Tea Party and the Green Party

Tea Party has made the news and has had their convention and remains working in communities around the nation. Recently, the Green Party of the United States released a Press statement on the Tea Party. I would say that the Tea Party folks are likely to find the same sort of schisms that have plagued the Green Party over the years: lack of a defined mission, a lack of a defined strategic vision for electoral work and a lack of funding. As long as they maintain the status of an independent "advocacy" group, like the Christian Coalition, outside the Republican Party, they will have the support of the Repugs. As soon as they try to build an independent party, like the GP or the Libertarians, they will encounter the real problems that we have as well in regards to ballot access. It is certainly worth our while to say this as a real starting point to those people in the Tea Party movements and engage in dialogues in states regarding ballot access where the coalition in support of open ballot access can increase its social base of support.

Greens need to ask not only where are we now, but how can we work together in the development of fundamental structural reforms. We lack a real Mission statement or strategic vision that binds our state parties together. Parties have disappeared off the political landscape after significant gains in electoral work because we lack a comprehensive grasp of our role on the political landscape. Some want to simply represent the "social movements" (also a concept within the tea Party movement). Some want to adopt a strategy of being leverage for particular factions within the duopoly parties.

The GP has been unable to realize the impact of failing to decisively engage on this issue and to make a decision. The result is party hopping of candidates and activists, failure to develop stable local organization with close ties in our communities and the resultant decline of state parties when electoral victories are so few. This also affects how our candidates project the distinct character of elected Greens if they were to be elected, as well as their focus if they are elected to office.

In regards to the health plan debate, I have yet to see a comprehensive policy analysis that present a distinct model for health care for the Green Party. We remain followers of advocacy groups in this regard and have yet to address the existing concerns in regards to viability of Social Security and Medicare in the future. Young people are already planning their futures in the context of these programs being off the map by the time they qualify. This is important because the Republicans have seized on this in the health care debate to rally support of the elderly who are concerned about the cutbacks in Medicare for "efficiency".

Much of the original influx for the Tea Party is coming from what used to be called "the white middle class". They are focused on budget issues, are newcomers to political engagement and feel that the duopoly parties have been unresponsive to their needs and concerns. Their naiveté will not provide them the sustainable vision to establish organization. The Reform Party has already been tried in this regard. They are not reactionary but are reactive in regards to their current priorities. Hillary had a grasp in her primary campaign of the sentiment out there. Barack shot himself in the foot here in San Francisco appealing to local elitism in his comment about western Pennsylvanians "grasping their bibles and guns". But most Tea Party people are angry at such dismissiveness that continues within the Dems and consider the Repugs to be simply any lacking suburban and rural focus, while they pander to large corporate and financial interests.

It is Green to be inclusive and to work to implement grassroots democracy that goes beyond administrative fiats and are a real reflection of the public will. Bioregionalism is not simply the adoption of a Green Party agenda, but requires adaptive governance that is inclusive and transparent. If we engage in such structures, such as water planning, we soon find that we don't win every argument. Sometimes it is because we fail to see the impacts of certain actions on certain sectors of the population. Sometimes it is because we are dismissive of the very people we need to engage in real democracy. And sometimes, like in California, it is because we really do feel that Democrats are the "lesser evil" and wind up supporting entrenched bureaucracies and unrepresentative government.

It is not simply the Press Statement of the Green Party that will enable us to understand our fellow countrymen and women. It is also our willingness to work directly with our neighbors in developing more representative forms of government. From there we can learn much more from each other than from confrontations and dismissing of the views of others. We still have a lot to learn and we still can begin to grasp the various forms of discontent that are out there. From concrete experience we can glean the fundamental concerns of others, whether Tea Party or elsewhere. And we can begin to become more inclusive and respectful of the people.

Restore the Delta wants to talk. DiFi doen't.

You would think that the Senator who is writing legislation that will define the future of an entire region would talk to the people in that region, especially if the region is the largest fresh water estuary on the West Coast. Well, if the region is the Delta and the Senator is Diane Feinstein, the answer is that she won't. The more she can hide what she is doing, the better for her family friends and contributors.

Please, click here and read the plea for a meeting from Restore the Delta.

The endgame for Feinstein's water plans.

I have always questioned the intelligence of those who, when faced with the certainty of running out of any resource would advocate using it up faster. Yet, that is exactly what "Drill, baby, drill" means. I used this argument to question the leadership of Richard Pombo when he represented my district and was Chairman of the House Committee on Resources. His goal seemed to be to make us run out of oil more quickly. Why, when oil will is becoming increasingly scarce, would he work so hard to develop those scant reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?

I take a similar attitude towards those who advocate for increased pumping of water in California's Central Valley. I don't care where they pump the water from, the delta, the underground aquifers of the San Joaquin Valley, it is essentially all the same, a limited resource from which they try to extract ever higher volumes of water. Where will it end?

It rained all day today and I took that opportunity to clear some of the reading that was sitting on my desk, unappreciated. There, I found the image of where we might be heading. Orion magazine ran photo essay following the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers of Central Asia. Each over 2,000 km in length, they flow from the mountains at the rim of the world to the Aral Sea.

The Syr Darya, which carries only half the water of its counterpart, is created from the Naryn and Kara Darya rivers in the mountains of the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan. Also dammed and diverted, it runs flat across central Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan, eventually draining into the tiny North Aral Sea...

Dammed and diverted is a description that might apply equally well to the San Joaquin River. The Aral Sea has been so cut off from it's sources that it has shrunk to a mere fraction of it's former size. The photos that Carolyn Drake took are a stark reminder of how a beautiful land can be ruined by exploitation and major rivers left to disappear into new deserts.

The photos are here. It is a narrated slideshow, but I was particularly struck by image #34. There is a cow, an old vehicle and a broken aqueduct no longer able to divert anything. Waters were diverted to support the growing of cotton, this being the only cotton growing region of the former Soviet Union, where resource exploitation supported a growing economy until the land was ruined, perhaps beyond repair.

NASA reports it just as clearly as seen from space.

The Aral Sea sits in the basin adjacent to the Caspian Sea in central Asia. Unlike the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea levels have been dramatically dropping for several decades. The primary cause in the Aral Sea level drop is the progressive diversion of the in-flowing waters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers to support a substantial agriculture business.

Is this the future fate of the San Joaquin Valley? It might be if we don't begin to plan for future use on a regional basis. We know that our population is growing. We know that the future climate will be more erratic that today's, but much drier. The days that we can continue to take and take more and more like the Soviets did for years, should be over, but not for Westland Water District nor for those politicians (Sen. Feinstein, Congressmen Cardoza, Costa, Nunez and candidate Pombo) who have not the guts to just say "No" to that very small, but powerful lobby.

