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Show VIEWPOINTS The Park Record. A-11 SAT/SUN/MON/TUES, DECEMBER 26-29, 2020 EDITORIAL Resolutions for the year ahead 2 PERSPECTIVE For path forward on climate, learn from original New Deal J. MIJIN CHA AND MANUEL PASTOR The Revelator Note: This piece was originally published by The Revelator. You may not know it, but Democrats and Republicans share a growing concern about the climate and environment. With extreme weather events becoming more common, many young Republicans now question their allegiance to a party that denies the reality of climate change. After the destructive environmental policies of the Trump administration, there are high hopes among many Americans that progress will be possible under a new administration — even if Biden’s reluctant to abandon fracking or adopt all the language of a “Green New Deal.” But to envision a path forward on environmental policy, we should remember some key lessons from the original New Deal, the 1930s-era policies that pulled the United States out of the Great Depression through a combination of relief programs, public-works projects, financial reforms and progressive regulation. The first key lesson: The New Deal was implemented in D.C., but many of its policies emerged from earlier state experiments. A second point: The space for progressive presidential action was opened up by labor and grassroots organizing that didn’t just rely on elected leaders but shifted the political calculus of what was possible. We should also be careful not to repeat past mistakes. For the New Deal had a major Achilles’ heel: In an attempt to secure support from Southern Democrats, many of its programs left Black Americans and other people of color behind (such as by excluding domestic and agricultural workers from Social Security). For a new national environmental policy to be successful, we need to lift up state experimentation, provide political pressure and political cover for doing what’s right, and be sure to center, not derail, racial equity. Our scholarship has been looking at just these issues for the past few years, examining how some states are trying to transition off fossil fuel in a way that protects workers and communities and addresses environmental injustice. Known as “just transition,” this notion focuses not only on the technical and policy aspects of power generation but also on the nitty-gritty of power-building to organize for change. There’s good news to report from states and localities. For example, in keeping with its ambitious approach to greenhouse gas reduction over the past decade and a half, California recently declared that the state would phase out the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035, creating impetus for a The Park Record Staff PUBLISHER ........................Andy Bernhard Editor ....................................Bubba Brown Staff Writers ...................... Jay Hamburger Scott Iwasaki Alexander Cramer Contributing Writers .................Tom Clyde Teri Orr Amy Roberts Tom Kelly Joe Lair Engagement Editor..............Jeff Dempsey Photographer ......................... Tanzi Propst Circulation Manager ..............Lacy Brundy ADVERTISING Advertising Director ............Valerie Spung Advertising Assistant .......Jessica Burlacu Advertising Sales ....................Jodi Hecker Joseph Siemon Rebecca Sturzenegger Director of Digital Marketing ...Tina Wismer Digital Sales Executive............. Erik Jones Production Director .................. Ben Olson Production ..........................Louise Mohorn market in electric and other zero-emission vehicles. Meanwhile, in New York, more than 200 groups have come together as NY Renews and won the most ambitious climate protection bill in the nation. Passed in 2019, it will dramatically limit emissions, invest in vulnerable communities, and chart a path to 100% carbon-free electricity. Part of what’s making such policy change possible is power-building among those whose voices have traditionally been sidelined. As a NY Renews coalition member told us, “Power is built when you stand shoulder-to-shoulder and when you stand up for someone else, not just yourself.” So the group built a broad coalition, ranging from labor unions to environmental justice organizations to faith-based organizations, that aimed not just to reduce emissions but to support vulnerable communities. A similar success story can be found in Arvin, California, a small town in the southern San Joaquin Valley, where local advocates have shown how to dig in against Big Oil. After launching a multifaceted campaign to keep new oil and gas drilling 300 feet from residential or commercial properties, Arvin quickly became a battleground pitting over-polluted residents against the behemoth fossil fuel industry. Despite the pressure, advocates launched a full-scale electoral push that brought in a new, progressive mayor and a wave of young Latina city council members who passed the first setback ordinance in California. These are examples of state and local innovation — inspired by grassroots activism and multiracial and multisector coalitions — that should now make their way to the federal level, much as the New Deal picked up ideas such as unemployment insurance, minimum wages and labor protections from experiments in New York, Wisconsin and Massachusetts. The combination of state experimentation, local power-building and attention to racial justice is all the more urgent now because we also need to make our way to a post-climate, post-COVID