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Fwd: NY Times: Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat
by Eric Brooks 11 Feb '08

11 Feb '08

Hi all, This article is even better than the last one. Important Note: Near the end of the article where one of the scientists actually speaks positively about sugar cane for fuel, he is totally failing to account for the realities that most cane farming involves regular -burning- of the fields, and that increased cane fuel production would still cause other land to be cleared increasing global warming and food insecurity. Likewise his statement about 'waste' from crops being used for fuel production is short sighted. Such waste needs to be returned to the -soil- to retain and increase its nutrient value and promote better carbon storage in more secure soil. Here's the article - New York Times Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL Published: February 8, 2008 Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded. The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy. These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development. The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces. Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel. “When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially,” said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University. “Previously there’s been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis.” These plant-based fuels were originally billed as better than fossil fuels because the carbon released when they were burned was balanced by the carbon absorbed when the plants grew. But even that equation proved overly simplistic because the process of turning plants into fuels causes its own emissions — for refining and transport, for example. The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “So for the next 93 years you’re making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions.” The Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change has said that the world has to reverse the increase of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to avert disastrous environment consequences. In the wake of the new studies, a group of 10 of the United States’s most eminent ecologists and environmental biologists today sent a letter to President Bush and the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, urging a reform of biofuels policies. “We write to call your attention to recent research indicating that many anticipated biofuels will actually exacerbate global warming,” the letter said. The European Union and a number of European countries have recently tried to address the land use issue with proposals stipulating that imported biofuels cannot come from land that was previously rain forest. But even with such restrictions in place, Dr. Searchinger’s study shows, the purchase of biofuels in Europe and the United States leads indirectly to the destruction of natural habitats far afield. For instance, if vegetable oil prices go up globally, as they have because of increased demand for biofuel crops, more new land is inevitably cleared as farmers in developing countries try to get in on the profits. So crops from old plantations go to Europe for biofuels, while new fields are cleared to feed people at home. Likewise, Dr. Fargione said that the dedication of so much cropland in the United States to growing corn for bioethanol had caused indirect land use changes far away. Previously, Midwestern farmers had alternated corn with soy in their fields, one year to the next. Now many grow only corn, meaning that soy has to be grown elsewhere. Increasingly, that elsewhere, Dr. Fargione said, is Brazil, on land that was previously forest or savanna. “Brazilian farmers are planting more of the world’s soybeans — and they’re deforesting the Amazon to do it,” he said. International environmental groups, including the United Nations, responded cautiously to the studies, saying that biofuels could still be useful. “We don’t want a total public backlash that would prevent us from getting the potential benefits,” said Nicholas Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, who said the United Nations had recently created a new panel to study the evidence. “There was an unfortunate effort to dress up biofuels as the silver bullet of climate change,” he said. “We fully believe that if biofuels are to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, there urgently needs to be better sustainability criterion.” The European Union has set a target that countries use 5.75 percent biofuel for transport by the end of 2008. Proposals in the United States energy package would require that 15 percent of all transport fuels be made from biofuel by 2022. To reach these goals, biofuels production is heavily subsidized at many levels on both continents, supporting a burgeoning global industry. Syngenta, the Swiss agricultural giant, announced Thursday that its annual profits had risen 75 percent in the last year, in part because of rising demand for biofuels. Industry groups, like the Renewable Fuels Association, immediately attacked the new studies as “simplistic,” failing “to put the issue into context.” “While it is important to analyze the climate change consequences of differing energy strategies, we must all remember where we are today, how world demand for liquid fuels is growing, and what the realistic alternatives are to meet those growing demands,” said Bob Dineen, the group’s director, in a statement following the Science reports’ release. “Biofuels like ethanol are the only tool readily available that can begin to address the challenges of energy security and environmental protection,” he said. The European Biodiesel Board says that biodiesel reduces greenhouse gasses by 50 to 95 percent compared to conventional fuel, and has other advantages as well, like providing new income for farmers and energy security for Europe in the face of rising global oil prices and shrinking supply. But the papers published Thursday suggested that, if land use is taken into account, biofuels may not provide all the benefits once anticipated. Dr. Searchinger said the only possible exception he could see for now was sugar cane grown in Brazil, which take relatively little energy to grow and is readily refined into fuel. He added that governments should quickly turn their attention to developing biofuels that did not require cropping, such as those from agricultural waste products. “This land use problem is not just a secondary effect — it was often just a footnote in prior papers,”. “It is major. The comparison with fossil fuels is going to be adverse for virtually all biofuels on cropland.

