- Sustainability - list.sfgreens.org

[Sustain] Greens Break 10% in German Parliamentary Elections :)
by Eric Brooks 28 Sep '09

28 Sep '09

Hi all, Both the Greens and the populist 'Left Party' have broken 10% for the first time in German parliamentary elections and will remain in opposition. All small parties broke 10%. Though seeing record losses, Conservatives remain in charge joining in a new Right/Center coalition with the neo-liberal Free Democrats. Together they control 48% of the seats. The Social Democrats, which previously formed the ruling coalition with the Conservatives, have fallen in numbers and because they will not form a coalition government with the Greens and Left Party, have now become an opposition party. peace Eric B

1 0

[Sustain] SF Peak Oil Task Force Report presentation
by Jeanne 22 Sep '09

22 Sep '09

Hi, After twice being postponed, the SF Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force Report is being presented to the GAO Committee of the Board of Supervisors this Thursday, September 24, at 1:00 in the Board Legislative Chamber at City Hall. It is the only item on the agenda, so there is plenty of time for discussion. Here's a link to the report: http://www.sfenvironment.org/downloads/library/peakoil_final_report.pdf It would be great to see you there. Ross wants to create a buzz around Peak Oil. You can also watch the presentation, either live or archived on http://www.sfgovtv.org Jeanne Rosenmeier, Task Force Chair -- Jeanne-Marie Rosenmeier Certified Public Accountant 415 751-0901 fax 415 651-9119

1 0

[Sustain] Fwd: Help Pass Transition To Organics Act In CA
by Eric Brooks 21 Sep '09

21 Sep '09

Organic Consumers Association oca(a)mail.democracyinaction.org wrote: Help Us Pass The California Transition To Organics Act Now! California Assembly Bill 1401, the Transition To Organics Act, will create a fund to provide financial assistance to California farmers who want to transition from conventional farming to organic farming. Assembly Bill 1401 will promote more organic farming! Your past efforts in support of AB 1401 helped it to pass the California Legislature with bipartisan support on September 10, 2009! AB 1401 is now on Governor Schwarzenegger's desk for his signature, or veto. Your action is needed RIGHT NOW to help convince Governor Schwarzenegger to sign AB 1401 into law! IF YOU ARE A CALIFORNIA RESIDENT, PLEASE TAKE ACTION HERE <http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=G%2Bbpn1705tlyxHqz2C…>

1 0

[Sustain] MEDIA RELEASE: Groups Condemn CA Senator Leno For Pimping State Parkland
by Eric Brooks 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

