Climate Change Exchange

I received the following email from a GPCA associate today, posted to a Santa Clara County list.

According to the site in the URL at the end of that video, they did
reach some sort of agreement in the end:

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

This UN release casts the result is about as positive light as is possible. There are many other opinions, and the criticism of nations is spread equitably. My reaction was to send the following reply:
__
Everyone will call this a victory, but if it is, it is a very hollow one. It was an agreement to continue talking for another two year and to reach some sort of actionable plan before 2010,.

• That is two years in which we will have continued to build up the surplus of Green House Gases.
• That is two years in which US Government can swathe it's inaction and play Alphonse / Gaston with China.
• That is two years in which the lack of American Action will increase the enmity that we have engendered throughout the world.
• That is two years in which even a change in Administration, e.g. to a Clinton Compromiser or an Obama Dreamer, will continue to tringulate deals that allow multi-national corporations to continue screwing the planet or to move their operations to countries whose government regulators are more easily bribed.

I would suggest that everyone browse through the blog entries that Andrew Revikin has called for on his Dot Earth blog at the NY Times. Voices on Bali and Beyond is a collection of comments from people who were actually there. Here is a quote from the first responder, Dr. Thomas J. Goreau, the delegate from Jamaica, and representative of a Coalition of Caribbean nations: His target was the EU for its failure to stand up to the US stalling tactics. (Bold emphasis by me.)

This amounts to a real betrayal of all those who counted on the EU to do the right thing, and amounts to a capital crime against the environment, because millions will die as the result of unchecked global warming.

If there is a single issue that the Green Party needs to be very clear about, it is the one of Climate Change. What we do now, not what we begin to do in 2010 will have an effect on:

• agricultural policy a swarming weather makes major changes to what can be grown where and how much food might each country have to import or be able to export as a result.
• trade policies as competition for declining reserves of food and water, the basic essentials of life, make countries increasingly protectionist.
• energy policy unless we take aggressive steps to get off of fossil fuels.
• security as increased frustration with US arrogance sends an increasing flow of people towards Al Qaeda or other organizations.
• health care as diseases once considered tropical become increasingly prevalent in the more highly populated, currently temperate zones.

Have we come so far from our roots as a party that we are not the leaders in speaking out?

UN Climate Change Conference

Feinstein on final negotiations
Cross posted from Green Commons

Mike Feinstein has given us another update from Bali. The results that he describes do not sound like this conference will produce anywhere near the results that were anticipated after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon raised our expectation with such a strong release on the day before.

Tie this to the inadequate provisions in the Energy Bill passed today and you have a thousand reasons to vote Green.

Bush Inc. will not bend its stubborn will and open its eyes to the reality all around it. While they leak speculations of premptive strikes against Iran, they squander the chances to show real leadership on the most important issue that we face. As Green Partry Presidential Candidate Kent Mesply pointed out today, Global Warming IS as security issue, much more so that whether Iraq gains a nuclear capability that they are not even working on.

While writing this short post tonight, lines from Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar flashed into my head.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

I feel that this is such a time for the Green Party. There is much work to be done. The question is whether we have the right pilot at the wheel and can all work together. Never have I seen an administration of one party fall on it face as Bush Inc. has done and the other control Congress but not be able to take advantage of it.

The only party that has the right message, that has cast off all ties to the corporations that have put a strangle hold on both Congress and the Bush Administration. If we can not carry forward with this message now, then the failure is our own.

Greening the White House

The Other Race: Greening the White House

“I’m tired of living in an Orwellian novel,” said Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Kent Mesplay, in response to the “Birthright Stripping Act” (aka the proposed AZ "Birthright Citizenship Alignment Act" initiative) requiring that happy parents and hospitals alike wade through yet more levels of bureaucratic muck to prove their patriotism. “Oppressive regimes scapegoat the dispossessed almost on cue,” continues Mesplay, who was himself born in a foreign land while his parents were stationed overseas.

In order to make the 14th Amendment effective in protecting our newest citizens, born on U.S. soil to parents from any nation, Mesplay proposes granting immediate, expedited duo citizenship to the parents thus strengthening the family unit and supporting the child in claiming allegiance to the United States. “It is best that we not continue to have a class of dispossessed, but rather that we do what we can to reunite all families struggling with the governments of the world and bring them into the same regulated, taxed, conscription-ready, documented system that the rest of us enjoy,” Mesplay adds.

