California Falling Down, Falling Down, Falling Down by Wes Rolley

Those Greens who are thinking about running fro state wide and / local California offices by 2012 need to make sure that they can clearly articulate a sound fiscal policy for California. We have a new governor who is trying to demonstrate that, nearing the end of his long political career, he can give CA the tough love that it needs.

High on Brown's list is to end the practice of financing development through the use of Redevelopment Agencies. Originally introduced as a way for municipalities to finance the recovery of "blighted" areas, we find that the definition of blighted becomes very loose when municipalities figure out a way to get more tax revenue from the property in question. Often the resulting end picture is not as rosy as their consultants painted it. Just read what Michael Hiltzik has to say in the LA Times.

... redevelopment agencies. Maybe you're not familiar with this odd corner of government, but you should be.
That's because local government redevelopment agencies lay claim every year to about $5 billion in property taxes that would otherwise go to school districts, counties and the state. But they've never had to show they're worth the money. In fact, they've never had to show that their efforts produce any measurable net gain in property values or employment in the state, which is the whole point of having them in the first place.

It is not going to be enough to chant "tax the rich" to win any election. If we are to have credibility, we need to be able to explain how things would be better were Greens given the power to make the budget. Maybe we collectively need to have a panel of economists positioned to help us understand the relationship between tax policies, civic revenue and a sustainable future for all.


The first thing to remember is that the primary goal of Redevelopment is to allow government to use a lager share of a dwindling revenue stream. Can Jerry Brown solve California's Budget problems without killing the Redevelopment Agencies? Can our Cities solve their own budget problems if they lose the Redevelopment revenue stream? The mayor's of our nine largest cities were in Sacramento to meet with Brown and to make the point that they can not.

The Craziness of Politics

The logic of the sociopath is to accuse people who focus on improving their family's lives of being criminals, instead of those who commit violence, rape, assault, robbery and anti-social acts. Jared Loughner's video monologue stand as the rantings of a sociopath aimed at all the students at Pima Community College and anyone who dares to live normal lives. The psychotic breaks from the acceptance of socially adaptable behavior and is focused on punishing the world for being the world. Jared Loughner made the leap into the fire because he learned to love the flames.



The criminal, who crosses the line between being responsible and becoming predatory or commiting acts of violence, need not be a sociopath. The violence in the Bay Area is as bad as the violence in other urban centers in the U.S. It is a culture of violence and it is reinforced. All the rhetoric of "non-violence" by Bay liberals has done nothing to de-escalate the violence. All the talk of sanctuary cities have not stopped the sex slave trade of women immigrants in the Bay Area or addressed the drug gang subculture. Posturing is the exercise of public officials, here in San Francisco, who are unable to resolve problems.



Credibility is evaluated by how often you can discredit the opposition. Meanwhile, the city continues to deteriorate. Those with the best of intentions often hesitate to speak out of concern that their words are misconstrued or deliberately misrepresented by others. Those with the worst of intentions feel free to arrogantly accuse all manner of crimes to any and all who speak other than themselves. It constricts the discussion, diffuses the substance of the issues and obscures the essential elements that really need to be reviewed. Following that, there becomes a presumption regarding the motives and intent of all others who try to point out relevant background that could help to clarify the discussion. And discussions degenerate into a THEM VS. US shouting match. This is encouraged by the political parties because their base is stablized in the most polarized situations.



As a Green in NM, I have seen Democrats accuse Greens the day before elections of being Republicans because former Republicans are active in Green campaigns. I have seen the Democratic Speaker of the House in the NM State Legislature try to prevent major party status for third parties by presenting legislation that made the requirements impossible to achieve. I have stood before the Republican Governor and criticized his managed health care from the podium and saw an acute psychiatric facility closed as a result of his policies. We have had a Green engage in the Gubernatorial debate to define us from left Democrats, as well as Republicans. We have also had Republicans offer $250,000 to the Green Party state co-chair to sponsor a PAC and a straw candidate to take votes away from Democrats. Even after the story hit the NY Times, some voters in the state still thought the Green Party had taken the money. I also heard of how a Green Party candidate was surrounded by a mob organized by local social justice groups in an attempt to get him to withdraw so the Democratic Party would win.