In the case of the Amu Darya, nature may yet have the last laugh. In 1911, a 7.4 earthquake caused an landslide that damned one of it's tributaries in a narrow valley. The lake that was formed is about half the volume of a completely filled Lake Mead. Another earthquake could just as easily break the dam, or suddenly fill the lake with another massive slide, and the entire valley would be catastrophically flooded.

Farmworkers against California water bond

We have all heard so much media coverage of the water crisis in the West San Joaquin Valley. Somewhere in all of that you generally hear mentioned the California Latino Water Coalition, a group of mainly gringos working for Steward Resnick who pay bus loads of farm workers to show up a demonstrations.

Did you ever wonder where the United Farm Workers was? I did, because the were not there.

Now, the UFW has taken a stand and it is right in the headline. UFW President Arturo Rodriquez has an OpEd in the Feb. 22 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Expensive water: $11 billion, or $800 million in annual debt payments for the next 30 years. That's how much Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's water bond will cost California's taxpayers and their children to subsidize the agricultural industry for decades to come.

Gov. Schwarzenegger obviously agrees that water is valuable and essential to human life. Yet, every time a farmworker dies from heat-related illness or dehydration, we're told that the state can't afford the cost of enforcing the laws to protect him or her.

The water bond that was recently approved by our lawmakers will give agricultural companies billions more in subsidized water. The state treasurer has asked the right question: Why aren't these giant ag industry operators paying for their water like everyone else?

Read more at the Chronicle.
Then let's all make sure that we are the ones who have the knowledge and the courage to tell the truth about this, and do it at every opportunity. There will be no Green Justice in California until we start acting like every person is important.

What does sustainable mean?

I have a column that should run in tomorrow morning's home town newspaper, the Morgan Hill Times.  In that bit of Green Talk, I take a stab at convincing my readers that nothing made of material is truly sustainable, or at least not in the way that we think about it, manufacture it, use it and dispose of it.

This Green Talk column is not yet online, is sometimes delayed for days, and most won't see it in a small home town paper.  So, if you click Read more! you have a chance to read it now.


It has almost become impossible to read a story about energy without finding the word “sustainable” used at some point. We all have some basic understanding of what is meant. The current supplies of oil and natural gas are limited and those new fields being found are increasingly expensive to maintain. Therefore, our current pace of using up the supply of fossil fuels in not sustainable, or will not be for very long. That discussion is generally focused on peak oil.

Often, this basic definition is followed by someone's favorite solution for maintaining economic growth in the face of such diminished supply of energy. Sometimes, these solutions are reasonable, like an increased use of wind and solar. Sometimes they pose a technological challenge with promise of a future energy supply, such as biofuels from algae. Others so defy rational analysis and that they could exist only in a bad sci-fi movie.

The focus on energy, as important and immediate as that is, allows us to ignore the very basic notion of what it would take to be truly sustainable. Some of have tried to explain this with the analogy of a spaceship. We all know that space ships have to carry everything needed to sustain life along with them. That includes the atmosphere people breath and the food they eat as well as the means of reacting to any problem that might arise. We see an example of this every time a shuttle visits the International Space Station with a load of supplies and returns with a load of waste.

So consider that the Earth is like a space ship. We have a fixed set of material resources. There is no way to add anything. There is no /Enterprise /that will arrive with new supplies. We have what we have and that is that. This fact should make all of the difference in how we think about the future, but sadly, it does not. Allow me to give a few examples.

There are those who see the future of energy as coming from nuclear power. Even if we assume that we could adequately protect people from the dangers of radiation along the entire production chain, from extraction of uranium to disposal or re-processing of the spent power plant fuel, we should be aware of the fact that energy planners are beginning to talk about peak uranium just as we talk about peak oil now. The economically retrievable supplies of untapped uranium are very few and many are far away in countries like Kazakhstan.


Evan as we are beginning to make major use of lithium for batteries in everything from cell phones to automobiles, there are increasing concerns over a peak in lithium and a search for other energy storage alternatives. The largest under-developed supply of lithium is in Bolivia and that development is subject to political as well as economic factors.

All of this is to say that we need to rethink that manner in which we use the limited material resources of this spaceship Earth to supply the needs of a growing population and it's desire to attain at least the same standard of living that we currently enjoy. The current UN low population forecast is for an increase of 2.4 billion people by 2050. That is more than the current populations of China and the US combined. And most of these would try to attain our lifestyle if they could.

We need to consider not just oil and natural gas or even more scarce materials like uranium or lithium. We have to begin to consider even the steel used in construction, the aluminum we use to wrap our food, the wood that frames our houses or even the number of trees it takes to make chopsticks and toilet paper.

The modern industrial practice is that of a linear irreversible throughput, where resource are moved into from the ecosphere to the humansphere where our economic engine of growth processes them producing waste along the way. But then, we discard most of it, creating more waste and our governments encourage us to do this to produce economic growth.

At some point, even the most ideological free marketer among us will be forced to admit that this pattern can not be sustained and that we need to find a new vision of what constitutes a life worth living.

Whatever that goal is, we will not get there along our current path. We need to transform our economy to one that cycles materials rather than uses them, where waste becomes the raw material for productions; that recognizes that we are all part of an ever changing ecosphere. There will be economic consequences of such a radical change. It is our choice whether we absorb those consequences now when they are manageable or later when they are not.

Changes under way

I am letting everyone know that California Greening will undergo some change even as my personal life undergoes some parallel changes. I have resigned from all of the committee roles that I have in the Green Party. I really did not enjoy doing that much. It became something that I did because, at time, no one else was doing it, or not doing it well enough. 

• EcoAction Committee is truly the point effort for the future of the Green Party.  It is the one place where the basic assumptions of how this world works are going to be challenged, from peak oil to climate change to sustainable anything.  Yet, a few years ago, it was about to be done away with.  So I stepped in and did what I could to keep it alive. 
• If there is one place where an ecological understanding is necessary, it is in the platform of the Green Party. Yet, that section of the platform is very much out of date and does not truly reflect the dire straights that we are in. 

Still, I have decided that I am not particularly good at committee things and spent too much time on it while spending too little time making my wife's life easier and making the pottery that some is very good.

However, I still like to read, think and write... hopefully in that order. So, I will continue writing on this blog but not with the frequency that I have in the past.  Mostly, it will be longer, more OpEd or essay styled writing about issues that I think are important... such as what do we mean by a sustainable economy and how can we achieve that.  Clue: think in ecological terms.

As for some of the other things that I really want to do, well, you might find them at my original personal web site: http://www.refpub.com/ 

Mapping the future, looking at the world

below are a few topical issues that creative cartographers have developed to display proportional representations of countries around the world. Go to the links at the bottom to see the array of available maps.