Going further, the Green Party U.S. presidential candidate prefers that duo Mexican, U.S. citizenship would allow U.S. citizens to safely invest in Mexico, even as such a program would permit safe, fair, regulated labor to migrate north.

Mesplay, an advocate of decentralization and a limited Federal government, just days ago announced running as a Republican in Arizona in order to be on the ballot. “Our national party deserves national access to ballot lines” Mesplay added, runner-up to Nader at the 2004 Green national convention.

www.mesplay.org

rez@mesplay.org

Healthy Delta Communities

I can only go so long without posting another comment on the Delta and the need for a sustainable water policy for California. So, once again, let me call attention to the work of Restore the Delta, especially their Healthy Delta Communities project.

This is a great example of the grassroots action that I hear talked about in Green circles but not so frequently practiced.

The most recent release from Restore the Delta is not yet posted to the site. It consists of a series of interview conducted with delta residents and business owners. I quote from one cited it that release: interviewee: Jeff Hart – Delta Nursery Owner.

Barbara Bowers: What would you like to see for the future of the Delta?

Jeff Hart: I would like to see the future of the Delta have sustainable practices. There would be no loss of soil in farming. Carbon would be sequestered with native plants on Delta levees. This could be a carbon offset so it could also be run for profit. Currently, grass on the levees is burned and soil erodes. Levees need “green engineering”.

Barbara Bowers: What is your greatest concern for the Delta?

Jeff Hart: Political stupidity is what scares me the most. My greatest concern is that people will remain wedded to an ideology and not be open to new ideas. Whether we retain the pumps or go around the Delta with a canal, there needs to be a quantity and quality of water that will sustain life in the Delta.

I could not have said it better myself. That interview was conducted in late June, 2007 and based on the failure of the Special Session of the legislature to accomplish anything, it appears that his fears were well founded.

Bali Low

I want to give everyone a change to view this report from California Green, Mike Feinstein. He is in Bali for the UN Framework Negotiaion on Climate Change. This is not what I am hearing regarding the meetings after it is filtered by some mainstream media producer.



At the same time, we need to be prepared to absorb a wave of triumphal press releases from a Congress that has just passed (86-8) a seriously flawed energy bill, one that we will pay for in the grocery store as well as at the gas pump. You know that any bill which gathers such a sizable margin on such an important issue is the product of significant compromise in search of election year votes.

Taken together, this is one more reason to that we need our Green Party candidates speaking out. Abject failure of a Republican presidency and an Democratic Congress and why are we not saying more?

Health Care Troubles ahead.

Health Care is one of the issues that will garner a lot of scrutiny in the upcoming presidential campaign. For once, the Republicans have a real issue on which they could, if they wanted to, take the more high ground. That is the vile, evil business of Medicare Fraud. Instead, they seem to be running around screaming "your mother wears combat boots" at Chelsea Clinton.

If anything, California Greens should be taking up this issue as well and here is the reason why. Medicare fraud is proceeding at an industrialized pace and our Federal Government appears to be powerless to stop it. According to a report on NBC's Nightly News last night (12/11/07) Mart Potter reported.

Year after year government reports have complained about flagrant Medicare billing fraud including this year's Inspector General's report, which says in 2005 72% of all the Medicare billing nationwide for AIDS care, $2.5 Billion, came from South Florida alone, which has only 8% of the patients. Obvious fraud.

Preying on the weak

Putting politics aside, two questions have to be asked. First, is question of what effect this unchecked fraud has had on health care in general. What good might have been done with those $2.5 Billion? When AIDS research still in not where we had hoped it to be, what would an influx of $$ have accomplished? When ongoing care is still out of reach of many, how many more might be able to manage HIV as a chronic condition? How far might that money have gone toward funding S-CHIP?

The second obvious question is one of what kind of scum bags have turned MEDICARE fraud into an industry. On the show's blog, Potter writes...

In one building alone, I saw nearly 30 offices with signs saying they were either medical supply companies or medical billing companies. Most of the doors, however, were locked, with no indications anywhere of legitimate business. I saw the same thing in other buildings, and in shopping centers--row after row of supposed medical companies that, according to federal authorities, are billing Medicare for millions of dollars each, for services never rendered, for patients never served.

In the highly charged atmosphere of a presidential campaign, this will become a contest between Democrats who want to extend health care benefits to those without adequate insurance the Republicans who will use Medicare billing fraud as the primary reason to force solutions toward private insurance companies. Neither will deal with the real issues that are costing us real money.

