Oh please - that story about "climate refugees" is so much nonsense. California, Nevada and most of the Mountain states just had the biggest snowfall in several decades. The mountains around Lake Tahoe are still deeply blanketed with snow; and many western rivers are flowing rapidly with heavy snow runoff.
And hate to say it - but most people don't want to live where in rains frequently 7-8 months of the year.

Look who wrote it:
Kat West is director of the Multnomah County Office of Sustainability

Now, there is prime candidate for shutting down government waste! Especially with such a totally mis informet person as director.

See http://www.SustainableOregon.com for links to real data and, of course the lies that climate "scientists" have been telling us.

Thanks
JK

I'm surprised she didn't mention killing a camel for the climate!

see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/11/craziest-carbon-credit-scheme-yet-shooting-camels-in-australia/

(is there no limit on the crackpot ideas these deluded fools come up with?)

Thanks
JK

And they ramped up the BS from 1 million more people to 3 million more making what they do (planning) and their ideas, (higher densities and rail transit) all that more important.

This is complete fabrication to justify more of the failure they have perpetrated over the last 30 years.

Any time a realist points to a scientific debunking that is found being discussed at a place like Wattsupwiththat.com alarmists claim it's not the right place to be discussing it or that it was just made up there by fossil fuel interests.

The fact is there are many scientific angles of AGW being examined around the world by people with extensive expertise.

The last year or two has vetted many egregious falsehoods and fabrications by alarmists.

Remember if we can just convince everyone to fund all the 50 year out maybe problems, then tehy'll not see how crappy a job we are doing fixing the today problems.

Plus they'll all be long gone if they're wrong.

Oregon voters are getting dumber by the minute if they buy this stuff.

Kat West needs to take off her propaganda hat, consider other affects of climate change that has been happening for 4 billion years since the earth was created. She'd probably agree (right or wrong), as her cohorts predict, that the NW will be experiencing more rain under their modeling. In fact, rainfall this past wet-measuring season has had over a 35% increase from last year-32" to 42.8". Maybe the affect of that increase will make more people want to get out of Oregon than want to come.

When you have a "mission", then you're going to have our own taxpayer paid governments telling us Kat West stories.

Pamplin Media Group = Tri-Met Board of Directors. What conflict?

Whatever is best for the real estate mafia is what we'll be force-fed, if history is any guide.

Just noted that LA has a Portland-style diversion of public property to private profit scandal brewing. There is a huge West side land donation for the care and housing of veterans. Guess what it isn't being used for, while tens of thousands of vets go homeless? Yes, more "public-private partnerships" .

The Northwest, with our temperate weather and abundant water

Fresh water is NOT "abundant" in the Northwest. That's a commonly held myth. Even Portland, built at the confluence of two major rivers, experiences fresh water shortages. So do other NW cities. Already. Without the extra "million" refugees.

The Portland Metro area already cannot support its current population with its existing local and regional resources--the embarassing fact that "sustainable" calculations like hers make is that the majority of key resources the metro area uses come from...elsewhere. I'm not talking about food and water--I'm talking about all those shiny inputs that enable the "green" friends of people like Mayor Pudgy to build "green" skyscrapers and condo boxes, pave roads, use high-tech metal bicycles and cars, have an Internet andd network infrastructure--all of that and countless more inputs and toys come from very, very far away.

We know that the metropolitan Portland region is more resilient to impacts from climate change like sea-level rises, freshwater shortages and energy-price spikes than most other communities in the United States.

That's a 6th grade view of the global ecology, and she should know better. Here's the real story: the Northwest region (there is no "Portland region" I've ever heard of) hasn't had to face se level rises and significant freshwater shortages and energy price spikes--yet.

Let’s draw a line in the sand and commit through all our planning and investments to integrated land use, transportation, natural resource, health and economic-prosperity strategies that prepare us for a future of significantly higher energy prices and greater demands on public infrastructure, services and natural resources. Second, we need to “think regionally and act regionally.” The time for border disputes and planning and investing in silos must end.

How, exactly, do condo boxes, skyscrapers, Priuses, expanding freeways, building bigger interstate bridges, making Portland an "international city" (Mayor Pudgy's words), a Tram, the South Waterfront, and a Pearl District full of condo towers "prepare us for a future of significantly higher energy prices and greater demands on public infrastructure, services, and natural resources"? All of these INCREASE the burden exponentially on every resource, and do it in the most unsustainable way possible.

Jesus Christ. Does she get paid above minimum wage?

Just in time for the big earthquake, radio active air, glow in the dark fish tacos, and a new max line. Hurry! Hurry!

Given the amount of food borne illness we see maybe everyone should have enough room to raise a decent garden and keep a few animals; chickens, goats, a lamb or two. That will require that we use more land, but it will save people.

Maybe then we can convince the political types that having a choice in the other three quarters of our life is important.

As we obviously see every day they can't run their own lives but sure as hell want to run ours.

Climate change is really underway. The nincompoops running Portland have no clue about tomorrow, much less what the regional microclimates and population surges will be like in 30 years, and how to prepare for it. Zurich American or Chubb, et al., might.

Hey, you city hall twitwits: Go do something about rampant violence in the city (gangs AND cops), and fiscal fraud, will ya? THAT's the kind of big immediate threats to *sustainability* around here that you avoid really working on...Sheesh.

