Alviso Blogging

When I was a teen, Alviso was a bit of a joke for us, a kind of a run-down, low-rent, out of the way section of the Bay Area. A few times we parked there and hiked along the railroad tracks to visit the ghost town of Drawbridge, half-sunk into the mud.

Yesterday, on a whim, our host drove us through scenic downtown Alviso for a quick visit to the wetlands . There I learned that its peculiar geography still makes Alviso a poor candidate for gentrification, despite its proximity to Silicon Valley.  True, there was one big condo project nearer to the frreeway, and TiVo's headquarters are situated just within the city limits, but otherwise Alviso looked much like it did in the mid-70s.

But more importantly, I found that Alviso is one of the hotspots to reverse a trend that was one of the sadder byproducts of the rise of the Bay Area metropolitan area: the destruction of the wetlands. Down by the shoreline, a restoration project is underway, with many of the old salt ponds being converted back into riparian areas, and others preserved as ponds for the benefit of migrating waterfowl.

As if on cue, we were approached by a birding geek in full regalia, who was pretty excited, in a deadpan sort of way, to have sighted a Wilson's Phalorope . A bunch of them, in fact, though they looked like tiny specks to me, since he wouldn't share his binoculars with civilians. On inspection via Google, however, they are a fine-looking avian, and impressive in their mighty migration from the Andes to the Yukon, especially given their tiny size.

So if you happen to be in the South Bay, be aware of the possibility of a rare phalorope sighting. And tread lightly on the land.

1990: Auto-Erotica?

Rummaging through the diminishing archives, I found another burning example of how climate change was a looming danger more than twenty years ago, and how little has been done since then. And according to a Scientific American article published today, we're literally reaping the whirlwind.

There is virtual unanimity among scientists that if present trends continue, the home planet is in for some serious warming. So what can you do about those present trends? The answer may be parked out in your driveway. If you own a car, it is one of 400 million such vehicles - with over a quarter of that total here in the United States - each of them spewing its weight in carbon dioxide every year.

While it may not be your intention to bake the old biosphere, you might be faced with precious few alternatives for getting from point A to point B. At the same time, our century-old exercise in "auto-erotica" may be reaching critical mass: for many of us, the damn things are getting to be more trouble than they're worth. No matter how many new roads and parking lots we build, we're still packed in like steel sardines. The average commuter’s traffic speed keeps slowing down, while the mean global temperature just keeps getting meaner.

How did we get into this mess, anyway? One person you may wish to thank is the late E. Roy Fitzgerald. In 1949, Fitzgerald was convicted for being pail of a criminal conspiracy to rid the nation's cities of their highly efficient electric trolley systems. Convicted in the case, along with Fitzgerald, were General Motors, Standard Oil, and Firestone Tires. .According to Russell Mokhiber 's "Corporate Crime and Violence" (Sierra Club Books, 1988), Fitzgerald headed a covertly funded front company which bought up municipal streetcar, systems and ripped up the tracks during the 1930s and '40s. Those tracks could have formed the core of urban mass transit systems for virtually every metropolitan area in the United States. Had efficient mass transit been developed, the fat cats involved in the conspiracy would not have sold as many cars, tires, and gasoline as they did.

You might think the conspirators would have learned a lesson from their conviction. However, Fitzgerald and the other principals were fined exactly one buck (that's $1) each for their premeditated murder of the nation's urban mass transit systems.

Another conspirator in creating our dependence on the automobile is the federal government. Through the power of subsidies, it kept the domestic price of oil artificially low, encouraged the use of trucks rather than freight I trains, and built up our now-crumbling and overcrowded highway system. It is those free- ways that encouraged land-use patterns enabling millions of Americans to settle great distances from their work places - though that is small comfort now that we sit in mind-numbing traffic jams on the way.

Michael Renner of the Worldwatch Institute estimates that current government subsidies to the automobile may reach as much as $300 billion a year. Factored into this equation are not only the costs of road building and maintenance, but also of municipal services, accidents, health care, and tax losses from paved-over land (which amounts to .15 acre for every child, woman, and man in America). "If all of these expenses were reflected in retail fuel prices," notes Renner, "gasoline could be $4.50 a gallon."

Aside from the monetary costs, there is the annual toll of 50,000 human lives lost in traffic accidents - roughly equal to the total number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. Additionally, University of California researchers estimate that cancer and other diseases resulting from the production and use of gasoline and diesel fuel may account for up to 30,000 premature deaths every year, plus $40 billion in health care costs and lost productivity. None of the above takes into account the current or eventual costs of acid rain or ozone depletion.

