood and good will, I’ve been searching my progressive soul for any political common ground that I have with the right-wing in America. I’ve been listening more than I usually do to Tony Snow, Sean Hannity, Lars Larson, and Victoria Taft (a local Portland rightie) as I cruise around in my progressively pure Toyota Prius, wishing that I could harness the hot air emanating over the radio waves for even greater mileage. There’s one issue—only one—that makes me nod in agreement when I hear it discussed on the conservative talk shows: immigration…

Oregon ranchers, who I’d think would be pretty tough guys, are scared to death of the mere possibility that a few wolves might one day find their way into this state. No wolves yet have crossed the border from Idaho, but the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission has been laboring on a plan to deal with them if they do. The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association is freaking out about the plan, which is slated to be voted on tomorrow (December 1). They want ranchers to be able to kill wolves that even look cross-eyed at livestock, notwithstanding the fact that so…

Fearsome! Here’s a KATU news photo of the “cougar” that was reported to be stalking around Fanno Creek Park near Beaverton on Thursday. It turned out to be Mittens, a large cat to be sure, but of the domesticated house pet variety. None the less, the man who spotted the animal, Drew Essig, "said he saw in the park wetlands a large cat similar to a cougar." It was described as larger than a pet and having a tail about 3 feet long. On Friday a KATU news team captured photos of both Mittens, the non-cougar,. and Essig, the non-cougar…

When it comes to the environment, George Bush is a scatological King Midas: everything he touches turns to crap. Well, in the case of the revised federal tax incentive program for hybrid cars, let’s give him some credit and call it half-crap. On the positive side, the new energy bill changes the current tax deduction for buying a hybrid car into a more valuable tax credit. As described on Hybridcars.com, after January 1, 2006 the present $2,000 deduction is going to become a tax credit whose value depends on a complex formula involving fuel economy and lifetime expected fuel savings.…

Toyota, how could you? My wife and I own a 2004 Prius, and we’re on the waiting list for a 2006 Highlander Hybrid. Now we feel betrayed. For Toyota is a member of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which is supporting a lawsuit to stop Governor Kulongoski from adopting tougher California-style vehicle emission standards. We’d believed that Toyota was an auto manufacturer with Green credentials. Yet here Toyota is, a member of the Auto Alliance along with GM, Ford, and six other manufacturers. Honda and Nissan aren’t part of the alliance, nor is Volvo. So part of me wants to…

Ah, appropriately enough it warmed my heart to read today’s Willamette Week cover story about Oregon’s global-warming-denying climatologist, George Taylor. Last March I emailed Willamette Week and suggested that they do a story on Taylor, saying “It bothers me that while it is official Oregon policy that global warming is a threat to the northwest, Oregon’s official climatologist is going around spouting an exactly opposite view.” This is one of the themes in the Willamette Week article, “Hot or Not: Oregon’s official weatherman has good news about global warming—it doesn’t exist.” I’ve been blogging on about the absurdity of an…