This map shows those territories that use much of their internal water resources, measured with a threshold of people using more than 10% of renewable water resources. Each territory is resized based on the volume of water used beyond 10%.
75 of the 200 territories used less than 10% of their renewable internal freshwater resources. 51 territories used between 10% and 100% of water resources, 15 territories used 100% or more. 59 territories were missing data.
Egypt uses 33 times its internal water resources - the River Nile supplies Egypt with rainwater from elsewhere. Water supplies vary: 4 territories use more per person than Egypt but under 5% of their total internal resources.
Territory size shows the proportion of all water used that is more than 10% of the renewable internal freshwater resources of that territory.
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=323
In 2001 US$784 billion were spent on primary education around the world, when adjusted for purchasing power. The territory where the largest amount was spent is the United States; the spending was 28% of all spending in the world. In contrast, in Nigeria only 0.28% of all world spending was spent on primary education.
There is a distinct difference in the spending on primary education per child between regions. The average spending in Japan, North America and Western Europe is often much more than three times the spending in other regions. Central Africa has the lowest rate of primary school enrolment and also the lowest spending.
Territory size shows the proportion of all spending on primary education worldwide that is spent there, when measured in purchasing power parity US$.
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=207
Greenhouse gases trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, causing it to warm up. The greenhouse gases shown here are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. These gases account for 98% of the greenhouse effect. Other greenhouse gases, not shown here, are various fluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride.
The territories that emit the most greenhouse gases are the United States, China, the Russian Federation and Japan. However, the most emissions per person are in Qatar: equivalent to 86 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. Qatar has significant oil and gas reserves, and in 2002 was populated by 600,000 people.
Territory size shows the proportion, by their global warming potential, of all greenhouse gas emissions that come from there.
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=299
This map shows forest depletion, measured as the financial value of the untreated wood extracted which is not replaced by natural growth. This map shows the value of wood that is not sustainably harvested at territory level.
The highest unsustainable harvesting is in India, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Almost half (46%) is in India; this is the same as the combined total of the 25 territories with the next highest forest depletion. The population of India is almost as large as the combined population of those 25 other territories. Per person forest depletion in India ranks 23rd of all territories with data reported.
Territory size shows the proportion of all annual forest depletion that occurred there. Forest depletion is the loss of potential future income from roundwood at current prices due to current tree felling not offset by natural growth.
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=314
Water resources here include only freshwater, because saline (sea) water requires treatment before most uses. Only 43 600 cubic kilometres of freshwater is available as a resource each year, despite more than twice this amount falling as precipitation (rain and snow). Much is lost through evaporation. Those countries with higher rainfall often have larger water resources. Of all the water available, the regions of South America and Asia Pacific have the most.
People living in Kuwait use sea water that is processed at a desalination plant. As such Kuwait has no area on this map because there are no freshwater resources there.
Territory size shows the proportion of all worldwide freshwater resources found there.
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=102
The ecological footprint is a measure of the area needed to support a population’s lifestyle. This includes the consumption of food, fuel, wood, and fibres. Pollution, such as carbon dioxide emissions, is also counted as part of the footprint.
The United States, China and India have the largest ecological footprints. Without knowing population size we cannot understand what this means about individuals’ ecological demands. Large populations live in China and India. In both territories resource use is below the world average. The per person footprint in the United States is almost five times the world average, and almost ten times what would be sustainable.
Territory size shows the proportion of the worldwide ecological footprint which is made there.
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=322
Over half of the territories in the world are currently experiencing net emigration. More people are leaving them than are coming to them. Territories with net emigration generally are poorer than those with net immigration. Mexico is the country with the highest net emigration, with a net loss of 8.8 million people in 2000. Mexico is in North America, the region whose territories have the largest net immigration. The United State's high immigration rate is linked to Mexican emigration. Were the United States and Mexico combined to be one territory then this movement of people would not be recorded as immigration nor emigration.
Territory size shows the relative quantity of net emigration in all territories (emigration less immigration).
http://www.worldmapper.org/display.php?selected=18

http://www.worldmapper.org/atozindex.html
http://www.worldmapper.org/textindex/text_index.html

Mystic Lake Declaration on Climate Change

I have MI Green Linda Cree to thank for getting this to me. I was not aware of it until just tonight, when she posted it to an email list that targets rural Greens. I wish that I had seen it earlier.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on what climate change means for this world. Sarah Palin thinks climate change is "snake oil science." Well, the authors of the this declaration are not buying any of her anti-science snake oil.

Thanks, Linda. Readers, I hope you remember that the first two communities to be effected by climate change (Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana and Newtok, Alaska) are both communities of indigenous people. They are the first to feel the weight of our consumptive life style. They will not be the last.

Click Read more! for the full text.


From the Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop II:
Indigenous Perspectives and Solutions

At Mystic Lake on the Homelands of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, Prior Lake, Minnesota

November 21, 2009

As community members, youth and elders, spiritual and traditional leaders, Native organizations and supporters of our Indigenous Nations, we have gathered on November 18-21, 2009 at Mystic Lake in the traditional homelands of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Dakota Oyate. This Second Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Workshop builds upon the Albuquerque Declaration and work done at the 1998 Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop held in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We choose to work together to fulfill our sacred duties, listening to the teachings of our elders and the voices of our youth, to act wisely to carry out our responsibilities to enhance the health and respect the sacredness of Mother Earth, and to demand Climate Justice now.

We acknowledge that to deal effectively with global climate change and global warming issues all sovereigns must work together to adapt and take action on real solutions that will ensure our collective existence. We hereby declare, affirm, and assert our inalienable rights as well as responsibilities as members of sovereign Native Nations. In doing so, we expect to be active participants with full representation in United States and international legally binding treaty agreements regarding climate, energy, biodiversity, food sovereignty, water and sustainable development policies affecting our peoples and our respective Homelands on Turtle Island (North America) and Pacific Islands.

We are of the Earth. The Earth is the source of life to be protected, not merely a resource to be exploited. Our ancestors' remains lie within her. Water is her lifeblood. We are dependent upon her for our shelter and our sustenance. Our lifeways are the original "green economies." We have our place and our responsibilities within Creation's sacred order. We feel the sustaining joy as things occur in harmony. We feel the pain of disharmony when we witness the dishonor of the natural order of Creation and the degradation of Mother Earth and her companion Moon.

We need to stop the disturbance of the sacred sites on Mother Earth so that she may heal and restore the balance in Creation. We ask the world community to join with the Indigenous Peoples to pray on summer solstice for the healing of all the sacred sites on Mother Earth.

The well-being of the natural environment predicts the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual longevity of our Peoples and the Circle of Life. Mother Earth's health and that of our Indigenous Peoples are intrinsically intertwined. Unless our homelands are in a state of good health our Peoples will not be truly healthy. This inseparable relationship must be respected for the sake of our future generations. In this Declaration, we invite humanity to join with us to improve our collective human behavior so that we may develop a more sustainable world – a world where the inextricable relationship of biological, and environmental diversity, and cultural diversity is affirmed and protected.

