Population and Developmentby Krag Unsoeld This issue of Green Pages will carry us into the new year. It is our two-month winter issue that allows Green Pages volunteers -- writers, editors, production people, and distributors alike -- to take some time off and hunker down to await the pending winter solstice. It is a time to reflect upon our experiences and ponder what differences we can make in the future, as the days grow longer. The subtext of our theme for this issue -- population and development -- could be how we impact our environment and ways we can minimize it. Clearly, the sheer number of people being added to our region impacts the natural resources. Equally clear is that the ways in which newcomers choose to develop and those of us already here consider redeveloping helps determine our overall impact. Articles in this issue address different aspects of how we struggle as a culture to balance the costs of growth -- its impact on the environment and who ends up paying the financial cost. Reviewing specific outcomes of our efforts to control development and curb its impact can help refocus future efforts to ensure greater success. SPEECH Annual Meeting SPEECH is now approaching the end of our 11th year. It's been a proverbially long, strange trip! It is time once more to assess our work and prepare for an infusion of new people and ideas to assist our environmental education efforts. Currently, we are holding steady publishing and distributing Green Pages, hosting occasional forums and workshops on environmental issues and organizational development, and sponsoring "Envirotalk," an e-mail listserve for carrying on a dialogue about important local and regional environmental issues. Many thanks are due to our current contingent of volunteers who have accomplished this. At our annual meeting we would like to explore ideas for new projects or activities that we could embark upon. We invite people to come to this meeting and to bring their ideas and energy. The meeting will provide an opportunity to select new members for the SPEECH board of directors. The SPEECH annual meeting will be on February 2, 6:30 p.m., at Traditions Fair Trade located at 300 5th Avenue SW. Food and drinks are available from the Traditions Café. Cookies can be brought by SPEECH members to share at the meeting. As we go to press, we are still arranging for the entertainment. But prepare for a foot-stomping, inspirational time! Regional "Big Picture" Resources A very useful tool for keeping in touch with environmental news is provided by Ecotrust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a conservation economy along North America's rain forest coast, the region from San Francisco to Anchorage. Among these services is Tidepool, News for the Rainforest Coast, providing a weekday environmental news clipping and analysis service. It can be accessed at tidepool.org/. Ecotrust also provides an entire Web site titled "The Patterns of a Conservation Economy," located at www.conservationeconomy.net/. This site attempts to elucidate the complexities and potential contained in the web of relationships between our natural and built worlds. Starting from a central pattern of "quality of life," "natural capital and ecosystem services," and "cyclical patterns of production and consumption," the broadest defining principles of sustainability are linked to details of implementing these ideas. The site includes extensive text and slideshows to illustrate the concepts being presented. Krag Unsoeld is President of the board of SPEECH.
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