Stepping it Up.

While I fully support the major goals of the Step It Up campaign, I have doubts about it's efficacy. I sent the following to a GPCA email list today, but it belongs here.

If you are a member of the Green Party, you most certainly agree with the statement that you are concerned about Global Warming. However, to turn that concern into action by the legislatures, local, state or national, you have to convince those legislators that there are electoral consequences for not doing the right thing. Right now, that is clearly not the case.

In July, 2006, the Pew Research Center for People and the Press published a report that says Global Warming is not a significant election issue.

According to this report, while most Americans said it was really happening, it was not all that important. In fact, it was listed as less important in America that in Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria or China.

Among Republicans, it was listed as the lowest of 21 issues.
Among Democrats and Independents, it was listed as 13 out of 21.

In an update to that report in January, 2007, it was still dead last for Republicans, and had fallen to 17th for Democrats and 19th for Independents.

All three groups listed the budget deficit as having a higher priority.

One of the reasons that we are all here is that we believe that the threat is maybe greater that Al Gore's famous movie indicated. The challenge we have before us is not only to convince the public that priorities should be higher, but maybe to convince our own party's leadership that they should be talking about Global Warming at all.

Here is a good example of just what has happened. The Step it Up campaign is connected to the Climate Crisis Coalition. I was told by a national party officer that one Julia Willebrand (NY) was the GP liaison to that organization. (I heard from another Green that they had gone to two early meetings but nothing since.) I have tried to email Willebrand to request information on behalf of the National's EcoAction Committee... no response.

There is a real danger that government will come forward with half measures, or worse yet, with plans that look good when spinning, but which are ultimately worse: e.g. "clean coal" or nuclear.

A quick survey of the Democratic Candidates for president shows that most do not have any firm plan. The mumble the acceptable words about "market based solutions" that are intended to offend as few as possible, and quickly get back on message.

Bill Richardson is talking about "potential improvements in building codes". He won't mention nuclear in the campaign, but was a strong supporter of nuclear during his time heading the Dept. of Energy.

Barack Obama refuses to eliminate nuclear options and his most aggressive position is to implement "cap and trade" programs.
Hillary Clinton's Energy Policy is all good intentions with no specifics, rhetoric without substance.

In the White House, Hillary will lead the charge to stop global warming by investing in clean energy technologies, establishing a national market-based program to reduce global warming pollution, increasing our fuel efficiency, and restoring the United States' rightful place as a leader in international efforts to address the problem of climate change.

But that also talks about "market based" programs, like "cap and trade". Even in the Economist Magazine, not an environmentalist's required reading, they say...

> Too bad, then, that politicians seem set on a second-best route to a greener world. That is the path of cap-and-trade, where the quantity of emissions is limited (the cap) and the right to emit is distributed through a system of tradable permits. The original Kyoto treaty set up such a mechanism and its signatories are keen to expand it. The main market-based alternative—a carbon tax—has virtually no political support.

The fact is that those developed countries (Canada, EU) who DID sign the Kyoto Protocol, have made almost no progress in reducing GHG emissions.

We have to get behind the work of Architecture 2030. I thank Orvall for supporting that. For everyone who is involved in one of the Step it Up session, we have to make this a key ingredient of local action.
I recently read an analysis that says we have experienced a transformation from a world where there was a deep investment of social capital in organizations (life time employment, union membership, civic clubs, ethnic community centers, bowling leagues, etc.) into a one where the ties are much more shallow but cover a wider area. The example is job networking rather than relying on the good old boys club that you play golf with every weekend. In this new world, individuation is more important than community. It is much more interesting, but much less safe. We live, perhaps, in a world of insecure affluence.

If all of that is true, then perhaps we need to be talking of taking personal responsibility for the world that we are leaving our children. We need to show that personal action can deliver a better, more secure future. And then to make it work. I am not convinced that the rhetoric of sacrifice, cutting back will change people's behavior unless we show them a better future.

Calfornia Burning, Presidential Politics

Everyone knows about the wildfires in California. Life have been difficult for all, and maybe even for the President and all the Presidential Candidates who had to figure out what they should be doing and how many votes it might bring them .

President Bush toured the place and gave his usual speech.

"I made a pledge to the people of California on behalf of all Americans: We will help you put out the fires, get through the crisis, and rebuild your lives," he said in his weekly radio address.

Just ask the people of New Orleans how good that speech is.

FEMA showed that they had a better plan than was evident in disasters the past few years, but they also proved that they still do not understand the very basic fact that actually doing their work is more important than whatever image they project. With their fake news conference, they undid what ever good might have come from the actual help they delivered. I am sure that some news magazine (are you listening, 60 Minutes?) will do a follow up to see just what the actual results were.

I have not heard anything more than a few mumbling "best wishes" from the likes I Guiliani or Romney. Among the Democrats, well even John Edwards sounds a little like Bush.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the more than 300,000 families who have been forced to flee their homes to escape the wildfires spreading across southern California. Those affected by this tragedy should take comfort in the fact that their fellow Americans are standing with them and will do whatever it takes to fight the fires and rebuild the homes and businesses that were destroyed."

However, Green Party candidate Kent Mesplay was right in the middle and could probably tell the rest a bit about what really went on. After helping a friend pack a moving truck and get out of Del Mar, he found out on the next day that his own place was under discretionary evacuation. According to a note I received from Kent,

I found some important papers, said "goodbye" to my things and left to life with my mom in Mira Mesa...

By Wednesday evening, he was taking a 12 hour shift as Shelter Manager at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

I wonder what he is doing now with the fires still burning, since his "day job" is to monitor air quality and write up violators.

The Southeast has a drought, the Southwest has a crisis.

Just to let you know that California is not the only state where more dams are seen as the only solution, I cite the following from High Country News.

Colorado’s Cache la Poudre River tumbles 80 miles from its high-alpine headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park down to the South Platte River on the plains below. The upper Poudre is the only designated wild and scenic river in the state – but after it exits Poudre Canyon, 90 percent of its flow is siphoned off for farmers and homeowners around Fort Collins. Now, a local water district wants to tap the remaining 10 percent to fill two new reservoirs.

Municipal planners in northern Colorado say the prospect of drought combined with a booming population (predicted to increase three-fold by 2050), leaves only one solution: more water storage, in the form of the Northern Integrated Supply Project. “This is not a case of ‘if you don’t build it, they won’t come,’ ” says Carl Brouwer, project manager. “Bottom line: More people equals the need for more water.”

I would be asking the following questions:

• What will you do when the last 10% has been drained from the river?
• If you would do it then, why are you NOT doing it now.?

There seems to be some built in vision of this world where water is an inexhaustible supply and all we need to do is come up with a better method of capturing and using it. Unfortunately, we do not create any new water. That has not been new water on this earth for a very long time. We may watch it, swim in it, bathe with it, drink it, channel it, fish in it, process it, but we just don't make any more of it.

We should be asking the same questions about water in California. The stakes are high. It is not a good time to be a farmer in the Delta, as the most recent proposal from our good governor would take away riparian water rights to service those who would pay more. I am told that there was much unhappiness in the recent State Senate hearings when Restore the Delta made this a point of discussion. Last minute language inserted into a bond measure authorization that was clearly intended to be hidden.

Break Through

In this time of blogs, google searches and YouTube, I am going to suggest that everyone read a book, or at least the introduction and first chapter... confident that you will then read the rest. The book is entitled Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility.

The authors, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, had earlier published a long and pretty controversial essay entitled The Death of Environmentalism. This is an expansion of that work, but even for those who have read the book are are familiar with the controversy it raised, approach this version with an open mind. It does break new ground and, given the larger scope of a book, allows them to marshal more facts to back up their argument.

Both the essay, linked above, and the book begin with the premise that "Over the last 15 years environmental foundations and organizations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into combating global warming. We have strikingly little to show for it."

They argue that the environmental movement does not understand its own history, that the mythology of the environmental challenge to pollution is just that, a myth devised to explain what was not properly understood. Even more persuasively, using the survey methods of the social scientist, they try to account for the reasons why impending ecological disaster is not a strong motivational force as people approach the task of voting.

Whether or not you end up agreeing with Nordhaus and Shellenberger, and I most do agree, the questions they raise must be answered by the GPCA if we are to be successful. It is clear that the Democratic Party will not respond in the manner they they would like, especially if the next election brings us a Centrist president like Hillary. They also provide a reasoned explanation as to why Republicans are more successful than Democrats in articulating their environmental viewpoint in a way that resonated with the voters.

When I first heard of this book, I checked my public library for a copy. It was not in their collection. So, I requested that they order it, citing it's importance to today's environmental battles. They did and thankfully, when it arrived, they gave me the first shot to read it.

I will continue to develop and articulate what I believe to be the fundamental strategy that must be adopted by the Green Party is we are to become effective in dealing with the raft of ecological (note I did not say environmental) problems that we face today.

Santa Barbara leads the way.

In yesterday's post I made a comment about King Coal and how that relates to any good things that our governor might try to do regarding vehicle emissions. I am not sure that Arnold is serious enough about Global Warming. I sourced that information from the web site of an organization called Architecture 2030.

Architecture 2030 just release a new story. They announced the fact that the City of Santa Barbara is taking the most far-reaching steps of any California community toward the goal of becoming carbon neutral. In fact, they have turned the Architecture 2030 recommendations into law and building code.

The following is from the Santa Barbara Daily Sound.

It was more than a year ago that renowned Santa Fe architect Ed Mazria came to the Marjorie Luke Theater in Santa Barbara and lectured on environmental building standards, lighting a fire under local architects, contractors, government leaders and community members.
Now, with approval from a state commission a pending formality, Santa Barbara stands to mark a new chapter in green building.

A glowing Santa Barbara City Council unanimously approved the Architecture 2030 Energy Ordinance today, legislation that, if approved by the California Energy Commission, will give Santa Barbara some of the most stringent environmental building standards in the state.

This raises a few questions.

• Which California City will be the next to invite Ed Mazria to speak?
• What other community has the courage to do what is absolutely necessary?
  
• Most importantly, what are our Green Party locals doing to educate themselves and to get their communities to take steps similar to that of Santa Barbara?

How Green is Arnold?

The media likes to refer to Governor Schwarzenegger as being a "green governor" and he loves to go around talking about what California is doing to lower vehicle emissions. This is a very difficult task. There are a lot of resource robber barons who will manipulate the news. So I am glad that someone is doing something. However, I just want to give you some perspective on what it all means.

According to Architecture 2030:

There are 151 new conventional coal-fired power plants in various stages of development in the US today.

California
California passed legislation to cut CO2 emissions in new cars by 25% and in SUVs by 18%, starting in 2009.

If every car and SUV sold in California in 2009 met this standard...
The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant, in just eight months of operation each year, would negate this entire effort.

So, just how Green is Arnold and how far is he really willing to go to fix this problem? Or is it too little and too late.

Nor any drop to drink

I am encouraged by the fact that the LA Greens have formally endorsed the Sustainability Principles that were put together by the California Water Impact Network. Maybe it is my own biases, but I take this as a sign that some parts of the Green Party are returning to the ecological base from which we started.

It is time that this refocusing has happened, not because it is just a pendulum swing from one focus to another, but because there is so little time to deal with it. I am no alarmist telling everyone to go watch Water World. It was not that good of a movie. But maybe it is time for some alarmist rhetoric concerning water.

There is always danger in being an alarmist. It is one quick way to lose credibility with the bad future just does not happen. Many of us lived through the controversies surrounding Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb. It did not happen as he predicted and now every alarmist position has the obvious problem of living down that history.

Still, the concerns with water are real and the alarmist views may be optimistic. We think of water and the delta as a California problem that we have to solve here. It is not. It is a global problem, as well documented in an Associated Press article by Brian Skoloff today.

An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn't have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year.

Across America, the picture is critically clear — the nation's freshwater supplies can no longer quench its thirst.

The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.

There is no way that we can even begin to consider what to do about water unless we also consider the impact of a warming climate. The Natural Resources Defense Council has put together a survey of the Current Science on Global Warming and Western Water. The facts are pretty clear. Only those who would make a partisan issue of this predicament are going to deny what is happening. You only have to look at the web site of the Republican Caucus of the California Assembly. Assembly Republican Leader, Mike Villines, does not put a single environmental issue on his list of things to do. His only position on the water issue is to build more dams, a useless waste of money if they do not take a warming planet under consideration, yet he is willing to hold the rest of us hostage to a flawed plan.

I would hope that Greens all over this state take a look at the Sustainability Principles that I linked above. I would like to see every County Council endorse them. The connections between water, land use, wild fires and global warming define the situation that demand Green solutions. We need to find the ways to make them a reality.

Cheney Sleeps During Wildfires Meeting

Think Progress has a brief Flash Media video of a CNN report of Vice President Dick Cheney falling asleep on camera while President Bush was discussing wildfires in California. A Cheney spokeswoman told CNN that the Veep was "practicing meditation."



But hey! If it ain't about profits for oil companies and you can't fix the problem by "nuking" it, then there's no reason for "neoconservatives" to get involved.

Water Wars Continue... Politicians Hide.

We are finally beginning to see the shape of what the experts deem to be the future of water in California. The 2nd draft of A Vision for California’s Delta has been released and will be under discussion today and tomorrow in Sacramento.

Given what it is, a report put together with major input form the water agencies and not enough input form the public, it appears to me to be saying that we need to do all of the above: new dams, new underground storage, new canals, etc. It is cloaked in enough fine words that even major environmental groups are not strongly criticizing in in public... and I don't know about what they say in private.

“There’s a lot of good things in here,” said Barry Nelson, a water policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “A lot of these are issues that the agencies have been ducking for a long time.”

The Blue Ribbon Task Force will make it's recommendations by the end of November, so there is little time do much to change it, though there will be 3 rounds of public comment afterwards.

Here is a list of quick observations:

• The current firestorms in Southern California show us exactly how dependent we are on a fragile system and how interconnected all of this is. The time to view anything as other than interconnected is long past.
• Much of the rhetoric will frame this as a conflict between people and endangered species. This is a dangerous framing and far from the truth.
  
• Water agencies will never take a stand that implies any limitation to growth or demand.
  
• Neither major political party is willing to take the step of addressing the number one use of water in the State. Think "Got Milk." California agriculture is heavily invested in crops that are water intensive: cotton, alfalfa, rice. The predictions of climate change scientists are that rainfall and temperature changes will necessitate changes in agricultural practices, crop selection, etc. The time to start this is now.
  

The report does call for changes in the agricultural use in the Delta.

Specialized forms of agriculture that are particularly well suited to the Delta must be encouraged, such as subsidence-reversing crops, carbon-sequestering crops, and wildlife-friendly farming practices.

It fails, however, to recognize the need for making other basic changes, assuming that their job is only to deliver the water that agriculture needs. But then, Central Valley Water Districts help write the report.

When will they ever learn

When I was growing up in Arizona, two of our political leaders were Steward Udall and Barry Goldwater. While they differed on most things, they both had a basic understanding of the relationship of man to nature. Goldwater was a conservative who understood the conservative and conservation have the same derivation.

Goldwater was a very conservative Republican. It was the Republican party of Pete McCloskey and Lincoln Chaffee (RI) both of whom have strong environmental credentials and both of whom have left the Republican Party. It is a very different Republican Party from the one that I new and the fact that McCloskey and Chaffee have both left is a sign of just how far it has changed.

Today, the California Republican Party is filled with the likes of Bill Maze and Tom McClintock. They are a different breed all together. They have none of the vision that earned McCloskey appointment as Co-Chair of the very first Earth Day.

I note today that Maze has been meeting with Inyo County Supervisors to urge their support for Schwarzeneggers $9 Billion dubious project for new dams, new canals and little gain. In Maze's view,

Unfortunately, the state’s current water storage systems are at capacity and simply cannot be relied upon to provide enough water to meet growing demand from increased population, industry and agriculture, he said. Only new dams and reservoirs and added groundwater recharge can add to the state’s water supplies.
“But some people just don’t get it.”

That is in stark contrast to the view of Dorothy Green in a recent LA Times Op Ed.

For all the doom and gloom about water in California, here's a surprising truth: California has enough water to meet its needs today and tomorrow without new dams, peripheral canals or catastrophic costs. But there is a rub. It will take political will and better management.

Maybe Maze is the one who just doesn't get it.

McClintock, on the other hand, appears not to "get it" about global warming. In a speech before the Western Conservative Political Action Conference in Newport Beach this month, McClintock leveled a blast at just about everyone. Then, he posted it on his own blog. The litany of accusations is pure Karl Rove. First he makes sure that his audience thinks of the as the "liberal elite who jet to environmental conferences in Gulfstream Fives". Then he goes after those who would not allow brush to be cut from around houses in fire prone areas but never mentions the fact that maybe we should not build in fire prone area, like Tahoe or the foothills East of San Diego.

The, he produces facts that no scientist has very verified and argues from that point.

And finally the third inconvenient question: If global warming is caused by YOUR SUV, why is it that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide always follow increases in global temperatures by several hundred years, indicating that CO2 is a byproduct of increasing temperatures – not a cause.

I would have expected as much from Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe but thought that McClintock was a bit more honest than that. I guess not.

With all of this coming from leading politicians who supposedly have the interests of their constituents at heart, it is little wonder that we find results of polls like that conducted by the Antelope Valley Press and blogged at Aquafornia.

Recently, the Antelope Valley Press did an unofficial survey, and asked its readers if they were willing to curb their water usage in order to save the smelt. The results were 26% yes, 74% no.

McClintock will leave the State Senate this year, having reached his term limit. It is not too soon. Maybe this is his attempt to maintain some relevance in the Conservative movement, he does end it with a call for a return to a past that never was.

And at that moment, we will see a new political awakening and a new political realignment in California, and before you know it, we’ll be living once again in Reagan Country.

The California Green Party has a lot to do in re-educating a public that has listened to too much Tom McClintock and Michael Savage, who has been presented with "Don" Perata as the alternative while the Don is only selling protection.

I keep coming back to the idea that the only way to work through these problems is the Green way. We need all to be speaking out, now and continuously against the likes of McClintock and his pseudo science, against the 19th Century exploitation of nature that Maze calls for. The only good thought is that with leaders like McClintock, so out of touch with reality, the California Republican Party is not likely to ever return to Reagan Country.

Fire and class

I have just finished reading "Ecology of Fear - LA and the Imagination of Disaster" by Mike Davis. His first chapters are about the regular fires that devastate southern California. Indeed, some of the fires are identical to past catastrophic fires, such as in Malibu. But the point he makes so well is that there are strong class issues in how we deal with fire-fighting and in land use.

Fighting fires in rural areas is paid on a "whatever it takes" or an after the fact budget. All necessary resources are devoted to fighting fires, for instance, in the mountains above Malibu, where mostly millionaires live. Afterwards, they figure out how much it cost. And year after year, development is allowed in mountain areas known to be extremely prone to fires.

But the budgeting is the opposite in the poor areas of the cities, some only 20 miles from wealthy Malibu, such as Westlake, Mid-City and Hollywood tenements. In those areas, LA County sets a fixed budget in advance. Where there are lots of fire-prone shoddy apartment buildings, the fire department often cannot even get there in time to save lives. They rarely have time to do fire inspections, and follow up with landlords to make sure required improvements are made. The occasional inspection will find fire doors nailed shut and smoke alarms don't work, but the landlords rarely get forced to do what the law requires. As a result, when fires do break out, many people die horrible deaths.

Now, I am very sympathetic to the current victims of the fires raging across southern California. I know people who are evacuated, and I know people who are fighting the fires right now. So I am bringing up these issues to add to our sensitivity, not to take away from it. If it were up to me, firefighting budgets would be shared more equitably between the poor residents of Westlake and the wealthy folks in the hills above Malibu. And more importantly, I would declare vast areas to be no longer protected by heroic firefighting efforts, or insurance compensation after the fact. There are vast hilly areas that simply should not be allowed to be developed as they have been. We need to stop subsidizing their idiotic development, or periodic reconstruction.

+Orval Osborne

The troble with Los Angeles

We all know that Los Angeles has many problems and it is hard for a Green not to read a blog entry with that title. But I had a different introduction to James Hrynyshyn's post at Island of Doubt. Hrynyshyn is another blogger at scienceblogs.com and offers his localized take on Jon Gertner's NY Times Magazine story that Alex posted a few days ago.

Hrynyshyn is pretty blunt about the scope of the problem that we face.

That's [Jon Gertner's use of the word Armageddon] perhaps a bit too strong a metaphor , but conflict between farms, cities and industry for dwindling water supplies is certain to grow, and if trends continue, it won't be restricted to the courtroom.

He is also just as direct when it comes to defining what we have to do in this case.

How are we going to get around the pending and current water crunches? Gertner writes of schemes like desalination plants on the west coast paid for my interior cities, which are then rewarded with larger shares of river water. But those are only stop-gap measures. Long-term solutions will require massive lifestyle changes or massive investment in dubious mega-engineering projects.

It is just those "mega-engineering projects" that Hrynyshyn finds to be dubious that form the basis of Schwarzenegger's plans for the California Delta They are also the essence of what I found in the Will Durst ad that I critiqued yesterday.

As Southern California fights through the most massive outbreak of wild fires that they have ever experienced this week, we have to consider what would happen if the firemen came, hooked up their hoses and there was no water.

These things a closely linked. Global warming, water, fire are all part of the ecological future that we have defined for ourselves. This is a situation for which only a deep ecology green solution makes any sense. It can be the driving force for the life-style changes that do not come from the threat of peak oil.

Los Angeles Greens are in a position to lead the way here and have begun to take the sort of actions that are required. I strongly encourage them to follow up on this now, to not let up on the pressure. They have taken the lead in the fight to impeach Bush and Cheney. I hope that they take the lead in this fight as well.

The Worst of Will Durst

Up here is Northern California we had gotten used to the political gab fest that was the Will and Willie show, with Dust and Willie Brown. Some even got to thinking that Durst was a progressive.

However, he has now shown himself for what he is, a read the line for a fee advertising hack. Listen (mp3) to this commercial that he did for the California Alliance for Jobs. Durst show absolutely no understanding of what the real issues are behind the water problems that we have in California now and only offers the standard formulaic comments about building a lot of new things with a lot of union labor. This time, the Republicans will be applauding.

I sent him an email that told him to talk to Restore the Delta and learn the truth before he does another commercial. I would encourage the rest of you to do the same.

Sometimes, the unions do the right thing. Other times, they take stupid positions just to gain the power from more union jobs. This is one of the latter.

New York Times Magazine - The Perfect Drought

LA Water News - Green speaks at Green Party

The Los Angeles Greens were privileged to host Dorothy Green, founder of Heal The Bay, at their monthly meeting last Wednesday, October 17. Ms. Green provided us with an eloquent overview of California's complicated, sordid history with water. From the dikes in the San Joaquin river delta near Sacramento to the vast aqueducts that diverted water hundreds of miles away to the L.A. basin, Ms. Green painted a portrait of water managed with mostly greed and short-term benefits in mind.

The results have often been devastating. The San Joaquin River used to host a sizable salmon run, but that run has been severely depleted, due in part to how the water was mismanaged. Agribusiness uses the biggest single percentage of our fresh water, and its four main crops -- cotton, alfalfa, rice, and irrigated pasture -- are not efficient, with either our water or our money, as they require subsidies to make them competitive in the global marketplace.

Ms. Green also observed that the storm drainage system in Los Angeles may be an engineering marvel, but it ends up taking away rainwater that would otherwise filter through the soil and into the ground water table. This runs counter to natural processes that could provide us with more clean drinking water.

Ms. Green treated us to a lengthy question and answer session, wherein she explained, among other things, the connection between energy use and water use; the sad state of the Salton Sea, the worst water accident in California; the myth of bottled water being healthier than tap water (it's often the same thing!); and how you can get involved in water management by running for posts in water management districts.

The L.A. Greens gained a lot of insight from Ms. Green, not least of which was learning that the term "blackwater" is not only the name of a mercenary-for-hire company, but also another word for water contaminated with sewage. Kind of explains a lot.

Derek Iversen

I am very grateful to Derek for this report. I added many links to further educate those who want to learn more. If you don't ready any other, read the opinion piece from the Atlanta Journal Constitution linked from "short-term benefits" above. It may be from Georgia, but it does mention the delta.

It is not just the pumps killing fish.

The most recent newsletter from Restore the Delta (not yet online) presents an interesting picture of what is really happening in the delta. Bold emphasis by me.

With that said, our friend and supporter, Bill Maxwell, who lives on Smith Canal sent us a disturbing series of pictures last week. After the first rain each autumn, the fish in their part of the Delta die. We have no commentary to add, as these pictures speak to us directly as to what is wrong with the Delta. But, as one child of Restore the Delta staff asked, “Will there by any fish left?”

There is a lot going on here and we have to look at everything, including agricultural practices that allow toxic runoff into the rivers and canals from which we, as well as the fish, get our water. Keep track of this and read the entire report as soon as it is up.

Update on the water issues

When I want to know the latest with a political spin, I always check with Hank Shaw, Capital Bureau Chief for the Stockton Record. According to Hank's Blog tonight...

The Water Bond is Dead! Long Live the Water Bond! Well, maybe not, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he's still trying to avoid "dueling initiatives" in the November 2008 ballot. February looks unlikely at this point, because the two sides would have to come to a deal in a few weeks (they're not even talking now) and then put that deal on a supplemental ballot.

That is good news and bad new. The bad news is that politics (as usual) in Sacramento has gotten in the way of taking actions to begin fixing our water problems. The good news is that we have a little more time to do it right...but I have little faith that they will.

Dan Bacher is the editor of the Fish Sniffer. He is also an adviser to Restore the Delta. Bacher forward the latest Delta Flows Newsletter from Restore the Delta with the following as part of his "introduction".

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the "Fish Terminator," is pushing amendments to Senator Don Perata's water bond proposal that would authorize the construction of a peripheral canal to divert fresh water from the California Delta to water developers and agribusiness. Schwarzenegger's proposal would also strip the Delta of "Area of Origin" water user rights, opening Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta water to increasing exports.

It this is going to happen, then we may be in for the most vicious water fight in our history since the historic 1888 agreement between Henry Miller and James Haggin. That led to some of the worst political corruption in our state's history and this time it could be just the same.

Meanwhile, Dorothy Green from the California Water Impact Network and founder of Heal the Bay is speaking tonight at a Los Angeles Green Party local meeting. I hope to get a report on that for tomorrow.

NY Times Tom Friedman on Oakland 'Green for All'

Some believe that "truth" is only what they read by a big-name journalist in The New York Times. Very well. Now comes a gushing piece by, of all people, the "liberal" hawk, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times about "green" projects in inner-city Oakland, California:

"The Green-Collar Solution" by Thomas Friedman, New York Times, October 17, 2007.

Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland is an environmental activist whose views on the "Green" question in poor communities of color are very close to my own.

The idea of the "Green for All" campaign (greenforall.org) is to get federal, state, and local governments to allocate money to train 30,000 young people a year in green trades.

"If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they can be installers today, they'll become managers in five years and owners in 10. And then they become inventors," said Mr. Jones. "The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people - while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems. We can make what is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country."

Read More on My Blog at: http://www.greencommons.org/node/816

Death of Environmentalism

One of the more important "green" statements in the last few years was the widely distributed, often attacked publication, The Death of Environmentalism by Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. It made the point that the old practices of the environmental movement, confrontation and legal action, had run their course and that new techniques, net methods of activism were required.

I would argue that something very different is going on. The Environmental Movement is no longer such an outside thing that it only has to rely on such tactics as Schellenberger and Nordhas decry. Rather, we have gotten to the point where everyone realizes that the environmental impact needs to be a part of every decision, no matter how small, and it is being judged as not being important enough to be the major criteria for making decisions.

I understood from an email this morning that the Green Party is considering to disband the short lived Eco-Action Committee. I had similar thoughts and it should be considered, if nor no other reason that to re-justify is existence and re-focus its energy. For some, this is enough of a blunder that they are ready to leave the Green Party. I find it ironic that this happens in the very week when the opponents of Global Warming, or Climate Change if you prefer, have been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.

I have sent an email to some of GPCA's national delegates. I did not get to them all. In that email I argued that the committee should not be disbanded, but rather provided with new leadership. When the leadership (CoCo) of a Committee does not want to do what the activist members of the committee think is important, it is a recipe for failure. Yet, time and again this is what is happening.

In the case of the Eco-Action Committee, this became a concern that by making statements regarding ecological policy and practices, the committee was over stepping its authority and infringing on the prerogative of the platform committee. Since one CoCo, Mike Ewall, is involved in both we devolved into a bureaucratic morass from which nothing emerged and the leading activists left. I did myself to spend more time focusing on the issues of water in CA rather than try to combat the party bureaucracy.

The issue was clearly stated by Mike:

I've heard plenty of ideas from people who want to write position papers and make everyone in the party adhere to them, or from those who feel that the world or mass media will care if a national committee of the GPUS takes a position on something. Honestly, I don't have the time to waste on such efforts and I've been hoping that something more productive might come out of this committee.

Mike, to his credit, offered to step aside as CoCo. I hope that someone takes him up on that. However, in response to this comment, one of the other members replied:

Dear Mike,
This is the end of the "Green" party. A bunch of extremely selfish, egotistical, politically brain dead idiots that shoot themselves in the foot even more than GWBush.

I obviously do not agree that this is the end of the "Green" party. There is a lot that is going on, but we are losing the identity that comes with having the word "Green" in our name and I am not sure that anything is going to change. Environmental action is not a driving force in the decision making in our leadership. It may be assumed. But that is allowing another party to adopt the mantle of being the "green" party, albeit a corporate green party.

I would ask our California Delegates not to vote to disband the Eco-Action Committee but rather to provide it with new leadership.

Atlanta Has a 3 Month Water Supply!

UPDATE -- NEW YORK TIMES REPORT
'DROUGHT-STRICKEN SOUTH FACING TOUGH CHOICES'

So you think global warming and the California water crisis is a big hype? You think "This is America" and in the good 'ole USA "Our Leaders" would never let us just slide into a catastrophe. Right?

Think again. The link below is from a recommended Diary over on The Daily Kos: Atlanta has a 3 month water supply!

According to an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Metro Atlanta has gotten less than 25 inches of rain this year when it normally receives 50 inches of rain annually. Lake Lanier, metro Atlanta's main source of water, has about three months of storage left!

That's three months before there's not enough water for more than 3 million metro Atlantans to take showers, flush their toilets and cook. Three months before there's not enough water in parts of the Chattahoochee River for power plants to generate electricity. Three months before part of the river runs dry.

The other amazing thing is that this is not a big national front-page story. Think the world is going to hell over oil? If people start fighting over water we ain't seen nothing yet.

Event: Dorothy Green of 'Heal The Bay' in L.A.

The Los Angeles Greens will feature guest speaker, Dorothy Green, founder of Heal the Bay. Four years ago she launched the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN), http://www.c-win.org/ whose goal is to move our state toward a sustainable water future.

Wednesday, October 17, 7pm

Peace Center, 8124 W. Third Street, Los Angeles

http://losangelesgreens.org/

323-651-5539

Free, donations accepted.

* * * UPDATE * * *

Posted by the New York Times, October 15, 2007
Drought-Stricken South Facing Tough Choices
by Brenda Goodman

For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the Southeast has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said Monday, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water.

In North Carolina, Gov. Michael F. Easley asked residents Monday to stop using water for any purpose “not essential to public health and safety.” He warned that he would soon have to declare a state of emergency if voluntary efforts fell short.

. . .

In the Atlanta metropolitan area, which has more than four million people, worst-case analyses show that the city’s main source of water, Lake Lanier, could be drained dry in 90 to 121 days.

. . .

“In the West, people expect that it’s dry, and you’re going to have drought situations,” said Michael J. Hayes, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “In the Southeast, people think of it as being wet, and I think that mindset makes it tougher to identify worst-case scenarios and plan to that level.”

“Here’s the fly in the ointment,” Mr. Hayes added. “The vulnerability in the Southeast has changed. Population shifts, increased competition and demand for water has increased, so that’s made this drought worse than it might have been.”

Think the world is going to hell over oil? You ain't seen nothing yet, baby.