Opinion Jobs vs. environment?

Mere weeks ago in Bend, Sierra Club activists and others rallied with Governor John Kitzhaber in support of Ted Kulongoski's gubernatorial campaign.

That was then.

Now, some of those same people are indignant over Kulongoski's selection of State Forester Jim Brown as his chief environmental advisor.

In most circles, Brown is considered a moderate with a balanced approach to environmental issues.

Activists don't like moderation.

In response to the appointment, extremists made the curious accusation that Kulongoski favors jobs and the economy over the environment. What a nasty thing to say.

When it comes right down to it, though, where is it written that a healthy economy and a healthy environment are mutually exclusive? Yet, that's how extremists tend to paint the issue.

Anti-capitalists routinely use the environment as a socially acceptable rallying point to advocate policies that would result in a Third-World economy in North America.

Since most of us don't aspire to destroy businesses, burn log trucks, live in tree forts or adopt cute names like Moon Frog and Tree Snail, this economy-busting thing is marketed to us as being "pro- environment."

Nowhere else in the United States has this strategy been more successful than in Oregon.

With a plummeting economy, staggering unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, and failing schools, Oregon is a poster child for Moon Frog's cause.

But wait! Whatever Ted Kulongoski is, or will become, it's pretty clear what he isn't. He's not John Kitzhaber. And that's a good thing.

More than at any time in recent memory, Gov. Kulongoski has revived the long-forgotten term "bipartisan."

Oh sure, he's a Democrat, and he'll want to do some Democrat things; and the Republicans will sometimes oppose him simply because he is a Democrat. Sometimes we have to put up with a little of that.

Kulongoski's first weeks in office have given hope to the notion that there may be some residual common sense in Salem, after all.

Both Republicans and Democrats should take advantage of the cooperative atmosphere to accomplish what needs to be done. Maybe it could even become a habit.

Enlightened management of public resources is not an elusive dream; it's what we should expect -- and what we should demand.

Brown was recently quoted as saying that there is a feeling in Oregon that we must choose between the environment and the economy. He went on to say that that simply is not the case.

When a Democratic administration can admit that it's possible to encourage business and simultaneously protect the environment, we're on the right track.

Would a resurgent Oregon economy automatically cause our National Forests to become desolate wastelands? Of course not.

Contrary to what the radicals would have us believe, the nation doesn't have to choose between North Slope oil and caribou.

Oregon doesn't have to choose between the logging industry and clean water. Nor do we have to forgo jobs and live in tree forts.

In the book of Genesis, man is granted dominion over the earth. There are those who see that as a license, and there are those who see it as a responsibility.

It is unequivocally the latter and is properly defined as "stewardship."

This means that, while we shouldn't squash snails just because we can, there simply are times when people should take precedence over snails or fish. That's just the way it is.

Although it's still early, preliminary indications are that Kulongoski might be someone who prefers common sense over rhetorical nonsense.

What a welcome change that would be.