Posts
In
December 1994, back in the early days of the World Wide Web, a website named
Cascadia Planet went live. It focused on local and regional solutions to
global sustainability challenges.
I was
editor of the site, coming from a 1980s-90s movement background in Northwest
ancient forest preservation and sustainable cities. Then based in
Portland, Oregon, I had written a Green City column for years and helped lead a
community stakeholder process that generated a Green City vision for the
Portland region in 1991.
Many of
those people who participated in that stakeholder process went on to make the
vision happen. Portland has since become known as a national
sustainability leader. In 1993 it became the first city with a climate action
plan, since successfully reducing carbon emissions per city resident. The
book, How Green Is Your City?, gave
Portland the #1 rating. (My current city, Seattle, ranks #3.)
I came to
Cascadia Planet with that experience in mind. Places and regions could
make solid contributions to global challenges such as climate change. We
didn’t have to wait for national governments to act.
From 1991
on I was aware of another group that had the same vision, Atmosphere Alliance
out of Olympia, Washington. The group put out a publication called No
Sweat News, a digest of climate and clean energy news from around the
world. In the first year of Cascadia Planet, a new edition announced a
refined mission, to make the Pacific Northwest a global warming solutions leader.
On my page. I called group founder Rhys Roth and offered a web
presence. Rhys took me up on my offer.
Cascadia
Planet experienced its own dot.bomb crash several years in advance of the rest
of the world. We had trouble assembling a business model, so we let the
site go inactive in 1997.
Meanwhile
I continued to collaborate with Rhys on a series of climate and energy projects
that led to the formation of a group called Climate
Solutions in 1998. It was a merger of Atmosphere Alliance and
a storefront community education project called Energy Outreach Center, led by
Paul Horton. Climate Solutions took up the regional mission, with ripple
effects around the nation and world including:
·
California’s first-in-the-US economy-wide carbon cap
·
The US
Conference of Mayors climate commitment which has spurred action from New York
and Chicago down to small communities
The
first-ever Energy Title of the US Farm Bill which has channeled hundreds of
millions of dollars to farm-based clean energy projects all over the country
Initiatives
for genuinely sustainable biofuels that have now spurred stakeholder-based
roadmapping processes on several continents
Advanced
efforts to deploy carbon-cutting smart electric power grids in the Northwest
and elsewhere
Continuing
work that links the West Coast states and British Columbia to lead on climate
even as national governments are gridlocked.
Of
course, lots of other people have their fingerprints on these great
accomplishments. But in many cases Climate Solutions provided the vital
link. The “It’s a Wonderful Life” story of what the world would have
looked like without the group would, I believe, be one in which much climate
action of national and global significance would not have taken place.
The past
15 years of Climate Solutions totally validated the original premise of
Cascadia Planet, not to mention Atmosphere Alliance. Actions in local and
regional places make a big difference, no matter how stuck national governments
are.
After 15
years I am returning to work as a full-time writer, my occupation when I helped
found the group. I came to the group with a theory of local and regional
change, with some practice at the local level in Portland. The past
15 years have provided a magnificent opportunity to put theory into practice at
the Northwest regional scale. Now it is time to sit down at my writer’s
desk and share what I have learned.
One way I
will do this is with this revived Cascadia Planet site. I will relate my
insights on climate change and solutions, and on the vital role of cities and
regions in meeting what is clearly an emergent global sustainability
crisis. I will review books new and old that have something to say about
this.
And I
will talk about what it means to be an American, a citizen of the country that
invented this unsustainable world and which still has so much to say about
whether we can put it on a sustainable basis. There are different ways to
organize our national life that enhance the capacity of cities, states and
regions to address sustainability challenges. There are also far more
productive ways to relate to the world. I will share some ideas and
proposals in this regard.
So welcome
back to Cascadia Planet! I hope you will participate and share your
insights with me. We can address the most global of challenges in the
places where we live, and make a great world for ourselves and our
children. The power is within our hands.