What we, the people of this country, require is a system that both services those in need and protects against the scum who will prey on every weakness in the system, one that balances being easy to use with enough checks and validations to preclude industrialized fraud on the scale NBC and the Heath and Human Services Inspector General has found all too evident.

We need a few Republicans who will put true cost reduction ahead of Grover Norquist sloganizing and actually provide the authorization for effective review and approval of claims.

We need a few Democrats who will recognize that such fraud is taking the funding that would otherwise gone to providing services.

We also need more journalists like Carl Hiaasen gave the following sarcastic description of Florida to 60 Minutes.

"... if you took the continental United States and you tilted it a little bit, all the sludge would drip all the way down the peninsula, all the way down this highway … right past my house."

More than that, we need Greens in the government, representation that does not take corporate donations and is thereby free to do the work of the people. Wouldn't that be a welcome change. We need a single payer health care system with the ability to screen for fraud.

Hack du jour - Orange County's Chriss Street

The California Republican Hack Du Jour is Orange County Treasurer Chriss Street.

Orange County Funds Hold SIV Debt on Moody's Review
by Michael B. Marois and William Selway
Bloombeb.com
December 5, 2007

Orange County, California, the wealthiest U.S. municipality ever to declare bankrupcty, bought structured investment vehicles similar to those that caused a run on funds invested by local governments in Florida.

Twenty percent, or $460 million, of the county's $2.3 billion Extended Fund is invested in so-called SIVs that may face credit-rating cuts, said Treasurer Chriss Street. In all of its funds, the county holds a total of $837 million of SIV debt, including $152 million in its $3.5 billion of money-market funds that isn't under ratings review, said his spokesman, Keith Rodenhuis.
. . .
''We'll find out real quick if we have a problem,'' said the county's former Treasurer John Moorlach, who is now a county supervisor. ''But for now I need to be patient and wait and see.''
. . .
Moorlach sought to have Street stripped of his authority to manage the county's $6 billion of investments in September amid federal and local corruption probes. He said Street was too distracted by the probes to manage the county's money.
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Street's spending from a bankrupt trucking company, allegedly for his personal use. . .

The name of the trust for the trucking company (you can't make this stuff up) is "The End of the Road Trust."

Let the whole church say "Amen" to those good old-fashioned Republican conservative "values."

Another reason why we need the California Green Party.

Read More at: http://www.greencommons.org/node/879

The LA Difference

The Greening of LA has, unfortunately, little to do with the Green Party. Oh, sure, there are a lot of individual Greens who are working hard to make things better. However, I am no ashamed of referring to Antonio Villaraigosa as the Mayor of LaLa Land. He seems to epitomize everything the rest of us think about Los Angeles; all surface, a suit and smiling face with no more real substance than a Saturday AM cartoon rerun.

Maybe I should take that all back, though, as it was his Million Trees Campaign, however misguided as I believe it to be, that brought together the thousands of students who walked past Lisa Taylor's table.

Further exploration leads me to conclude that there is a disconnect between the citizens of LA and the political leadership, one that may have serious environmental consequences. The LA Times has recently reported on Villaraigosa's attempts to encourage water conservation. It is clear that he may have talked but that no one was listening.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's call six months ago for voluntary water conservation in a record dry year has failed to persuade Los Angeles residents and businesses to rein in water use substantially, city records show.

The groups that are trying to convince the smiling mayor to do something substantive, loosely identified by the Times as "evironmentalist" have formed a coalition called Green LA. The members of this coalition are what you would generally call the usual suspects: Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, Heal the Bay. There are also very local, active organizations like the Bellona Wetlands Land Trust (Green Party members in leadership) and the South Central Farmers for which Linda Piera-Avila has so effectively advocated.

I was more intrigued by the name of an organization called Global Green USA. Now this is not Global Greens (plural) as we might think of it, but rather the United States affiliate of Green Cross International, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev.

It would seem that in LA, the Green organizations getting press are not the Green Party, even though you would never know it by the name. It is almost as ironic as Global Green USA being so closely associated with a one time Soviet leader. You never know from a name what you are going to get. We go from Green LA to Global Grenn USA and never manage to identify this party. We have lost the "brand" or the identification with leadership on environmental issues.

Global Green USA has a lot to say about the importance of water as a Global Issue. That does not get down the the pipes and pumps of water in California. The environmentalists meeting with the Mayor are asking for more leadership.

