Friday, August 29, 2008

last updated: March 30, 2008 02:56:00 AM

Editor's note: As our first-quarter visiting editors finish their terms with us, they share their views on a topic of their choice:

Keith Highiet: There's a topic to be discussed at the intersection of economics and the environment that doesn't get the attention it deserves. The topic is "peak oil."

"Peak oil refers to the time when humanity is no longer able to produce more oil globally than we did the year before," according to www.seattleoil.com, a Web site my brother, Rob Nelson, runs for a peak oil awareness group.

Regardless of when peak oil happens, we must deal with its implications.

Our lifestyles are already changing with higher oil costs. They will change even more radically as this story plays out. We should prepare for this now.

We should protect our farmland. Relative to residents' incomes, valley cities were among the most unaffordable places to live in the country the past couple of years. Still, we continued to build homes on prime farmland. Now our cities rank highest nationally in terms of home foreclosure rates; we sacrificed farmland for unaffordable homes. Farmland and farming operations are increasing in value as food prices rise, partially because food is now used as motor fuel. We can't afford to lose valuable farmland.

Higher gas prices are a given, of course. Although this will affect area commuters most, reducing financial debt now and buying less nonessential stuff could help everyone prepare.

Without cheap oil, we'll make changes in our lifestyles either by choice or by forced economic reasons. The local implications of this global phenomena will be real and many.

Chris Ricci: The teachers' union is uniformly against the concept of vouchers and competition when it comes to education. Public schools have a monopoly on both state and federal funding for education and their results have been astoundingly average. There are many arguments as to why opening up the market would be bad. Would it end up being a disaster like energy deregulation in California?

The problem is that there is no motivation or pressure for our public schools to evolve. I compare it to the Soviet Union, where they built the same basic automobiles for 50 years. There was no reason to make them better because there were no options. Schools still use the same basic teaching methods that have been used since the early 20th century.

Competition would force schools to evolve and find new and better methods to teach our kids. We should have public schools where every child has a laptop connected to the Internet, where they use e-mail, spreadsheets, word processors and presentation software every day. We need schools where kids gain real skills.

The only answer we get from the schools is that they don't have the money, but as a community if we demanded it, we could make it happen. We as a community need to overcome this resistance to change. Vouchers would force the public schools to reassess themselves and produce a better education product. There are a lot of great people in the public schools and I know they would persevere.

Bonnie Silveria: We are assaulted every day with news of murders, disasters, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, financial uncertainty and many other negative happenings. It gets to the point where many of us refuse to listen to or read the news because we can no longer bear the burdens of such bad news and we feel we can do little to make a difference.

We can and do make a difference. There are great numbers of volunteers who take time to help others in their communities and who make a difference. They come in all nationalities, religions and ages. They are church groups, service clubs, help groups, nonprofit organizations and individuals. They raise thousands of dollars for food, clothing, scholarships, community projects and general assistance. Many members of our armed forces stationed in far away places make an effort to offer help to people torn by conflict.

This is what we do because we are human beings, living on a small planet, and because we are basically a good species. One only needs to remember the outpouring of assistance to disaster survivors, the long lines of people willing to donate blood or offer help in times of terrible tragedy, or even the lone individual who brings a hot dish to a grieving family.

Amid the bad, there is much good. We come together in trying times to help others, and it does make a difference locally and in the world. We would be much less rich without such caring.

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