world. Both our environmental and public health challenges have some common themes and present an opportunity for a new narrative: In each arena we need to prioritize those with the highest risks, act to shield those we may never know, and learn to replace “me” — the spirit of self-interest — with “we,” the impulses of solidarity with people and the planet. On the policy side, we can clearly learn from state efforts to address climate change. But just as important will be learning from state and local organizing. The secret sauce is not in the technology: moving away from an oil- and coal-fueled power grid to a people-driven power structure will require the science of coalition-building. Power must be built to hold a new administration accountable, push it further toward bold climate policy and economic and racial justice, and create the political space for a massive federal investment in public health and clean energy. The future of America and the planet depend on it. J. Mijin Cha is assistant professor of urban and environmental policy at Occidental College. Manuel Pastor is professor of sociology at the University of Southern California and the director of USC’s Equity Research Institute. 020 is coming to a close. Mercifully. As we put this turbulent year in the rearview mirror, residents and our leaders alike must chart the path for what’s next. Just as many Parkites are partaking in the annual tradition of undertaking goals to improve their lives in the year ahead, our community also ought to identify a few New Year’s resolutions. After a year that, among other things, highlighted the importance of ensuring everyone reaps the benefits of living in an affluent community like ours, here are a few suggestions: • Redouble efforts to address the affordable housing deficit. As everyone in the Park City area understands, there are no magic-bullet solutions to the dearth of affordable housing. And indeed, the shortfall only continued to grow during 2020 despite modest progress spurred by local governments and housing advocates. Who are the ones being left out of our pricy real estate market (not to mention the competitive rental market)? In many cases, it’s the essential workers we relied on more than ever this year: teachers, first responders, grocery store clerks, nonprofit employees, lower-level municipal staffers — the list goes on. We owe it to them to keep pressing forward on this vexing issue. • Renewed urgency to achieve social equity goals. Our community understands some of its shortcomings. That’s why the Park City Council in 2018 elevated the ideal of social equity to a critical priority for the municipal government. Though it was clear before, 2020 has underscored how much work remains to become the kind of equitable community City Hall leaders and most of the rest of us envision. Latino residents have borne an outsized brunt of both the health and economic effects of the pandemic in our community, for instance. And the social justice movements in the wake of the killing of George Flloyd sparked much-needed discussions about the role all members of the community, from elected officials on down, must play in addressing PERSPECTIVE racism and bias. • Invest in our children. Young people have faced their own set of challenges during the pandemic, starting when schools closed their doors in March. Nine months later and halfway through this school year, the learning environment for students is still radically different, though Summit County’s three school districts have done a remarkable job navigating the changes. There is concern that, amid the tumult, some students have fallen behind, as well as worry about how the pandemic is affecting the mental health of our community’s youth. Addressing these concerns will be critical in the years ahead. The cliche that it takes a village to raise a child is true, and it will take a community effort to ensure our children’s futures are just as bright as they were before the crisis began. • Be kinder to one another. It was a difficult year for everyone, so residents can be forgiven, for the most part, for times when tensions boiled over, such as in the debates over the Black Lives Matter mural on Main Street and the reopening of schools in the fall — or in everyday life when someone took up two parking spots at the grocery store or got a little too close for comfort without a mask. At the same time, the stresses of 2020 are also a reason to be more compassionate. Everyone is going through a tough time, so let’s cut each other some slack. In the coming year, let’s demand better of ourselves. Let’s spend more time focusing on the things that unite us as Parkites — namely our passion for the place we live and our desire to see the community flourish — than we do on our differences. And yes, that means less sniping at one another online and more constructive contributions. These are just a few areas where we can help our community prosper in the year ahead. If we make progress on them — and the range of other crucial issues we face — we’ll no doubt remember the next 12 months more fondly than the year we’re all happy to be leaving behind. When water dries up, it can be deadly PEPPER TRAIL Writers on the Range over 80% could be released, a testimony to the tireless work of volunteers, the support of conservation organizations, and the expertise of Bird Ally X staff. But most poisoned birds never made it to treatment. Field surveyors at the refuge gathered the bodies of about 20,000 dead birds, a number equivalent to the population