Senator Jeff Merkley comes from a family of fighters. According to family lore, his grandmother lived for a time in a boxcar during the Great Depression. Jeff’s mother stretched a dollar as far as anyone possibly could, and his father overcame a serious illness and went on to work in a lumber mill and become a union machinist. Life wasn’t glamorous, but together, Jeff’s parents saved enough to buy a modest home, take their children on annual camping vacations, and retire comfortably after a lifetime of contributing to their community.
The carbon pollution in our atmosphere from burning fossil fuels like oil and coal is waging a direct and unchecked assault on our farming, fishing and forests – the cornerstones of Oregon’s rural economy.
When Jeff was young, his dad worked as a millwright. He spent his childhood in Southern Oregon timber communities, where timber jobs were what put food on the table and kept roofs over folks’ head. Fires and insect infestations are already killing trees at alarming rates across the Northwest, and climate change will only make these threats to our forests worse. Other iconic Oregon industries like our coastal oyster hatcheries are threatened by ocean acidification, and fishing and farming alike are facing threats from declining snowpacks and increased drought.
Congress needs to wake up. Climate change is real, and it’s bad for our economy and jobs, especially in rural Oregon and the places that most depend on our abundant natural resources.