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An activist wearing a shirt with that reads "# Get the FF Out," disrupts a discussion during the conference on climate change in Lima, Peru, Dec. 8.

(AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

We asked readers last month to help us choose the six or seven topics that will constitute our 2015 editorial agenda. Readers responded with scores of online comments and dozens of emails and letters to the editor, many of which urged us to focus on climate change, either as a stand-alone agenda item or a core component of an item focusing on environmental issues. These readers will be disappointed when our agenda appears next month.

This omission probably won't surprise many people, as we rarely write about climate change. Still, those who took the trouble to respond to our request for suggestions are owed an explanation. So here goes.

Our editorials, like those of other news organizations, reflect a set of values with which regular readers are surely familiar. However, ideology has nothing to do with the scarcity of climate-change editorials. We seldom discuss climate change, rather, because we focus almost exclusively on state and local matters. Weighing the costs and benefits of climate-change policy is best done at the federal and international levels.

(Related: Read more about The Oregonian editorial board's 2015 agenda.)

On occasion, of course, our editorials do stray beyond Oregon's borders, but in such cases there is generally a direct and significant Oregon connection. For instance, we've written multiple editorials about federal legislation that would allow increased harvests on land formerly owned by the defunct Oregon and California Railroad. Federal and international efforts to combat global warming are not Oregon-specific.

Oregonian editorials

reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom.

are N. Christian Anderson III, Mark Hester,

Helen Jung, Erik Lukens,

and Len Reed.

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"But wait!" you may be saying. "Just last week, you people criticized the governor for misleading Oregonians about the effect of a low-carbon fuel standard. How can you say you rarely write about climate change just a week after doing that?"

We do sometimes write about state-level climate-change regulation, and almost never favorably. Why not? Because, again, weighing the costs and benefits of climate change policy is best handled at the federal and international levels. Oregon represents 1.2 percent of the population of the United States, which itself represents only 4.4 percent of the global population. It requires either profound myopia or incredible arrogance to pretend that any policy adopted by Oregon lawmakers will have a meaningful effect on the earth's temperature. That's why supporters so often justify state-level policies as beneficial exercises in leadership.

Don't get us wrong. Leadership is a good thing ... except when it's not. The enduring problem with the sort of "leadership" that urges state-level action on global warming is that the little – or nothing – that is accomplished for the environment tends to come at a high price for Oregonians. The low-carbon fuel standard mentioned above would force Oregonians to use or pay for more "clean" road fuels like ethanol, even as it did nothing meaningful to help the environment. Nonetheless, imposing it is one of Gov. John Kitzhaber's top priorities.

Speaking of the governor, he has exercised his conception of leadership by opposing the construction of a coal transfer facility on the Columbia River near Boardman. Countries in Asia that want to import coal will do so, whether or not its route to market employs Oregonians, as the project Kitzhaber opposed would.

Similarly, Kitzhaber has remained almost mute on a multibillion-dollar proposal to build a facility in Coos Bay to export liquefied natural gas. A governor who cared deeply about employment in rural Oregon would promote such a project as long as it followed existing regulations, but not Kitzhaber. As he told The Oregonian editorial board this month, he may even oppose the project if a "pathway" can't be found to account for the leakage of gas during extraction and transport. It's hard to say what effect Kitzhaber's opposition would have – perhaps little at this point – but his outlook speaks volumes about his values: Environmental symbolism too often trumps real jobs and real income.

And then of course, there's the King Kong of environmental policies gone terribly wrong, the notorious Business Energy Tax Credit, which cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars before lawmakers finally loosened its grip on the public purse.

We certainly don't fault readers for worrying about global warming. From a state and local policy standpoint, though, what Oregonians should fear isn't inaction, but the adoption of unproductive measures that either cost them money or reduce employment opportunities. We'll continue, then, to write about state-level policies during 2015, just as we'll continue to let others pass judgment on climate-change regulation at the federal and international levels.