15 results for tag: climate action
New Initiatives for Safe, Affordable, Climate-Friendly Homes and Buildings
The 2023 legislative session presents a vital opportunity to make progress in achieving our climate goals and protect families and communities from ever-worsening climate impacts. OEC is excited to support a “Building Resilience” policy package this session that will cut pollution and increase the climate resilience of our homes and buildings
Recognizing the vital need to transform and expand Oregon’s building stock in a way that maximizes climate, public health, affordability, and job creation benefits for Oregon, the 2022 legislature established the “Resilient, Efficient Buildings (REBuilding) Task Force.” The REBuilding ...
REBuilding Task Force Delivers Recommendations
The buildings we use for homes, workplaces, and gathering spaces play a special role in the future of our changing climate. They can provide a safe place to escape extreme heat, storms, or wildfires caused by climate change. But when those same buildings rely on fracked methane (“natural”) gas, the air insides in unsafe to breathe and methane is one of the worst climate pollutants.
A special state task force came together to tackle this issue and recently recommended some practical, common-sense policies that can make Oregon’s buildings safer, lower energy bills, and reduce pollution. Now we need to act on their recommendations.
Oregon ...
The Inflation Reduction Act for Oregon
Only a few months ago, things were not looking good for federal climate action. The Supreme Court had just voted to strike down the Clean Power Plan. Senator Manchin of West Virginia had just announced he would not support a reconciliation package with new spending on climate change. And, after decades of denial, delay, and failed attempts, everyone’s hope was wearing thin.
Then, seemingly out of thin air, Senate Democrats announced they had struck a deal on a new package that would inject an unprecedented $370 billion in climate and clean energy programs nationwide. Weeks later, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into ...
NW Natural Wants to Raise Rates (Again). This is What You Need to Know.
NW Natural, a utility company that sells fossil “natural” gas (e.g. methane), wants to raise prices for Oregon customers for a second year in a row. What they are planning to do with the money is, quite frankly, jaw-dropping, which is why OEC and a group of environmental and community-based organizations, represented by the Green Energy Institute at Lewis & Clark Law School and Earthjustice, are pushing back as formal intervenors in an ongoing public “rate case” proceeding. To get to the bottom of it, I sat down with Nora Apter, OEC’s Climate Program Director, to learn more about what NW Natural is doing and why their customers–or ...
Climate Change and Agriculture: How are they connected and what’s to be done?
What is climate change and how does it work?
We’ve all heard the phrase “climate change,” but what does that phrase mean? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines climate change as “a long-term (decades to centuries) change in any of a number of environmental conditions for a given place and time—such as temperature, rainfall, humidity, cloudiness, wind, and air circulation patterns.” So any shift in weather patterns lasting for a prolonged period of time can be called climate change. Today most people who say “climate change” are referring to the steady well-documented increases in Earth’s temperature ...
Climate Change is Impacting Youth Mental Health
Do you find yourself or the youth in your life feeling anxious or depressed over the idea of climate change? A new study shows this is a problem sweeping Oregon and beyond. The Oregon Health Authority just released a report, Climate Change and Youth Mental Health in Oregon, documenting the impacts of climate change on the mental health of youth (ages 15-25). This study was completed under the direction of Governor Brown’s Executive Order 20-04, also known as the Oregon Climate Action Plan.
The study, one of the largest in the nation to date, documents a growing youth mental health crisis in Oregon. Climate stressors, including climate anxiety, ...
Life hack: save money and the planet at the same time
If you've lived in Oregon for the last couple years, you are well aware of the urgent threat climate change poses to our communities, public health, and way of life. We have all seen and experienced first hand the devastating and deadly climate-fueled wildfires and temperature extremes that have ravaged our state in recent seasons.
Two recent reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underscore Oregon’s climate experience, documenting the impacts of climate change and the danger of inaction, and laying out key policy solutions to limit warming and avoid catastrophic climate impacts. The IPCC Climate ...
Oregon Climate Action Plan Turns Two!
Two years ago, Governor Kate Brown made history when she signed the Oregon Climate Action Plan (OCAP), executive order 20-04. It’s the largest executive action on climate in Oregon history, and arguably the biggest single climate action ever undertaken by the state given its broad sweep. OCAP set in motion a broad array of state agency activities to respond to the climate crisis by reducing climate emissions from our state’s largest polluting sectors and prioritizing communities on the frontlines of climate impacts.
OEC and our partners in the OCAP Coalition, which includes more than 50 climate, environmental justice, youth, labor, public ...