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Fw: [SFGP-A] The Art of Progressive Politics
by susan_e_vaughan＠juno.com 08 Feb '08

08 Feb '08

---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Enhance our evening of music, art, progressive politics, and San Francisco Green Party fundraising -- with your presence. We will be joined by District 5 Supervisor and founding member of the California Green Party Ross Mirkarimi, Board of Education Commissioner Jane Kim, Board of Education President Mark Sanchez, Board of Education Commissioner and District 1 candidate for supervisor Eric Mar, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Member Andy Thornley, and others for a night of music, art, and politics. On Monday, Feb. 11, 2008 The Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California Street at 22nd Avenue (Take the 38 Geary to 22nd Avenue, get off, walk two blocks north, and turn right -- the Bazaar is in the middle of the block). Starting at 7 p.m. (or earlier -- this is a cafe, get there when you want) Special guests: Ross Mirkarimi, Jane Kim, Mark Sanchez, Eric Mar, SF Bike Coalition representative Andy Thornley, YOU, and others Visual arts provided by Heike Seefeldt and Sue Vaughan Music by YOU (the Bazaar has a piano, but feel free to bring your guitar, your taiko drums, or pots and pans ...) 10 requested donation, but there is NO entrance fee, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Spread the word. Hope to see you there. Sue _______________________________________________ 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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The Art of Progressive Politics
by susan_e_vaughan＠juno.com 08 Feb '08

08 Feb '08

Enhance our evening of music, art, progressive politics, and San Francisco Green Party fundraising -- with your presence. We will be joined by District 5 Supervisor and founding member of the California Green Party Ross Mirkarimi, Board of Education Commissioner Jane Kim, Board of Education President Mark Sanchez, Board of Education Commissioner and District 1 candidate for supervisor Eric Mar, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Member Andy Thornley, and others for a night of music, art, and politics. On Monday, Feb. 11, 2008 The Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California Street at 22nd Avenue (Take the 38 Geary to 22nd Avenue, get off, walk two blocks north, and turn right -- the Bazaar is in the middle of the block). Starting at 7 p.m. (or earlier -- this is a cafe, get there when you want) Special guests: Ross Mirkarimi, Jane Kim, Mark Sanchez, Eric Mar, SF Bike Coalition representative Andy Thornley, YOU, and others Visual arts provided by Heike Seefeldt and Sue Vaughan Music by YOU (the Bazaar has a piano, but feel free to bring your guitar, your taiko drums, or pots and pans ...) 10 requested donation, but there is NO entrance fee, and no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Spread the word. Hope to see you there. Sue

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[Pooja.Jhunjhunwala@sfgov.org: Re: elected MTA board]
by John-Marc Chandonia 08 Feb '08

08 Feb '08

----- Forwarded message from Pooja Jhunjhunwala <Pooja.Jhunjhunwala(a)sfgov.org> ----- HI John, We re-referred this legislation to committee, in order to put together a more cohesive piece for the November ballot. We are considering a number of options, including splitting the appointments as well as different iterations of the elected board idea. I will keep you informed, and please let me know if you have any further thoughts. Thanks! ______________________ Pooja Jhunjhunwala Legislative Assistant Office of Supervisor Jake McGoldrick 415.554.7413 fax 415.554.7415 ----- End forwarded message ----- -- John-Marc Chandonia (jmc(a)sfgreens.org) http://sfgreens.org/

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elected MTA board
by John-Marc Chandonia 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

