We met at the south co-op meeting room, around 12-15 people showed up. A map was sent around to find out where everyone lives. Looks like most of us are in NW Corvallis, so future meeting locations will probably be in that area.
Announcements
We now have a calendar on this website, several upcoming events have been listed. There are several worthwhile events this month, and hopefully people can at least attend the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition Annual Meeting Jan. 16th 12-1:30 at the Corvallis Library.
An application has been submitted to 350.org to become an official group.
Leonard is looking into chartering a bus that can transport people to the Keystone XL Pipeline protest in Washington DC on Feb. 17th. The protest is sponsored by 350.org, the Sierra Club and other organizations. He will see if there is interest from members of these groups around Oregon.
Charlie has been in contact with the distributors of the film “Chasing Ice”. We would like to have a showing at OSU, but the distributor does not want to release it outside of theaters yet. He will be in touch with the owner of the Darkside to see if some sort of compromise can be found.
Peter has written a letter to Peter DeFazio in support of CCL’s carbon tax bill HR3242. The bill was sponsored by Pete Stark and is in need of a new sponsor.
Discussion
Many different topics were raised with some discussion about effectiveness of different methods of dealing with the issue. It was agreed that the problem needs to be approached in many different ways, an “all of the above” approach. We also discussed the humanitarian and moral sides of the issue as well as frustrations of how our energy systems are designed to make change difficult.
We also decided to become members of the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition.
There are several goals that are starting to emerge from the group that will most likely lead to sub groups for further development. These are:
- Divestment from Fossil Fuel funds (OSU, PERS, City of Corvallis and others) -Phil
- Organizing a bus to DC (see announcements above) -Leonard
- “Chasing Ice” film showing -Charlie
- Carbon Taxes -Peter
- Expert Panel discussion -Jesse
At the last meeting we had discussed approaching different organizations or businesses, but decided to table this idea since so many other projects are emerging.
Future Meetings
Meetings will be held on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month at 6:30pm. Locations to be announced. See the calendar for more info.