For Release: Thursday, September 17, 2009 Contact: Eric Brooks (SF Green Party) 415-756-8844 Jaron Browne (POWER) 415-377-2822 Groups Condemn California State Senator Mark Leno For Betraying San Francisco, Environment, & Social Justice Today, a diverse coalition of environmental and social justice organizations roundly condemned California State Senator Mark Leno for using the power of his office to betray community process and environmental protection, in order to enrich the profits of Miami based Lennar Corporation. Groups releasing the condemnation included POWER, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Stop Lennar Action Movement, The San Francisco Green Party, Our City and many others. The condemnation followed Senator Leno’s authoring, and passage on Thursday, September 10, of Senate Bill 792, which will privatize and destroy portions of San Francisco’s Candlestick Point State Recreation Area, California’s only urban state park wetland and wildlife habitat. Lennar will build luxury condominiums and a yacht harbor development on the parkland. Candlestick is the only significant open space and hiking area for residents in the San Francisco Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood which has long been plagued by environmental injustice and toxic emissions from various industries, freeway bypasses, and the contaminated remnants of the U.S. naval shipyard which was once housed there. The organizations expressed outrage at Leno’s ramming through the bill without first holding even one public hearing with either the Bayview Hunters Point or the greater San Francisco community, and said that Leno has now become a broker of corporate real estate interests. “Senator Leno’s behavior has been unconscionable.” said POWER leader and Bayview resident Esselene Stancil, “Without holding a single public hearing with the community, Leno has condemned precious parkland to destruction, and paved the way for the Bayview Hunters Point to be further gentrified by the out-of-state, corporate real estate giant Lennar, which is already poisoning the neighborhood with asbestos and other hazardous materials in its existing construction projects.” Said Eric Brooks with the San Francisco Green Party, “Leno has repeatedly and blatantly deceived the public and his fellow public officials in order to maneuver the passage of this noxious bill for wealthy developer interests. Over and over again, he implied that groups like Sierra Club and Arc Ecology supported his bill when in fact they never did. And several times he claimed that the parkland involved is a dirt parking lot, when it is actually grassland on its way to being restored to a wetland wildlife area which is crucial to the health and well being of the Bayview community and all San Franciscans.” Leno’s Bill is now on its way to the desk of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Organizations Opposing SB-792 POWER, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Stop Lennar Action Movement, Harvey Milk Democratic Club, San Francisco Green Party, Bayview Hunters Point Mothers and Fathers Committee for Health and Environmental Justice, Hunters View Mothers Against Crime, San Francisco Bay View newspaper, Our City, Caravan For Justice (California), Potrero Hill Democratic Club, Chinese Progressive Association, Labor/Community Strategy Center (L.A.), PODER, SF Tomorrow, St Peters Housing Committee, La Raza Centro Legal, Institute for Social and Environmental Justice Education, Visitacion Valley Greenway Project, Visitacion Valley Planning Alliance, Californians for Justice, Asian Pacific Environment Network, Little Hollywood Home Owners Association, Potrero Hill Boosters, The Greenlining Institute, San Bruno Mountain Watch, Alameda Health Consortium, Movement Generation, Center for Third World Organizing, Just Cause Oakland, Education Not Incarceration, Idriss Stelley Action and Resource Center, Chinatown Community Development Center, EastSide Arts Alliance, SF 4 Democracy, The School of Unity and Liberation, San Francisco Community Land Trust, and over 1000 Bayview residents who signed as individuals. ###

1 0

[Sustain] ISO Fudges For Another Year On Closing Mirant Plant
by Eric Brooks 15 Sep '09