Dear Jake, The SF Green Party's Transportation Working Group discussed the idea of having an elected MTA board at our last meeting. We're generally supportive of the idea, but have concerns about the entire body being elected through citywide at-large elections. We think that on a relatively obscure board, well-funded "downtown" candidates would be likely to dominate over grassroots campaigns. Have you considered the idea of electing the MTA board by district, e.g., an 11-member board with one seat per Supervisorial district? Alternatively, citywide elections using Proportional Representation would help ensure a more representative elected body. Yet another option to ensure diverse representation would be to create a board with some elected and some appointed officials, with appointments split between various elected bodies (e.g., one each from the School Board, College Board, Board of Supervisors, and even the Mayor). We're looking forward to receiving a draft of your legislation, and would be happy to work with you on it. Thanks, JMC -- John-Marc Chandonia (jmc(a)sfgreens.org) http://sfgreens.org/

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[GearyBRT@sfcta.org: Join the Geary BRT Citizens Advisory Committee]
by John-Marc Chandonia 07 Feb '08

07 Feb '08

Good opportunity for anybody who lives near Geary or who would use the line. JMC ----- Forwarded message from GearyBRT <GearyBRT(a)sfcta.org> ----- Subject: Join the Geary BRT Citizens Advisory Committee Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 09:11:17 -0800 From: GearyBRT <GearyBRT(a)sfcta.org> To: GearyBRT <GearyBRT(a)sfcta.org> Geary Boulevard Bus Rapid Transit Join the Citizens Advisory Committee! Applications due March 4, 2008. Bus Rapid Transit on Geary In November 2003, 75% of San Francisco voters approved the Prop K Expenditure Plan, which calls for an expanded network of fast, reliable transit including BRT in San Francisco. Geary Boulevard is the key east-west transit corridor identified for BRT improvements. BRT is a package of improvements that provide fast, reliable service quickly and cost-effectively, including: a dedicated transit lane, transit signal priority, high-quality vehicles and stations, pedestrian enhancements and streetscape amenities. Environmental Study Beginning In May 2007, the Transportation Authority Board approved the Geary Corridor BRT Study and called for environmental studies and engineering. The environmental studies will identify the impacts and benefits of BRT alternatives; recommend a preferred BRT alternative for Geary; and develop strategies to mitigate impacts if BRT is constructed. Role of the Citizens Advisory Committee The Geary Citizens Advisory Committee (GCAC) will meet on a quarterly basis to advise the project team throughout the environmental study. The GCAC will provide input in refining Geary BRT alternatives; reviewing project benefits and impacts; identifying mitigation strategies; and selecting a preferred alternative. How to Apply Applications are due March 4, 2008. Visit www.GearyBRT.org to download an application or call 415.522.4800 for mailing options. Additional Opportunities We are also seeking applicants for the Transportation Authority's broader Citizens Advisory Committee (get more info <http://www.sfcta.org/content/category/2/10/170/> ), as well as the Van Ness BRT Citizens Advisory Committee (get more info <http://www.vannessbrt.org/> ). Please share this announcement with anyone who might be interested in these opportunities. Thanks... Zabe _____________________________________ Elizabeth M Bent, Principal Transportation Planner San Francisco County Transportation Authority 100 Van Ness Avenue, 26th Floor San Francisco, CA 94102-5244 v/ 415.522.4819 | f/ 415.522.4829 elizabeth.bent(a)sfcta.org www.sfcta.org ----- End forwarded message ----- -- John-Marc Chandonia (jmc(a)sfgreens.org) http://sfgreens.org/

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Update On McGoldrick Elected MTA Charter Amendment
by Eric Brooks 05 Feb '08

05 Feb '08

Hi all, Though I still haven't been able to get the text, I have found out that the charter amendment would create a 7 member -at large- elected MTA board. The item has been sent back to committee, so we can weigh in on it. John-Marc are you ok with taking on the task of forwarding our recommendations to Supervisor McGoldrick? cheers Eric -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara

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Fwd: SF Chronicle Attacks Free Muni
by Eric Brooks 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/29/MNFQUNU4C.DT… Free ride? Fat chance: Muni fares will stay Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer <mailto:rgordon@sfchronicle.com> Tuesday, January 29, 2008 Mayor Newsom has abandoned his idea to eliminate fares on... <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/01/29/MNFQUNU4C.DT…> Passengers will continue to have to pay to ride San Franc... <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/01/29/MNFQUNU4C.DT…> Eliminating fares on San Francisco's Municipal Railway - an idea Mayor Gavin Newsom wanted explored - would worsen delays, overcrowding and financial burdens on the already strained transit system. That bleak assessment by private consultants who evaluated the free-rides idea has led Newsom to quietly abandon the concept, top administration aides told The Chronicle on Monday. "It's not something that we plan to pursue at this time," said Stuart Sunshine, the mayor's top transportation aide. Newsom asked transit officials in March to study a no-fare system, saying at the time, "If it could happen here, it could happen anywhere." His suggestion was aimed at luring people out of their cars to reduce air pollution and traffic. The consulting team hired by the city, led by Sharon Greene & Associates, looked at what happened when other jurisdictions adopted free transit programs. In larger cities, such as Austin, Texas, Trenton, N.J., and Denver, ridership increased by nearly 50 percent. If that happened to Muni, which now provides nearly 700,000 trips on an average day, the annual operating and maintenance costs would rise by nearly $69 million. Muni's annual budget is about $670 million. The extra costs would come from paying more drivers, maintenance and cleaning crews, supervisors and security guards. In addition, the city would have to add an estimated 267 buses and streetcars to its fleet of about 1,000 at a cost of approximately $537 million. New storage and maintenance yards also would be needed to accommodate the new vehicles. Muni also would have to figure out how to run more streetcars through the tunnels. The consultants warned of bottlenecks and added delays. The system already has problems running on schedule. Muni currently needs an estimated $100 million to $150 million more a year to make the significant service improvements voters demanded in 1999 but have yet to see. Even if the money were available, it would take five to 10 years to purchase the new equipment and expand the maintenance capacity. City Controller Ed Harrington, a veteran City Hall fiscal watchdog who also chairs a special mayor's panel looking at ways to stabilize Muni's finances, said the notion of free Muni should be shelved because it likely would attract hundreds of thousands of new riders and prove detrimental. "The odds are," Harrington said, the initiative "would become so successful that you'd destroy the system." The consultants' draft report, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle, said, "Conceptually, fare-free service would appear consistent with San Francisco's 'transit-first' policy, which requires the city to promote alternatives to car travel. However, without significant improvements made to the system's infrastructure in order to increase reliability, fare elimination alone may actually make public transit a less viable alternative to other modes of travel." Newsom, in asking for the study, speculated that the amount of money Muni now spends collecting and counting fares isn't much different than it gets at the fare box. But actually, the consultants found, the difference is considerable. Costs related to fare collection add up to about $8.4 million a year. Muni collects nearly $112 million a year in fare revenue. Muni charges $1.50 for a regular cash adult fare - $5 for a cable car ride - and $45 for a standard monthly FastPass. Discounts are offered to the disabled, seniors and youth. Many transit agencies across the country have offered free rides - some systemwide and some in limited geographic areas, such as the programs in Portland, Ore., and Seattle that let people board for free in the downtown areas. The experiments in Trenton, Austin and Denver were abandoned, and higher costs were cited as just one reason. Another reason: Drivers and longtime passengers complained that the free rides attracted rowdy and destructive joyriders. Only a handful of systems that began a systemwide free-boarding program within the last 20 years continue to offer the service, the consultants found. All of them, in such places as Logan, Utah, and Clemson, S.C., are relatively small operations. Closer to home, the East Bay city of Emeryville provides free bus shuttle service around town and to and from an Oakland BART station. *In Bay Area:* The president of the Board of Supervisors demands that the mayor return transit money used to pay the salaries of mayoral aides. *D5* ** Muni at a glance -- Average daily ridership: almost *700,000* ** -- Annual operating budget: *$670 million* ** -- Annual revenue from fares: nearly *$112 million* ** -- Annual cost to collect fares: *$8.4 million* ** /E-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon(a)sfchronicle.com <mailto:rgordon@sfchronicle.com>./ -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

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Fwd: Beyond Chron - Free Muni
by Eric Brooks 01 Feb '08

