A Green Year

I have just finished reading, and commenting on, an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle. They editorialize that we going to have a "very green year."

Trimmed from Washington's deliberations on mileage rules were tax credits for solar and wind power, a reduction in fossil fuels used by electric utilities, and an end to $13 billion in tax breaks for oil companies. All should be taken up again, as this state's senator, Barbara Boxer, indicates she will do. (California, no surprise, is on track to require 20 percent renewable energy from its power plants.)

While there is some goodness, every time there comes a point where doing the right thing runs up against a corporation with money or a narrow constituency with votes, doing the right thing loses. My comments were:

The assessment of what has happened is far too optimistic. The recently passed energy bill demonstrates that Democrats will accomplish very little. It is still filled corporate pork and a renewable fuel standard that Agribusiness loves. We need to learn how to differentiate the truly Green from mere greenwashing. My complaints against Washington can be echoed if you change the focus to Sacramento. Schwarzenegger is like the Hulk, only Green when he needs to be. Voting for real change will end up meaning voting Green and that will be voting for the Green Party. Unless we provide a third way, a real alternative stripped of the influences of corporate contributions, we will continue to get a green future through rose colored glasses.

Until we start getting Greens elected this will continue. We challenge the old ideas of political pandering with a new vision of a future, ecologically sound, sustainable, just.