Over the weekend of February 7-8 Pacific University students, local government officials, community organizers, and ordinary Washington County citizens came together for the Washington County Sustainability Summit at Pacific University.  Washington County, Oregon is located just west of Portland – Oregon’s largest metropolis and the center of this state’s green movement.  And despite some local politicians’ stubborn determination to see environmentalism as an invasion of tree-hugging hippies from Portland, Washington County’s own sustainability movement has been growing in recent years.

This growth is evident in the formation of community groups like Washington County Peak Oil, and in the staunch opposition of local landowners to the Palomar Liquefied Natural Gas Pipeline – a component of the largest new fossil project proposed for this state.  And if I do say so myself, student activism based out of Pacific University has had an important part to play as well.  In the past couple of years Pacific students have testified to Washington County Board in favor of green policies, hosted community education events with Washington County Peak Oil, and participated in two rounds of Focus the Nation teach-ins.  The Sustainability Summit this month was  organized almost entirely by students (the team of us organizers is pictured below), and sought to bring together some of the most important environmental initiatives in our area.  Over 100 students and County residents registered for the event, and you can read about the results in the news release at the bottom of this post.

I feel sure the US is bristling with communities like Washington County, Oregon: areas that tend to shy from hippie-style environmentalism, but where growing numbers of individuals are beginning to embrace the idea of a new green economy.  What if every one of these regions held a Sustainability Summit to draw attention to the work of local activists, and build the foundations for a united green front?  We did it in Washington County – you can, too!

Urgent Calls for Action Delivered at Sustainability Summit

FOREST GROVE, OR – During the Washington County Sustainability Summit at Pacific University, a tangible feeling of urgency permeated the words of speakers who ranged from community organizers to locally elected officials. They touched on issues as diverse as peak oil, permaculture and sustainable food, Liquefied Natural Gas development, and nonviolent civil disobedience as employed by the climate movement. The Summit, organized by a group of Pacific students with support from faculty members Deke Gundersen and Terry O’Day, took place over the weekend of February 7^th to 8^th and was designed to bring together some of the most significant environmental movements in the County.

Saturday’s keynote speaker, Peter Lunsford of Washington County Peak Oil, urged County residents to prepare for a future in which energy will be more expensive and availability of liquid fuels will decline sharply. Lunsford called on local government officials to do much more to curtail energy use, pointing to a German city that now requires all new buildings to be energy neutral as an example of the kinds of steps our localities should be taking. “Now that’s what I call serious curtailment,” Lunsford said, referring to the city in Germany.

A panel of local government representatives from Metro, Washington County, and the cities of Beaverton, Hillsboro, and Forest Grove were quick to agree that they have a long way to go to satisfactorily address our energy problems. “But each of us is only one person on a board,” said Metro Councilor Kathryn Harrington, hinting that for every local official committed to sustainability, there are multiple others for whom peak oil and global warming still do not signify as priorities. On the issue of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) fossil fuel project, County Commissioner Dick Schouten said, “I am probably one of two members” of the five-person Board who would stand up for the environment by opposing LNG development. Beaverton City Councilor Cathy Stanton, Hillsboro Sustainability Manager Peter Brandom, and Forest Grove Mayor Richard Kidd each spoke about energy-saving projects going forward in their cities, while acknowledging that much remains to be done.

Other speakers at the Summitfocused on citizen activism as a way to jumpstart the government. Olivia Schmidt of Columbia Riverkeeper highlighted the coalition of environmentalists and landowners that has come together to defeat LNG in Washington County and across the state by pressuring government officials. Chuck Riley, who represents the County’s District 29 in the Oregon House of Representatives urged citizens to contact state officials who are still undecided on the LNG issue, as a means of turning the tide against this project.

Meanwhile a delegation from the climate activist group Cascadia Rising Tide pointed out how such tactics as street theater and nonviolent civil disobedience are being used call out companies like Northwest Natural Gas which are bottom-lining the LNG project. Rising Tide’s website states that “We believe climate change can only be addressed by exposing the intersections between oppressions of humans and the earth,” and this connection was apparent in the discussion of LNG. WashingtonCounty farms like the all-organic Gales Meadow Farm owned by Anne and Rene’ Berblinger are threatened by massive LNG pipelines that would render much of their land unusable. The Palomar LNG Pipeline “would wipe us out,” said Anne Berblinger at the Summit. Berblinger’s keynote speech on Sunday highlighted the role of organic, localized agriculture plays in reducing global warming emissions and preparing our community for energy instability.

Though Washington County’s plentiful farmland and the burgeoning clean energy economy in Oregon means our area is well-positioned to take on the challenges discussed at the Sustainability Summit, our community’s struggles were seen by many speakers as a microcosm of the nation as a whole. Peter Lunsford praised President Obama’s efforts to make the new clean energy economy a priority of his Administration.

However, Lunsford pointed out, it will take thousands of ordinary citizens changing their own lives and becoming politically active if Obama’s plan is to succeed. “We are allowing President Obama to fight, unsupported, against half the government to do what we should be doing ourselves,” Lunsford said. As one speaker after another confirmed as the Sustainability Summit, solutions to our most pressing problems will come ultimately from ordinary citizens in places like Washington County.

Posted in Act Locally, Campuses, Cascade Region, Direct Action, Events, global warming, Impacted Communities, LNG, Oil, Political Participation, Youth Leaders