An interview with Oregon’s LEED-ing lady and what’s next in sustainability. Christine Ervin was the first president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council—home of LEED and Greenbuild. Under the Clinton administration, she was the Assistant Secretary of Energy overseeing $1 billion in annual investments for clean energy. Today she runs her own consulting firm, e/co.
Every morning, Shelley Curtiss hikes the hills outside Joseph and observes the ever-changing lakes, rivers, mountains, buttes and canyons. “This landscape feeds my creativity,” she says. “And I take those creative juices back to my studio and give them visual expression.”
Editor, Kevin Max, caught up with David James Duncan, the author of The River Why, to explore a raft of ideas related to water. In the fall 2009 issue, Duncan tackles the notion of Water as Soul. That piece alone is a wonderful journey across the world, back through time and finally into the flesh of Duncan’s mind. In this interview, he wades deeper into political, environmental and the film based on his novel.
Pedaling through deep mud, sometimes over frozen snow-pack or dismounting to leap wooden barriers with bikes on their shoulders, riders in a growing cyclocross culture are creating an alternate reality for traditional cyclists and a custom mud-and-beer fit for Oregon.
Oregon is one of five states that has no sales tax, thus making this topic a biennial favorite when the state budget is in critical condition. State services typically ride the boom/bust cycle with the two-legged property and income tax. Oregon Democrats and Republicans alike have argued for a more stable tax base to fund our public school system, which is often the biggest loser. A sales tax may never happen in this state, but the debate continues to shape this debate for 1859.
Along milepost 224 heading north through Klamath County, sits an abandoned sawmill that’s become the hope for economic revitalization in south Central Oregon and perhaps a sustainable energy paradigm throughout the western states.
Brian Druker runs up the steep approach of Marquam Hill to OHSU nearly every morning from his home in southwest Portland. For many Oregonians, this feat alone would be a daunting task. For the 54-year-old doctor, whose fringe approach to leukemia research is now the center of the search for a cure, running is the transportation mode that keeps his brain most active.
Today, Union (population 1,960) is called ‘The City of Victorian Heritage’ after its cluster of Victorian era homes along Main Street. Classic brick buildings in its downtown core area, like the Union Hotel and the bus barn at the end of Main Street, are listed on the National Register of Historic Buildings making Union quintessential small town Oregon.