We have the power and responsibility to change. We can preserve, protect, and fulfill our sacred duties to live with respect in this wonderful Creation. However, we can also forget our responsibilities, disrespect Creation, cause disharmony and imperil our future and the future of others.

At Mystic Lake, we reviewed the reports of indigenous science, traditional knowledge and cultural scholarship in cooperation with non-native scientists and scholars. We shared our fears, concerns and insights. If current trends continue, native trees will no longer find habitable locations in our forests, fish will no longer find their streams livable, and humanity will find their homelands flooded or drought-stricken due to the changing weather. Our Native Nations have already disproportionately suffered the negative compounding effects of global warming and a changing climate.

The United States and other industrialized countries have an addiction to the high consumption of energy. Mother Earth and her natural resources cannot sustain the consumption and production needs of this modern industrialized society and its dominant economic paradigm, which places value on the rapid economic growth, the quest for corporate and individual accumulation of wealth, and a race to exploit natural resources. The non-regenerative production system creates too much waste and toxic pollutions. We recognize the need for the United States and other industrialized countries to focus on new economies, governed by the absolute limits and boundaries of ecological sustainability, the carrying capacities of the Mother Earth, a more equitable sharing of global and local resources, encouragement and support of self sustaining communities, and respect and support for the rights of Mother Earth and her companion Moon.

In recognizing the root causes of climate change, participants call upon the industrialized countries and the world to work towards decreasing dependency on fossil fuels. We call for a moratorium on all new exploration for oil, gas, coal and uranium as a first step towards the full phase-out of fossil fuels, without nuclear power, with a just transition to sustainable jobs, energy and environment. We take this position and make this recommendation based on our concern over the disproportionate social, cultural, spiritual, environmental and climate impacts on Indigenous Peoples, who are the first and the worst affected by the disruption of intact habitats, and the least responsible for such impacts.

Indigenous peoples must call for the most stringent and binding emission reduction targets. Carbon emissions for developed countries must be reduced by no less than 40%, preferably 49% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 95% by 2050. We call for national and global actions to stabilize CO2 concentrations below 350 parts per million (ppm) and limiting temperature increases to below 1.5ºc.

We challenge climate mitigation solutions to abandon false solutions to climate change that negatively impact Indigenous Peoples' rights, lands, air, oceans, forests, territories and waters. These include nuclear energy, large-scale dams, geo-engineering techniques, clean coal technologies, carbon capture and sequestration, bio-fuels, tree plantations, and international market-based mechanisms such as carbon trading and offsets, the Clean Development Mechanisms and Flexible Mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol and forest offsets. The only real offsets are those renewable energy developments that actually displace fossil fuel-generated energy. We recommend the United States sign on to the Kyoto Protocol and to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

We are concerned with how international carbon markets set up a framework for dealing with greenhouse gases that secure the property rights of heavy Northern fossil fuel users over the world's carbon-absorbing capacity while creating new opportunities for corporate profit through trade. The system starts by translating existing pollution into a tradable commodity, the rights to which are allocated in accordance with a limit set by States or intergovernmental agencies. In establishing property rights over the world's carbon dump, the largest number of rights is granted (mostly for free) to those who have been most responsible for pollution in the first place. At UN COP15, the conservation of forests is being brought into a property right issue concerning trees and carbon. With some indigenous communities it is difficult and sometimes impossible to reconcile with traditional spiritual beliefs the participation in climate mitigation that commodifies the sacredness of air (carbon), trees and life. Climate change mitigation and sustainable forest management must be based on different mindsets with full respect for nature, and not solely on market-based mechanisms.

We recognize the link between climate change and food security that affects Indigenous traditional food systems. We declare our Native Nations and our communities, waters, air, forests, oceans, sea ice, traditional lands and territories to be "Food Sovereignty Areas," defined and directed by Indigenous Peoples according to our customary laws, free from extractive industries, unsustainable energy development, deforestation, and free from using food crops and agricultural lands for large scale bio-fuels.

We encourage our communities to exchange information related to the sustainable and regenerative use of land, water, sea ice, traditional agriculture, forest management, ancestral seeds, food plants, animals and medicines that are essential in developing climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, and will restore our food sovereignty, food independence, and strengthen our Indigenous families and Native Nations.

We reject the assertion of intellectual property rights over the genetic resources and traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples which results in the alienation and commodification of those things that are sacred and essential to our lives and cultures. We reject industrial modes of food production that promote the use of chemical substances, genetically engineered seeds and organisms. Therefore, we affirm our right to possess, control, protect and pass on the indigenous seeds, medicinal plants, traditional knowledge originating from our lands and territories for the benefit of our future generations.

We can make changes in our lives and actions as individuals and as Nations that will lessen our contribution to the problems. In order for reality to shift, in order for solutions to major problems to be found and realized, we must transition away from the patterns of an industrialized mindset, thought and behavior that created those problems. It is time to exercise desperately needed Indigenous ingenuity – Indigenuity – inspired by our ancient intergenerational knowledge and wisdom given to us by our natural relatives.

We recognize and support the position of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), operating as the Indigenous Caucus within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), that is requesting language within the overarching principles of the outcomes of the Copenhagen UNFCCC 15th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP15) and beyond Copenhagen, that would ensure respect for the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples, including their rights to lands, territories, forests and resources to ensure their full and effective participation including free, prior and informed consent. It is crucial that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is entered into all appropriate negotiating texts for it is recognized as the minimum international standard for the protection of rights, survival, protection and well-being of Indigenous Peoples, particularly with regard to health, subsistence, sustainable housing and infrastructure, and clean energy development.

As Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples living within the occupied territories of the United States, we acknowledge with concern, the refusal of the United States to support negotiating text that would recognize applicable universal human rights instruments and agreements, including the UNDRIP, and further safeguard principles that would ensure their full and effective participation including free, prior and informed consent. We will do everything humanly possible by exercising our sovereign government-to-government relationship with the U.S. to seek justice on this issue.

Our Indian languages are encoded with accumulated ecological knowledge and wisdom that extends back through oral history to the beginning of time. Our ancestors created land and water relationship systems premised upon the understanding that all life forms are relatives – not resources. We understand that we as human beings have a sacred and ceremonial responsibility to care for and maintain, through our original instructions, the health and well-being of all life within our traditional territories and Native Homelands.

We will encourage our leadership and assume our role in supporting a just transition into a green economy, freeing ourselves from dependence on a carbon-based fossil fuel economy. This transition will be based upon development of an indigenous agricultural economy comprised of traditional food systems, sustainable buildings and infrastructure, clean energy and energy efficiency, and natural resource management systems based upon indigenous science and traditional knowledge. We are committed to development of economic systems that enable life-enhancement as a core component. We thus dedicate ourselves to the restoration of true wealth for all Peoples. In keeping with our traditional knowledge, this wealth is based not on monetary riches but rather on healthy relationships, relationships with each other, and relationships with all of the other natural elements and beings of creation.