of Klamath Falls, the region’s largest city. The California Waterfowl Association estimates that at least three times that many died. So — at least 60,000 dead birds. Dead Mallards, with their emerald-green heads. Dead Northern Shovelers, with their comically enormous bills. Dead Northern Pintails, long-necked, longtailed, and elegant. A host of seemingly legitimate claims on the Klamath Basin’s water exist: farmers whose roots in the region go back generations, tribes whose ties to endangered Klamath River salmon and Klamath Lake suckers stretch to time immemorial. But older than any human claim, any human “right,” are the rights of the wild. How easily we forget that water is wild. We claim it, we fight over it, but we did not make it. The water of the Klamath Basin created a world of overflowing abundance, of lakes filled with suckers, a great river bursting with salmon, and also of marshlands filled with ducks and grebes and ibis and egrets. Our use, our heedless overuse, has almost destroyed that world. There are glimmers of hope. The dams that choke the Klamath River may be finally nearing removal, to the great benefit of salmon. Over $6 million was recently made available to the wildlife refuges to lease additional water. But the comprehensive plan needed to assure a supply of water sufficient to prevent a recurrence of 2020’s botulism tragedy remains elusive. In my mind’s eye, I see the 60,000 dead birds gathered in a great poisoned pile, a pyramid of lost lives. The bodies are perfect and unmarked. The feathers are still beautiful. If the masters of the Klamath Basin’s water, all the contending parties, could be brought to stand before that awful sight, would they, I wonder, fall silent for a moment? Would their dusty hearts soften? Can we, at least, agree that this must never happen again? In Oregon, the Klamath Basin wildlife refuges have fallen into their winter silence now. The huge, clamorous flocks of geese that fill the sky during migration have moved south. This summer, a different silence gripped the Basin. A dead silence. The 90,000 acres of marshes and open water that make up the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges are a small remnant of vast wetlands that once filled this region on the Oregon-California border. With over 75% of those wetlands now converted to agriculture, the refuges are a last precious oasis for nesting waterfowl and other marsh birds. For this oasis to burst with life, it simply needs water. Sadly, nothing is simple about water in the Klamath Basin. And this summer, that led to tragedy. All the water in the Klamath Basin is promised to somebody — and almost every year, far more is promised than is available. The “protected” wetlands of the national wildlife refuges come last on the list, and are chronically starved of water. In 2020, the situation was so critical that Bureau of Reclamation, which controls the water, released three emergency allocations to the refuges, totaling 14,000 acre-feet. It was not enough, and compared to the 147,000 acre-feet received by irrigators, barely a drop in the bucket. The resulting stagnant pools were perfect breeding grounds for bacteria that produce a botulism toxin deadly to birds (but harmless to humans). The toxin is taken up by aquatic invertebrates that filter-feed on the bacteria, and then reaches fatal concentrations in waterfowl and other birds that eat the invertebrates. Afflicted birds lose muscle control. Unable to hold up their heads, poisoned ducks often drown in the water that should have given them life. The Klamath refuges regularly suffer outbreaks of avian botulism in late summer, when the water is lowest. In a "normal" year, a few hundred birds might be brought in for treatment. Pepper Trail is a contributor to Writers on the Range, This summer, the outbreak was a conflagration. More than 3,000 poisoned birds were treated by the rehabilita- writersontherange.com, a nonprofit dedicated to spurtion organization Bird Ally X. They were the lucky ones. ring lively conversation about the West. He is a conserAmong rescued birds that survived the first 24 hours, vation biologist and writer in Ashland, Oregon. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Save lives together I am both a living organ donor and a United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) ambassador. UNOS runs the nation’s organ transplant system — matching lifesaving organs from donors to recipients 24 hours a day, seven days week. I choose to represent UNOS as a community volunteer because I share their commitment to save as many lives as possible through organ sharing. Each day lives are being saved in our community through organ donation and transplantation, lives like that of the baby who received the part of my liver and who would have died without a liver transplant. My connection to transplantation comes from being a living organ donor, which I was able to do despite the COVID pandemic. I am grateful for the excellent medical care my team provided for my recipient and myself. As a physician myself, I know just how difficult it is to continue to provide medical care in these challenging times. I’m a passionate advocate for donation, transplantation and for UNOS because as a donor, I’m a part of this special lifesaving community. You can be a part of it, too. You can make a difference and give the gift of life. Register to be an organ donor at donatelife.net or consider becoming a living donor. Join me in making 2021 the year of Saving Lives Together. Cara Heuser Jeremy Ranch |