Kat West is easy pickings. Looking at her biography from:

http://legacy.lclark.edu/dept/chron/katwestf07.html

Basically, environmentalism like any other political movement is not looking to be "right" per se. Their focus is on publicly spouting outlandish stuff to stay on the radar of news organizations be it cable television, a major metropolitan newspaper, Drudge, and on down to a local newspaper like the Beaverton Valley Times.

The fact that only the Beaverton Valley Times picked up on this speaks volumes of the influence of her position. It will most definitely end within a year come the ouster of Sam Adams as Mayor of Portland, OR.

As for her claims of "climate refugees," please. I am writing from Fresno, CA. Right now, the daily temperatures should be in the 90s approaching the 100s. Today was 85 tops. As for the record rainfall, I lived it first person. I don't need to quote "101 UN scientists" to ease my trembling hands as I assert.

I live it. She is wrong...At this moment in time. Give her 10 years and she may have a point.

I think other white meat has it spot on. The people spouting this stuff haven't a clue. Its buzz words and tap dances.

So weary of hearing about millions coming.
Why should we be more concerned about millions coming and lose our quality of life here for when? Do not think people will continue to fall for this.

So weary of all the planning and controlling, just leave us alone, enough already!

Keep adding more debt, that will bring them in...higher water rates, more urban renewal and light rail taking money away from schools and services should do the trick to entice more people in here.

I hear more talk about people not really wanting to but having to consider leaving as they either cannot stand what is going on or simply cannot pay for "the agenda."

Methinks it's just a way to distort incoming population growth so as to allow Portland to reap all of the benefits (greater population, greater tax base), while the surrounding region suffers from internally inflicted pains (i.e. restricting and reducing regional bus service in favor of a central city Streetcar, failure to allow suburbs like Cornelius to expand their boundaries in a logical manner, while forcing another area - Stafford - into the UGB which makes no sense and that the four nearest communities don't even want within their boundaries).

Salt Lake City is a perfect example of a city that is growing properly, lacks a strong central government (Metro), and is growing and popular with businesses.

Oh, and SLC also has a growing light rail system, is starting streetcar lines, has bus rapid transit, a relatively up-to-date bus fleet, AND a "real" commuter rail line - much of it built within the last decade. Not to mention a modern freeway system. Because the SLC region is actively planning its new developments as opposed to the haphazard development that Portland has, while Portland claims to be the leader in "planning" - all, because Portland cancelled one freeway and removed an obsolete, outdated freeway to make way for a park.

Here is a quote from Phil Jones - head of the Climate Research Unit, Draft Contributing Author to the Summary for Policy Makers, and Coordinating Lead Author of Ch3 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4):

The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn't statistically significant. (1120593115.txt)

[It’s now 13 years of cooling.]

He also wrote:
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. (942777075.txt)

[This was an attempt to cover up the fact that their primary source of climate data was unreliable, casting doubt on all of their claims]

Here is a quote from Kevin Trenberth, Draft Contributing Author for the Summary for Policy Makers, contributing author to Ch 1, a lead author for Ch 3, and contributing author to Ch 7 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4.):

..we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. (...) and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. (...) The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. (. . .) Our observing system is inadequate. (1255352257.txt)

Here is a quote from Michael E. Mann, Creator of the famous “hockey stick” shaped temperature curve prominently featured in the UN’s third climate report (tar) used by Al Gore.

As we all know, this isn't about truth at all, its about plausibly deniable accusations. (1256735067.txt)

Here is a quote from Tom Wigley Contributing Author to Ch 10 of of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change.:

..there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC. (1255553034.txt)

Here is a quote from Keith Briffa, Lead author for Ch 6 of the 4th UN IPCC report on climate change, AR4:

I tried hard to balance the needs of the science and the IPCC , which were not always the same. (1177890796.txt)

Here is climate scientist at the CRU trying to get money from an oil company:

11 Sep 2000, From: "Mick Kelly: Notes from the meeting with Shell International attached.
I suspect that the climate change team in Shell International is probably the best route through to funding from elsewhere in the organisation... (968691929.txt)

How can any rational person believe anything these clowns say?
Why does any rational person still believe the climate is warming after 13 years of cooling?
(Google the numbers after each quote for the full email)

Thanks
JK
SustainableOregon.com

This pretty much sums the global warming crowd:

"Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them."

and

"some people will do anything to save the earth except study science"

thanks
JK

L. Ron Hubbard bet one of his buddies that he could start a religion. He won- Scientology was born and oddly continues.

Human-caused Climate Change will turn out to be very similar to Scientology- a belief system founded on ulterior-motivated science (which isn't science).

Karlock, you're mostly preaching to the choir here. Why?

Hey, OWM...JK has some solid data, and the more outlets for that, the better. I wouldn't call posting comments here "preaching to the choir", except in very limited cases involving rail and density issues.

So, as they used to say in the old fast-food commercial, "Where's the beef?"

“A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.” (Ronald Reagan)

So, as they used to say in the old fast-food commercial, "Where's the beef?

As Ronald Reagan was fond of saying, don't mistake questions for opposition.

Sure seems to be a lot of misplaced anger around climate change, though.

Or, as George Bush Sr. was fond of saying, conspiracy theorists seem to be near constantly angry.

Karlock, et al.: it's not about "warming" vs. "cooling." It's overall climate change with dramatic ongoing natural effects that will be catastrophic for those who are inflexible and/or overly dependent on the status quo. Humans are exacerbating the problem with increasing "industrial" gaseous emissions and acidification of the oceans, and failing to immediately begin reducing those impacts.

Regardless, Earth's climate has never maintained a stasis. In fact, nothing in the universe has or does.