When we get into politics it is with the understanding that politics is dirty. But, it is only when there is something at stake, such as a candidate's reputation or an official's integrity, do we really find out what this means. Often the gap between guilty and not guilty is simply a matter of what the statute says. Other times we are led to the trough by unscrupilous individuals with their own axe to grind. Soap operas, nouvellas, have been replaced by cable news commentators, bloggers and op-ed writers. The drama is powerful but the impact on reality will always be minimal. There is no intention to solve inequalities or violence in our nation. Even if there was some intention, it is only through political action that these can truly take shape. Real leaders for our nation can come from any party. But, real solutions for our nation can only come from the people. It is the people who govern and it is we who must decide the best for our nation.

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It is time to tell the climate story like it really is

Yesterday, I received a reference to two recent book, sort of capsule reviews written by Lorna Salzman. I want to re-print these today for the simple reason that there is nothing more important to be working on that the resolution of climate change.

Carl Safina's latest book, View from Lazy Point, is reviewed - actually, raved about - in this Sunday's NY Times Book Review. If you have not yet read anything of Carl's, shame on you....so get this book. Carl heads the Blue Ocean Institute, among his long list of credits, and is a superlative writer. 
 
The other book is World on the Edge, by Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute. This book is the culmination of a long list of his books on the deterioration of the planet and what needs to be done. Let me warn you that this one is possibly the most apocalyptic, but were it not, it would be dishonest. Let me give you some short quotes. Then you should order a copy from EPI (epi@earth-policy.org) or download it from their web site free, www.earth-policy.org  

Brown predicts "the perfect storm" of food emergencies and loss of fresh water supplies (which are linked), all stemming from the kind of severe climate events we are now experiencing regularly (heat wave in Russia, floods in Pakistan), compounded by overpopulation and loss of ecosystems and their services. We are already in overshoot mode and have been so since 1980, i.e. humanity's collective demands  have surpassed the earth's regenerative capacity. Brown says that today, global demands exceed sustainable yields by 50%; it would thus take 1.5 earths to maintain our current consumption.

Brown: "No previous civilization has survived the ongoing destruction of its natural supports. Nor will ours. Yet economists look at the future through a different lens...annual growth..is measured in the trillions. In the eyes of mainstream economists, the world has not only an illustrious economic past but also a promising future. Mainstream economists see the 2008=09 global economic recession and near-collapse of the international financial system as a bump in the road..before a return to growth as usual. Projections of economic growth..typically show the global economy expanding by roughly 3 % a year. At this rate the 2010 economy would easily double in size by 2035".

"But as the economy expanded some 20-fold over the last century, it has revealed a flaw- a flaw so serious that if it is not corrected it will spell the end of civilization as we know it"...The market..is not telling us the truth...Modern economic thinking and policymaking have created an economy that is so out of sync with the ecosystem on which it depends that it is approaching collapse. How can we assume that the growth of an economic system that is shrinking the earth's forests, eroding its soils, depleting its aquifers, collapsing its fisheries, elevating its temperature, and melting its ice sheets can simply be projected into the long-term future? "

"If we continue with business as usual, civilization collapse is no longer a matter of whether but when. We now have an economy that is destroying its natural support systems, on that has put us on a decline and collapse path. We are dangerously close to the edge. Peter Goldmark, former Rockefeller Foundation president, puts it well: 'The death of our civilization is no longer a theory or an academic possibility; it is the road we're on'"

This book lays out the evidence. Apart from Brown and EPI, the rest of the environmental community is in denial mode, believing that wind turbines and solar power will rescue us. This book makes it quite clear that they will not. It says what needs to be done...and fast, including a CO2 reduction of 80% not by 2050, the date arbitrarily chosen by those who do not understand the emergency including our fearless leaders like NRDC, EDF and 350.org,  but by the year 2020. Nine years from now. 

It isn't just capitalism that will collapse. It is human civilization, and our history has shown how earlier civilizations collapsed from environmental causes (Sumer in Mesopotamia, Maya). We ignore Brown at our own peril. Have the courage to read this book.  

LS

For those of you in denial about overpopulation, here is what Brown says about Pakistan, which lost thousands of people to floods last year and where the temperature in south central Pakistan reached 128 degrees F. in May, a record for Pakistan:

"The Indus River, the lifeline of Pakistan, and its tributaries were overflowing. Levees that had confined the river to a narrow channel so the fertile floodplains could be farmed had failed. Eventually the raging waters covered 1/5 of the country. ...Some 2 million homes were damaged or destroyed. More than 20 million people were affected by the flooding. Nearly 2,000 Pakistanis died. Some 6 million acres of crops were damaged or destroyed. Over a million livestock drowned. Roads and bridges were washed away."

"Pakistan's 185 million people are squeezed into an area 8% that of the United States. 90% of the forests in the Indus Basin are gone, leaving little to absorb the rainfall and reduce runoff. Beyond this, Pakistan has a livestock population of cattle, water buffalo, sheep and goats of 149 million, well above the 103 million grazing livestock in the United Stats. The result is a country stripped of vegetation. When it rains, rapid runoff erodes the soil, silting up reservoirs and reducing their capacity to store flood water. Twenty or more years ago, Pakistan chose to define security largely in military terms. When it should have been investing in reforestation, soil conservation, education, and family planning, it was shortchanging these activities to bolster its military capacity. In 1990, the military budget was 15 times that of education and a staggering 44 times that of health and family planning. As a result, Pakistan is now a poor, overpopulated, environmentally devastated nuclear power where 60%  of women cannot read and write".

Some might think of the climate issues as yet one more piece of evidence of the tree hugger tendency among Greens. Nothing could be further from the truth. Concern about the effects of climate change is evidence of the concern of Greens for social justice and the plight of millions. Read carefully the comments regarding last summer's flood in Pakistan. Then think about the more recent floods in Nashville, Columbia, Brazli (April and again now), Australia, Sri Lanka, Benin, Burkina Faso. Nature does not select according to the ability of land to cope.


We should be ashamed to have taken on the mantle of being Green, to have proclaimed our devotion to the issues of social justice and to have done so little.

Ckimate adaptation might not save us.

I have been a bit frustrated by the fact that one of the blogger that I follow does not allow comments. I am referring to Dr. Matthew E. Kahn, UCLA Economics professor who writes Environmental and Urban Economics from which he occasionally reminds us that he has a recently published book entitled Climatopolis.

You don't have to read the book to get a few of Kahn's basic points, especially his belief that market economics will provide the mechanism by which society will adapt to a changing warming climate. That is made clear in all of the promotions for Climatopolis.

There are two basic assumption here:

• that there is time to start mitigating the effects of climate change after the reality become so clear that even hard core deniers like Alan Watts will be crying about missed opportunities to do something if only the scientists had been more clear.
• that there will be both time enough and financing enough to accomplish what needs to be done to protect our economy and our way of life.

Neither of these are shown to be true. I am not an economist and I have not read Kahn's Climatopolis (though I did request my local library to purchase a copy… sharing is green.) However, I do read a lot and have two observations.

The first is that most climate models have been wrong in their predicted rate of climate change. It has been happening much more quickly than even Hansen predicted. This, along with the fact that scientists have been loath to connect extreme weather events to climate change, has led many to an overly optimistic view of the future. It may be fortunate that we have had so many extreme weather events this year, especially flooding, that the scientists can now make the point that the frequency of these events is the result of man caused climate change.

My second observation is the fact that almost every government is strapped for cash and does not have the ability to invest in the huge infrastructure projects required to meet the demands of a significant relocation of population such as Kahn talks about in Climatopolis. The money just isn't there and the private sector, ever concerned with long term investments in non-profit making activities, isn't going to do it on their own.

In today's post, Kahn chides a group of climate hawks for their pessimism over future events.  He selected a list of regular commenters from Joe Romm's Climate Progress.  That choice may or may not have been motivated by Romm's negative critiques of Climatopolis.  Kahn even views their pessimism through his optimistic lens of the wisdom of the market.

They know that we are on a doom path but if they know it, then others know it and the anticipation of potential doom creates opportunities for innovators.

Such innovation, on the massive scale required takes both time and capital, neither of which can be supplied in the quantity required. Kahn clearly understands what is going to happen. He links to one of his own OpEds where he lays out the social / economic consequences of our changing climate.

Cities in the developing world will face additional challenges in coping with climate change. Over the next 100 years, the major growth in urbanisation will take place in the developing world. Climate change is likely to accelerate this urbanisation as many farmers find that the profitability of continuing to farm has declined due to changes in climate. As these new urbanites move to cities, local wages will decline and local rents will increase. These general equilibrium effects mean that incumbent urban poor will suffer from such urban migration. The local urban politicians are unlikely to have strong incentives to scale up the infrastructure to provide for the new migrants. Those cities that offer rural migrants a high quality of life are likely to attract even more of such migrants. A type of tragedy of the commons will emerge.

I completely fail to understand how he maintains such a faith in the efficacy of free market capitalism to motivate doing the right thing for long term survival. Long term is not generally rewarded and risks are not normally considered without great reward. Did we not just go through this with the Great Recession?

Is there a future for CaGreening?

I feel that I need to ask our few readers is it is worth continuing California Greening. On a daily basis, we generally do not have over 10 readers. I am not sure why that is. What is it about California Greening that fails to attract followers? Should we make changes in how we cover issues? Might it be better to shut this down and move on to facebook or twitter? (I really dislike that fact that you can not cover any complex issue is the few words that they allow and a blog does allow us to explain, expand in a way that is not otherwise possible.

Is the problem that we focus on ecological issues and most Greens do not have the same level of concern?

I would like to have some advice on this, because my instinct is to shut it down.

Joe Romm's Full Global Warming Solution

It would be presumptuous of me to try and improve on what Joe Romm produced at Climate Progress today. It is an update to his "wedges" discussion that shows how we can achieve our climate goals if we only had the political will. Romm lays out The full global warming solution: How the world can stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm. This is how he sets the stage.

Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide at 450 ppm or lower is not politically possible today — not even close — but is certainly achievable from an economic and technological perspective, as I and others have said for years.

Humanity has only two paths forward at this point. Either we voluntarily switch to a low-carbon, low-oil, low-net water use, low-net-material use economy over the next two decades or the post-Ponzi-scheme-collapse forces us to do so circa 2030. The only difference between the two paths is that the first one spares our children and grandchildren and countless future generations untold misery (see “Intro to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water” and “A stunning year in climate science reveals that human civilization is on the precipice“)

. If we are serious about being Green, then we need to figure out what to do because one major party denies that there is a problem and the other can't figure out what to do about it.

Memory

Over the holiday's I have been reading at Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson's detailed recounting of America's great migration… that of a significant percentage of black America away from both the Jim Crow laws of the South and the roots of their own culture. It is not an easy read and I will return the book to the library today, unfinished. I would rather buy the book than to try and deal the pauses I must take in order to absorb what I have just understood.

Wilkerson chose to illustrate this bit of history by capturing and relaying the memories of those who lived, grabbing the memories before they were gone, lost in those who would deny it, closed off by those who did not want to relive it. This narrative has overlapped much of my own 70 years, but not much of my own experience, of which I will write later.

As I probed my way into her chosen narratives, I was reminded of another writer who based his books on re-told personal narratives, Studs Terkel. I pulled up my well thumbed paperback edition of The Great Divide: Second Thoughts on the American Dream(© 1988). I got no further than the introduction before I had to stop and think again.

In the making of this book (and even while considering it), I was burdened with doubts far more disturbing than any I had ever experienced earlier. In understanding this self-assigned and at times perverse task, I was away of an attribute lacking in the 1980's that had been throbbingly present in the earlier decades, even in the silent 1950's: memory.

There is no doubt that we have command with a lot of facts, most of them irrelevant to how we live our lives. As we lurch from media headline to media headline, prodded into thinking that what Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen have done is really important. We have a collective memory that lasts no longer than it takes us to click the remote sort of a national Alzheimer's of things important.

Along the way, Mark Zuckerberg became Time's Man of the Year for replacing social interaction with social media where our ever increasing trivial utterance is packaged for analysis by those who would sell us yet another diversion… is it Cityville now?

Can we challenge ourselves to create new memories, or do we just not want to get involved.

If you think it has rained enough, guess again.

In a recent feature on CA water, (subs req'd) High Country News contributing editor, Matt Jenkins, brings us back to a harsh reality.

Nothing can be done in California that will keep its farms and big cities thriving at today's levels and also keep the fish and the De;lta alive. There's simply not enough water to go around anymore.

The print edition has a different title "California Dreamin'" followed by Twenty years of wishful thinking have twisted the state's water politics -- with national repercussions. Every time you hear a local meteorologist opine that we have had enough rain, or that the ski areas love the snow pack, just understand that it isn't enough and never will be.

Jenkins feature article gives a truly (not faux) fair and balanced view of what is happening with this one piece of the CA water puzzle. It is by far not the only piece nor should it be the sole focus of Green ecological advocacy. Water is one part of a nexus of issues which, along with climate change and energy, are so intertwined as to defy any separation.

There is another aspect to this which Greens should consider. In the most recent (Jan. - Feb. 2011) issue of Orion Magazine, Derrick Jensen writes about just how idiotic it is to expect to have it all.

I'm continually stunned by how many seemingly sane people believe you can have infinite economic growth on a finite planet. Perpetual economic growth and its cousin, limitless technological expansion, are beliefs so deeply held by so many in this culture that they often go unquestioned.

We see this so clearly in the Obama administration's economic policy. If Larry Summers has had Obama's ear, then he has surely heard this bit cited by Jensen:

There are no… limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind at any time in the foreseeable future. …The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error.

I would rather think that the idea that a consumerist culture is not bound by natural limits is an act of profound hubris, but the Obama / Summers economic policy requires that growth to solve our problems.

The question for Greens is whether we can find the political will to unmask the meme of perpetual growth and help society to live within it's means. If we return to the issues of water, climate, energy then we have to immediately confront the myth of perpetual growth.

Global warming is why you are freezing.

For anyone who has to deal with the climate deniers who, like Sen. Inhofe, would point to the recent cold weather storms as evidence that global warming is a hoax, there is a very good, easily understandable story in the NY Times this week. Juath Cohen manages to make it so clear that even Sen. Inhofe should be able to understand it.

All of this cold was met with perfect comic timing by the release of a World Meteorological Organization report showing that 2010 will probably be among the three warmest years on record, and 2001 through 2010 the warmest decade on record.

Read the full text here:

Transition for my town

This is scheduled for the 12/31 issue of the Morgan Hill Times.

The history of the Santa Clara Valley is one of constant transition. Long gone are the days when the Union Pacific RR advertised it as the Valley of the Heart's Delight. Some of the agricultural economy has remained but the structure has radically changed. No longer do we have packing sheds next to the railway. Morgan Hill is not even just a bedroom community for Silicon Valley, as it was when I moved here over 30 years ago. Rather we are transitioning to something new and don't really know just what that will be.

One of the most important drivers for the past transitions has been the value of our land. How do we use it? How do we tax it? Is it more valuable for agriculture or for industrial development. You have only to examine the office parks along Cochrane Rd. to appreciate how we have answered those questions.

It seems obvious that we may not always answer those questions in the same manner, or that we will start asking new question. As our economic life changes, there will be new drivers for local decisions.

In a recent NY Times column, Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman discusses the new economic normal. “Oil is back above $90 a barrel. Copper and cotton have hit record highs. Wheat and corn prices are way up. Over all, world commodity prices have risen by a quarter in the past six months.” With changes like this, perhaps it will become more valuable to maintain agricultural land in close proximity to where we live.

Krugman gets right to the point. “What the commodity markets are telling us is that we’re living in a finite world, in which the rapid growth of emerging economies is placing pressure on limited supplies of raw materials, pushing up their prices. And America is, for the most part, just a bystander in this story.”

That is a big change from that past vision of America. How do we adapt to the reality of a finite world, one in which resources are limited, access to them is increasingly expensive when transportation costs are added, and America no longer has an inexhaustible supply. Politicians talk about meeting out energy needs through the exploitation of oil shale, but they never mention the costs, direct and indirect, that oil shale operations have. There is probably no single process that would destroy more watershed than a massive exploitation of the shale deposits in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. This is water that would go to the Colorado River and make that water supply unusable.

There are other drivers that we have to consider; a changing climate is just one. The frequency of extreme weather events that we are currently experiencing around the world is on of the predicted results of increased greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere. New York has been hard hit by a blizzard while Greenland continues to warm. In the Southern Hemisphere, South Australia has experienced their worst drought while Queensland had record rainfall and flood this week. It may rival the flood from Pakistan but affect fewer people. Remember: a warmer atmosphere will hold more water and that will fall somewhere.

We can no longer count on our state and federal governments to prevent future catastrophic events, or even to adapt to them after it happens. There is neither the fiscal capacity in either Washington or Sacramento nor the political will act if it costs money. We can only raise taxes so much and I doubt that the incoming Republican House of Representatives, filled as it is with new Tea Party members, is gong to do much of anything productive about energy or climate change.

Morgan Hill has to recognize that the future of this community depends on what we do, collectively, here and now. There is a good model for this cooperative community action in the Morgan Hill Community Emergency Response Team. (http://www.mhcert.com/) This is how we take local action to deal with a sudden emergency because we know that immediate help will not be coming form State or Federal agencies. This is not because those agencies don't want to help, it is because the can't.