In order to provide leadership in the development of green economies of life-enhancement, we must end the chronic underfunding of our Native educational institutions and ensure adequate funding sources are maintained. We recognize the important role of our Native K-12 schools and tribal colleges and universities that serve as education and training centers that can influence and nurture a much needed Indigenuity towards understanding climate change, nurturing clean renewable energy technologies, seeking solutions and building sustainable communities.

The world needs to understand that the Earth is a living female organism – our Mother and our Grandmother. We are kin. As such, she needs to be loved and protected. We need to give back what we take from her in respectful mutuality. We need to walk gently. These Original Instructions are the natural spiritual laws, which are supreme. Science can urgently work with traditional knowledge keepers to restore the health and well-being of our Mother and Grandmother Earth.

As we conclude this meeting we, the participating spiritual and traditional leaders, members and supporters of our Indigenous Nations, declare our intention to continue to fulfill our sacred responsibilities, to redouble our efforts to enable sustainable life-enhancing economies, to walk gently on our Mother Earth, and to demand that we be a part of the decision-making and negotiations that impact our inherent and treaty-defined rights. Achievement of this vision for the future, guided by our traditional knowledge and teachings, will benefit all Peoples on the Earth.

Approved by Acclamation and Individual Sign-ons.

Green Party Calfiornia Anniversary

It has been 20 years since the Green Party of California was founded in Berkeley and 25 years since Charlene Spretnak and Fritjof Capra published "Green Politics". This coming weekend, Greens will gather again in Berkeley to celebrate the occasion.

I wish that I could be there to listen to Spretnak, or at least catch her via video. It should be interesting to hear what she thinks of the current state of affairs and what might she think of the Global Promise today.

GPCA Plenary Opportunity

The GPCA Plenary is being organized by the Santa Clara County Greens and will be held on March 6 and 7.   There are also opportunities for other outreach at the same time.  Saturday, March 6, is the chosen time for an International Women's Day March and Festival in San Jose.

This could be an great opportunity for outreach and presence.  On time County Council member, Charlotte Casey, sent the following announcement to cover at our next County Meeting.
__

March and Festival Title: Womyn United…: International Womyns’ Day San Jose, Ca March 2010

Logistical Details: Saturday, March 6, 2010

• 11am Rally Begins

Route Details

• 12pm START: Roosevelt
• 1pm END Biblioteca

Festival Details

1pm Festival Begins
4pm Festival Ends

Points of Unity

Create a network among women based organizations in San Jose.
Educate and create awareness on our projects, services and campaigns.
Use as stepping stone to support each other’s work in the future.
The march is dedicated to migrant rights and anti-war efforts

Route Narrative

We will rally at 11am at Roosevelt Park (19^th Street and Santa Clara Street) and have some simple programming available and use a megaphone for creating momentum to celebrate the centennial anniversary. We will then march at 12pm with banners and signs in hand. No amplified sound will used except the megaphone.

We will have volunteers to clean up park after we leave and we will have volunteer security to make sure marchers stay on the sidewalk. Previous security for traffic and safety will be provided. We will also be working with the police to notify them of our intentions.

We will then march towards downtown along Santa Clara Street. We will make a left turn on First Street and finish our march at 1^st Street and Oak Street at the Biblioteca LatinoAmericana address. We will ensure that volunteers pick up garbage along the route and do a 2^nd screening of the park once the route is over. 

 

Participating Organizations:

Cihuatl Tlatocan, FOCUS, DEBUG, San Jose Peace and Justice Center, CodePink, SJSU Wowi (Women on Women’s Issues, Santa Clara County’s Office on Women’s Policy, LGBTQ Youth Space, SOMOS Mayfair and more to confirm.re to confirm

Inglewood's Democratic 'Mayor-for-Life' Pleads Guilty to Corruption

The California Democratic Party Hack du Jour is Mayor Roosevelt Dorn of Inglewood. Inglewood is a traditionally working-class suburb of Los Angeles and the onetime home of the Los Angeles Lakers which relocated thanks to the (of course) taxpayer-subsidized Staples Center in downtown L.A.

Notice how even now the corporate MSM praises the "perp" as a "tough guy" judge who "kept juveniles on probation for longer than other judges" and for "delivering on his pledge to make the city more attractive to retailers." In fact, Mayor Dorn was a shameless flack for Wal-Mart and every other "big box" chain.

Inglewood has no term limits, and so, if this guy had just kept his hands out of the cookie jar he might have been 'Mayor-for-Life.' It's another example of my reality: In Los Angeles some of the worse political hacks look like me and why we need the Green Party as the 2nd Party in the big cities.

Published by the Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2010
Mayor Roosevelt Dorn of Inglewood Pleads Guilty to Corruption
by Jack Leonard and Ari B. Bloomekatz

Roosevelt F. Dorn, who earned acclaim and criticism as a juvenile court judge and was an equally polarizing figure in more than a decade as Inglewood mayor, pleaded guilty Monday to a public corruption charge.

The plea ends a political career that saw significant drops in crime, as well as Inglewood's attempt to bounce back from the loss of the Lakers and the Kings. But while supporters hailed Dorn's leadership, critics said he ran the city as a fiefdom.

Dorn, who stepped down Sunday evening, is barred from holding public office for the rest of his life as part of his guilty plea to a misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge. He was also placed on probation for two years and fined $1,000. Dorn entered his plea as prospective jurors were set to be called for trial in connection with his acceptance of a $500,000 loan through a city housing program.

As a judge, Dorn won praise for his tough-love approach toward young offenders. But others viewed him as imperious, accusing him of stretching the law to fit his personal mission. The 74-year-old jurist displayed the same zeal in trying to reverse the slide of a city mired in debt and shedding retail businesses. He developed a reputation for doing things his own way.

Prosecutors alleged that Dorn betrayed his constituents in a scheme that allowed him to benefit from a low-interest city loan program he helped extend to elected officials.

"He got greedy," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Max Huntsman. "He used every tool in his considerable arsenal as a lawyer and former judge to convince people that he was entitled to this public money."

. . .

How Green is our valley?

There are debates which rise to the fore that have not been addressed following elections of Green campaigns and numerous campaigns throughout the country. The question asked in Wes's post: "Who killed the Progressive movement?" should be preceded with the question: "Who created the Progressive movement?" The term progressive, like the term liberal, is the latest whipping boy in the media and was no more then an effort to avoid the label of liberal by substituting words. The strongholds of progressivism are the same strongholds of liberalism. The priorities of progressives are the same as the priorities of liberals.

