May 2007 - Sustainability - list.sfgreens.org

[Sustain] AlterNet: The Biofuel Illusion
by done7777＠sbcglobal.net 16 May '07

16 May '07

This story has been forwarded to you from http://www.alternet.org by done7777(a)sbcglobal.net this shares my view that conservation is where the need is, in the short term. Biofuels and other "alternative" technologies hold out the false hope of extending the american dream lifestyle. ------------------------------------- The Biofuel Illusion http://www.alternet.org/story/38540 The focus on biofuels to solve our energy and climate change crises could have potentially disastrous environmental consequences. -------------------------------------

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[Sustain] Urgent: Tell State Senator Yee To Protect Tenants
by Eric Brooks 07 May '07

07 May '07

Hi all, Real estate speculators are abusing California's Ellis Act to evict long-term senior, disabled, and other financially vulnerable tenants. The California Senate will vote as early as -today- on a bill that would greatly reduce these speculator evictions. However, our State Senator, Leland Yee, has not yet taken a position on the bill, and reportedly is even considering voting 'no' on this vital legislation! Please send a message to Senator Leland Yee urging him to support SB 464! Learn more and take action at http://www.local-impact.org/ Thanks, Eric

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[Sustain] Web Address For Carbon Trading Program
by Eric Brooks 05 May '07

05 May '07

Here is the web address for the show I mentioned below: http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=20061 Hi all, I recently listened to KPFA's radio program Terra Verde, a really badly put together 'environmental' program which repeatedly, since is inception, has been duped into promoting a corporate manipulated perspective on environmental issues. Last Friday's edition was about 'carbon offsets' (or 'carbon emissions trading') and I would highly recommend all of you take a half hour to listen to it so that you can get a sense of the ridiculous sham of 'carbon trading'. If you listen carefully, you will notice that the U.S. carbon trading system is corporate led and -voluntary- meaning that there would be no reason whatsoever for any corporation which knows it will exceed its CO2 limits to take part in the project. Furthermore you will note the the U.S. system is -unregulated- and that the corporations and organizations involved in the scheme simply arbitrarily set the standards for what constitutes carbon savings themselves! Also, you will hear one of the guests admit that his organization has a business relationship with one of the private carbon trading corporations that it has just listed as one of the top 8 of the corporations reliably trading carbon emissions. Finally, you will hear neither of the show's guests ever stating where the money comes from to create the carbon credits in the first place... the most important piece of information that they could have talked about. Totally dumbfounded by what I was hearing, I decided to do some digging on the organization that the central guest Bill Burtis was representing, called Clean Air - Cool Planet, see http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/ Once I got to its web site all became clear. I discovered that the organization promotes corporate friendly 'climate solutions' and its Board of Directors includes: - 2 current employees of NRDC (the most vile and corporate of all 'environmental' groups which recently came out supporting liquid natural gas) - 2 former high-ups at World Wildlife Fund - 1 from Environmental Defense Fund - 1 vice-president of a public relations firm - 1 president of a plastics manufacturing company - 2 consultants on government energy regulations for the fossil fuel and energy industries - the 'National Energy Manager' for Whole Foods Market - 1 former executive with Chase Manhattan Bank (in charge of 'derivatives trading' - which is more properly described as financial gambling schemes) - The co-founder of Americans for Equitable Climate Solutions, a corporate apologist climate change group also known as The Sky Trust Institute, which has its mail delivered care of Common Assets Defense Fund (founded by former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach, who is currently working with Wal-Mart to help them greenwash their corporate image). The other founder of Sky Trust is Peter Barnes who also co-founded the infamous corporate greenwashing coalition, Businesses for Social Responsibility. and finally - the former president of John D. Rockefeller III's Agricultural Development Council cheers, Eric Brooks

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[Sustain] The Carbon Emissions Trading Illusion
by Eric Brooks 05 May '07