How will we deal with events that are not sudden, but rather assert themselves over time. There is a model for this as well. Morgan Hill is uniquely positioned to be a Transition Town, developing a local resilience that will see us through, transitioning to a newer reality. You can find more information about Transition Towns by following Hopedance, an online journal published by Bob Banner of Santa Barbara. (http://bit.ly/huvptZ)

The key objective of a Transition Town is to provide that local resilience. They begin by asking different questions: What is the true cost of consumerism? How willing are we to push down other people in order to maintain our idea of American Exceptionalism? How do we best adapt to this new world we have created? These are moral questions as well as economic ones.

California's water wars are nothing

compared to this.

Environment and Economics: a hot topic.

It may be that economists and ecologists speak very different languages. The gap of understanding seems as big as that between Vulcan and Klingon. Nowhere does this seem more apparent than in the exchanges between Dr. Joseph Romm (Physicist, owner of the Climate Progress blog) and Dr. Matthew E. Kahn (Economics, Professor at UCLA and owner of the Environmental and Urban Economics blog.

At issue is the question of whether the capitalist system of markets will enable us all to adapt to the realities of climate change. Kahn's main thesis seems to be that, "cities and regions will adapt to rising temperatures over time, slowly transforming our everyday lives as we change our behaviors and our surroundings". Maybe Miami will be under water, but spring in Fargo might be nice. He has described this at some length in a recent book: Climatopolis.

This is beginning to look like a pissing contest between two academics intent on preserving their reputations. It would be a mistake to leave you with that impression. This is very serious and we had better get it right the first time. There might not be a second chance.

T split the rest of this comparison as well as some comments on what it means for Green Politics off the main page and you can read it here:



Romm has reviewed Kahn's book twice. After the first scathingly negative review
(Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future [Not!}), Kahn accused Romm of the sin of reviewing a book that he had not yet fully read. So, Romm read it cover to cover, and then wrote another review that was sharper than the first.(Review: Climatopolis: How our cities will thrive in the hotter future by Matthew Kahn is not a good book)

Kahn could hardly be expected to refrain from a reply.

Joe Romm is a smart angry man. He throws some new punches at my Climatopolis. Under the scenario that greenhouse gas concentrations reach 1000 ppm (which sounds high and if we reach that number this would take place in the year 2200?), some of the scenarios he sketches may play out. He makes some reasonable points about tightening some of the raw calculations but he ignores two key facts about my book. In the next edition of the book, I will address his points but in no way do his points detract from the book's core thesis. Capitalism will help us to adapt to climate change. Out of self interest, we will rebuild our future cities in places that are less at risk from climate change and we will be pro-active in embracing strategies to protect ourselves from different dimensions of climate change . (Bold emphasis is mine.)

In particular, Greens need to sort this out clearly and to put forward candidates who understand not only the science that is telling us why our climate is changing, but also the long range economic issues at play. I am not convinced that we have found or developed more than a couple of candidates who might qualify on both counts. That will have to be the subject of later posts.

I will admit that I too have not read Climatopolis. I do follow both Romm and Kahn's blogs on a regular basis, especially since Kahn did some of the best initial economic analysis of the effect of California's AB 32 (p.55 of the PDF linked.)

While I support the Governor’s broad AB32 goals, I am troubled by the economic modeling analysis that I have been asked to read. AB32 is presented as a riskless “free lunch” for Californians. These economic models predict that this regulation will offer us a “win-win” of much lower greenhouse gas emissions and increased economic growth.

Kahn describes himself as a rational expectations economist. That is where my gut tells me that he is wrong. His expectations are that people and companies will have the economic ability to adapt, making rational choices for long range gains rather than taking. The trouble with climate change is that it does not respond to quarterly report. If capitalism and it's response to market signals is going to determine how we adapt, we had better have a longer range view than that of a hedge fund supercomputer tweaking seeking advantage in a fraction of a point.

Kahn talks about how we make decisions when "we know that we do not know." It is my experience that most of us do not do that very well, especially when the goal is for some general greater good rather than being specific as to our selves, our families, our work. People tend to delay those decisions until the threat is imminent. By the, with climate change, it may be too late.

I don't have statistics to back up my conclusions, only some observation of human behavior through much of my 70 years. If we can not count on governments having the financial ability to provide for adaptation, and we also can not count on corporate long term decision making, we had better be building resilient local communities that can whether the storms to come.

Even Silence Has an End

It may seem like a rush to judgment, but I will recommend a book for all to read after completing less that half of it (220 of 528 pages).