What alternatives do we have to burning gasoline? The use of alcohol fuel will be man- dated in some status to help meet elusive clean air standards. But it would take 40 percent of the United States' corn harvest to supply just 10 percent of our automobile fuel demand. Also, from 30 to 40 percent of the potential energy content of alcohol fuel sources are lost during the refining process.

The use of natural gases is more efficient than alcohol fuel, but both methods, although cleaner than gasoline, emit unacceptable levels of greenhouse gases - especially when multiplied by 400 million vehicles.

Hydrogen - the most abundant element in the universe - may be the clean-burning fuel of the future. Widespread use is still a long way off, especially in this country, where hydrogen research lags far behind Japan, Canada and West Germany. In the 1970s, America led the world in research into advanced fuel efficiency, until the Reagan Revolution slashed funding by-S5 percent, while rolling back fuel efficiency standards at the same time. The recently proposed Bush budget cuts funds for energy conservation by 50 percent and aid to mass transit by 25 percent.

Until General Motors and Standard Oil decide to sell hydrogen-powered cars, the most viable alternative is the electric vehicle. Recent prototypes can go up to 110 miles on a. single charge, travel up to 70 miles per hour, and theoretically emit no pollution (depending on where you get your electricity from).

With the declining price of photovoltaic cells, solar-powered electric cars are a realistic possibility, and would represent the best of all possible worlds. You'll probably have to build it yourself if you want it soon. The folks at General Motors and Standard Oil are in no hurry to bring it to market. Perhaps someone should fine them another buck.

In the long term, we can wait for the powers that be to provide us with alternative transit systems or cleaner fuels. In the short term they may even mandate cleaner or more efficient internal combustion engines. In the meantime, the forests keep dying and the Fahrenheit creeps ever upward.

If you get tired of waiting, you might want to move to Europe or Japan, where efficient and convenient rail systems have never disappeared. Bike-and-ride systems are also quite popular. In Tokyo, there is a well-guarded 15-story bicycle garage. In the Netherlands, the entire country is connected by a bicycle freeway system, complete with over- and underpasses and on- and off-ramps.

If you'd rather stay where you are, there is a proposal on the table right now for a railbus system running from La Selva Beach to Felton on existing Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Bruce Douglas, a Washington, D.C. consultant, estimated it could be built for some $24 to $70 million. Unfortunately, he also told the County Transportation Commission that most of the drivers clogging Highway 1 during rush hour would never use such a system, prompting Santa Cruz Mayor Mardi Wormhoudt to wonder aloud why they should bother building it.

One thing's certain: if it doesn't get built, nobody will use it. And if there isn't any public support for it, it's not going to get built.

To paraphrase Smokey the Bear, only you can save the planet. You can let your county supervisor know that you think a railbus system is a good idea. You can let your Congressional representative know that you disagree with Bush's budget priorities. You could even get angry, because if there's one thing that upsets the powers that be, it's an aroused citizenry.

But most of all, you could leave that car parked in your driveway, and hop on a bicycle or a bus as often as possible. Because if you think your friends at General Motors and Standard Oil are going to save the planet for you, you might also be interested in purchasing some prime oceanfront property, near Prince William Sound.

Maybe Somebody Should Do Something...

as Atrios keeps saying about the economy. But this stuff cuts even deeper. The environment is nature's capital – and without capital, forget capitalism. Unfortunately, we seem to be depleting our capital rather rapidly.

Exhibit A is this AP story entitled "Study reveals long-term rise in sea level:"

It will lead to land loss, more flooding, and saltwater invading bodies of fresh water, said lead researcher Benjamin Horton, whose team examined sediment from North Carolina’s Outer Banks. He directs the Sea Level Research Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania... 

“This is a very important contribution because it firmly establishes that the rise in sea level in the 20th century is unprecedented for the recent geologic past,’’ said Miller, who was not part of the research team. Miller said he recently advised Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey that the state needs to plan for a sea level rise of about 3 feet by the end of the century.

Yes, and I'm sure Governor Christie will get right on that. Much of the AP story seems to have been cribbed from this press release from the National Science Foundation. But unlike the AP reporter, the NSF didn't bury the lead:

The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years--and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.

