Home > What can
you do?
Here’s
where you can get more information
Where can you learn more about sustainability and related topics? The following
sources offer a range of information and viewpoints.
- Oregon Solutions for a Sustainable
Future. This web site is part of the gubernatorial executive order that
calls for Oregon to become sustainable by the year 2025. The site lists upcoming
activities and links to topics like "citizens and communities,"
and "business and economy." You can search topics ranging from agriculture
and green building to watersheds.
- Northwest Environment Watch.
The mission of this Seattle-based, not-for-profit research center is to foster
a sustainable economy and way of life throughout the Pacific Northwest. Address:
1402 Third Avenue, Suite 1127, Seattle, WA 98101-2118. On the web page, you
can read articles about sustainability and learn how to get books such as
Stuff: The Life of Everyday Things and Tax Shift.
- The Cascade Policy Institute.
This Portland-based, libertarian think tank’s home page includes publications
and policy discussions that explore many topics related to the sustainability
of Oregon’s environment, economy and social fabric.
- Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution.
The controversial book, by Paul Hawken and Amory and L. Hunter Lovins, offers
a provocative examination of many of the world’s controversial sustainability
issues. If it isn’t in the local library, you can buy a copy in most
bookstores and through companies such as Amazon.com.
- Oregon State University’s
Sustainable Living Project. Offers definitions, reading lists, links to
many other sites, things you can do, profiles in sustainability and features
on topics such as "Kids and Commercialism." Address: 106 Richardson
Hall, OSU, Corvallis, OR 97331-5750.
- The Natural Step. Explains The
Natural Step’s science-based systems framework for helping organizations
and communities understand and move toward sustainability. Offers publications,
videos and other information on The Natural Step conferences and workshops.
- It’s Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends in the
Last 100 Years. The central premise of this book, by Stephen Moore
and Julian L. Simon, is that "there has been more improvement in the
human condition in the past 100 years than in all of the previous centuries
combined since man first appeared on the earth." To obtain a copy, write
the Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts
Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20001.
- The Oregon State University Extenion
Service sustainability page. This includes publications in areas such
as agriculture, forestry, housing, energy and gardening. Videos highlighted
include a three-part series that looks at how businesses can save time, money,
energy and resources by controlling wastes, and "Reality of the American
Dream," which explores sustainable living.
- Sustainable Northwest:
620 SW Main, Suite 112, Portland, OR 97205-3037. The not-for-profit organization,
established to promote stewardship of natural resources and compatible economic
development in communities of the Pacific Northwest, publishes a book annually
that profiles people and communities contributing to sustainability in the
region.
- Oregon Office of Energy. Provides
a vast amount of information about Oregon energy resources and sustainability.
The site also includes information about renewable sources of energy and incentives
offered to promote their development.
- Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastics, second edition.
The book, by Dennis Avery, makes a case for intensely managing existing agricultural
land to eliminate the need to convert wildlife habitat and other fragile land
to agriculture to feed a growing population. If it isn’t in your library,
you can buy a copy from Hudson Institute,
Attn: Book Sales, 5395 Emerson Way, Indianapolis, IN 46226, or visit the Hudson
Institute web site.
- Alternatives to Growth in
Oregon. This organization, at 205 SE Grand Avenue, Suite 203, Portland,
OR 97214, says "Oregonians are losing the Oregon that we know and love"
because of population growth and consumption. Its web site offers publications
like Twenty-Five Actions to End Growth in Oregon.
- "Oregon State of the Environment Report 2000—Statewide Summary."
A scientific panel produced this report for the Oregon Progress Board, an
independent state strategic planning agency. The report has been described
as "the first scientific evaluation of the health of major environmental
resources across the state." Single copies are available at no charge
from the Oregon Progress Board,
775 Summer Street NE, Salem, OR 97310.
- Northwest Earth Institute: 506 SW 6th
Avenue, #1100, Portland, OR 97204. Trains individuals and organizations to
protect the Earth through programs offered in workplaces, schools, neighborhoods,
faith centers, homes and Oregon communities.
- Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s
Interfaith Network for Earth Concerns. Click on the environment. Mission
is to "connect, inform and empower people, congregations and religious
institutions to work for justice and the care and renewal of the earth."
For more on this topic, visit: