What happens in a post Fukushima world?

I found two posts today that addressed the nuclear power situation and all of the considerations that arise after the Fukushima reactor failures in Japan. Let me change that wording, the human failures in dealing with a potential catastrophic technology.

Ralph Nader, whose OpEd I found thanks to a tweet from Marnie Glickman, writes very directly about the need to prevent another Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima situation. He does a very good job building an economic case against any more nuclear facilities, based on the costs will all be borne by the public either as rate payers or as tax payers, that that is slanted more to the latter.

He then goes on to list the things we need to do if one is planned for our back yard.

* 1. Demand public hearings in your communities where there is a nuke, sponsored either by your member of Congress or the NRC, to put the facts, risks and evacuation plans on the table. Insist that the critics as well as the proponents testify and cross-examine each other in front of you and the media.


* 2. If you call yourself conservative, ask why nuclear power requires such huge amounts of your tax dollars and guarantees and can't buy adequate private insurance. If you have a small business that can't buy insurance because what you do is too risky, you don't stay in business.


* 3. If you are an environmentalist, ask why nuclear power isn't required to meet a cost-efficient market test against investments in energy conservation and renewables.


* 4. If you understand traffic congestion, ask for an actual real life evacuation drill for those living and working 10 miles around the plant (some scientists think it should be at least 25 miles) and watch the hemming and hawing from proponents of nuclear power.

Nader provides a good good set of talking point for being anti-nuclear. He does not, however, deal with the fundamental problems that we need to resolve to eliminate the need or desire for engaging in such reckless search for solutions to problems that we may not even have.

For that, I had to turn to The Nuclear Syndrome posted by Lorna Salzman at another not mainstream media site. In fact, you have to scan down the page to find it. Salzman, like Nader who she once supported as a Green presidential candidate, has a long history of ecological activism and makes it clear that she knows just what is driving the nuclear renaissance in America.

Unless there is a clear, strong message from the American public that they are ready to cut their consumption by paying more for energy and supporting stringent mandatory energy efficiency standards, we will be outflanked by those who will raise the spectre of hardship and sacrifice if growth does not continue. If we do not reject growth, we are agreeing with them that any and all risks associated with nukes or oil or gas drilling are acceptable because these are just part of "progress", jobs and development. We need to cut to the chase: either we are willing to take the steps necessary to curtail energy use and growth, or we accede to the arguments of the nuclear power proponents. There is no other choice.

California Greens have a lot to think about. There are two major reactor site in the state: Diablo Canyon and San Onofre. There is a current effort to build a new energy park near Fresno that would be home to yet another nuclear installation. As I posted earlier, the Fresno Energy Group is actively trying to circumvent the California law that places a moratorium on new nuclear power plants until there is a solution for the problems of nuclear waste.

Are Greens going to limit themselves to being yet another, admittedly small, portion of a re-awakening anti-nuclear movement, following a path clearly laid out by Nader, or can we go beyond that with to push for a new, economic future that does not depend on tomorrows growth to pay for yesterday's excessive risk taking?

Nader outlines the actions that are necessary in any case. It is a clear way to slow down or stop future nuclear expansion. But the unique view that Greens bring to the table sounds much more like Salzman. Perpetual growth is a Ponzi scheme at best. Now is the time to stop what we have been doing and focus on a Green future.

Ecology before Earth Day

Before there was an Earth Day, even before Rachel Carson described the possible Silent Spring, Aldo Leopold had a Wisconsin farm from which he wrote A Sand County Almanac. Writing in 1949, he challenged his own time.

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. Despite nearly a century of propaganda, conservation will proceeds at a snail's pace:ogress still consists largely of letterhead pieties and convention oratory. On the back forty, we still slip two steps backward for each forward stride.

The usual answer to this dilemma is "more conservation education." No one will debate this, but is it certain that only the volume of education needs stepping up? Is something lacking in the content as well?

I would urge Greens to find a copy (I found mine at the public library) and read it because it still challenges the way that we have gone about changing our future.

Why think about water now?

As Grist's Dave Roberts tweeted recently to the effect that with war imminent in Libya, nuclear catastrophe in Japan and floods in the US, he wants the world to slow down so he can understand it all. So, with all of that happening, plus a good soaking rain in Morgan Hill and reservoir managers at Oroville and Shasta opening the gates for increased flow now, why am I posting about water?

March 22 has been designated World Water Day and AlterNet is marking that day by having a book release party for their new publication: Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource.

Authors take on both the good and the bad -- the impact of climate change on water resources, the threat of privatization, and the challenge of thirsty agriculture, as well as a growing grassroots water justice movement, tools for watershed literacy, and success stories in conservation and efficiency. This book is a must read for everyone concerned about the future of our planet.

Time: Event begins at 6 pm, panel discussion featuring leading environmentalists until 7 pm and party until 9 pm.

Location: Project One, 251 Rhode Island St, San Francisco CA 94103. Map

RSVP by emailing RSVP@alternet.org for a chance to win a free copy of Water Matters!

We may think that this is not pertinent, or maybe no so important in the global scheme of events, but as is the case with climate change, if we don't act now it will be too late to act when the shit hits the fan.

Hubris of technology and human error: Do we need a new nuke in Fresno?

During the 2010 Senatorial Race in California, one of the Republicans running was Chuck Devore. I am so glad that he did not win. He is yet again one of those who will back up their policy with whatever number makes their case look better. In a facebook comment this week, Devore attacks environmentalists and contrasts the situation at Fukushima as being caused by an earthquake while that at Chernobyl was caused by human error. He then states that the death toll from Chernobyl was "only 50."

I am not sure where he gets his information, since the governments of Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine put the death toll in the thousands while other organizations go toward 100,000. So much for Devore's credibility. It is falling dangerously close to that of Rush Limbaugh.

The most intriguing element is that he also ignores information as to how human error contributed to the disaster at Fukushima. News analysts have always wondered why the diesel generators failed and today the news is that a worker failed to double check that the fuels tanks were full.

This is what I mean by technological hubris. We still have not been able to engineer any complex system that is immune to the effects of human error, neither failures to act as it appears to be the case here, nor failures in judgment as affected some of the Space Shuttle spectacular failures.

As the dangers continue to build in Japan, the nuclear industry in the United States are active convincing everyone, especially members of Congress, that is could never happen here. Is this because we are so smart? Because we are so careful? No, they say that it is because we do not have exposure to the scale of the earthquake / tsunami that has swamped Japan's ability to manage multiple disasters.

Even now, this is part of the justification for a new nuclear plant facility that some want to build near Fresno. Even as the reactors in Fukushima are in danger of complete meltdown, or at least the spent fuel storage tanks... not in any kind of containment... are seriously compromised... the Madera County Board of Supervisors has voted its support for the proposed new reactors. This, in spite of the fact that California law has put a moratorium on new nuclear power plants until the problem of nuclear waste disposal has been solved. Remember... those highly reactive spent fuel rods are not in any containment facility.

John Ellis's report in the Fresno Bee portrays The Fresno Energy Group as cynically planning to circumvent California's moratorium.

In December, Hutson and the group said they had found a way around the moratorium. The reactors would be characterized as parts of a water-treatment system instead of power plants.

Water on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley is tainted with a variety of salts that make it unsuitable for crops. Power generated could be used to power a desalination plant.

Actually, this sounds to me like a plan hatched by the Westland Water District who understands that their land is becoming increasingly less productive due to the accumulation of salts. Economist David Zeitland has even blogged that we could save a lot of taxpayer money by buying out the entire water district and all of it's farms. That solution to Westlands' problems is significantly better than a new nuclear plant. It does not require anyone to engineer a system that is immune to human error.

The left's view of science

In yesterday's post, I mentioned a post by Chris Mooney at desmogblog where he asks "Are liberals science deniers: now is a good time to find out". There are many ways to approach this problem. Mooney chooses to do so in the context of liberal efforts to shut down nuclear power. Is there a valid scientific rationale, or is it just a knee jerk reaction?

What Mooney does not acknowledge is that there is stream of self identified progressives who do not consider science as an important mechanism to understand our world. Most of these so called progressives are more likely to quote Noam Chomsky than anyone who actually values science. The thread from Chomsky goes directly to Howard Zinn and Glenn Greenwald.

Chomsky, very much revered by many progressives and his view on science give those acolytes permission to ignore science completely.

Science talks about very simple things, and asks hard questions about them. As soon as things become too complex, science can’t deal with them. The reason why physics can achieve such depth is that it restricts itself to extremely simple things, abstracted from the complexity of the world. As soon as an atom gets too complicated, maybe helium, they hand it over to chemists. When problems become too complicated for chemists, they hand it over to biologists. Biologists often hand it over to the sociologists, and they hand it over to the historians, and so on. But it’s a complicated matter: Science studies what’s at the edge of understanding, and what’s at the edge of understanding is usually fairly simple. And it rarely reaches human affairs. Human affairs are way too complicated. In fact even understanding insects is an extremely complicated problem in the sciences. So the actual sciences tell us virtually nothing about human affairs.

It is not likely to be the cast that liberals will "misuse" science, as is Moody's concern. It is more likely that they will ignore it.

Finding the energy to do it right.

The severity of the earthquake tsunami catastrophe that struck Japan last Friday is just now being absorbed, in bits and pieces of anecdotal commentary. The idea that they were able to rescue a man from the rooftop of his home some 15 km at sea is an indication of the power of the tsunami and his own good fortune. Those of us with friends or relatives (my wife Rumiko's entire family) in Japan can only worry if they were in the north or breathe a silent sigh of relief if, as with Rumiko's family, they are all in the Tokyo or Osaka areas.

Still, the horror of this event is unfolding as we watch not only the search, rescue and recovery efforts, but also the effort to prevent a complete nuclear disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plants. The facilities there suffered major damage and were not able to maintain cooling. In a final effort to prevent a Chernobyl scale event, the operators have been pumping large volumes of sea water on to the reactors to cool them, but in doing so have rendered these facilities permanently unusable.

It is inevitable that the United States must re-examine it's own posture regarding not only the future of nuclear power, but also the management of the 104 nuclear power plants already operating here. Perhaps the best assessment that I have seen, and every news source has given at least one, is the one that Joe Romm and Richard C produced for CNN. The sober assessment is that "The U.S. government and nuclear industry must take new actions to ensure that nuclear power is safe for the American public."

Four of the 104 nuclear power plants in the US are located in California. Most of the attention has been given to the 2 reactors at Diablo Canyon. It is right on the coast and was constructed with full knowledge that it was close to 3 active faults including the San Andreas fault. Recently, a 4th fault has been discovered under the ocean just off the Diablo Canyon site. There is risk. No one denies this, but we have always been told that the risks are know, have been quantified, and that the Diablo Canyon plants have been designed to be able to withstand such a risk.

The lesson that I take from Fukushima is that we are not really good at quantifying risk. There is too much pressure to down play risk so as to not panic a public with scant technical knowledge and many fears.

The Green Party, and especially the Green Party of California has always taken an anti-nuclear stance. Some of the opposition is merely emotional, but mostly it is based on a sober risk assessment and the knowledge that there are better alternatives which can meet our energy needs. As Romm noted in the item linked above, the one time cost advantage for nuclear is no longer true.

I don’t think that we have yet absorbed the lessons of Fukushima. There is a hubris, sometimes nationalistic, that allows us to say that we have planned for all contingencies. If you listen to those who talk about Diablo Canyon site this week, they make the point that it was over designed to withstand the largest possible quake on the nearby faults. The same was said about Fukushima, and yet we did not truly understand just how great a quake was possible there.

The other lesson that we should learn, but again one that no one is talking about, is that there is a risk in putting so much emphasis on large scale, single site capabilities. Yes, it may be economic when all is well, but the economic consequences are very bad when all is not well. The argument for a distributed system with multiple generation technologies: solar, wind, wave, co-generation, etc. makes the system much less prone to the effects of the loss of a single site. This would make the United State more secure. It would make the US economy more robust and better able to absorb shocks, whether from single site failure or from conflict fed spikes in the prices for Middle East Oil.

And, just as importantly, the economics of nuclear have never considered the health effects of the entire process system from mining to transportation to processing to the storage of nuclear waste. At each step, we need to understand the long range effects before we commit to increased nuclear power plants, and the users of that technology should bear the cost.

It is also clear that all efforts to analyze the situation in Japan and to develop a sound US policy for the future will be met with equally political diatribes. Just read the comments to Chris Mooney's question: Are Liberals Science Deniers: Now is a good time to find out.

Follow the science for then entire process system. That is what the science of ecology tells us to do. Follow the economics that the science says is true. I don’t think that you will end up supporting nuclear or coal or any other fossil fuel.

More than any other

Isn't there a law?

When you get to be a member of Congress, you now have dispensation to say anything you want with no regard for it's factual content, and then use tax payer money to publish it for all to see.

Case in point: Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) get a lot of free press with his fact deficient rants against the idea of climate change actually taking place. However, since the Republicans do not control the Senate Committees, he can not to everything as he pleases. However, that does not stop him from trying, as the minority party also gets a chance to put a "minority opinion" statement on the committee's web site. Since Inhofe is the ranking member of the Environments and Public Works Committee, he controls what gets posted.

The most idiotic is the statement at the infamous paper of lobbyist Marc Marano entitled "More Than 700 (Previously 650) International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims". This has been debunked again and again. Many of those who were named, have been shocked to see their position so grossly misrepresented. Still, Inhofe puts it out there for all to see and you, my fellow tax payers, are paying for it… in more ways than one.

I wish that there was a way to get at a Senator who intentionally uses tax payers money to spread a convenient lie. Aren't Republicans supposed to be for reigning in wasteful spending. Well, they ought to start here, unless they are all foot soldiers in the Republican War on Science.

Hell,I lived in Inhofe's Tulsa and he wasn't even a good mayor.

So what, you ask? Well what should the Green Party do to specifically address the fact that The War on Science has turned into a War on our Children. We gotta care more than it appears.

What are we doing to our children

I grew up in rural Illinois... at least through attending the 8th grade. Then we left Illinois for Flagstaff, AZ because I was developing asthma and N. Arizona's dry climate was supposed to good for me. I hope that this gives me a greater sympathy for the children who now have to endure the same illness.

I recently posted about the toxic city designation for Bakersfield and Fresno. That same designation could have been applied to a number of other areas in the San Joaquin Valley had the list of Metropolitan Statistical Areas not been limited.

This all makes me wonder exactly what the Republican members of the House of Representatives are doing with their attacks on the EPA and it's efforts to clean up America's air. Joe Romm had a re-post (from NRDC Switchboard) today at Climate Progress entitled Fred Upton's bizarre ware on 24 million children with asthma.

Just about every major health group in the United States is now telling Chairman Upton that he is putting the welfare of millions of Americans at risk who suffer from asthma (that’s 24 million people right there – including seven million children!) and other respiratory diseases.

I started to pay attention to Chris Mooney after he wrote The Republican War on Science back in 2005. Mooney continues to blog about the intersection of science and policy. It seems that the war is not over and that Upton considers our children to be just collateral damage.

California has it's own Upton's. Their names might be Darrell Issa or Buck McKeon. For a party that still talks of "family values" it appears that these Republicans are only talking about voting adults.

CA Power Shifts

In a recent post that asks Greens to get down and dirty, I made the point that the communities of the Central Valley had a set of problems that were not getting solved by the Parties that Be and which cry out for Green Solutions. While this was picked up and re-published elsewhere, including on the GPCA facebook page, the reactions were predictable At best, there was a suggestion that we need to take advantage of our largest groups of Greens and build out from there. I had been arguing that we need respond to the greatest need.

This week, we got a first glance at the 2010 census data. The quick story is that CA will begin to look a bit more red. While coastal areas had little growth in the past 10 years, the Central Valley has grown rapidly.

According to a recent listing of state wide vote statistics, the only county where we had over 10K Greens was Los Angeles with 21,091. The other large counties were Alameda, San Francisco, San Diego, Orange, Sonoma, Sacramento, Santa Clara with all having over 4000 registered Greens. Of that group, only San Diego County grew by as much as 10% in the past decade. Our largest county, Los Angeles, only grew by 2%.

In contrast, the inland counties grew much faster: Kern, Tulare, Merced and San Joaquin Counties all had over 20% growth while the larger Fresno County grew by 16%. Most of these areas are conservative enough that it takes skilled gerrymandering to generate a Democratic Congressman there. In Southern California, it was just as striking, with Imperial County growing by 23% and Riverside County by a whopping 42%.

Inevitably, political power is going to shift in this state as soon as the Redistricting Commission finishes it's task. There is no doubt that California Republican Party Chair Ron Nehring is feeling good. Green, with no representation on the Commission, need to be very focused in our effort because no one is going to help us out of the goodness of their hearts.

I am still waiting for economic data to be available. Still, when you look at the need, and the growth, it seems clear to me that we need to be much more active in those portions of the state undergoing the greatest growth and having the greatest need. The greatest change should provide the greatest opportunity. Green growth will only happen with Greens from all over decide to make it happen. A farmer does not reap a crop sitting in front of the TV.

UN Independent Expert on Water and Sanitation Deserves Criticism

Recently, the UN Independent Expert on Water and Sanitation as a Human Right went on a fact-finding tour of the United States and released a press statement. “I call for legal action to change the status of unrecognized and terminated tribes to enable all American Indians to gain the respect, privileges, religious freedom, and land and water rights to which they are entitled,” she stressed, calling on the US to ensure that water and sanitation are available at a price people can afford. said UN independent expert Catarina de Albuquerque, who is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to examine human rights obligations for access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

It is significant to see that the langauge of the California Green Party plank on Water Planning includes a declaration that the GPCA"Uphold the water and land rights established under the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo and the sovereign claims of Native American bands, tribes, rancherias, reservations, Mission Indians, and non-federally recognized bands and tribes." The Green Party of California supports the efforts of all Native Americans to their claims and rights to land and resources as paramount in all water rights issues. Further, it proposes to cut through the legal and administrative processes of the Interior Department by acknowledging the rights of those bands and tribes who have made claims as remnant tribes and bands.


That being said, the Independent expert deserves criticism for lacking a substantial input process upon which to base her conclusion. She had 8-9 people in Sacramento testify. Her press statement did not reflect the limited input provided and the input provided did not justify the issue of discrimination being the sole focal point, as she raised it in her press statement. Green, Martin Zehr, testified and submitted a 7 page review of the relation between regional water planning and water as a human right. Included in the written review, it was noted that Greens in Detroit have also been active in opposing water shutoffs due to economic distress and the impact of the depression in Detroit.

Also testifying were representatives of the Unitarian-Universalists. Debbie Davis of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water testified concerning the contamination of public water supplies in the Central Valley of California. The effort of the UN Independent expert pales in comparison with the recent publication of the Public Policy Institute of California of the study entitled: MANAGING CALIFORNIA'S WATER: FROM CONFLICT TO RECONCILIATION. I attended the release on the study in Sacramento on February 24th. It is a shame that these two events, that were held so close to each other in time and place, were not able to contribute to the efforts of the other.


Chief Gary Harrison, who organized the Alaska leg of the Peace and Dignity Journeys, was also there to testify. Chief Gary ran with me in 1996 in the Peace and Dignity Journey, a Native American cross-continental spiritual run . He testified and submitted a paper to the UN Independent Expert on Water and Sanitation.

Chickaloon Village presents its case against Coal Mining to United Nations Expert on the Human Right to Water

February 28, 2011
Monday

(SitNews) Chickaloon Native Village, a federally-recognized Athabascan Indian Tribal government in Alaska, filed a communication to the United Nations Independent Expert on the human right to water and sanitation in conjunction with her first official visit to the United States, which began today.
Chickaloon Village’s submission asserts that the new open-pit coal strip mine in its traditional territory proposed by the Usibelli Corporation would contaminate local drinking water sources as well as rivers, streams and groundwater that support salmon, moose and other animals and plants vital for subsistence, religious and cultural practices. The US Federal Government and the State of Alaska have, to date, not responded to Chickaloon’s firmly-stated opposition to the mine.
The visit to the United States by the Independent Expert, Mrs. Catarina de Albuquerque, a Portuguese human rights expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, includes stops in Washington DC, Boston Massachusetts and Northern California, where she will meet with the Winnemem Wintu and other Indigenous representatives. Her US visit will end on March 2, 2011.
During her visit she will meet with the US State Department and relevant Federal agencies as well organizations, communities and experts to receive information regarding the human right to water and sanitation and the federal and state policies and practices that affect this right. She is expected to make recommendations to the US government at the conclusion of her visit.
Quoting the news release from NAY’DINI’AA NA’ (Chicaloon Village) Traditional Council, the right to water for Chickaloon and other Indigenous Peoples is not limited to access to safe drinking water and sanitation. It is closely linked to a range of other rights including Self-determination, subsistence, health, land and resources, cultural and religious practice and free, prior and informed consent. International standards including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognize Indigenous Peoples’ right to determine their own priorities for development and to exercise free, prior and informed consent regarding activities which may affect their traditional lands and resources, including water.
Coal mining in and around Chickaloon in the early 1900’s had devastating impacts, including contaminating rivers and decimating traditional food sources such as moose and salmon said the NAY’DINI’AA NA’ Traditional Council. The tribes’ long years of effort to restore its culture, subsistence, language, health and ecosystems, including its waterways, will be severely undercut if not nullified by the proposed new mining.
Explaining the reasons behind Chickaloon’s filing, Traditional Chief Gary Harrison stated: “International standards like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognize our inherent sacred right to protect our water and keep it clean for the animals, fish and future generations of our Nation. Our right to water is the same as our right to life. We can’t sit back and allow our human right to water to be violated again”.
Chickaloon is a census-designated place (CDP) in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States. It is part of the Anchorage, Alaska Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 213 at the 2000 census.

Food prices rise to new height.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the cost of food increased in February for the eighth consecutive month and reached an all time high. You heard a bit of this in the news coverage of the grassroots protests in Tunisia and Egypt. While not even the major cause of the unrest, frustration over the cost of food played a part.

I read a comment today at Climate Progress that had posted it's take on this fact. Someone said “In the U.S., where we spend less than 20% of household income on food, at least at first, this will have little impact on us. However, over time it will become more and more of an issue.

I had to disagree. It is already becoming an issue. Most residents of this suburbanite enclave might be somewhat immune to the rising costs, limiting their reactions to a bit of grumbling while loading up at Safeway or Nob Hill. That would not be the case were you dependent on a Food Bank for your next meal. They are being forced to purchase a larger portion of their supplies and these are costing more every month.

It is useful to understand the causes of this unprecedented rise in prices. I find three of them to be key: extreme weather events, the cost of fossil fuels and US Energy / Agriculture policy.

We have seen enough of the extreme weather events in the news that some have begun to write about catastrophe fatigue. Most importantly, the extreme heat in Russia last year severely damaged their wheat crop. Russia has stopped exporting wheat. That might not be so bad had we not had two more extreme events that affect world wide wheat prices. There is a long lasting drought in the Shandong province of China, their major wheat production area. This will reduce the 2011 crops and maybe eve 2012 depending on how long the drought lasts... remember that we are just coming out of a three year drought. Among the other wheat exporters, Australia is very limited due to droughts in the Southwest and floods in Queensland.

Without opening up the discussion of whether or not climate change is human caused, this increase in extreme weather events is to be expected given the undeniable fact that our weather is warming.

Most of world-wide agriculture is very dependent on factory scale application of fertilizers, chiefly nitrogen that is derived from natural gas. That is only one link. Another is the fact that less and less of our food supply is grown locally, requiring significant fuel use just to transport it from the field to the table. It is no longer like the days when I was a student when we ate whatever was available locally and a mandarin orange was a Christmas stocking treat. The next time you go shopping, look at the country of origin on the item and think about the cost of getting that into your shopping cart.

It is a privilege to be able to eat peaches in February and kiwi in July. We just need to acknowledge that there is a cost for that privilege and that cost will continue to rise. We are using more fossil fuel energy every year and finding less new energy reserves. That can not be good for reducing costs.

Finally, I listed US Energy and Ag policies as one of the causes. At present, over 10% of the world-wide corn production is consumed to produce ethanol for fuel. In the US, this is over 30%. This is good the for big corporate agribusiness which is getting massive governmental subsidies while it over uses inputs of natural gas derived nitrogen. It is not good for you and I, but we can't do anything about it. The politics is such that corn state senators will block any effort to change either the ethanol requirement or the subsidies for corn.

Come to think of it, our CA Senators favor subsidies for Ag's commodity crops themselves, just cotton and rice rather than corn.

So what are we to do? My wife and I grow as much of our own food as we can. We share with neighbors. We joined the California Rare Fruit Growers to learn more about what we should be doing. I registered Green as the big parties just don't get it yet. I have joined Transition California to help us all prepare for the days when the costs of fossil fuels and the price of food leads us down the same path followed by the Tunisians and Egyptians.

This is scheduled to appear in Green Talk column of Morgan Hill Times on Tues. Mar. 8, 2011.

Time for Greens to get Down and Dirty

Once again I am going back to a subject that has bewildered me since I began this blog, most recently here. I have just never figured out exactly why the Green Party of CA has not made more of an organizing effort in the Central Valley. My point has always been that this is where Greens have solutions to the very real problems the everyone is experiencing.

Today, I offer one more reason that we need to be working our buts off there. Forbes magazine has released (as of 2/28/2011) a study that lists the 10 most toxic cities in the United States. Anyone who has really experienced life in the Central Valley would not be surprised to learn that there are two CA cities in the top 5. Bakersfield and Fresno are listed as numbers 2 and 3 respectively. In both cities, poor air quality was a major factor.

Another study, released in 2006 from CSU-Fullerton put the cost of poor air quality in the San Joaquin Valley at $3 Billion. That was when the economy was good and there could have been some revenue to fix things. Now, the only fix might be to organize, because all solution are political and never more so the the current Republican attacks on the EPA.

This is what CSU-Fullerton study team found:

According to the study, the cost of air pollution averages $1,000 per person per year, and represents the following:

* 460 premature deaths among those age 30 and older
* 23,300 asthma attacks
* 188,000 days of school absences
* 3,230 cases of acute bronchitis in children
* 3,000 lost work days
* 325 new cases of chronic bronchitis
* 188,400 days of reduced activity in adults
* 260 hospital admissions
* More than 17,000 days of respiratory symptoms in children

Greens are always sensitive to ethnic issue, so we should not be surprised to learn that…

The report indicates that some communities, including those with high populations of Latinos/Hispanics and African-Americans, are harder hit than others, due to the varying concentrations of dirty air around the region.

This seems to define the mileau in which the vision of a new Green future would win many adherents, but sadly this has not been the case. Kern County, where Bakersfield is located, has only 0.2% of the registered voters. Fresno County is better, with around 0.4% but neither of these is really more than embarrassment to mention.

I believe that this is not due to the fact that our message is wrong, but rather that we have never even gotten our message out. If the current politics of the San Joaquin Valley is such that it allows two of it's most important cities to become so toxic, then it is time to change the politics.

Greens can not wait for some group of like minded public citizens to decide to form a local and then come to the GPCA for support. We need to be organizing the organizing. We need to look to the history of the unions for the model. They did not gain strength by workers rallying around to join them, but rather they sent out organizers to make sure things happened. Fresno needs to understand that we are there, we are not going away and we intend to change things. Bakersfield needs to understand that we will not allow, as some have reported, workers to lose their jobs by registering Green, but rather that registering Green in the only way to make sure that they get off the toxic cities list.

What I would like to happen is for the GPCA to set aside $5,000 for radio & TV campaign in those two markets and let them all know we are there as long as it is need. Then to follow that up with large scale registration drives in each city, even if we have to bus in volunteers. And, I think that the effort should be approved at the next General Assembly.

None of this will happen if we don't raise the money to make it happen. This week, I donated $150 by clicking on the Donate Button on the GPCA web site. They set a really low goal on $7000 by May 1 (plenary...). It will only take 42 more similar donations to make the $7K. Who will join me?

Twisted Priorities

(Cross posted from Calitics)

In a time when Lester Brown is writing about a World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse it seems that the political forces in California make for strange reading. Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose overall environmental polices were as destructive as any CA governor, made an impassioned speech this week on the need for strong action on climate change. It may be the only environmental issue that he got right.

At the same time, Representative Jim Costa was voting with the Republicans to continue subsides to the petroleum industry... subsidies that cost the US Taxpayers Billions a year. It is yet one more piece of evidence that cutting the federal budget is not really a goal, but rather a question of whose ox is going to be gored. In this case, Republicans in Congress are making sure that their ox is protected.

We all know how we are being manipulated, first by a national that considers Charlie Sheen to be the big story of the day year, but also by the political operatives who draw a public salary to be lobbyist. One time John Doolittle / John Ashcroft aide, Kevin Ring, made that very clear on his Daily Caller blog post this month.

If I did not know these critical facts as the lead staffer on the bill, how little did other Hill staffers (and their bosses) know when they agreed to let this bill pass? I know this for certain: If someone had objected, I would have recommended that we accuse the objector of not being serious about saving Americans from this deadly threat.

Ring was talking about how federal legislation regarding methamphetamine and the manner in which offenses are punished. But we surely know that the same type of manipulation goes on in every are. BTW - Ring awaiting sentencing for Abramoff associated dealings. In California, we need to pay attention to how demands for additional growth and invective against the EPA will play out, especially with CA Reps Buck McKeon and Darrel Issa in positions of power right now.

