Climate Action Needed Now From City Council

Having lived in the Willamette Valley almost my entire life, I have witnessed the dreaded shifting of our beautiful climate to one that is radically less supportive to our collective thriving. The drought-ridden summers with intense heat waves killing off even the hardiest of Douglas-firs and the erratic temperature swings during cooler months are climate patterns I hardly ever saw growing up but now are an annual occurrence.

These extremes in climate land hardest on people who are doing the least amount of polluting but are often the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as extreme temperatures and unpredictable weather changes. We know that CO2- and methane-producing products like oil and natural gas are directly causing this harm to our communities.

Therefore, it is time to make radical changes in our own energy infrastructure to combat this harm and convert our systems towards a cleaner, more resilient future of renewable, electric energy. This is a task that starts now by the Eugene City Council to create strong ordinances restricting further oil and gas infrastructure construction and incentivizing the installation and conversion to electrical energy. We demand this for the wellbeing of our communities.

Annelie Haberman

Eugene