15 Sep '09

Hi all, Here is the update on the Mirant power plant that I just got published in Fog City Journal. http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/2009/09/14/power-plant-shell-game-s… Power Plant Shell Game: San Franciscans Will Breathe Bad Air For Another Year, For Electricity That Isn’t Needed By Eric Brooks, guest editorial September 14, 2009 For a couple of years now, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) has been telling San Francisco that it needs 150 megawatts of immediately dispatchable electricity available to provide security from blackout emergencies for its local power customers. But last Friday, September 11, even though San Francisco’s energy demands have not increased, the ISO suddenly reversed itself and said the City now needs to keep a whopping 362 megawatts online for as long as one more full year to satisfy reliability. 206 of these megawatts will come from a dinosaur natural gas boiler at the Mirant power plant in Potrero Hill that is so old and obsolete it cannot be turned off, and must run 24/7 kicking massive amounts of air pollution into Potrero and nearby Bayview, and devastating our bay habitat with heat and toxic dispersions because of its antiquated ‘once-through cooling’ system. Environmental justice organizers looking on while ISO made this completely unjustifiable decision were not particularly surprised. The ISO has pulled this kind of nonsense before, and all four of its Board of Governors members are former or current fossil fuel energy corporation executives who have spent their tenure bending over backwards to tell California communities they need to keep burning fossil fuel for electricity. Just a couple of years ago, ISO pulled a similar bait-and-switch on San Francisco. At the time, the City was hotly debating whether or not to replace the Mirant gas boiler and three diesel peaker generators at the same site, with a newer, but still polluting, natural gas power plant to be installed in the Bayview Hunters Point. The new plant could generate about 150 megawatts of power, roughly the same as the existing Mirant diesel peakers which can generate 156 megawatts. At that time, the City was also considering whether or not to approve the Transbay Cable; a power line now being installed from the Northeast that will deliver 400 megawatts of new electricity capacity by Spring of 2010. During the discussion of the cable approval, the ISO initially said that the cable’s 400 megawatts would be enough to replace the 362 megawatts of capacity at the Mirant site, therefore eliminating the need to build a new power plant in the Bayview. But just as the hearings on the cable approval drew to a close, and organizers got ready to celebrate the fact that they could shut down the decrepit plant in Potrero without building another plant, the ISO suddenly, and with no logical explanation, gave new testimony that, even when the Transbay Cable was installed, Mirant would still have to stay online indefinitely, or a new fossil fuel plant which could provide at least 150 megawatts of capacity, must be built to replace it. Organizers and City officials decried this obvious shell game maneuver meant to keep fossil fuel profits churning, refused to accept this absurd new edict from the ISO, and eventually told the ISO that San Francisco would neither build a new plant nor keep the old one running. Under this pressure, and because other California cities have recently been refusing its orders to build new fossil fuel plants, the ISO backed down and finally admitted that once the Transbay Cable comes online and some electricity grid upgrades are completed in November 2010, San Francisco will in fact need no more than 25 megawatts (and possibly no megawatts at all) of electricity capacity to replace and shut down the entire Mirant plant. San Francisco’s utility commission (SFPUC) soon announced that the City can easily make up that 25 megawatt need and said that Mirant can fully close by the end of 2010. With this knowledge in hand, the City Attorney’s office recently negotiated a deal with Mirant to assure an end of 2010 closure date. What this means in immediate terms is that, at absolute most, until the transmission cable upgrades are done, the three emergency diesel generators at Mirant must be kept available to switch on in case there is both a once-in-ten-year unexpectedly high power drain on our electricity system and two of the six major power lines feeding the City go down at the same time (a scenario which has never occurred in history and probably never will). So once again, organizers and City leaders celebrated the news that since only 150 megawatts of emergency back-up is now needed, the most polluting unit at Mirant, the 206 megawatt gas boiler, should clearly be shut down immediately. Yet when the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and community organizers went to last Friday’s Folsom, California hearing on the Mirant plant, and said just that, the ISO staff suddenly pronounced without any justification whatsoever that the gas boiler might also need to be kept online until the end of 2010. The ISO Board of Governors swiftly rubber stamped this staff recommendation as policy without asking the obvious question of why San Francisco suddenly needs the boiler’s extra 206 megawatts of capacity, when it has already been well established that San Francisco only needs 150 megawatts of back-up. And since public comment had already taken place on the item, no onlookers were able to get up and ask this obvious question ourselves (a situation which starkly points up the crucial need for the California public to be given mandatory rebuttal time on all items at public hearings). The battle over the gas boiler is not over. On Wednesday, September 16, the State Water Resources Control Board is holding a hearing on whether to end permits for 19 California plants that employ archaic ‘once-through cooling’, and City representatives will be there to ask that the permit on the Mirant boiler be denied so it can be shut down immediately. Eric Brooks is Sustainability Chair of the San Francisco Green Party. -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara

1 0

[Sustain] FW: Reminder - Inconvenient Truth
by Martin Zehr 14 Sep '09

14 Sep '09

Subject: Reminder - Inconvenient Truth A CALL TO THE RESIDENTS OF BAY VIEW HUNTER'S POINT AND THE CITIZENS OF SAN FRANCISCO Join us for a MASS MOBILIZATION to City Hall to demand an end to *Predatory Development, *Gentrification and ETHNIC CLEANSING!!! WHERE: SF CITY HALL / BOARD OF SUPERVISORS CHAMBERS, ROOM 250 WHEN: TUESDAY, SEPT. 15, 2009 1:00pm WHY: BECAUSE YOU DESERVE BETTER......AND, BECAUSE IT'S TIME!!! -THE NEXT WAVE OF THE GOD EVOLUTION IS HERE! *The Future Is All About Y.O.U.T.H.*

1 0

[Sustain] Tomorrow 6:30pm! Oppose Hunters Point Plan At Bay Conservation Commission
by Eric Brooks 13 Sep '09