05 May '07

Hi all, I recently listened to KPFA's radio program Terra Verde, a really badly put together 'environmental' program which repeatedly, since is inception, has been duped into promoting a corporate manipulated perspective on environmental issues. Last Friday's edition was about 'carbon offsets' (or 'carbon emissions trading') and I would highly recommend all of you take a half hour to listen to it so that you can get a sense of the ridiculous sham of 'carbon trading'. If you listen carefully, you will notice that the U.S. carbon trading system is corporate led and -voluntary- meaning that there would be no reason whatsoever for any corporation which knows it will exceed its CO2 limits to take part in the project. Furthermore you will note the the U.S. system is -unregulated- and that the corporations and organizations involved in the scheme simply arbitrarily set the standards for what constitutes carbon savings themselves! Also, you will hear one of the guests admit that his organization has a business relationship with one of the private carbon trading corporations that it has just listed as one of the top 8 of the corporations reliably trading carbon emissions. Finally, you will hear neither of the show's guests ever stating where the money comes from to create the carbon credits in the first place... the most important piece of information that they could have talked about. Totally dumbfounded by what I was hearing, I decided to do some digging on the organization that the central guest Bill Burtis was representing, called Clean Air - Cool Planet, see http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/ Once I got to its web site all became clear. I discovered that the organization promotes corporate friendly 'climate solutions' and its Board of Directors includes: - 2 current employees of NRDC (the most vile and corporate of all 'environmental' groups which recently came out supporting liquid natural gas) - 2 former high-ups at World Wildlife Fund - 1 from Environmental Defense Fund - 1 vice-president of a public relations firm - 1 president of a plastics manufacturing company - 2 consultants on government energy regulations for the fossil fuel and energy industries - the 'National Energy Manager' for Whole Foods Market - 1 former executive with Chase Manhattan Bank (in charge of 'derivatives trading' - which is more properly described as financial gambling schemes) - The co-founder of Americans for Equitable Climate Solutions, a corporate apologist climate change group also known as The Sky Trust Institute, which has its mail delivered care of Common Assets Defense Fund (founded by former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach, who is currently working with Wal-Mart to help them greenwash their corporate image). The other founder of Sky Trust is Peter Barnes who also co-founded the infamous corporate greenwashing coalition, Businesses for Social Responsibility. and finally - the former president of John D. Rockefeller III's Agricultural Development Council cheers, Eric Brooks

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[Sustain] Article On Peak Soil & Biofuels
by Eric Brooks 04 May '07

04 May '07

Article On Peak Soil & Biofuels http://www.energybulletin.net/28610.html

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[Sustain] Fwd: PG&E Attacks Green Energy / Community Choice
by Eric Brooks 04 May '07

04 May '07

I would add to John's note below that almost all of the rest of that supposedly clean electricity from PG&E is from large scale hydro-electric dams, with a tiny 4% from wind, and -none- from solar. Eric jrizzo(a)sprintmail.com wrote: PG&E is sending this around to customers. It attacks Community Choice Aggregation. It attacks Ross and Tom Ammiano, and is full of false and misleading claims. (The 50% of non-greenhouse energy that PG&E claims is largely nuclear.) John --------- Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s position on SF Local Power’s proposed CCA Plan PG&E strongly supports increasing the level of clean, renewable power available to our customers, and we would be pleased to partner with the City on a workable plan to do just that. In fact, over 50% of the energy we deliver to our customers is free of greenhouse gas emissions; In other words, the emissions from the electricity we deliver to 5% of the customers in the United States accounts for only 1% of total green house gases which is from among the cleanest portfolio in the nation. Twelve percent of energy delivered to our customers is from California qualified renewable sources (geothermal, solar, wind, biogas, and small hydro); an additional 20% of the energy is from large hydro resources. The company is on track to reach 20% of its renewable energy portfolio by 2010/2011. In contrast, almost none of the power that the City owns meets the renewable standard, so any increase would be a good thing. Furthermore, PG&E has supported Community Choice Aggregation since its inception – we supported the legislation creating it in California, and have worked cooperatively at the CPUC to develop regulations to allow cities to implement it. We would be happy to help our customers and the City understand CCA including the potential opportunities and risks. However, the proposed CCA plan announced by Supervisors Mirkarimi and Ammiano appears to be only slightly revised from the version presented over two years ago, which has languished largely because it is unworkable, and poses huge risks to customers, taxpayers, and the City. The City will be committing to multi billion dollar energy contracts that call for issuing Revenue Bonds. These include the very real dangers of higher rates, reduced reliability, and multi-billion-dollar threats to City finances. Perhaps most disappointingly, the proposed CCA plan offers the false promise of much more renewable power, but only a fraction of its “360 MW pledge” would actually qualify as renewable power under state law. Even though the City intends to impose the renewable requirement on the Energy Provider, the cost of renewable energy is higher that power from traditional generation. This CCA plan cannot possibly come anywhere close to its renewable power claims without forcing much higher costs on the residents and businesses who choose to participate in the program. What is CCA: Community Choice Aggregation is a program available within the service territories of investor-owned utilities such as PG&E, which allows cities, counties (or cities and counties acting jointly) to become the “default” electric energy providers for residents and businesses within their boundaries. _______________________________________________ San Francisco Green Party Active Members List To unsubscribe or edit your options, go here: https://list.sfgreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/active

