Green Grow the Votes

The Lane County commissioners on June 18 voted 3-to-2 to drop membership from the Association of O&C Counties (AOCC). Commissioners Heather Buch, Pete Sorenson and Joe Berney made this happen.

This is great news, as the AOCC is a de-facto lobbying organization that practices in secret for the logging industry, working to increase logging of our public forests. We have 10 percent or less of our native forests left in Oregon. These forests in western Oregon are some of the best forests in the world for the carbon they sequester.

Then, at the state level, we have a majority to vote in the Clean Energy Jobs bill; however, Oregon puppet Republican senators refuse to vote.

You can’t run away from climate change. We have a system of representative democracy and they are obstructing this. Time is running out for us to mitigate the worst effects.

The latest expert scientists estimate 11 years or less to make the necessary changes. We must all stand up and quickly transition off fossil fuels, protect our forests, fund electric mass transit and subsidize local regenerative organic agriculture for starters.

When the people lead, the leaders follow.

Pam Driscoll

Dexter