"More than anything, I want a commitment from the mayor to work toward a more sustainable future and to reduce water use in Los Angeles," said Miriam Torres of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, who was among those at the meeting. "People in Los Angeles have to think of water as a precious resource and not a commodity."

I think that they are asking for active involvement in dealing with the issue and not to just treat this as a photo op. The Mayor has gotten enough negative press and it might do him good to be seen as actively involved in assuring LA's future. The idea that he would just now turn to substantive action illustrates that it was never really important.

Villaraigosa followed up Nov. 13 by resurrecting the Drought Busters program last used during the early 1990s. Six DWP employees are driving around the city in Toyota Prius hybrids, responding to more than 400 complaints about leaking sprinklers, missing sprinkler heads and other water waste.

I would encourage all So Cal Greens to follow up on their endorsement of Cal-WIN's Sustainability Principles with a campaign of letter writing, City Council calling, activism.

Oh my gawd

That was the reaction of Los Angeles Green Activist, Lisa Taylor, after she spent some very hectic hours tabling at this past weekend's LA City Environmental Youth Conference. According to Lisa, she was swamped.

I thought the crunch would be later in day, instead of early, so I was a bit overwhelmed. At 8:30am I had to hide half the sticker/button stock under the table so there would be some left later and I kept saying "please take just one and make sure you wear it or display the sticker!" It was wonderful and hopeful seeing all the interest from these kids! they stayed at the booth and talked/listened, they didn't just run by grabbing buttons like we have seen at other events.

I get two messages out of this story. One is that LA is truly different, but that is another post to come shortly. The other is that this is where the future of the Green Party can be found.

We need to focus more attention, more effort on reaching out to youth. We spend more time hashing through policy discussions and trying to be more right than the other parties while they are out organizing young people and keeping their majority.

It would be impertinent to ask Lisa what she was going to do as a follow up to this, so I won't. I will ask all California Greens what they are going to do to replicate this in other cities, other communities. Maybe one key is to set up local Green Speakers lists, those who can make time available to talk to students about Climate Change, Water Policy, the Iraq War, Environmental Justice and all of the issues on which we have the moral high ground and are not using it effectively.

Thank you, Lisa, for the work that you did in pulling this together. Having seen some of the notes flying around, I know this event would not have happened had it not been for your persistence.

Major Breakthrough in battling Climate Change

Those who come back to this column with any frequency know that I have advocated taking the Architecture 2030 targets for energy use in the building sector and turning them into law, at the local level. In the State of California, this requires some approval from the California Energy Commission.

Just this evening, I received a release from Architecture 2030 that this approval has been granted. According to the release:

On December 5, 2007, the California Energy Commission unanimously adopted the California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) plan for achieving zero net energy residential buildings by 2020 and commercial buildings by 2030. "The Energy Commission endorses these ambitious goals and will, with support from the CPUC and the utilities, strive to achieve them through successive cycles of the building standards and appliance standards in combination with other program efforts," according to The Committee Final Report.

The San Francisco Chronicle went even further into trying to predict the long range effects of this action.

California should make all new homes so energy-efficient by 2020 that they won't need to draw power from the state's electrical grid, according to a plan for meeting the state's future energy needs.

We know that this is the target. We know also that this action by the Commission is not binding. (read the full decision here.) However, this action appears to indicate approval of the Architecture 2030 standard adopted by the City of Santa Barbara last month.

Global Greens are directly involved in Climate Change at the meeting in Bali. The Green Party US released information to the press today on our stand.

Now, it is time for Greens in California to get organized and push every local City Council and planning commission to take the action that was taken by Santa Barabara. If we wait for actions to come out of Washington and / or Sacramento, for government to do it for us, we will be waiting until the rising sea level is waist deep on the Embarcadero.

Green Party Presidential Picks

I have, in general, refrained from a too obvious preference for one of the Green Party candidates over the others. However, the date has come when I can not hold back. I will outline a few of the reasons why I support Kent Mesplay and why I do not support some of the other candidates.

As I looked at the field of candidates, there are some obvious differentiations that can be made. The ones that I believe to be most important are these two.

• Does the candidate have the ability to construct a nationwide organization, bringing together the best local Green Leaders in a movement that will help build, rather than limit, this part?
• Does the candidate have a grasp of issues and policies such that they could acquit themselves well in comparison with the choices of other parties. be that Clinton or Obama, Huckabee or Romney or McCain?