I'm currently reading "Even Silence Has an End" by Ingrid Betancourt. You may remember that Betancourt was the Green Party candidate for President of Columbia is 2002 when she was captured and held hostage by the FARC. This book tells of her 6 and a half years of captivity in Columbia's jungles and her final rescue.

More that a mere chronicle of events, or a political statement, Betancourt has written a spiritual memoir detailing her times of self examination and her effort to not merely survive, but to survive with her soul intact.

At least Greens take a stand

I have seen multiple appeals for telling the California Air Resources Board to put some teeth into the regulations to implement SB 32's Cap and Trade program.  They have come from:

• California League of Conservation Voters:
• Union of Concerned Scientists 

Now, you can add the Green Party of California to that list. 

If I get any calls on this, since I am so freely quote, I hope that I am equal to the task.

Giving away your future.

When the California Legislature passed AB 32, it was heralded as ground breaking and promising to be the model for other states, or countries, to follow.  In last month's election, the citizen's of California had to vote to protect the provisions of AB 32 from attack by unified oil interests (Valero, Tesoro and the Koch Brothers empire).

Having accomplished that much we seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief and turned our attention to the next crisis du jour.  Wrong choice!  While we were media fed British Royal pablum or questioned whether Sarah Palin's visit to Haiti was intended to give her foreign policy credibility, California's Air Resources Board (ARB), the organization responsible for defining the rules under which polluters would be permitted to continue business as usual, was giving away those permits.  They make that intention clear on their web site as they publish the background information for Thursday Dec. 16 Board Meeting.  You can read the description of the free allocations here.

Next10 has posted the results of a recent study of implementation scenarios.  They find that "The research shows that giving away allowances for free helps energy-intensive industries, but this
strategy actually hurts the CA economy overall."  In fact, they find that both strategies will have a positive effect on employment in California, but that the free allocations will significantly reduce the number of net new jobs created.

I am increasingly doubtful that the public input will have much of an effect.  However, like chicken soup for the flu, it can't hurt. Contact your state legislators, and make sure that you have made it clear to the ARB that California jobs are more important than the financial health of major polluters but giving your comments here.

Climate Zombies

Think Progress has a list of the Climate Zombies in the 112th Congress. Not surprisingly, all of the CA list are Republicans.

There are some, like CA-02's Wally "Walleye" Herger who are so ineffective that the Washington Press named him as the Congressman who could disappear and no one would know. That is not the case with a few others.

Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46) was considered for the Chairmanship of the House Committee on Science and Technology. The one selected, R. Holt from Tx. is marginally better in that he is a not a buffoon. We know that Rohrabacher got his political start with money from the Charles Koch of Koch Industries.

Darrell Issa CA-49 will likely be the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee. He has stated that he will frequently subpoena members of the Obama Administration to challenge their direction and how they are wasting spending public money.


Brian Bilbray was recently announced as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.  Here, he could easily use hearing after hearing to ask stupid questions in order to re-state long debunked ideas.

This is all the more reason that Green Climate Hawks need to take to the air… even to the airways if we can raise enough money… and make sure that our local communities are ready to transition to the new reality of 21st Century Climate.

Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood

If you are a Green, live in California and care about the quality of water that you drink, you should get to know Lloyd G. Carter. Actually, if any of the above conditions, you should probably learn more about Lloyd and his Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood.

More than anything, I really want you to follow the leads that he has put in this post. Lloyd has pointed out the work of the Environmental Water Caucus to bring some sanity and common sense to the issues of the Sacrament / San Joaquin Delta, California Water, etc. Right now, all we have is corporate agriculture playing political games and sorting out their favorite legislator while the rest of us are forgotten.

I am of the opinion that CA legislators, especially the LA based Democrats, are too beholden to the contributions of Stewart and Linda Resnick to be very anxious to do what needs to be done.

I would not feel too badly for some of the farmers who might just have an out by taking their selenium befouled land and transforming that acreage into a solar farm.

California's climate is changing. Will we?

Since my pessimistic post on dot earth's interview with Bill McKibben, I have been challenged by Gerry Gross to explain why he should listen to yet another session of gloom and doom Jeremiad. It made me do some additional thinking about what we should be doing. So this may ramble, but it hopefully provides energy of some kind for the work that needs to be done.

"more than anything, it's just a question of power." Another quote from McKibben that starts to explain why he started 350.org. If it is a question of power… the fossil fuel companies have it and we don't… then McKibben wants to build an organization large enough to have power.

