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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (484232)	10/30/2003 10:53:04 PM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

we also need GOOD JOBS that pay well, not just burger flipping. average wages have gone down $500 tyhis year. That is not a good sign. Everyone I know in business is still very tight-fisted.

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (484232)	10/30/2003 10:53:10 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Respond to of 769670

Gordon Smith Fails the Climate Test Smith's vote against climate change bill is a vote against Oregon by EDWARD C. WOLF \| posted 10.31.03 \| This week, the Senate voted down the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, the last chance before the 2004 elections to enact mandatory reductions in the pollutants that cause global warming. Oregon senator Gordon Smith parted company with his colleague Ron Wyden, a co-sponsor of the bill, to vote against the landmark law. He also parted company with a growing number of Oregonians. From the snow-starved summit of Mount Hood to the parched fields and forestlands of John Day, Oregonians have begun to feel the pinch of climate change. Oregon businesses from Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort and the forest-products company Collins Pine to catalog marketer Norm Thompson have spoken out on the need to combat global warming. Here’s why: In Oregon, the warming trend is expected to diminish one of nature's great gifts to our state – the spring and early summer storage of millions of acre-feet of water in mountain snowpacks. Scientists at the University of Washington have documented a decline in snowpacks in Oregon and three other Northwest states over the second half of the twentieth century. They attribute that decline to an observed rise in average temperatures. In low-snowpack years, summer streamflows can shrink by one-third west of the Cascades and as much as 50 percent east of the Cascades. Grant and Morrow counties, heavily dependent on agriculture, saw surface flows decline by more than 60 percent in 1992 and 2001. Current warming scenarios forecast that Northwest snowpacks will shrink 60 percent below present levels by 2050. Farmers are not the only ones who will suffer. Warming also kills fish, increases the risk and intensity of wildfires, and places an array of Oregon's weather-dependent tourism businesses (ski resorts, fishing lodges and guides, etc.) in jeopardy. The state’s weakened economy is in no condition to withstand such changes. Record-breaking October temperatures made headlines around Oregon, and record-breaking rainfall and flooding caused multi-million-dollar property damage in Western Washington. Wildfires whipped by the Santa Ana winds wreak unprecedented death and destruction in Southern California. Such events can no longer be considered anomalies. The World Meteorological Organization warns that extreme events will be expected to increase “as global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change.” The Climate Stewardship Act, a bipartisan initiative drafted by John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT), proposed modest and achievable mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. It would have established a market-based system that encourages business innovation, modeled on the successful acid rain emissions program, to achieve those reductions. Senator Smith opposed U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Treaty on Climate Change in 1997. Six years of evidence from around the world and from the mountains and rivers of Oregon itself has only strengthened the case that action by the United States is overdue. Six years of evidence was not enough to sway Senator Smith. All Oregonians, our livelihoods, and our future will be adversely affected by climate change. Senator Smith had a chance this week to stop talking about the weather, and do something about it. He failed to show the independent spirit that Oregonians prize, and that his fellow Republican John McCain wears as a badge of honor. He squandered a last, best chance to stand up for climate stewardship. -30- Edward Wolf is chair of the Portland-based Green House Network, a nonprofit organization working nationwide to educate citizens about the need to stop global warming