13 Sep '09

Hi all, See agenda item marked 3 under ***THE HEARING*** below. Note that the hearing item involves the entire Candlestick Point 'redevelopment' plan, not just the land in the Leno SB 792 giveaway. **TALKING POINTS** Our best points with which to oppose the plan will address the Bay Commission's own criteria of "whether the proposed project is adequately designed to address the effect of sea level rise on public access areas" We should argue: a) A vast majority of Bayview Hunters Point residents have consistently and overwhelmingly opposed this plan and their input about access, views, safety, chemical contamination and climate induced sea level rise have never been seriously or sufficiently addressed in the plan. b) New evidence clearly shows that the climate crisis is orders of magnitude worse than previously believed, and it is now likely that the bay will undergo many meters of sea level rise over the next few decades. The only way, if any, to mitigate such sea level rise is to put an extensive wetland wildlife habitat buffer along the entire perimeter of San Francisco Bay. This project plan clearly does exactly the opposite and erects hundreds of acres of housing and commercial buildings on land which will be extensively flooded in near future decades. c) Toxic and radioactive chemicals from former Navy and commercial operations in the area have not been (and probably can never be) sufficiently cleaned up mechanically, and when the sea level inevitably rises, these chemicals will leach into the neighborhood and the bay. This makes the extensive restoration of a wetland wildlife buffer zone vital, especially when we take into account that complex wetland habitats are the -only- way that has been proven to successfully bind and filter such deeply mired and infused chemical contamination. d) Lennar is unlikely to complete even the existing extremely flawed plan. Lennar is in severe financial difficulty, has canceled affordable housing agreements, is behind schedule on its construction projects, and has even abandoned entire waterfront projects like the Vallejo Mare Island development. e) Lennar is apparently getting projects approved only in order to pretend to its stockholders that its capital value is growing when it is in fact collapsing. This has led to Lennar simply shifting dirt and rock around to pretend that its projects are moving forward; and this digging, grading and shifting without ever finally anchoring the soil is stirring up and leaving exposed natural and dumped toxic materials which are directly poisoning both area residents and the bay. For these reasons, all proposed -and- existing construction should be immediately disapproved and halted until the area is secured from contamination and a sensible restoration plan is adopted. ***THE HEARING*** Here is the hearing announcement: (also at http://www.bcdc.ca.gov/meetings/drb/2009/09-14_agenda.shtml with document links) San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) Design Review Board Meeting September 14, 2009, 6:30 pm BCDC Conference Room 50 California Street, 26th Floor San Francisco, CA Agenda 3. Hunters Point Shipyard-Candlestick Point Project, City and County of San Francisco; First Pre-Application Review The Design Review Board will hold a public hearing on a proposal by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and HPS Development Co., LP, and CP Development Co., LP (a joint venture between Lennar and Scala Real Estate Partners, Hillwood, and Estein and Associates, USA), to implement a residential, commercial, parks and open space project, at an approximately 700-acre site along a 9.6-mile section of the southeastern waterfront in the City and County of San Francisco. The proposed project would involve the development of two sites, the Hunter’s Point Shipyard Shipyard and Candlestick Point, that would ultimately function as a single integrated area. The proposed development project would involve the construction of 10,500 residential units, a ferry terminal, a 300-berth marina, a causeway over Yosemite Slough, a public housing facility to replace the existing Alice Griffith complex, and possibly a new 69,000-seat football stadium. In addition, the project would involve the development of 885,000 square feet of retail space, 2,650,000 square feet of office/research and development space, a 150,000-square-foot, 220-room hotel, a 75,000-square-foot cultural arena, and a 225,000-square-foot artist’s studio facility. Across the site, building heights range from three-story townhomes to 32-story highrises. The site would be developed to facilitate pedestrian and bicycle circulation and public transit. The proposed project would also involve the development of and improvements to approximately 350 acres of park and open space area. The project would occur within the Commission’s 100-foot shoreline band and Bay jurisdictions, and within areas designated for priority use in the Commission’s San Francisco Bay Plan. The Board’s review of this project will focus on: (1) whether the proposed project provides adequate, usable and attractive public access spaces, and whether the project provides adequate connections to and continuity along the shoreline; (2) whether the proposed project maintains and preserves the visual quality of the Bay and shoreline, and enhances the public’s view of the Bay and shoreline especially in relation to the proposed structures; (3); whether the proposed project is adequately designed to address the effect of sea level rise on public access areas; and(4) whether interim access improvements could be installed and, if so, how such improvements would be designed and implemented. (Jaime Michaels) [415/352-3613 or jaimem(a)bcdc.ca.gov] Questions and Staff Reports. If you have any questions concerning an item on the agenda or would like to receive a staff report related to the item, please contact the staff member whose name and direct phone number are indicated in parentheses at the end of the agenda item. Access to Meetings. Meeting facilities are accessible to persons with disabilities. If you require special assistance, please contact any staff member prior to the meeting. An interpreter for the deaf will also be made available upon request to the staff at least five days prior to the meeting. Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act. As a state agency, the Commission is governed by the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act which requires the Commission to (1) publish an agenda at least ten days in advance of any meeting; (2) describe specifically in that agenda the items to be transacted or discussed; and (3) refuse to add an item subsequent to the published agenda. In addition to these general requirements the Bagley-Keene Act includes other specific provisions about how meetings are to be announced and conducted.