Schwarzenegger was right. This is a time when we will have to manage the climate as best we know how or pass on the consequences of our non-action to our children and grand children. The Climate, Energy, Water nexus of issues will define our future.

As a one time thespian, I am thinking of the line from Death of a Salesman: Attention must be paid.

How much of your food cost is political?

In a recent edition of the Modesto Bee, Victor Davis Hanson asks the question another way.

In times of massive deficits, why are we borrowing millions to subsidize profitable agri- business?

It really becomes very clear what is happening when you scrape away the political rhetoric and look at who is giving thanks for their bounty and who does not reap that harvest. Of all the commodity crops (corn, soy, wheat, sugar, cotton) corn most clearly illustrates exactly how we are all getting the shaft. According to Hanson:

Corn reserves are at their lowest point in 15 years, as prices skyrocketed nearly 70 percent in almost one year. Escalating world wheat prices have caused unrest in the Middle East. Soy, dairy and meat prices are likewise reaching record levels. In other words, a growing world population, increased affluence abroad and demands for higher- priced meats and vegetables, and diversion of prime cropland for biofuel from Europe to Brazil — in perfect-storm fashion — have made food a lucrative business.

Hanson does not even address the most distressing fact concerning corn.  As the US Government moves to increase the amount of ethanol in our transportation fuel, an increasing amount of our crop is being diverted to fuel rather than food. Climate blogger, Joseph Romm, never a fan of ethanol, was petty clear about this today, but with more moral indignation that Hanson managed to convey.

In a world of blatantly increasing food insecurity — driven by population, dietary trends, rising oil prices, and growing climate instability — America’s  policy of burning one third of our corn crop in our engines (soon to be 37% or more) is becoming increasingly untenable, if not unconscionable.

I have written about the problems with commodity subsidies before: here, here and here (with Wisconsin's Jill Bussierer).

Now we have a Republican controlled House of Representative, with a large number of Republican Senators from the very states that grow most of our corn. Kari Hamerschlag, Sr. Analyst at the Environmental Working Group sent out an email about the EWG's Farm Subsidy Database in which she makes the point that the benefits go to a very few. Then concludes her letter by pointing out that we need a new agricultural policy.

In a time of large federal deficits, the agricultural budget is a zero-sum game. Every dollar that goes into wasteful, inequitable programs cannot be committed to solving serious environmental problems, promoting local and sustainable organic food systems, increasing access to healthy foods, or building new opportunities for beginning and minority farmers. A better strategy is needed to help growers and ranchers of all sizes, sectors and regions cope with the myriad challenges facing agriculture.

That is pretty much what Hanson was saying in the Mod Bee OpEd linked above. It seems to me that there is a need for someone who can challenge the status quo of our gerrymandered Central Valley congressional districts, someone who can talk about getting the waste out of Federal Budget, who can talk about putting people to work on their own land; someone who can extol the advantages of decentralizing power back to the local government, someone who knows what farmers have known for millennia, that if you take care of the land, the land will take care of you.

That sounds to me like a Green.

POINT: Madison, Greens and Public Education

This is yet another moment in time when the status quo is being challenged. As Greens we have the obligation to support the emerging vision of peoples in the US and in countries around the world. History has taught us what works and what doesn’t; what’s change and what’s a historical continuum of previously existing paradigms. So some things we can rule out for the future- we can rule out caliphates; we can rule out bureaucratic statism; we can rule out totalitarianism; we can rule out theocracy. When we shift our vision from the telescope of the world with the universe of peoples and places in motion, to the microscope of our own backyard, we can proceed as leaders who present new options and paint new alternatives on the political canvas.

Such is the case of public employees in the United States and the current movement in Madison, Wisconsin. At the heart of the issue is the issue evolved from the Industrial Revolution of union shop vs. open shop. As a disclaimer, I should add that I have been a public employee for most of my life. I have worked in open shops in a “right-to-work” state (New Mexico) for most of that time or in a non-union financial institution. It’s not the hell that it is represented to be. Although, if I really thought that the union leadership would ever be sincere about workers’ rights, I might even hop on the bandwagon of supporting the union shop. I do have scars from the experience that could have been avoided.

I am used to not being in unions while others are. Years ago, I worked in the Northeast in union factory production work and actively engaged union members to oppose plant closings and protect pensions of those who were being displaced. The plants closed while the leadership of the local AFL-CIO refused to initiate any action to address our concerns and the Rust Belt became history throwing thousands like myself out of work. As an aside, there have been times throughout my employment at different places when I sought support to organize a union at my place of work. The irony is that the union organizers who I contacted presented the same reasons to me as the boss as to why they couldn’t organize. Workers’ rights are NOT secured under the two party duopoly.

Greens have a particular need to address issues with an understanding of structural reform that we are presenting to voters. We are not just advocating for policies on one side of the current political debate. We are here to present a real alternative of governance that goes beyond existing bureaucracy and governmental entities. In New Mexico, Greens supported emerging models of education, as public schools repeatedly showed an inability to improve student performance and achievement. There is no emerging example that has demonstrated a consistent record to date. That doesn’t mean we can’t support homeschooling or charter schools. Neither does it mean we are trying to dismantle the entire public education system as some advocate. We know that urban schools are not working and new options are needed to give students a chance. We know there is educational injustice against minorities in urban schools.

Back to Madison. The teachers are right to support a union shop. They do face an uphill battle, as so few people in this nation even know what a union shop is today. And fewer are willing to switch their own position with that of teachers in this nation. The demonstrations are large and significant in expressing their resolve not to become a “right-to-work” state. And that is the focus of the battle. From the scenes of the mass demonstrations it is obvious how adamant teachers in Wisconsin are. Three realities they confront today that they might not have faced in other times. 1. The recession and unemployment has created budget crises in numerous states throughout the U.S. 2. The failure of the public education system as it exists to improve student achievement levels impacts on public opinion. 3. The low percentage of union workers in the US and the conflict between state and city budgets and state employee benefits of public employees.