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[Sustain] notes on 4/26/07 Sustainability WG meeting
by Don Eichelberger 03 May '07

03 May '07

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[Sustain] Rules Committee Hearing on Creating a Peak Oil Task Force, Item #5|
by Dennis Brumm 02 May '07

02 May '07

Jeanne Rosenmeier posted this on the sfbayoil list. It's not much notice, but the date had changed a lot. Boris Delepine just sent out a flyer, which I imagine most everybody on this list got. The date on this changed a number of times, I wasn't completely sure it would even happen tomorrow, but now I guess there's not much notice: I talked to Boris about the hearing, which is at 10:00 AM tomorrow. He would like a few of us to go to urge the adoption of the legislation establishing the commission. We are fifth on the agenda, but he thinks the other 4 will go quickly and our item will come up around 10:45. He wants us to emphasize that other cities are moving ahead on this and we need to catch up. I will get up and wave the Portland report around. Anybody else want to talk about another city? Jeanne

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[Sustain] Nuke power advocate on biofuels
by Don Eichelberger 02 May '07

02 May '07

"The fact is that someday, the world will run out of oil, gas, and coal. The fact is that solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric have scalability and geographic limitations. The fact is that there is no free hydrogen gas on earth, it must be manufactured with an input of energy. "The other often talked about alternative, biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, have a hidden darkside. They are great products in some situations. The darkside appears when production of biofuels is increased to the levels necessary to replace oil and other fossil fuels. Without massive and unprecedented investment into water projects to bring water to the deserts (which incidently would cause the earth to absorb more heat from the sun, and hence cause the globe to warm). "The price of food and fuel will no longer be loosely coupled as it is today. It will become strongly coupled. Food prices will soar. That is not a big problem for the developed world, but in the third world, people will necessarily starve. Just giving them money to buy food does not increase the supply of food because the price of fuel and food will simultaneously increase. Filling up one's gas tank may cost $100. But that $100 represents maybe $50 of food that will not be grown. To people living on less than $1 per day, that is a problem." -Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine) ^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^#^# The above quote is from Chuck DeVore's blog <http://www.ocblog.net/ocblog/2007/04/more_nuclear_po.html>http://www.ocblog.net/ocblog/2007/04/more_nuclear_po.html His blog is quite revealing and says quite a bit, like the above, that I can agree with. Of course, taking us down nuclear lane is a severe wrong turn. He obviously needs to come to terms with the waste issue, and not much said about the terrorist magnet that is nuclear power. In part of his post, he lays out to the tenth of a cent how much we'll save with a nuclear economy. He presupposes no accidents, presupposes no increases in the cost of a never-ending supply of nuclear fuel. This despite the 1000% increase in uranium yellowcake prices just since 2001. I just hope there is enough held in common that we can find ways to bridge differences between us, and begin to pattern a politics of cooperation instead of division. Idealistic but not hopeful, Don

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Re: [Sustain] [SFGP-A] Agenda, SF Plenary & SFGP Sustainability WG Presentation
by Eric Brooks 02 May '07