There are only three candidates who, in my opinion, can provide positive responses to both. They are Nader, McKinney and Mesplay. Jared Ball and Kat Swift both provide good reasons that one might vote for them and Ball has an energetic group of volunteers. Neither of them have expressed enough understanding of or willingness to act on the major environmental issues that we are facing now starting with Global Warming. Jesse Johnson and Elaine Brown have not built enough of a campaign to be visible and neither says anything about the key environmental issues on their web sites.

Another way to look at these candidates is to look at the character and capabilities of their supporters. Those who externalize all failings rather than accepting any personal responsibility are not good advocates for a candidate. I am sure that, if some are not chosen, it will be called a plot rather than the fact that their volunteer supporters failed them.

Kent Mesplay is the one candidate who has consistently, from the beginning, has not played identity politics. He is the one candidate who has addressed a range of issues, from peace to the environment and will not be a single issue candidate. He is the one candidate who has published his position on energy policy at a time when the Democrats are playing with our heads and failing in their leadership after being given an opportunity.

I have no idea what Nader will finally do. His name is currently listed as a draft candidate on the national Green Party web site. I tend, however to favor a candidate from within the party rather than once again telling the world that we need a savior from outside.

I find that my judgement of Cynthia McKinney is biased by the fact that too many of her supporters are angry people too quick to blame others for "gaming" the system. I also find that those who speak for her are, in fact, rank amateurs whose presence in a campaign can only hurt the party. My association with Pete McCloskey and the team that he was able to assemble in 2006 makes this a very high bar as far as anyone achieving it. It give me reason, though, to question McKinney's judgment.

By the same logic, I find much positive about Jard Ball and little positive about Elaine Brown. Her most vocal supporters are the ones who do the most damage to her candidacy.

When working with McCloskey in 2006, I was amazed to find that there those who had supported him in the 1970's who were willing to take leaves of absence from work and come back to work for him again. It was all about his honesty in the way that he treated people, direct and not without leveling honest criticism when required. I sense the same honesty in Mesplay.

My absentee ballot will be in the mail by January 7. When it arrives, I will be voting for Kent.

California's Greenwashed Leaders

I am truly amazed that California's political leadership has so easily donned the mantle of "green" and have been allowed to get away with it without criticism. In fact, Schwarzenegger, Boxer and Pelosi have become the darlings of the environmental movement while selling out the public with flamboyant speech and flawed policies.

The list of examples is long. I will only focus on what they have said and what they have done regarding energy policy. The House of Representatives has just passed the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007 (HR 6). Speaker Pelosi announced this triumph with much rhetorical flamboyancy, calling it the "shot heard round the world" and holding up the baseball with which Bobby Thompson ended the dream of the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers. It was truly an example of major arm twisting by a Speaker who rules with a heavy gavel.

I will admit that some of the bill is moving in the right direction. It does include new Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards for the first time in many years. It also has major flaws specifically in the manner that it has implemented a Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Pelosi considered that part of it's significant achievements.

MSNBC tempers their reporting of some of the benefits with the following:

"We will send our energy dollars to the Midwest, not the Middle East," countered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, referring to the bill's emphasis on promoting renewable energy sources, especially ethanol, which would see a sevenfold increase by 2022 to 36 billion gallons a year.

Republican Roscoe Bartlett (MD-06), the most articulate and environmentally responsible Republican in Congress, found RFS to be a fatal flaw in this bill and voted, surprisingly to some, against the bill.

What Pelosi is not saying, but what everyone knowledgeable understands, is that you have to be very careful about the choice of technologies and the food vs. energy issues. Every kernel of corn that goes into ethanol is not going into our food supply where it is the primary food for raising livestock, it is a primary food for dairy cattle, it is a major ingredient in most packaged foods. The result, higher food prices for everyone and no reduction in polluting greenhouse gases. It is too bad we can not legislate away the gaseous content of political speech.

As for Boxer, one need look no further than her refusal to take substantive action against commodity subsidies. I have commented on this before. What I did not do there was to make the case that failure to act on subsidies has major environmental implications. We are facing serious water problems in California. The Federal Government and the California Water Project are subsidizing the water to farmers, subsidizing the electric power costs to pump that water and then we are subsidizing the growing of cotton in the desert with it's large scale need for irrigation. This is practicing environmental stupidity for the slight chance that Boxer will get a few more votes in farm country.