From all appearances, there is much public support within Wisconsin as the public school system has demonstrated a strong record of student performance. Wisconsin fourth grade science scores were not significantly above the national average of scores in 2009, but they were higher than the national average in 8th grade science. See also NEA state stats regarding public education financing: . This year these students may face an extended school year this summer as a result of the strike of teachers against the bill before the State Legislature.

Democrats want us to fight each other to polarize public opinion and are playing their hands as anyone would in a power struggle. The actions of Democrats in the State Senate DO NOT represent the interests of teachers or other workers in Wisconsin. There are many questions in regards to the motives of the latest actions as there were reports as late as February 13 that the teachers’ union had come to an agreement with Governor Walker. “For the first time, the Wisconsin Education Association Council endorsed several major reforms that for years it had stubbornly resisted and stalled. This includes: Junking the outdated teacher pay schedule that rewarded longevity and advanced degrees. Instead, the union now supports merit pay so high-performing and high-demand teachers will earn more. Dramatically improving teacher evaluations using, among several other factors, student test results. Making it easier to get rid of the worst teachers if mentors and other help doesn’t boost performance. Shaking up the failing Milwaukee Public Schools.”

There are also forces that are pushing the Tea Party into such polarizing positions and are now mobilizing their ranks to oppose the teachers. The fact is that Greens should agree with the fiscal responsibility of the Tea Party as many did in 1992 with the Perot candidacy. Greens want to see something emerge beyond the status quo. In the United States, this is not only a budget issue, but is also a collective bargaining issue and a student achievement problem. The existing bureaucracy and public school system hasn’t proved capable of addressing any of these issues. One thing that is clear: if the teachers stay away from work too long there will be parents and others who will step in to create new alternative. If the State Legislature is unable to act, people will learn to live without it. There will be private options developed to avoid these options in the future. And there will be winners in these fights; none of whom currently are sitting at their desks for the next school day in Wisconsin.

Inevitably, I ask where the state workers were when the factories in the Northeast were closing. And the answer is they were expanding as the number of social workers increased to service the unemployed. Where were the unions when political action was needed to protect the pensions of factory workers in the Rustbelt? The structural problems of this economy have dragged us all down and its time we begin to make adjustments that mean change for everyone. Change in how our localities are governed- so that we can depend on local resources for local economies of scale; so that we can develop integrated local economies not dependent on outside corporate investment; so that we can govern and manage the natural resources in our regions with stakeholders and not corporate shills representing us. Our political institutions, our schools, our state bureaucracies and our corporate giants are devouring us all. Feeding the bureaucracy is NOT the solution. Calling it a union is not the same as calling it democracy.

If one thinks that the pension issues can be avoided come to San Francisco where one proposition has been defeated but others loom on the horizon. The bankruptcy of liberalism lies not in its intention but in its impact. The bankruptcy of conservatism is not in its impact but in its intentions. Regionally, we need to establish priorities together and come to consensus. We need to avoid the repeated scenarios of crisis-resolution-crisis and begin to plan regionally. So the warning to teachers: Don’t cook the goose that lays the golden egg. The warning to the State Legislature: Don’t leave home without it. We might not be here when you get back. To our children we say: Climb every mountain.

Long range plans and political reality.

For all of the good words that the CA legislature wrapped around it's full slate of water bills last year, which I strongly criticized, it seems that little has changed. Yes, they brought down the curtain on the puppet theater known as CalFED and replaced it with the Delta Stewardship Council, but that council was given goals that appear to be mutually exclusively… to maintain the Delta ecosystem and to provide water for both agricultural and urban use. The fact is that there just is not enough water to do both.

Yes, I know that we have had rain this year. The San Jose area might make it up to 100% of normal, y-t-d if the rains continue into next week. So, what is the problem?

Well, part of it stems from the fact that the Bay Delta Stewardship Council, acting according to a legislatively imposed schedule, has released the initial version of their plan and it is missing the most important issues, like how much water needs to flow through the Delta in order to maintain a healthy ecosystem. It also has no answer for the question of how any work is to be funded. The lack of adequate funding is one of the things that ensured the failure of CalFed.

There is an intriguing analysis of the situation at On the Public Record. I agree with most of it, including the comments by waterwonk that this analysis was incomplete. At least waterwonk provided more partial information and that is helpful.

When I posted my original critique last year, on anonymous poster responded with the most common defenses against criticism of power: we are the experts so just nod your head in agreement and shut up.

Instead of declaring all of this a failure and attacking those who are trying to help the environment (e.g., Huffman -- who has forgotten more about the Delta than you'll ever know), why don't you get off your Green Party Duff, shake off the "I won't support anything that might work" dogma, and join the environmental groups who are actively fighting for numeric public trust criteria in this State Board proceeding, which would make a big difference.

In retrospect, I think that I was right. The political system in California will not allow a responsible plan to be made for the future of the Delta. We have a Republican Congressman from the San Joaquin Valley, Devin Nunes (CA-21) who continuously rails against "wacko" environmentalists while sneaking provisions into every piece of legislation that he can find which would prevent the funding of any action that is taken to implement the federal governments own scientific findings. Nunes will use his position on the House Committee for Natural Resources to control funding for water projects in CA.

In CA, Assembly Member Jared Huffman was a key figure in both creating the structure we have now and also in getting the Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC), his one time employer, to support it. Hell, they helped draft it and should be just as accountable for creating yet another agency whose very mission, with its mutually exclusive goal, especially without adequate funding, is almost guaranteed to fail.

It is even clear that, as Restore the Delta intimates, the Delta Stewardship Council may not want to hear the real scientific findings.

I rather agree with the version of the plant that On the Public Record wants to see. It would be as refreshing as a long drink of cold mountain spring water.

You know what would be an awesome plan? If they said, “We don’t believe the political process can resolve Delta issues and correct them before the crisis, especially since system collapse is both imminent and potentially sudden. Here is what will happen when the Delta collapses, and how we can minimize the losses.”

SSS - Somebody Should Syndrome

I wish that I had an antidote for the Somebody Should Syndrome (SSS) that seems to be a pandemic, spreading quickly through social medial. You have all seen it, the quick little tweet that says "Somebody should put Sen. Inhofe out to pasture" or even the collective "we have to do something about health care."