The self-definition of the Green Party has not recognized the real social forces behind the political priorities of a green party. It has not matured sufficiently to distinguish between Greens and progressives at the political level. This accounts for the constant fusion issue and party jumping of activists, former candidates and elected public officials. This is no small obstacle. There are many who fear openness in this discussion. Acceptance of a third party strategy has to move to the point where we develop language in our campaigns, priorities in our issues work and reconstruct our own strategic political map and vision for the future. Our independence is our ballot line, our Platform, our base of support and our distinct ties to the communities that we live in.

There is a separate discussion to be held as to strategy, vision and priorities. It involves assimilating our electoral experiences, considering the political landscape and mapping out survival tactics in heavily Democratic states. If we see family farmers as a potential base of support in a given campaign, then we need to identify what are the critical issues of concern to them that are not represented by the Republican Party and are consistent with the Green Platform and Key Values. If we are addressing an urban context, we can provide leadership only if we present a distinct agenda of policies that differentiate the Green Party from the urban Democratic Party machines.

This goes back to my post on redefining the politics of bioregionalism. Resource management and renewable energies are critical areas where the Green Party is able to address both urban and rural residents with distinct policy proposals. They are also significant issues on the current political agenda. Our presentations need to be distinct; otherwise, we will be exposed as Bill Richardson did against the Green candidate for Governor. He said: “I am greener then the Green” because of his position of stopping the project on Otero Mesa. The Green Party candidate simply stated his desire to review the issue. On the one hand, this can be dismissed as a gaff that was seized on by Richardson, but on the other hand it demonstrated that Democrats can out-green Greens if we do not distinguish our positions fundamentally.

Today Richardson has been doing things on the state level that present him as a greener then Green and the Green Party of New Mexico has fallen off the ballot. There are windows of opportunity, but the windows are not open for long and there is a need to demonstrate the relevancy of the Green Party in concrete victories. Visibility and viability are based on our real role in politics and not simply our rhetorical flourishes condemning the other parties. Being called spoilers will be neutralized only if we demonstrate our relevancy in decisions being made and show our base on Election Day. You cannot be a spoiler if you are contributing to the decisions being made in demonstrative terms.

Democrats in California are losing a significant base of support in regards to the peripheral canal and the California Delta. But, without the concepts of adaptive governance and regional water planning being incorporated in the debate the distinctions between the Green Party and the Democratic Party will not prove sufficient to engage Delta stakeholders in the local Green Party work. Likewise, failing to distinguish the concerns of farm workers and family farmers in the Central Valley from corporate agribusinesses will only push those stakeholders into the arms of the Republican Party.

All of this requires a party organization much more rooted in our communities than is currently the case. It means seeing our electoral politics as connected to our distinct vision. It means recruiting candidates that have deep roots locally and have the capacity of presenting the need for structural reforms needed to implement a Green agenda. It means being there with the people when they are expressing their anger and frustration, while presenting new options that address the underlying concerns.

We are the only game in town capable of doing this. But, it does mean deciding as an organization how we can do this. Our state Water Planning Platform plank presents the vision, http://www.cagreens.org/platform/platform_ecology.shtml#water but it does not give us a roadmap forward. The window of opportunity is closing and if we cannot act decisively now, we will not be able to do anything when the window is closed and locked.

Campaign Finance after SCOTUS Decision - Citizens United.

I have managed to insert comments in multiple blogs on the subject of yesterday's SCOTUS decision. However, you will probably learn more from this discussion between Tom Hartmann and David Cobb.

Here is the link to YouTube.

Who killed the Progressive Movement?

Well, I am not sure that the progressive movement is dead… or if it even really existed.  But Princeton's Cornell West is trying to breath life back into it and told Obama so. West's Letter to Obama was broadcast on BBC World News America this week and asks a fundamental question about the focus of Obama's administration."How deep is your love for poor and working people?" 

I think that the events of the last 12 months have shown that there is much which the President can not control, Professor.  Was it Obama's fault that Max Baucus (D-MT) allowed the medical insurance companies write the health care legislation?   Obama saw what happened to the Clintons when they went outside of Congress and wrote their own version of the legislation. 

Determined not to make the same mistake, Obama ended up with an indigestible sausage whose making was all too transparent. We saw just how much the U.S. Senate marches to the tune of corporate protection.  Offered a wide range of health care funding options from many countries with better systems than we have, they chose none of them.

Put aside the problems with health care legislation and try to imagine what will happen to climate change legislation this year.  Once again, we will have legislation written by the very industries whose excess exhalations we need to control. 

So, here is a list of reasons why Obama has not lived up to your hopes, Professor.
Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid…

need I go on?
Pete Stark, CA-13; Dennis Cardoza, CA-18; Jim Costa, CA-20

Beginning to get picture?
Max Bachus,  Evan Bayh,   Richard Dubin, Charles Schumer.

Here is a reminder, Professor.   Change from the top is always about power.  The direction of change must come from the people.  To the extent that we, the people, can rally around a few fundamental ideas, then we might accomplish what you desire.   Place your hope in the people, not the President.

Redefining the Politics of Bioregionalism

Greens have a stake in redefining our political philosophy. The existing premise of progressivism is simply not sufficient to establish a stable and broad-based ecological party. The political climate of the American people needs to be addressed as much as the global climate does. Working for grassroots democracy is not the same as upping the ante on the Democratic Left. Working for ecological wisdom is not the same as increasing a Federal role in environmental protection. Blending grassroots democracy with ecological wisdom means establishing new political entities, new sources for revenues, new local initiatives and new constituencies.

If we dare to take California as a model for the existing political paradigm of green politics, we see it fails the tests for viability, sustainability and financial responsibility. The problems that confront the state of California are the products of unsustainable growth, political structures that are dysfunctional and a lack of prioritization of goals at the state and local levels. It is worth saying that mismanagement, political nepotism and corruption are in there as well. We should recognize that structural reform is absolutely necessary to rebuild the system of governing and the mechanisms for administration in this state. The recent upsurge of popular opposition in the Tea Party and the message of the Republican victory in Massachusetts are not simply demonstrations of a resurgent right wing. In fact, they are a demonstration of the failure of progressivism to have a link with the real needs, concerns and aspirations of the American people.

I have explained on prior posts my experiences in regional water planning in the Middle Rio Grande region of New Mexico. The depth of that experience flowed from the demonstration that its process established a working model that was able to integrate open input and transparency with a broad range of local stakeholders united around a common Mission and Goals. Its weaknesses illustrated the flaw in removing this process from political entities capable of implementing its wide range of recommendations. http://www.waterassembly.org Its strengths united community people, public officials, water users and advocates, specialists and managers towards a dynamic review of the water resource in the region. Its weakness led to the failure to get the blueprint off the drawing board.

