- Sustainability - list.sfgreens.org

[Sustain] Fwd: Act now to stop nuke amdts to Senate climate bill
by Don Eichelberger 20 May '08

20 May '08

1 0

[Sustain] Water Plan's All-Regions Forum
by Mato Ska 17 May '08

17 May '08

May 14, 2008 To All Interested Public: RSVPs Needed for June 2-3 All-Regions Forum in San Jose! Please respond if you will attend the Water Plan's All-Regions Forum, June 2-3, 2008 at the Doubletree Hotel, 2050 Gateway Place, San Jose, CA 95110. Registration is 12:30 p.m. on June 2, convening at 1:00 p.m. and adjourning 5:30 p.m. On June 3, it convenes at 9:00 a.m. and adjourns at 4:30 pm. There will be a $15 registration fee for the Forum. Sessions include: ƒ a preview of the Prop 84 grant program for Integrated Regional Water Management; ƒ scoping for the Governor's 20% conservation plan; and ƒ regional water management response packages - including discussion of inter-regional aspects, statewide priorities, and approaches for analyzing regional response strategies. The Agenda and other meeting materials are posted to the California Water Plan website as they become available: http://www.waterplan.water.ca.gov/materials/index.cfm?subject=jun0208 Please RSVP to David Sumi at dsumi(a)ccp.csus.edu or (916) 341-3328. Thank you for your interest in the California Water Plan!

1 0

[Sustain] Important: Need GM Agenda Item - City Efficiency/Solar Ordinance
by Eric Brooks 17 May '08

17 May '08

Hi all, Jake McGoldrick has proposed an ordinance that will be in committee this coming Thursday, which will restrict the use of the Mayor's Energy Conservation Account (MECA) so that it emphasizes efficiency over solar and so that it can only be used on public projects and affordable housing nonprofits. This ordinance (see attached) is meant to correct the legal landscape which allowed the Mayor to create his bogus privatized solar program, and looks like it will effectively do so. It needs an amendment to make sure that its restrictions do not interfere with the public Community Choice renewable energy project, but otherwise seems like it jives with the decision we made a couple of months ago. Since it will be voted on the next day we should decide on endorsing this Wednesday. I'm requesting 5 minutes on the GM Agenda for discussion and action. peace Eric Brooks -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara

1 0

[Sustain] EPA easing rules on power plants near national parks
by Eric Brooks 16 May '08