One of the reasons that I am a Green is the fact that one of the key values of the Green Party is Personal and Global Responsibility. I never imagined that personal responsibility stopped when you identified a problem that somebody should go to work on.

This is all the more a strange phenomenon is a party that does not accept large corporate donations, and thus must rely mostly on volunteers. So everyone should know that effective community organization starts when someone begins to organize the community, going door to door, talking to friend as the supermarket, calling a meeting at some local diner on Saturday Morning to plan how you can make you community better.

I know what I can best do. I write. I have this blog. I have have a monthly column in my local home town newspaper called Green Talk. It takes time. But it adds up.

I read the following on a Green Party Committee's email list this week.

This would be much easier to arrange, post notices for, etc. if there was a working forum for the Greens that people actually used. (Part of my strategy proposal, of course.)

A while back I thought it would be a good thing for the GPCA to have a twitter account also. So I made one. Now, others post there, but someone had to act. If we are really true to the Green values, then the cure for SSS is someone should I will…

Qualifying Green Candidates

There is not a lot of time between now and the next election cycle... not nearly enough if California Greens have to think about candidate training as well as recruitment.  Depending on what happens with the special election for California's House of Representatives District 36 special election, we may even see a state wide special election for Secretary of State is Debra Bowen can defeat Janice Hahn for that soon to be vacated (by Jane Harman) Congressional seat. 

This just means that we need to bring more focus to recruiting candidates to run in 2012... and I would hope that Dr. Forrest Hill takes another look at the Secretary of State position if that opens up again. 

National
While California Greening is mostly about  this state, I also think that we need to consider the 2012 presidential election.  Securing the right candidate in 2012 could help us all, in every state, build the party.  Selecting the wrong candidate for the times, as we did in 2008, could make our hold harder to climb out of.

Just as was the case in 2008, a Green Party candidate for 2012 will have to be able to articulate an economic policy that make sense for all.   It goes without saying that any Green Candidate will have to articulate a position based on economic justice, they will also have to talk convincingly about ecological justice.  I have seen nothing from Cynthia McKinney that indicates she has the interest to do either.

The issues of peace and freedom of expression are important and having the correct understanding of these issues is mandatory for a Green Party candidate, but they will not win over new voters any time soon. 

A Green Candidate will also have to deal persuasively with the issue of corporate power, in particular the power of corporations to influence elections.  We can not simply pass this responsibility off to the David Cobb led Move to Amend or Russ Feingold's Progressives United.

I have my own list of people that I would like to see run: Winona LaDuke and Ben Manski are near the top.  I also know that there will be a scattering of not so serious candidates&hellip: exempt in their own minds.  We need to treat them kindly, hear them out looking for a gem in the rough, but keep our minds on finding a real candidate with broad appeal.

California:
For all state-wide or local candidates in California, the budget crises looms like tsunami about to crash on our heads.   Every politician has simplistic solutions that will not work.  I am not sure that anyone has "the answer." We will need all of our candidate to be able to articulate the options and what it means for the particular constituency they are addressing.  If they can't do that one basic thing, then we should not be supporting them from the GPCA.

In many ways, I hope to seen Greens run for school boards in the next election cycles.  Education takes up over 50% of the state budget.  When Sacrament tries to balance the budget, it will necessarily hit the schools harder than any other sector.  If we have any obligation to the future, it is to make sure that our children are educated and understand how to think.  This is what we are up against, a concerted effort to turn all local offices into incubators for future anti-tax corporate puppets and our children into acquiescent followers.

“We want to have a wide, deep victory,” he told a few hundred people gathered Sunday morning at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. “We want to take over school boards, fire boards, water boards, city councils.”

I feel that now, more than ever, Greens hold the future of CA in our hands We must not fail.

If you thoughty you understood climate change

guess again.  I take that back, don't guess.  Read the most recent post by David Roberts at Grist.  If there is one piece of writing that will change how you think about the climate... or even about politics... this just may be it. 

Roberts clearly lays out the two notions of dealing with the climate changes coming, one from the climate scientists who are panicked about our continued under estimation of the rate of change and the economists who so believe in the power of the market to solve all problems that keep telling us not to worry. 

Humanity has never had to grapple with a problem that measures itself in centuries, threatens our very existence, and requires global cooperation to overcome. We are fairly beset by gaping uncertainties. We know it could get really bad, but we don't know exactly how bad it will get, or how fast, or where. We don't know how much it will cost to re-engineer the world along sustainable lines, or how quickly we can do it, or even whether we can do it at all.

That last phrase is what scares me "whether we can do it at all." Where does the will to act come from?  It surely will not come from those who do not take seriously the lessons of ecology.  I follow Matthew I Kahn's Environmental and Urban Economics blog, He frequently hypes his own view expressed in his book Climatopolis.  I have also mentioned it in my own posts because I don't understand where we find the revenue required by the massive infrastructure re-invention that his Climatopolis would require.  It seems the work of a free market economist who does not understand governmental fiscal policy at any level.

the street can rule but it cannot govern

It is worth saying that the street can rule but it cannot govern. Egypt is deciding its own future just as Eastern Europe and Russia decided its future. A working alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in the current crisis is not surprising. It is an organization that will be there. We have seen in Lebanon and Gaza that the ramifications of enabling political Islamist organizations impact on the future. Other organization need to establish leadership bodies within the movement and "make the rules" that even the MB is bound to follow. But beware of sleeping with the tiger, cause when he wakes he might be looking for breakfast.
Likewise, army rule in Turkey did not prevent the oppression of the Kurdish nation and its people. It has not provided democracy or equal rights. And the continued influence of the military in governing Egypt will not be changed. In this sense, this is not a revolution at all. More like a coup from the bottom or a change of faces at the top.
Structure is something that needs to be formulated to give the democratic process a real world context. To date everything is focused on the personal reign of Mubarek. I am in solidarity with the hopes and aspirations of the Egyptian people, but if they are to govern then the place to start is with the Constitution of their nation.