There is a wide range of political discussion in regards to strategy, tactics and vision that Greens have not been able to grasp the significance of. Urban Greens would do well to recognize that the appeals by candidates might be better off in addressing constituencies who: 1) Promote brownfield restoration and public infrastructure maintenance and development; 2) Establish local sustainability, as distinct from Federal policies or huge state spending efforts through diversions; 3) Redefine growth in the context of renewable resources; 4) Establish local political entities that define stakeholder engagement and input.

Rural Greens need to be more cognizant of: 1) The positive role of family farms; 2) The diverse character of rural resource issues; 3) The integration of ecological awareness at the local levels that are often reflected by rural Republican representatives; and 4) The conflicts that exist between regions when water is diverted from one rural region to an urban or farming region.

It is not our goal to change people. We should focus more on taking people where they are and analyzing what are the fundamental issues that underlie their current outlook. Urban residents are Democratic simply because they promote the interests of the cities, and not because the diverse ethnic groups are inherently providing real input. People are not simply members of a given ethnic group. The problems they confront are not simply the inevitable product of the lack of economic or environmental justice. We do not live in such a one-dimensional world. Hispanic farmers and farm workers do not have the same needs and concerns as Hispanic urban dwellers simply because they are all Hispanic. The political bases of the existing two parties have carved up the pie of constituencies based on the political fait accompli that exists.

To address this is to redefine constituencies as a Green Party can do. As a political party it is up to us not to preach to people that they have to give up everything in order to live. It is up to us to re-carve the pie of political constituencies in a way that can bring together urban and rural dwellers by establishing a common framework for decision-making and a common set of principles where it is no longer a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The discussions include: how can urban areas be restored to reduce sprawl, how can resource issues be effectively administered, managed and structured locally, how can rural needs be addressed absent a traditional urban-rural water war, how can Greens provide leadership in the development expanding the political base of the Green Party and how can we politically define and organizationally represent new constituencies.

We have to get out of the mindset of advocacy groups. This means not simply setting one group of stakeholders against the other. This means looking to regional planning for the value that it has in being able to present distinct differences in the context of community people working together. Structural reforms means being willing to give the people the benefit of the doubt in regards to the decisions that impact on their future. This means not having things fall out as WE would have done it. This means defusing debates while recognizing the substance of the concerns of all.

Environmental Attacks are no surprise

It should come as not surprise to anyone that there are major lobbying efforts going on all the time, that these lobbying efforts are well funded, that very large public relations firms make fortunes in running campaigns against the future.  What should wake people up is the ease with which these organized attacks can insinuate themselves into public discourse, easily gaining media coverage while the rest of us struggle to be heard.  I provide a good example.

Take a look at the web site for the AB 32 Implementation Group.  The banner on their home page says that they are "Working Towards Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions and Enhancing California's Competitiveness."  The site lists all of the group's members, starting with the always retrograde California Chamber of Commerce.  However, journalists at California Watch have found that even this list is very suspect, some of them being no longer in existence and others surprised that their names were even mentioned.

It should also be no surprise that the list contains 22 of California's largest carbon polluters, as ranked by California's Air Resources Board, the organization responsible for the implementation of AB 32. So, the "implementation group" is, in reality, an effort to slow down, minimize or even prevent the implementation of CA state law, all in the name of economic effectiveness.

This issue is going to loom large in the upcoming gubernatorial election.  California has an economic crisis, there is not enough revenue for state government to provision all of the programs currently in place.  Republican candidate Steve Poizner has endorsed an initiative measure called the California Jobs Initiative that would set aside implementation of AB 32 until California's economy recovers.

Meg Whitman is only a little less strident in her opposition, limiting the suspension to a 1 year moratorium on "most" of AB 32's rules.  That is a position that has gotten her in trouble with some Republicans for not being aggressive enough.

Now, let me come back to the AB 32 Implementation Group and ask why it took an independent investigative reporting effort to publish this story. All of the state's major papers have written something about the politics of the governor's race but none of them have taken the effort to go beyond reporting what candidates said and giving us some hint as to what facts were being ignored.

Let me conclude by giving everyone a fact.  AB 32 was designed to reduce carbon emissions and help forestall the type of future you can see on the big screen in The Road. But that is a long way off in most people's minds.  AB 32 will also help clean up the air pollution that makes the San Joaquin Valley one of the more medically challenging places to live in the country.  Add in the South Coast and the cost to the CA Economy is $28 Billion per year.

This is what Whitman and Poizner want for CA. Just keep on letting all businesses do what bad business do, continue to pollute because clean up is too costly.  Well, the health effects are too costly as well.  They cost every one of us, every time we have to visit a doctor or a clinic.  They cost every business that provides medical coverage for their employees.  But then Whitman and Poizner don't really care about the public.

In contrast, Green candidate Laura Wells puts forward a platform with a range of actions on climate, energy and clean air.  AB 32 is just a good first step towards getting what California needs. The Cap-and-Trade system that is at the heart of AB 32 must not be allowed to become an excuse for continuing to pollute and raising consumer costs to pay for it. Wells says that …

A community already burdened by these emissions should not be harmed further as the result of a dubious industry-concocted market-based cap & trade plan.

Statistic: According to the CSU-Fullerton study linked above. CA's dirty air causes 3,812premature deathes of adults over 30 every year.  That compares to the 2,976 lost in the 9/11 attacks.  Yet, we would do nothing because it costs too much?

It should also come as no surprise that demagogue millionaire politicians will twist every event to their partisan advantage, playing off the emotions of a public that wonders if their job is secure or that they will be able to stay in their homes. 

Laura Wells and Main Stream Media.

For far too long, I have heard Greens talk about being given short shrift by main stream media. It has become such a truism that most Greens don't even try. 

Let me show you something what can be done if you try.  Laura Wells in the Sacramento Bee.  It can be done. All you have to do is become the story. In Laura's case, part of that story is having been the top vote getter for any Green in a CA partisan race.  That was as a candidate for Controller in 2002 when she out polled the top of the Green ticket, Peter Camejo.

 There is no secret to this.  Mainstream Media is always looking for a story.  So, give them one.  If you like this about Laura, then go visit her web site, become a fan of Laura on facebook, follow her on twitter.

More importantly, take some time  to Feel the spirit. Bill Moyers had it right.  We don't have the money to compete with a Meg Whitman or a Steve Poizner or a Jerry Brown with maybe $7 Mil in the bank.  But now one works their ass off like a Green.  We have to, but that is what is going to win elections and, who know, maybe make a heroine out of Laura.

Water legislation charade

Special Session 7 of the State Legislature was supposed to deal with California's Water problems.  All during the session, the media, both print and TV, kept telling us what the politicians were saying or they were showing us farms that were drying up... but not showing us the farms in the East side of the San Joaquin Valley that got 100% of their water allocation.  The media coverage on this issue would not win even a Columbia Scholastic Press Association award... normally given to High School newspapers.

As we learn more and more, it is not from the media.  Rather, we have to build up our own network of trusted sources who just might get it right. This is what an inquisitive citizen found.

