SUSTAINABLE EUGENE?
Eugene Sustainability Quiz
Eugene Sustainability Commission
steps toward sincere sustainability
City Manager or democracy?
Regional Transportation Plan: $817 million for roads
2010-2015: Cities & County $186.5 million for roads
EWEB's $85 million new maintenance yard
U of O Arenas - Bus Rapid Transit - big box stores
hospitals - disasters - intelligent urban design - trains
grass seed to grains - food security, no more field burning

WEST EUGENE PORKWAY
WETLANDS: West Eugene Transportation, Land and Neighborhood Design Solutions - WEP alternative
Mayoral Election bypasses highway history
Kitty Piercy's West Eugene Collaborators excluded neighborhood groups, tolerates half a WEP
Jim Torrey wasted money promoting WEP after June 2001 "No Build" consensus by Fed, State, County & City
the 2001 City vote for the WEP - a federal, not local, decision
WEP violated laws signed by Nixon and LBJ
Lane County: Bobby Green vs. Rob Handy

related websites: forestclimate.org - oilempire.us - permatopia.com - road-scholar.org
feedback to mark at permatopia dot com

Greenwashing: public relations boosterism

What is greenwash?
Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Tenth Edition
greenwash (n):
"Disinformation disseminated by an organisation so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. Derivatives greenwashing. Origin from green on the pattern of whitewash."

Ecocentrism: Eugene not "number one Green City"
"World's Greatest City of the Arts & Outdoors" world's most absurd slogan

TREES:
Transportation, Energy,
Environment, Sustainability

TRANSPORTATION after Peak Oil

WETLANDS Alternative:
West Eugene Transportation, Land and Neighborhood Design Solutions

West Eugene Collaborators:

Bypassing Sustainability:
Planes, Trains, Automobiles

Green Building & Boondoggles


ENVIRONMENT
Protection and Restoration

  • ecoforestry: selective logging to restore tree farms to forests
    no clearcuts or biocides,
    value added products
  • green business, clean industry
    myco and bioremediation,
  • zero discharge
    ban toxics to protect public health
    carbohydrate economy, no petrochemicals
  • reduce garbage: waste is a terrible thing to mind
  • intelligent (urban) design:
    beauty
    not ugliness

    (prevent strip mauls, billboards)

Polluted Air and Water

  • Clearcutting the Cascades & Coast Range
  • Aerial Herbicides blanket our forests
  • Slash pile burning - a huge waste of trees
  • Toxic Eugene:
    Plywood glue factories
    Railroad pollution
    wood preserving
  • Grass Seed Capital of the World: Pollen and Smoke Pollution
  • Nano-pollution info at oilempire.us

ENERGY
for the Year 2025

Region 2050 & limits to growth

  • build solar panel and wind turbine factories
  • convert grass seed farms to grow biofuels
  • require passive solar design in building codes
  • relocalize production to reduce consumption
    (fewer delivery trucks)
  • retrofit buildings: conservation & renewables
  • initiatives for sustainable jobs after Peak Oil

SUSTAINABILITY
is not efficiency, it is zero petroleum

  • paradigm shifts: psychological and political
  • beyond boom and bust: steady state economy
  • local food security,
    more community gardens,
    teach gardening skills at neighborhood levels,
    protect farm soils from "development"
    regional inventories of food production and processing
  • economic stability needs democratic decisions,
    Campaign Finance Reform
  • public health: single payer health care
  • support local economy:
    strengthen local businesses,
    build downtown Farmers Market
    not Whole Foods predator,
    ban big box megastores & franchises

Human Rights City?

  • Chinese Olympics
  • June 1, 1997: pepper spray used on peaceful protestors
  • rapist cops convicted of felonies
  • scaring toddlers
  • tasers

greenwash groups:
Activist Malpractice


Disasters: preventative, permaculture perspectives

Disaster Mitigation and Land Use:

  • Eugene needs intelligent (urban) design
    Hospitals, Earthquakes, Floods, and Lahars
    Troubled Bridges Over Water: the I-5 bridge crisis
    West Eugene sprawl in floodplains: WEP, Target megastore, Royal Node subdivision

The Long Emergency:
Peak Oil and Climate Collapse require paradigm shift

Katrina disaster shows the Federal government response: we are on our own


Eugene: the bubble

Wetland Homes:
"Sustainable Eugene" paving wetlands with subdivisions


West Eugene Wetlands, January 2006 - the wetlands immediately next to this new house are the location for the extension of Roosevelt Boulevard, which would go immediately next to this home's back door. The home is entirely built on fill dirt in the former floodplain of Amazon Creek in the most seismically hazardous soils in the City of Eugene. A large earthquake, especially during the rainy season, will probably liquify the soils under this home, causing considerable damage.

 


the greenspace in the foreground is planned to become the extension of Roosevelt Boulevard through wetlands

 

 


the wetlands here are the location for Roosevelt Boulevard Extended