And don't get me started on our "green" governor. He is like the Hulk, green when he has to be. Yes, his efforts to improve the transportation sector are beneficial. But he has ignored the building sector and that uses almost twice as much energy as does transportation. In one situation after another, he has acted as a cheerleader for development, even in the flood plains of our rivers, even when we don't have the water to support it. His proposals for a peripheral canal, necessary in his mind to support continued population growth in So Cal, would be a long term disaster for the delta, for agriculture in that area.

Restore the Delta's most recent (12/03/07) newsletter should be an eyeopener to anyone who thinks that Schwarzenegger really cares about the environment. The conclusion here:

Without a doubt those who are pushing for a peripheral conveyance system are influencing each and every process currently unfolding. Yet, we still do not know how freshwater must pass through the Delta in order for the estuary to have good water quality.

At a time when "green" is the word everywhere, when even Honda declares that they are the "greenest car company in America" we need more than greenwashing. We need better leadership.

Climate Change and Green Economics

This week, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon confirmed what the rest of the world knows and some of our own government won't admit, that Global Warming is real, that we, yes "we", are the cause and the consequences of non-action are serious. This was in an OpEd for the Washington Post that ran the day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting in Bali started.

Secretary General Ban ended his column with a call for action.

Our job, in Bali and beyond, is to shape this nascent global transformation -- to open the door to the age of green economics and green development. What's missing is a global framework within which we, the world's peoples, can coordinate our efforts to fight climate change.

I can understand what he means by "green development". The need for additional technologies is well documented. People are investing in solar, wind and wave technologies at an increasing rate. Just the need having a distributed electrical grid tying together these many sources of power rather than a hierarchical grid controlled from a few power plants and throttle points is a substantial challenge.

The data referenced by Secretary General Ban indicates that the potential is surprisingly robust.

Growth need not suffer and, in fact, may accelerate. Research by the University of California at Berkeley indicates that the United States could create 300,000 jobs if 20 percent of electricity needs were met by renewables. A leading Munich consulting firm predicts that more people will be employed in Germany's enviro-technology industry than in the auto industry by the end of the next decade. The U.N. Environment Program estimates that global investment in zero-greenhouse energy will reach $1.9 trillion by 2020 -- seed money for a wholesale reconfiguration of global industry.

However, I am not sure if the Secretary General has the same definition of "green economics" as I do. In fact, I am sure that I don't have a good definition of that term. It is, however, a term that we had better come to know if the Green Party is to participate in governance at any level.

Reality?

You knew it was going to happen. We have had The Bachelor. We have had the Bachelorette. Now, according to Reuters, we have "Who want's to Marry a US Citizen?"

It trivializes marriage (I don't know if they will challenge civil unions.) It trivializes citizenship. I can remember that Green Card was playing around the time our oldest had a French jazz musician boy friend and that gave us pause. But, at least we knew that it was a fantasy rather than trying to pass itself off as a documentary.

The thought that passed through my mind just now came from an old Pete Seeger anti-war song.. "When will they ever learn." I guess, in this case, the answer is "never."

Hearing on Prospect Island Fish Kill

According to a news release that I just received from Dan Bacher (Ed. The Fishsniffer) Assemblywoman Lois Wolk will hold a hearing on the Prospect Island Fish Kill this week. Here are the particulars. It is open to the public.

WHEN: Thursday, December 6, 2007. 9:30 AM

WHERE: Rio Vista City Council Chambers

One Main Street, Rio Vista, CA 94571

I have just sent the good Assemblywoman the following note. I would be very pleased if more of the readers here send her a similar message.

Assemblywoman Wolk,

I don't belong to your political party. I am a Green.
I don't live in your district, I live in John Laird's.

Still, I hope that you will pay attention to this note, because you are the one member of our State Legislature who appears to be doing the right things regarding the Delta.

I believe that your hearing on the Prospect Island fish kill is an opportunity to make the point that the bureaucracies of Department Fish and Game and the Bureau of Reclamation care more about budgets than they do about results, more about protecting their turf than about the environment.

This problem was so avoidable. Every environmental and fishing organization in the State of California would have contributed to a solution, as they are doing after the fact. All it would have taken is for one person to decide not to go business as usual.

Please do not let the rest of us down. We care about the Delta. We care about biodiversity. We do not care about self-protective bureaucracies..