I see two problems here. The first is that McKibben has chosen not to come forward with a firm statement of policy. What changes do we need to make? When do we make them? How might government provide incentives to change in the right way? In one way McKibben is right. There are many solutions and every country, state, province, group has to find the one that works locally. One of the reasons that Copenhagen failed, and that Cancun promises to just a disappointing, is that there is no solution that works for everyone. That is addressed in the video segment I linked.

The other problem is essentially one for Greens to deal with, but also seems to apply to other progressives and independents. People don't really trust those in power. This distrust is one of the reasons for a lack of cohesion within various Green organizations. The devolution of power to the people rarely results in a unified sense of direction.

Let me ramble back to Gerry's original question. Should we be supporting the Million Letter March… an effort to send a million letters to Congress underscoring the need to act on climate change now. I guess that it is like eating chicken soup to fight a cold… it can't hurt but I would not expect it to cure H1N1. As it is, even with the names of Bill McKibben, Dr. James Hansen and Lester "Plan B" Brown attached to the effort, they have so far generated less than 400 letters from US Sources.

We have to acknowledge that our Federal government is not going to act at least for the next 2 years, since any action will be blocked in a Republican controlled House of Representatives. An examination of the people that are being selected to head committees in a Republican House makes it abundantly clear. A good example is the selection of Oil-Industry cheerleader Ralph Hall to head the House Committee on Science and Technology. Whatever action takes place will have be local, or at least at the state level.

For example, we should learn more about the Panoche Valley Solar Farm Project in San Benito County. This is a photovoltaic installation designed to eventually supply 420 megawatts of power when completely built out. There are pros and cons for the project, and some environmental groups would like to stop it over the question of habitat loss. You can read the draft Environmental Impact Report here. The scope of this project is such that we can not allow a mistake through ignorance or indifference.

Let me underscore the fact that most Greens acknowledge the importance of climate change. The draft of the 2010 version of the GPUS Platform clearly states that "Climate change is the most grave environmental, social and economic peril that humanity has ever met." On it's own, that will have as much political effect as a Million Letter March that only generates 400 letters.

If we believe, as I do, that the formulation in the platform is correct, then we need to organize around that fact. It is time for California's Green Climate Hawks to get together and start having an impact.

There’s no happy ending

There’s no happy ending where we prevent climate change any more. … Now the question is… is it going to be a miserable century or an impossible one and what comes after that. - Bill McKibben in an interview with Revkin(dot earth) in Cancun,

This is where I begin to sound like a broken record. But more and more I am convinced that McKibben is right. You can listen to the full segment below. This is his conclusion some 8 min. in.



I am also convinced that there will be no action from the U.S. Congress for the next two years. That means we have to focus what strength we have on local actions and supporting CA organizations that are doing things. If the Federal Government takes any action, it will be through Carol Browner's pushing the EPA to regulate GHG's. Congressional Republicans will try to defund the EPA. That can not be allowed to happen.

Then, we need to begin now targeting those legislators, State or Federal, who have the worst records and to keep up a relentless attack. It should start with Orange County's idiotic Dana Rohrabacher.
Memo to self: Start a target list.

Too much of what we work for is rather like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It might make life pleasant if we survive. If Greens can not lead on this, we should rename our party.

Gassed by ethanol

If Greens want to start making changes, especially as regards green house gas emissions, one way is to pop the corn lobby out of Washington. There are two distinct, but related issues we need to fight: subsidies for commodity crops including corn and renewable fuels standards that mandate the use of ethanol.

Most ethanol is manufactured from corn. That process is neither economic nor ecologically sound. It takes too much water and energy to produce the ethanol for the benefit received.

Most of you probably did not realize that ethanol was such an issue in California, but industry is at work lining their pockets with yet another bad idea. Haven't you heard of the California Ethanol Vehicle Coalition? Now, they even have announced a partnership between NASCAR and American Ethanol, all for the promotion of ethanol as a "healthy fuel."

Note, the featured photo is of the President of the National Corn Growers Association. This is very good. We subsidize corn production and then mandate the use of 45 cents/gal. subsidized corn based ethanol in our fuels. It would be a humorous sidelight of Washington Politics if it were not that Energy Secretary Chu has a very different opinion.

“Ethanol is not an ideal transportation fuel,” Chu said during a question-and-answer session at the National Press Club. Chu said synthetic fuels don’t require the specialized infrastructure, such as pumps and pipelines, that are needed for ethanol.

Green need to support policies that end both commodity crop subsidies and the support of dead-ended technologies.