16 May '08

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/16/MNLA10NFLS.DTL&… EPA easing rules on power plants near national parks Rank-and-file staff, managers who oppose Bush administration plan spread the word Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post Friday, May 16, 2008 *(05-16) 04:00 PDT Washington -* -- The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas, according to rank-and-file agency scientists and park managers who oppose the plan. The new regulations, which are likely to be finalized this summer, rewrite a provision of the Clean Air Act that applies to "Class 1 areas," federal lands that currently have the highest level of protection under the law. Opponents predict the changes will worsen visibility at many of the United States' most prized tourist destinations. Nearly a year ago, with little fanfare, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed changing the way the government measures air pollution near Class 1 areas on the grounds that the nation needed a more uniform way of regulating emissions near protected areas. The agency closed the comment period in April and has indicated it is not making significant changes to the draft rule, despite objections by EPA staff members. Jeffrey Holmstead, who now heads the environmental strategies group at the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani, helped initiate the rule change while heading EPA's air and radiation office. He said agency officials became concerned that EPA's scientific staff was taking the most conservative approach in predicting how much pollution new power plants would produce. The move is the latest in a series of administration efforts going back to 2003 to weaken air quality protections at national parks, including failed moves to prohibit federal land managers from commenting on permits for new pollution sources more than 31 miles away from their areas and to only protect air resources for parks that are big and diverse enough to represent complete ecosystems. For 30 years, regulators have measured pollution levels in the parks, over both three-hour and 24-hour increments, to capture the spikes in emissions that occur during periods of peak energy demand. The new rule would average the levels over a year so that spikes in pollution levels would not violate the law. Many National Park Service and EPA officials have challenged the rule change, arguing that it will worsen visibility in already-impaired areas, according to internal documents obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In one set of comments, EPA's regional computer modeling staff wrote that the proposal would allow for significant degradation of the parks' air quality. An e-mail from National Park Service staff called aspects of the plan bad public policy that would make it much easier to build power plants near Class 1 areas, which include some Fish and Wildlife Service-protected land. When committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, asked the EPA whether the rule would lead to construction of more power plants near protected areas, Robert Meyers, principal deputy assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, replied in an April 24 letter that this was not the intention of the rule, but he could not rule it out. "We developed this proposal based on the need to clarify how increment consumption must be addressed, and not whether or not it would be easier to build power plants," Meyers wrote. "In the absence of any data or evidence provided by the National Parks Service, we are unable to conclusively confirm or deny their suggestion." On Thursday, the National Parks Conservation Association, a lobbying group, issued a report estimating that the rule would ease the way for the construction of 28 new coal-fired power plants within 186 miles of 10 national parks. In each of the next 50 years, the report concludes, the new plants would emit 122 million tons of carbon dioxide, 79,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 52,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 4,000 pounds of toxic mercury into the air over and around the Great Smoky Mountains, Zion and eight other national parks. "It's like if you're pulled over by a cop for going 75 miles per hour in a 55 miles-per-hour zone, and you say, 'If you look at how I've driven all year, I've averaged fifty-five miles per hour,' " said Mark Wenzler, director of the National Parks Conservation Association's clean air programs. "It allows you to vastly underestimate the impact of these emissions." Don Shepherd, an environmental engineer at the National Park Service's air resources division in Denver, said of the new rule: "I don't know of anyone at our level, who deals with this day to day, that likes it or thinks it's going to make sense. "We really want to have clean air at national parks all the time, and not just at average times," Shepherd said. "All of our national parks have impaired visibility. ... It would really be a setback in trying to make progress." http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/16/MNLA10NFLS.DTL This article appeared on page *A - 3* of the San Francisco Chronicle -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

1 0

[Sustain] 'Peaker' Plant Vote Delayed - Mayor Preparing Alternative
by Eric Brooks 13 May '08

13 May '08

Hi all, Our collective hard work is beginning to pay off. Mayor Newsom has asked for a delay in the 'Peaker' vote so that he can prepare an alternative energy plan to avoid building the Combustion Turbine plant. Now is where we will need to be vigilant. Part of Newsom's proposal will be to reduce pollution at Mirant. So we will soon need to push for a firm closure date on the Mirant plant in the very near future (even if it is polluting less), and then hold the City to it. Below is the SF Examiner article that announces Newsom's switch. Also see the attached letter from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the Board and Mayor opposing the plant - sent Monday. (Note that Kennedy and his group NRDC are actually a major problem to real environmentalism - but most mainstream liberals don't know that, and to them, a letter from Kennedy is a -big- deal.) We're almost at the finish line all. But we'll need a last wise push to get there. ;) peace, Eric http://www.examiner.com/printa-1388244~Decision_on_Potrero_power_plant_dela… Decision on Potrero power plant delayed John Upton, The Examiner 2008-05-13 10:00:00.0 Current rank: # 19 of 9,416 SAN FRANCISCO - Mayor Gavin Newsom asked city legislators to delay a vote on a controversial plan to build a new power plant in Potrero Hill that will replace an older, more polluting plant, saying he needs another week to work on an alternative strategy. The Board of Supervisors was scheduled to vote today on a proposal to borrow $273 million to build natural-gas-burning power plants in The City's southeast and at the airport, but Supervisor Sophie Maxwell, the legislation's sponsor, said Monday that she had agreed to the mayor's request for a postponement. The state agency charged with ensuring that Californians have reliable electricity supplies, the California Independent Systems Operator confirmed in a May 1 letter to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission that The City's plan for the new power plant was "the best mechanism" for retiring the old Potrero power plant. The plan to build the cleaner power plants and take other steps to replace the Mirant plant was approved by the agency in November 2004. Opposition, to the plan, has grown in recent months, however, with groups including the Sierra Club, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research public policy nonprofit and the Bay Area Ella Baker Center for Human Rights expressing a desire for a more renewable, less polluting option than a fossil-fuel plant. Newsom, who agreed in November to fast-track development proposals on Mirant's land and waive millions of dollars in city fees if the company closed the plant, told The Examiner on Monday that while he wants to close Mirant, he is "desperate" to avoid building new fossil-fuel-burning plants. "I don't want to live to regret this decision," Newsom said. "We may look like fools five years from now." Newsom said he will try to come up with an "aggressive" alternative plan to install new technology at the Mirant-owned plant to reduce pollution, increase electricity imports from a plan in the works to bring power into The City through a Transbay Cable, create more electricity from renewable sources and reduce in-city electricity demand. San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Ed Harrington told supervisors last week that SFPUC staff hadn't filed proposals with the California ISO to take different steps to replace the Mirant plant because discussions indicated they would have "no chance of success." jupton(a)sfexaminer.com