Health Care or Health Care Administration

The entire discussion going on right now: Hillary Care, Single Payer, SB 840, Schwarzenegger's plan vs. Nunez's plan, has nothing to do with Health Care pe se. It is all about the Administration of Health Care. It is an issue of Social Justice that focuses attention on the financial ramifications of our decisions. That, in itself, makes change to the current processes mandatory in a compassionate society. But it is limited. After all, when government compartmentalizes health care as an issue, all it can do is to open or close the purse strings. Maybe that is why Democrats and Republicans fight so much a do so little.

While working on a different topic this morning, I came across the following statement about the role of academia in "speaking truth to power."

I argue that retreat to the study to compose analyses that "speak truth to power" is quite ineffectual in a world in which forces we wish to denounce have themselves become skilled players of multiculturalist politics. For all its difficulties, more active engagement in the messy realities of concrete situations is the only way forward."

The idea that I wish to call attention to is that improving, making more equitable, the administration of health care does not, in itself, improve health care. I would also argue that there are actions government must take that will go a long way towards making fundamental improvements in the health of our communities and their residents. The list includes:

• removing the very worst causes of air pollution, since that leads directly to $ billions of costs just in the San Joaquin Valley.
• combating (with more than ad campaigns) the overall problems of an America where too many citizens lead a sedentary life and are obese with direct health care consequences.

These simple statements make it clear that only a holistic, ecological approach to health care will result in a substantially better quality of life. Air quality is not just an environmental issue: it is a health care issue, an educational issue (schools lose ADA based funding due to pollution caused respiratory disease), an economic issue (lost work days due to pollution cause respiratory disease and premature death.).

Earlier, I referred to the "health of our communities and their residents." That is the clue to where Greens need to base their activism. The Campaign Director for the environmental group Restore the Delta, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, also started a Healthy Delta Communities project. Putting Green Party Locals in the center of similar efforts in every community would go a long, long way toward building up this party and, more importantly, finding the appropriate local solutions to those "messy realities of concrete situations".

It is truly the only way forward.

Global Climate Campaign

December 8 has been declared a day of action for a Global Climate Campaign. This was initially sponsored by the Climate Change Coalition. This coincides with the Dec. 4-9 meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Bali. (Check the countdown to Bali on the GP Canada web site.)

After a thorough discuss last night, the EcoAction Committee of the Green Party decided to sign on to this effort. This is just the first step that the EcoAction Commitee will be taking. Accordingly, I posted the following to their site.

The EcoAction Committee of the Green Part of the United States will promote the following goals from their 2006 Earth Day Statement

• We, as individuals must make profound changes in our own lifestyles, demonstrating to elected officials our own commitment to and expectation of change in local, regional, national and global environmental policy;
• We must phase out all subsidies and tax breaks to fossil and nuclear energy industries;
• We must move to full cost pricing starting with carbon taxes;
• We must provide incentives, legislation, and institutional reforms to bring renewable energy technologies on line and readily available to the consumer;
• We must encourage the export and expansion of these technologies into overseas markets to competitively displace fossil and nuclear power, and large-scale hydroelectric projects;
• We must research and implement interim, as well as long term offsets, such as reforestation, accompanied by measurable cutbacks in emissions;
• We must reject biomass incineration and inefficient biofuels production as unnecessary, insufficient, polluting, damaging to ecosystems and a waste of energy;
• We reject the concept of "clean coal";
• We must put an absolute limit on CO2 emissions Nationally and work to facilitate a Worldwide CAP. This limit should be based on the amount we need to cut fossil fuel usage in order to aid in reversing the rise in average global temperatures.
• We must base our cutbacks in fossil fuel usage on this limit; this means stabilization as quickly as possible and an 80% cutback to be reached within ten years.

A Farm Bill Without Subsidies

Working with Jill Bussiere of the Wisconsin Green Party, I have published an OpEd regarding Farm Subsidies and our do-nothing congress.

You can read it here:

I would ask that you read the OpEd and then let your Congress Critters understand that we need solutions that work in the 21st Century, not a continuation of the outmoded, ineffectual partisan gamesmanship that they are currently handing out.

If you want a really weird opinion on Farm Subsidies, check out the reply to this question at the CNN -> YouTube Republican Debate. Watch Romney dance.

A Debate: Do Greens Need a 'People of Color' Caucus?

