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Sustainability Working Group 5/31/07<br>
<br>
Agenda: I. Pre-meeting discussion; II. CCA; III. Plenary
presentation on biofuels; IV. Green washing<br>
<br>
Present: Eric Brookes, Facilitator, Don Eichelberger, Note taker,
John-Marc Chandonia, Anne Garrison, Jeanne Rosenmeier; Toni <br>
<br>
I.
Pre-meeting discussion- prior to the start of the meeting, I made
note of some of the free-floating discussion on the general topic of
creating a sustainable world:<br>
<ul>
<li>Global capitalism is the crux of the matter. As long as
conservation is considered recessionary and undercutting markets, our
message will be, at minimum, unpopular.
<li>Infrastructure change will need to precede social change. Start
with decentralizing energy production through renewables. Once the
process starts, it can grow.
<li>Need to stress personal empowerment with responsibility to the
general well-being.
<li>Consensus is important for building the worker coop model, for the
job place as well as other social organizing, including political.
<li>Time is the enemy of consensus- it needs time to work through
people’s concerns.
<li>“Escaping the Matrix” is a book written last year that proposes doing
away with elected government altogether and running things utilizing a
series of community meetings in all localities. Using strong
facilitation to get at consensus decisions what to do with local
issues, (Don has put his review up at his blog
<a href="http://www.greenuprising.blogspot.com/">
www.greenuprising.blogspot.com</a>)
<li>We need to push for a pure form of direct democracy, with an
acknowledgement of anarchism’s historical perspective (teaching how to
allow maximal personal freedom balanced with social responsibility to the
group)
<li>Interesting factoid: Rockefeller helped finance the prohibition
movement partly to stop farmers from brewing “biofuels” to run their
machinery so he could sell more gasoline.
</ul> <br>
II.
Community Choice Aggregation- PG&E is making serious efforts to
undermine CCA. They recently issued a position paper on CCA, saying
they support CCA, but not this one, calling it risky and costly. It
was quoted almost verbatim in an Examiner op-ed coming out against
CCA. <br>
<br>
Discussion:<br>
<ul>
<li>The legislation was introduced yesterday to the Budget and Finance
Committee. It has been broken into two parts, one on implementation
and one on governance, by Tom A. and Ross M., respectively.
<li>SFPUC will oversee the program, but money will go to LAFCO to
establish an oversight/advisory board to watch for irregularities.
<li>Money does not seem to be an obstacle. There will be bond money
available for the renewables and conservation.
<li>At lease one supervisor, McGoldrick, at a LAFCO meeting expressed
openness to using general fund money to fund it, recognizing the long
term revenue and savings it could produce.
<li>SFPUC has been warned not to obstruct the process or their funding
could be jeopardized.
<li>SFPUC keeps making the claim that they will need to raise
rates. This could kill CCA, as people will opt out of the program,
and we have consistently refuted this claim
<li>Bevan Dufty and Sean Elsbernd seem to be buying this line.
<li>We discussed writing letters to the editor and people took on
specific tasks.
<li>Tom feels we “must be doing something right” to scare PG&E like
that.
<li>Sean E. may be reachable on this but his constituents will need to
respond. He seems to have political ambitions, and not likely to
want to lose PG&E financial support.
</ul> <br>
III.
Plenary Presentation on biofuels- We discussed the presentation on
biofuels Jeanne Rosenmeier was preparing for the state plenary.<br>
<br>
IV.
Greenwashing- PG&E’s offensive and putrid “Green this city”
campaign tries to paste a green patina on the energy company that has
fought tooth and nail against renewable energy and conservation and loves
nuclear power. We discussed corporate efforts to “go green” and how
we can support that.<br>
<br>
Discussion:<br>
<ul>
<li>Anyone working in offending corporations should take it upon
themselves to start or take part in company greening efforts.
<li>Need to stay aware of PR vs. real efforts, and be willing to call
greenwashing, when necessary.
<li>Corporate efforts are, by and large, voluntary. Nothing will be
made mandatory until corporate money can be gotten out of the political
process.
<li>Need to end corporate personhood and make the individuals making
decisions accountable,. The whole purpose for corporate personhood is to
absolve individuals from responsibility so they will be willing to enter
in to the risks associated with partnering with others.
<li>We need to be proactive at addressing news articles and advertising
claims
<li>Frames should be PG&E’s dismal record on renewables, which it is
exaggerating in its ads.
<li>Also renewables and conservation as answers to global warming
<li>Mayor assistant Wade Crowfoot is catching questions about why the
mayor has been so complicit in PG&E’s campaign when the city sits
close to seizing a good share of PG&E revenue stream through
CCA.
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