01 Feb '08

http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Free_Muni_Free_San_Francisco__5327.html Free Muni! Free San Francisco! by Marc Norton, Feb. 01, 2008 Matier and Ross, San Francisco's premier political gossips, say that Mayor Gavin Newsom plunked down $55,000 for a report <http://co.sfgov.org/webreports/details.aspx?id=660> telling him that making Muni free would get a lot of people to use public transit. Hey, Gavin, anybody on the street could have told you that for zip. But what really takes the cake is that the well-paid consultants who wrote this report concluded that getting more people to use Muni would be a BAD thing. The consultants estimate that free Muni would increase ridership by 35-40%. With around 700,000 boardings in an average day, that would mean something like 250,000 more trips. Think about that. Thousands and thousands of people getting out of their cars. Thousands and thousands more people going places in the City they couldn't afford to get to before. Less traffic congestion, less pollution, more people out and about enjoying themselves and probably spending money in SF businesses. How horrible! Why would this be so BAD? Because it would cost Muni money. Wow. We paid $55,000 to learn that? We all know Muni needs money. I mean, Muni chief Nathaniel Ford is worth every penny of that $336,000 salary we pay him. Then there are all those mayoral staffers (Willie called them "special assistants") being paid by Muni to buff the Mayor's policy-wonk image. Good thing we passed Supervisor Aaron Peskin's Prop A. The consultants also tell us that free Muni would create a need for more buses, streetcars and trains, not to mention more drivers and mechanics. Holy cow, Batman! Perhaps we should let these consultants in on a little secret -- Muni already needs more buses, streetcars and trains, not to mention more drivers and mechanics. Anybody who has ever tried to get to work in the morning on Muni knows that. Here's my favorite argument against free Muni put forward by our esteemed consultants -- it "could adversely impact movement towards an integrated SMART-card based electronic fare collection system in the Bay Area." Talk about putting the cart before the horse! But the consultants have a solution to this problem: we could all use our SMART cards when we board Muni "solely as a means to count riders." How high-tech and cool, don't you think? The consultants carefully delineate all the costs associated with free Muni in their 138-page report. But somehow they never get around to talking about the financial and societal benefits of taking thousands of cars off the streets every day. Nor do they consider the financial and societal benefits of less pollution, or of much greater mobility for thousands of San Franciscans. Some "transit-first" city! Hurrah for our "Green Mayor!" And here is a little gem that didn't make it into the Chronicle's front-page hit piece against free Muni. According to the report, elimination of various identified "fare related projects that would no longer be required... would result in a savings of approximately $255 million over the period of 2007-2037." That's in addition to the modest estimate that Muni would save $8.4 million per year in fare collection costs. Okay, okay, you ask, where would we get the money to pay for free Muni? I'm glad you asked. A couple of months ago, one of those blue-ribbon panels that mayors like to appoint delivered a preliminary blue-ribbon report on how to get more money for Muni. But, before they even began, they wantonly jettisoned the one and only real idea that makes any sense: taxing downtown big business and downtown landlords. I confess, here I go again. How do all those downtown businesses, hotels, and landlords make their bucks? Off of people who come downtown to spend money, or to work for them, or both. And what makes downtown possible? Why, Muni of course. Take Muni out of the equation, and downtown is just one big highrise ghost town. And who pays for Muni now? Why, everybody except downtown businesses, hotels and landlords. Apparently, that is the natural order of things. Right now we are building downtown a small empire of vertical gated communities for millionaires and billionaires. I say we turn those skyscrapers upside down and shake some moola out of those rich dude's pockets. If they don't like it, let them buy a condo in Fresno. If Don Fisher can plunk down $100 million or more just to display his art collection at the Presidio, let's expropriate those millions to buy buses, streetcars and trains, and hang his art in Muni Metro where everybody can see it -- for free of course. Free Muni! Free San Francisco! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ /Copyright © 2008 by Marc Norton Marc Norton is a bellman at a small hotel in downtown San Francisco. Contact him at nortonsf(a)ix.netcom.com, or through his website at www.MarcNorton.us <http://www.marcnorton.us>./ -- "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

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Mayor's New High Price Staff Funded From MTA Budget
by Eric Brooks 26 Jan '08

26 Jan '08

Mayor's New High Price Staff Funded From MTA Budget see http://www.examiner.com/printa-1179431~Newsom_siphons_Muni_money_for_staff.… and http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/25/BA88ULA3O.DT…

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