EDITOR'S NOTE: My op-ed below was originally published in the Winter/Spring 2008 edition of Green Focus, the newspaper of the Green Party of California. Breaking the Democrat-Republican monopoly on American politics requires the destruction of big city Democratic Party Machines to which many of us have emotional attachments. It's important for Greens to free our minds from the tyranny of Democrat-Republican old politics about race and ethnicity. Thus, we must dare to consider if we need a "People of Color Caucus" or any "Identity Politics" caucuses at all. 

I assumed many would disagree vigorously and invited Greens to submit op-eds to the editor of the paper. There were only a few comments and nobody submitted a fill-blown op-ed. Amazing how this "Identity Politics" taken as gospel on the American Left can be so apparently indefensible. 

Alex Walker
Los Angeles Greens

 

Do Greens Need a 'People of Color' Caucus?
No - Let's Be The Change We Want to See
by Alex Walker

"Be the change that you want to see in the world." -- Mohandas Gandhi

Let's have an "Urban Policy Caucus" on urban sustainability, the "Drug War," large school systems, immigration, etc. But please, no caucuses based on skin color. That's a throwback to the 1960s when "Leaders" pleaded for entry into segregated "smoke filled rooms" of Democratic Party bosses and when the Republican "Party of Lincoln" became the "White Man's Party" of die-hard segregationists.

Americans revolted in the name of liberty and sanctioned slavery. The French killed King Louis and crowned Emperor Napoleon. The Russians killed Czar Nicholas in the name of socialism and consolidated his empire under a corporate state. I have great personal respect for Greens organizing these caucus, but I do not want Greens imitating race-obsessed Democrats and Republicans.

A Million Trees in LA?

I don't live in Los Angeles. The closest that I got was the Univ. of Redlands. Still, I have had enough pleasant association with the City of the Angels to refrain from referring to is a "La La Land." That is, until now.

I have just become aware of Mayor Villaraigosa's Million Trees LA plan, announced in May, 2006. Maybe that is also a good thing, because it is a bone headed idea, one of those things that sounds good when someone proposes it, gets a lot of attention due to the big numbers of the grand vision, and makes very little sense when one looks at what it really means.

In the official announcement of the project, Mayor Villaraigosa is quoted as saying:

The trees will provide shade and save on energy costs, clean the air and help reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, capture polluted urban runoff, improve water quality, and add beauty to our neighborhoods

Now, some of that is true. But the total positive consequences are so trivial and the long term negative consequences are potentially devastating to the state.

Let me give a good example: Home Depot announced that it was going to plant 300,000 trees in various cities across the US to absorb CO2 and reduce the impact of global warming. According to the non-profit Architecture 2030, "The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized (500 MW) coal-fired power plant, in just 10 days of operation, will negate this entire effort." By extrapolation if LA were to plant One Million trees, it would take 34 days of operation to negate the effect of those Million Trees. So far, that aspect of the plan seem to be woefully small.

Mayor Villaraigosa warns us about the need to provide "provide long-term stewardship of one million trees, planted all over the city with a focus on areas that need it most."

LA is nearly a desert. At best, you could consider it's climate as Mediterranean. It is now in the middle of a drought with voluntary water cut backs and, given that this year appears to be equally dry, there is not short term supply of water for those trees. In fact, the best scientific information about our future in a warmer world indicates that the rainfall averages for these two years may be considered normal in the next century. So, again, the question is one of where the water for those trees is going to come from. Oh, yeah, maybe the dwindling show pack in the Sierras where they turn millions of gallons of water a day into man made snow for the ski slopes.

I just wish, for once, that politicians would provide some thoughtful leadership rather than splashy big project backed with a lot of publicity and which provide little or no benefit.

In 1902, the Los Angeles Board of Water Commissioners reported that "we must not expect this City can hop to reach a low per capita consumption, as measured by that of Eastern cities(and it is not desirable that she should, a bountiful supply of water being necessary to the maintenance of the beauty for which she is famous."

In his 1990 book, Miracle Dreams, Kevin Starr referred to Los Angeles as "the most exquisite invented garden in history."

It looks like the good Mayor is playing a part in the same miracle play, the miracle of abundant water just there for that taking. If this is his thinking, then he truly lives in La La Land.

In contrast to Mayor Villaraigosa's cloudy vision, the LA County Green Party has just endorse the Sustainability Principle defined by the California Water Impact Network. I have written about this before. Yo can read them here. Now, maybe the LA Greens are the ones living in the real world.