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On a bright and chilly morning on the last Saturday in February, a gathered community of climate champions, environmental skeptics, and knowledge-hungry fence straddlers alike filed into the Buckley Center Auditorium eager to learn about clean energy solutions. With pastries and coffee in hand, Focus the Nation 2011: Transforming Our Energy Future was about to begin.  

Oregon Focus Organizer, Dan Browne, introduced keynote speakers Bill Bradbury, former Oregon Secretary of State and environmental activist, and Wyeth Larson, recent University of Portland graduate and Sustainability Coordinator for Mountain Gear, voiced a message that was a surprise to some and familiar to others; the message was clear, and at the risk of sounding too cliche, we are all a part of the solution for a greener and cleaner national energy industry.

After a surprise, last-minute visit from Rep. Earl Blumenauer, provoking us to engage the topic with non-partisan paws, the educational sessions began with an emphasis on interacting between the speakers and audience, really tackling the barriers to transforming our energy sector.

The day built upon itself and as the educational seminars folded into lunch a new stage was set to fully activate the participants. The final panel of speakers spoke to the solutions the forum produced and asked the participants. At the end of the day a mass of engaged citizens had come up with their ideas on what our energy future needs to look like.

But wait! There’s more!

To prove that our efforts go beyond a weekend the Oregon Focus Organizers, a blended team University or Portland students, faculty and advisors, have set to take on helping integrate the ideas from Focus 2011 into an action plan where tangible steps towards a sustainable future can be made not just by voted-in officials, but by everyday Oregonians.

One of the panelists, Angus Duncan, President of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, made us aware of the Roadmap to 2020, a project started by the Oregon Global Warming Commission that focuses on reducing greenhouse emissions and communicates these needs to the Governor and necessary state officials. Published in October 2010, the document has big goals, but parcels them down into specific points of interest. Its comprehensive detail into land use in Oregon, the progressive steps to making public transportation more fuel efficient, and the impacts on Oregon’s economy is overwhelming at first, but all too necessary in outlining the energy restructuring process.

It makes this blogger happy that an action plan for clean energy is in the works and headed by environmentally conscious leaders. The next steps we take are crucial to profiting from the knowledge gained from Focus 2011 and we are looking forward to collaborating further to assemble the clean energy future. I’ll save the rejoicing until our steps form actions and form undeniable transformation with effects that everyone can feel and be a part of; with strides like these I know that we’ll get there.