2 1

[Sustain] good article on idiocy of converting food to auto fuel
by Don Eichelberger 13 May '08

13 May '08

http://www.physorg.com/news129531564.html A biofuels backlash has erupted in major ethanol producer the United States, as lawmakers and experts debate the merits of converting food to fuel to support America's age-old love affair with the automobile. Don Eichelberger DJ Fix Independent Productions My Blog www.greenuprising.blogspot.com My You Tube <http://www.youtube.com/DonnyFix>http://www.youtube.com/DonnyFix My Space http://www.myspace.com/donnyfix Donny Fix del.icio.us book marks http://del.icio.us/donnyfix The Hegelian/Marxist goal is emancipation. Marx said it best in 1843: "Human emancipation wll only be complete when the real, individual man (sic) is absorbed into himself the abstract citizen; when as an individual man, in his every day life, in his work and in his relationships, he has become a species-being (politically accountabe to the whole); and when he recognizes and realizes his own power as social powers, so that he no longer separates this social power from himself as political power."

1 0

[Sustain] Sustainability Working Group 4/24/08 Notes
by Don Eichelberger 12 May '08

12 May '08

1 0

Re: [Sustain] SF May 17 Health Care meeting featuring Ameica's leading single payer activist - Please RSVP
by Don Eichelberger 12 May '08

12 May '08

1 0

[Sustain] Action Alert: Stop 1st Genetically Engineered Sugar
by Eric Brooks 10 May '08

10 May '08

ronnie(a)organicconsumers.org wrote: FRANKENFOODS ALERT OF THE WEEK: GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CANDY FOR MOTHERS DAY? This Mothers Day may be the last time you can buy mainstream non-organic candy for Mom on Mothers Day that isn't made from genetically engineered (GE) sugar. Sugar in most conventional foods will soon come from newly approved biotech sugar beets unless we act now to stop it. In just a few weeks, US farmers are poised to plant their first GE sugar beet crops, Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets. Over half the sugar in processed foods comes from sugar beets (the rest is supplied by sugarcane), and since ingredients from GE crops are not labeled in the U.S., once food producers start using GE beet sugar in their candies, cereals, breads, baby foods and other products, there will be no way for us to know if we are eating GE sugar unless we buy organic foods, since GE ingredients are banned in organic products. Take action now: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_7031.cfm -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara

1 0

[Sustain] A Really Inconvenient Truth
by Eric Brooks 10 May '08

10 May '08

Ann Garrison <anniegarrison(a)mac.com> wrote: This will be on KPFA this morning (Saturday) at 10:00 A.M.; sounds like it might be worth listening to, either live or in the archives. A Really Inconvenient Truth Saturday, May 10th, 10:00am On the film "A Really Inconvenient Truth," Joel Kovel argues that we need to go far beyond Al Gore's reading of the climate change crisis.

1 0