02 May '07

Actually, we are working on getting David himself to present in person. ;) susan_e_vaughan(a)juno.com wrote: > I have a 28-minute tape of David Fridley giving his biofuels > presentation. You might want to use part of it. I would want to get > permission from David first. Also, if you did want to use all or part > of it, you'll have to let me know so that I can prepare it. > > Sue > > Please note: message attached > > Hi all, I have been wondering why no one has replied on the SFGP > response to the proposal that we do a Sustainability WG presentation to > the plenary; and I am noticing that the agenda is both packed, and in > dispute, and that this is why no one has replied. So, here is our proposal: > > First, the SFGP Working Group has a proposed presentation 'Beware The > Biofuels Industrial Complex' and we are ready to line up a key speaker > and/or panel on this topic. > > On fitting into the schedule, my proposal is that we plan to do our > presentation at the same time as one of the Breakout sessions for > working groups (probably on Saturday) and then invite all attendees who > do not intend to attend one of the Breakout sessions to come to the > Sustainability Working Group presentation as an alternative. That would > give our presentation lots of time to fully get our subject covered > comprehensively (and possibly allow us time to get into other > greenwashing topics like PG&E, clean coal, etc. as well). > > With that said, we also feel that the biofuels problem is so serious > that we would still like to get scheduled as a central item instead so > that the entire body of attendees at the plenary can be informed on > this critical issue. > > Please let us know right away, your thoughts on this proposal, so that > we can start lining up our speaker/panel. > > Thanks, > > Eric Brooks > Co-Chair > SFGP Sustainability Working Group > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Hi all, I have been wondering why no one has replied on the SFGP > response to the proposal that we do a Sustainability WG presentation > to the plenary; and I am noticing that the agenda is both packed, and > in dispute, and that this is why no one has replied. So, here is our > proposal: > > First, the SFGP Working Group has a proposed presentation 'Beware The > Biofuels Industrial Complex' and we are ready to line up a key speaker > and/or panel on this topic. > > On fitting into the schedule, my proposal is that we plan to do our > presentation at the same time as one of the Breakout sessions for > working groups (probably on Saturday) and then invite all attendees > who do not intend to attend one of the Breakout sessions to come to > the Sustainability Working Group presentation as an alternative. That > would give our presentation lots of time to fully get our subject > covered comprehensively (and possibly allow us time to get into other > greenwashing topics like PG&E, clean coal, etc. as well). > > With that said, we also feel that the biofuels problem is so serious > that we would still like to get scheduled as a central item instead so > that the entire body of attendees at the plenary can be informed on > this critical issue. > > Please let us know right away, your thoughts on this proposal, so that > we can start lining up our speaker/panel. > > Thanks, > > Eric Brooks > Co-Chair > SFGP Sustainability Working Group > > jmc(a)sfgreens.org <mailto:jmc@sfgreens.org> wrote: >> ----- Forwarded message from County Contacts <contacts2006(a)cagreens.org> <mailto:contacts2006@cagreens.org> ----- >> >> GREEN PARTY COUNTY CONTACTS MESSAGE >> >> This is an announcement from the GPCA Contact List. For more information, or questions related to the topic of the posting, please do not hit reply. Follow the contact directions >> stated in the email. >> >> >> As most of you know, the GPCA Coordinating Committee (CC) has been >> paralyzed relative to decision-making for over a year. >> >> A CC vote led to the formation of an ad-hoc Agenda Committee empowered >> to present an Agenda for CC approval and for ultimate General Assembly >> approval at the May 26-27, 2007 Plenary in San Francisco. Subsequently, >> the ad hoc Agenda Committee produced a draft Agenda distributed to the >> Co-Cos email list that did not include proposals that were submitted in >> a timely manner and that lacked balance, especially regarding the CC >> delegate situation relative to Los Angeles. Because of these >> objections, the Agenda Committee had an expanded telephone conference on >> April 12 at which, by a disputed 3-0 vote, another ad hoc committee was >> permitted to submit an alternative agenda for CC approval. The >> following April 16 CC meeting ended in no consensus on either Agenda. >> >> The alternative Agenda can be found at:: >> >> http://cagreens.org/plenary/preview/ >> >> You will need the standard GPCA username and password to enter the site >> (if you do not know them, please ask a County Councilmember). To read >> proposals in full, please click on the links. A fully updated, >> printable version is being produced, and we will let you know when it's >> ready for download. >> >> (PLEASE NOTE: A Logistics Packet, with details on transportation, >> directions and lodging, is also being produced, and we will let you know >> when it is ready for download.) >> >> We ask all County Locals, Co-Cos, CC members, and Agenda Committee >> members to sign on if you support the alternate agenda for the May >> 26-27, 2007 Plenary in San Francisco. Please send your input to >> agenda-team(a)cagreens.org <mailto:agenda-team@cagreens.org> . >> >> SIGNERS: >> >> Warner Bloomberg (Co-Co, CCWG) >> Michael Borenstein (Co-Co, GROW) >> Jo Chamberlain (Co-Co, ERWG) >> Bob Vizzard (Co-Co, ERWG) >> Sharon Peterson (Co-Co, CC) >> Shane Que Hee (Co-Co Platform) >> Jim Stauffer (Co-Co, IT) >> Mike Wyman (Agenda Comm volunteer) >> Chuck Giese (CC rep, East Bay; Candidate for Agenda Comm since Dec. 14) >> Tim Smith (Agenda Comm member) >> Jared Laiti (CC rep) >> Larry Mullen (CC rep) >> Craig Peterson (CC alternate rep) >> Cameron Spitzer (IT staff) >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Contacts2006 mailing list >> Contacts2006(a)cagreens.org <mailto:Contacts2006@cagreens.org> >> http://lists.cagreens.org/mailman/listinfo/contacts2006 >> >> ----- End forwarded message ----- >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> San Francisco Green Party Active Members List >> To unsubscribe or edit your options, go here: >> https://list.sfgreens.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/active >>

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