We know that the water legislation was basically written by large water users... Metropolitan Water District and Westlands Irrigation District.  Knowing that, it is easy to see why they did not allow any input from those who live and work in the Delta nor from the legislators that represent them.  All of this was kind of covered by some of the media.  There are even follow up stories on the political ramifications for State Sen. Lois Wolk or the next actions by Assembly member Alyson Huber (though she had to write it herself.)

But, this highly touted legislation is really not worth much.  Consider the requirement to determine the "flow criteria" for maintenance of the Delta.  The initial hearings on this have begun, but it is only a show for the public.  Brian Poulsen of the law firm Somach, Simmons & Dunn provides more news than the media.

In late 2009, the California Legislature passed legislation requiring the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) to develop new flow criteria for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) ecosystem to protect public trust resources.  As an initial step towards complying with this mandate, on January 7, 2010, the State Water Board held a pre-proceeding conference to prepare for and discuss procedural aspects of its upcoming informational proceeding to develop flow criteria for the Delta ecosystem.

OK, so they met on this big project and what did it mean?  Not much.  Poulsen (but not the media) reports what happened.

It is unclear at this time what impact the Proceeding will have on water users since the Proceeding may not ultimately result in numeric flow criteria for the Delta.  Further, and as explained by several Board members, whatever criteria are developed will not be binding in future proceedings.

I don't care how much Assemblyman Jared Huffman puffs about this bill, in the long run, it is a waste of taxpayer money holding hearings on something that is not binding, may or may not be used but boy did we every have a great show. Too bad that Huffman is seen as the progressive leader of the 6tj District.  With Progressives like Huffman, we will soon be back in the 20th Century.  It is too bad that none of the Green office holders in the 6th AD chose to run against him.

California Water Crisis Recap

State Senator Lois Wolk gave her 5th Senate District constituents a sobering assessment of the 2009 special session water legislation.

Now we are left with a new water policy full of loopholes, irresponsibly financed, and replete with vague promises unlikely to produce a positive outcome.

California Greening authors would agree with that as well as her call for a complete re-structuring of the process.

The problems with the recent legislation are easy to document.

• The 5 delta counties were not part of the negotiations that led to Steinberg's grand compromise sell out.
• There is no enforceable definition of the flow of fresh water required to keep the Delta from becoming a salt water marsh.  That has major consequences for all CA agriculture and even SoCal urban water sourcing. 
• This significant increase in bonded indebtedness is irresponsible when the state is blocked by Grover Norquist aides in the Republican Party from balancing that with tax increases.  You can not continue to add to the indebtedness without providing a method of paying it back. 
• The only way that the Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2010 made it through the state legislature was to load it up with more pork than an Iowa hog farm special projects so that each member could go back home and say "see what I got for you." 

We can not agree with Wolk when she addresses the highly politically charged system of priority water rights that is currently the law in California. Wolk mentioned water rights first in her list of problems.

Respected legal experts representing Northern California water agencies warned that the package lacked water rights protections and would uproot the decades old priority system of water rights, risking the municipal and agricultural water supplies of Northern California for the benefit of water exporters to the South. These legal experts were discounted and the protections were omitted.

She also made the continuation of the status quo as the key item in her list of actions required to set things right, combining it with the ecological protection requirement.

Water flows necessary to sustain the Delta's ecosystem and communities must be protected. Historic safeguards, including the priority water rights system, must be upheld to protect Northern California communities, save California's largest salmon runs, and restore the health of the fragile Delta estuary.

That only confuses the issue. We agree that we need to manage the flow of fresh water through the delta with an eye toward preventing the entire estuary from becoming too salty for use. But, the question of preserving historical water rights is quite separate and needs to be addressed separately. I suggest starting to read the comments on this from co-blogger Martin Zehr here.

Green Party positions on water planning are based on regional water plans that consider all of the uses and potential uses within a water shed. That will surely challenge the water rights of some. But anything less than that only puts off the water wars for the next decade and we show no signs of becoming magically smarter.

California Water Politics: Too much, too quickly

Coming in from NM several things really stand out in regards to the California water issues. One thing is the inordinate role of the state legislature in water management. Another is the reliance on diversions at every turn as the first option in allocating water to regions and urban areas. I have briefly seen the CA state water planning process, but really consider the state process to be way too removed from the regional realities to make it meaningful. Water politics in this state remain a conflict between urban users, environmental advocates and rural users. Distinctions are very sharp between users here and there are few concessions on any side in regards to their respective narratives.

In this context, I would like to grasp how political strategy and legislative actions develop in the state particularly as they impact on various users. California has lobby groups for everything and there appears to be few structural mechanisms to provide adaptive governance in decision-making. Within the Green Party I have worked to begin to address the water issue through regional planning processes that is growing in its application and working to increase our political presence in the debates. There appears, at least on the surface, to be fundamental flaws in the structure of CA state water management and administration (and there always has been). Add to this, the issue of antiquated rural-based water law is an aspect that haunts all Western states.

The fundamental flaw appears to be the lack of a common vision concerning the context of economic growth and development that inherently produces public relation wars, rather than coordinated management and administration. Arnold says that "We can have it all." when it comes to water supplies for urban, agricultural and environmental uses and then pushes through a bill that prioritizes agricultural use to the detriment of the Delta users.

It was relatively easy in NM to unite with rural and ag users in the Middle Rio Grande because all stakeholders were united about the regional priority of agricultural use. For one thing ag is on a much smaller scale. For another there is an active movement among them against sprawl and transfer of land use to housing and development. These folks actively opposed new power plants and proposed highway infrastructure to facilitate development. Greens have supported these efforts. Our focus on high volumne users were directed more at chip manufacturers and national defense labs. I have talked with a few Delta folks on the situation there and most of the active community forces appeared to feel that they are left with few options in addressing the planned peripheral canal diversion. They remind me of many folks in NM but lack a substantive political base that is able to translate their concerns into effective political action.

It appears that while in most states change takes place much too slowly, but California has a habit of changing much too rapidly when it comes to water. There appears to be so many ideas out there that are implemented so quickly that there is little time to establish mechanisms that can provide sound science in regards to their impact and coordinated efforts in management and administration. Without improved monitoring and measurement included in changes no one can really accurately demonstrate how to prioritize allocations or mitigate for the consequences of such decisions. While a bill is introduced in the state legislature to make water a human right, there is no bill that begins to address the myriad of federal, state and local agencies with overlapping authorities. This was also the case in NM.

Green Party candidates need to apply our holistic perspective for regional planning to their own campaigns. Recruitment of experienced water advocates need to expand the visibility of the water issue as a priority of the Green Party of California. We can engage in a campaign against the water bond. We need to establish sound processes for decision-making on water and get it out of the State Legislature. Sustainability is a goal that becomes real only only through the actions by users at the regional level.