Sustainable Klamath
"Green & Green" - A Proposal for Our Future
Every once in a while, great movements and great ideas combine to form an unbeatable formula for success and creation of wealth for our citizens. KCEDA (Klamath County Economic Development Association) and TEAM Klamath believe we have found that outstanding formula with what we are calling our "Green & Green" Campaign.
There is incredible bi-partisan support for sustainability. Both the President of the United States and the Governor of Oregon spoke of sustainability in their recent "State of the..." addresses.
An outstanding "niche" in the ever-competitive and ever-changing field of economic development is the red hot field of sustainability (also known as renewable resources, alternative energy, etc.).
Sustainability may be the most exciting new tool in economic development since the advent of the internet, and it has major positive implications and advantages for the Klamath area.
The singular best aspect about sustainability is its totality. Indeed in a county such as Klamath, with its vast resource potential, it could define us throughout the state and the country.
Sustainability is medical with our Sky Lakes Medical Center and educational with the Oregon Institute of Technology through geo-heat, agricultural and rural with bio-diesel and ethanol, urban with the City of Klamath Falls' geo-heat district serving government, business and individuals alike, housing with energy efficiency, homeland security through the Backscatter possibility, and most germane to KCEDA, sustainability is economic development, which includes all of the above and incorporates proven sustainable companies such as IFA Seedling, Collins Pine, and Liskey Farms to name just a few.
We should also remember that every drop of energy we "good guys" make is one we don't have to pay to potential "bad guys."
KCEDA and TEAM Klamath, would like to continue these efforts through various economic endeavors that would relate to marketing to and recruitment of sustainable economic development. This would include, but not be limited to, agricultural endeavors that might assist the Klamath Basin in water savings and alternative crops (what is "greener" than agriculture?); recruiting those companies that either want to make or utilize sustainability (i.e.: wind, solar manufacturing, green houses); and act as an agent throughout the Klamath Basin to help educate our own citizens on sustainability.
In conclusion we believe sustainability has one more positive and practical aspect -- whether one is for sustainability to save the planet or make a buck -- it is both "green" (as in reducing global warming) and "green" (as in saving and making money). Sustainability makes both sense and cent$.
KCEDA and TEAM Klamath believe the Klamath Basin could be -- and should be -- the "Sustainability Capital of the World."
