In a light brown suit, with his reading glasses resting on the tip of his nose, Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury briefly discussed his 2005 meeting with former Vice President Al Gore at the Gore family farm in Carthage, Tenn. before launching into Gore’s presentation, made famous by the Academy Award-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth.”
After the meeting, Bradbury became one of the first 50 people, including some retired military leaders and a former Miss America, to be invited by Gore to learn to deliver this presentation; Bradbury said some 950 are now able to spread Gore’s message about this environmental issue.
Bradbury delivered an Oregon-centered presentation on global warming Thursday to about 85 attendees in 180 PLC as part of the University’s Earth Week activities.
The presentation illustrates the potential impacts of climate change on the earth and its inhabitants, how human activities have caused it, and how humans can and must make changes in order to prevent environmental and economic catastrophe.
While keeping with Gore’s lecture materials, on several occasions Bradbury interjected specific examples of how climate change would affect Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.
Displaying a weather map of the Willamette Valley, he cited scientific predictions that warming weather would reduce the region’s snow pack 44 percent by the year 2040, and even up to 55 percent by 2060.
Decreased snow would be a major threat to the region’s economy and sustainability, he said.
Both Oregon and Washington depend heavily on accumulated Cascade snow for drinking water and agricultural irrigation, as well as for hydroelectric power, tourism and winter recreational use.
In another slide, the audience was able to see the effects of warming climate on the west coast wine industry, including the migration of pinot noir grapes and other varieties sensitive to heat northward to Oregon and western Washington.
“This is actually… quite an economic opportunity for us over the next century,” Bradbury said before lamenting that the billion-dollar Napa Valley wine industry would be “all but eliminated.”
Event organizer Jesse Hough said the purpose of the event was to empower the University community to make a difference, through personal choices as well as political action, in the fight against climate change.
“My hope is that the students will leave here with the idea that they can stop global warming, and that it’s our responsibility to start taking action,” Hough said
The evening’s message, however, was not altogether ominous.
“There are real significant economic opportunities for this state and for this country, frankly, in terms of dealing with global warming,” he said. “It’s not just bad news. As long as we wake up to the bad news, we can really make some significant adjustments and move forward.”
Bradbury said that ultimately his objective in appearing Thursday was to “drive home the message” of global warming.
“I hope to make it clear to people that global warming is not just a problem, it’s a real crisis,” Bradbury said.
Oregonians have a role to play in reducing climate change.
“We’re not worse at (causing) global warming than other states,” he said, but “we’re not better.”
To that end, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski has joined the governors of Washington, California, New Mexico and Arizona in committing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the state’s borders.
Together, these states represent the fifth largest economy in the world, said Bradbury.
Individual states must band together to fight global warming, he said, because of resistance to action at the federal level by the Bush Administration, which Bradbury compared to “an ostrich with its head in the sand.”
Because most of the 2008 presidential candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, have acknowledged global warming as a problem, “you’re going to see a dramatic change once we get rid of the current incumbent,” he said.
Bradbury also praised University President Dave Frohnmayer for his April 18 pledge to reduce the greenhouse gas and carbon footprint of the campus, as part of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.
In the following question-and-answer session, one student took issue with Bradbury for Oregon’s forestry management practices which allow for salvage logging and clearcutting on state lands.
Another faulted the presentation for not promoting vegetarianism as one of the everyday household practices which Americans can use to make a difference in reducing the crisis.
In a testy exchange toward the end of the evening in which organizers intervened, one audience member accused Bradbury, a Democrat, of unfairly discriminating against Green Party candidate and Public Interest Research Group founder Ralph Nader in the previous presidential election.
In 2004, in his role as Secretary of State, Bradbury rejected adding Nader to Oregon’s statewide voter ballots, citing lack of signatures. The decision, criticized by Nader’s supporters as being politically motivated, was upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court.
Bradbury flatly rejected the allegation Thursday, saying: “I enforced the law.”
University student Morgan Heckman enjoyed the presentation.
“It’s really nice to see someone who is representing Oregon really passionate about this issue,” she said.