OLCV’s local work has global repercussions

OLCV worked hard to re-elect Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy for her commitment to sustainable local solutions to a range of issues, including traffic and transportation issues, and climate change. It was a worthy investment: Piercy’s environmental work is reaching far beyond Oregon, across the U.S. border into the swampy tar sands of Canada, and potentially across the globe.

Last year, Eugene’s Piercy submitted the high-carbon fuel resolution – ultimately passed by the 1,200-member U.S. Conference of Mayors – in part encouraging mayors across the country to refrain from buying high-carbon fuels like those produced from the tar sands of Canada. From a story posted on The Financial Times’ FT.com:

The US Conference of Mayors also passed a resolution this year encouraging mayors to stop purchasing higher-carbon unconventional or synthetic fuels such as oil sands for city vehicles.

Mayor Kitty Piercy of Eugene, Oregon, who submitted the resolution, said: “We don't want to spend taxpayer dollars on fuels that make global warming worse.”

Click here to read the story.

Oil companies are set to invest billions into extracting crude oil from the vast untapped reserves of Canada. But the practice of extracting that oil has been under scrutiny by environmental groups for its high-carbon cost since the process of getting the oil out of the tar sands in particularly energy-intensive.

The issue may become increasingly sticky: Just last week, President Obama had his first meeting as head of state with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. How will Obama reconcile his pledge to fight global warming and grow a clean energy economy with his need to forge a mutually beneficial relationship with our neighbor to the North?

OLCV’s local successes – like keeping Piercy in office – may influence the answer to that question. To be sure, Piercy’s action shows the importance of the work that OLCV and its members do every day.

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boldSustainability Manager Felicity Fahy (a native of Australia) and Mayor Kitty Piercy (a native of Hades who obsessively pushes pseudo-sustainable initiatives to make sure she is remembered as the dumbest mayor of Eugene EVER) believe ...