1 0

[Sustain] Fwd: Support Indigenous Malaysians against forest destruction
by Eric Brooks 07 Sep '09

07 Sep '09

info(a)regenwald.org wrote: Dear friends, Malaysia is the world's leading rainforest destroying nation. Please insist Malaysian authorities respect native customary land rights and boundaries of Penan's last remaining ancestral rainforest reserves; halt rainforest destruction in Sarawak for oil palm, pulp plantations and hydro-electric dams; and ensure rainforest destruction and abuse of indigenous rights by Malaysian companies end globally. The alert can be found at http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/ Many thanks. Best regards, Reinhard Behrend Rettet den Regenwald e. V. Friedhofsweg 28 22337 Hamburg info(a)regenwald.org http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/ Facebook: http://bit.ly/rainforest_rescue -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara

1 0

[Sustain] [Fwd: SF Sept 9 rally for single payer and Employee free Choice Act]
by Don Eichelberger 07 Sep '09

07 Sep '09

1 0

[Sustain] Call City Hall To Save San Francisco's State Park!
by Eric Brooks 05 Sep '09

05 Sep '09

URGENT ALERT! Call-In To Save San Francisco's Only State Park Wilderness Area From Toxic Condominium Development! Within the next two weeks, State Senator Mark Leno will seek to pass a bill allowing environmentally criminal Lennar Corporation to build high priced condos on the wildlife habitat and parkland in San Francisco's Candlestick Point State Recreation Area! San Francisco Supervisors Avalos, Daly, Mirkarimi, Mar and Campos have sponsored a local resolution to tell the State legislature not to wreck our State parkland for real estate developer profits. This measure needs the crucial sixth vote of Board of Supervisors President David Chiu to win, before Leno's bill (SB 792) goes for its own final vote. **WHAT YOU CAN DO** Call Supervisor David Chiu at 415-554-7450 with the comment: "Please bring the Avalos/Daly resolution opposing SB 792 to a full Board vote by September 15th and vote YES! Don't give away one inch of California's only urban state park!" If you call during the weekend or evening, or get a recording, just leave your comment as voice mail. For more on the State Park land grab see http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/privatizing-california-senate-bill-792/ For more on Lennar's history of corporate abuses see page 3 of Our City's Fall 2007 Update at http://our-city.org/Update-Oct07.pdf ### This alert sent by: Our City 1028-A Howard St. San Francisco, CA 94103 415-756-8844 For more information about Our City campaigns go to: http://www.our-city.org info(a)our-city.org

1 0