Exhibit B comes from the legacy media in Anchorage, who pass on a report from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program via their colleagues at Petroleum News, entitled "Arctic warming even faster than predicted, scientists say"

Overall loss of snow and ice cover will likely heighten the warming trend, mainly because the white snow and ice tend to reflect heat from sun, rather than allowing the heat to be absorbed by the darker land or ocean water. Scientists now think that Arctic sea-ice cover will all but disappear in the summer by mid-century... 

The warming of soils may increase the release of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with these greenhouse gases potentially further accelerating the global warming. 

The release of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean from melting ice could impact global ocean currents and climate systems, while the release of water from Arctic glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland ice cap could raise global sea levels from between 3 feet and 5 feet by 2100, the report says.

If you squint, you might be able to discern a connection between those two stories. And just to be clear, even a three-foot rise would be absolutely devastating to humanity, and is well beyond what we were expecting even just a few years back.

Which brings us to Exhibit C, a report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean. I know you don't want to hear this, but please read on. The headline in this Guardian account is "Shocking state of seas threatens mass extinction, say marine experts:"

Fish, sharks, whales and other marine species are in imminent danger of an "unprecedented" and catastrophic extinction event at the hands of humankind, and are disappearing at a far faster rate than anyone had predicted, a study of the world's oceans has found. 

Mass extinction of species will be "inevitable" if current trends continue, researchers said.

The key words there are "if current trends continue." If you JGRTWT (or try this more detailed write-up in the Independent), it's pretty devastating. But for those of you who have just unstuck your foreheads from your keyboards, please note what one of the report's co-authors has to say:

The challenges for the future of the oceans are vast, but unlike previous generations we know what now needs to happen. The time to protect the blue heart of our planet is now, today and urgent.

So okay then, we know what needs to happen. Surely we're going to take the necessary steps to address this crisis, right? Welll... 

Spending caps proposed by Republicans would make it "virtually impossible" to enact climate legislation for a decade or longer, according to an analysis released yesterday.

You may now resume beating your head on your desk. Apparently the GOP thinks it's more important to save our grandchildren from taxation to cover George Bush's wars than to save them from mass extinctions and climate catastrophe.

Oh well, if we have to go out, let's go out singing. Mr Ochs?

1991: Commoner Sense

Preparing this old book review for posting was pretty depressing. We've wasted another twenty years, with obvious solutions sitting on the table, and no real prospect of dealing with them anytime soon. Read it and weep:

When environmentalist Barry Commoner ran for president in 1980 as the candidate of the now defunct Citizens Party, he made so much sense that he was roundly ignored. As one incredulous reporter put it, "Are you a serous candidate, or are you just running on the issues?" In desperation, Commoner generated the only headlines of his campaign by characterizing the stands of his major party opponents – accurately – as "bullshit." Now, after a decade of environmental backsliding spearheaded by the man who defeated him, Commoner is back with a dollop of much needed common sense.

Wealthfare Wednesday, Give or Take

This week's topic is farm subsidies. The 2004 edition of Take the Rich Off Welfare identified over $30 billion in annual handouts to agribusiness (a figure that includes price supports, ethanol handouts and water subsidies). In these lean budgetary times, pressure to trim these subsidies has been... pretty mild, so far. But there has been some movement.

Last week a House committee was pretty proud of themselves for voting to cut direct payments to farmers who make over a quarter million bucks a year. That would be Jeff Flake's Appropriations Committee. This puts them on record as agreeing with President Obama, who made such a proposal earlier this year. This also puts them at odds with their own party's Agriculture Committee. According to them, it would be a much better idea to cut funding for...food stamp recipients. Who do you think will win this battle of ideas in today's GOP?

The system of direct payments, which go out whether you choose to farm your land or not, is a relatively recent development. It's a legacy, not of FDR's New Deal, but of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution. The Environmental Working Group has a suite of pages on farm subsidies, and explains direct payments in their handy primer. As they point out, this program alone costs about $5 billion a year, and also has the perverse effect of inflating land prices. Matthew Yglesias hones in on this, noting that some 45% of agricultural land is not owned by the farmer. Inflated land prices benefit the landowners instead, making them "a highly regressive transfer."

The Washington Post put a team of reporters on the aggie welfare beat over the past year and links up to the results at this page. NYT food columnist Mark Bittman offered up a post full of links on his blog. Bittman also offers a contrarian view with ""Don's End Agricultural Subsidies, Fix Them." He argues that we've been subsidizing unhealthy food policy for so long, that some funding in the other direction would help undo the damage.

The Center for American Progress likewise looks to redirect some of the savings from their proposed cuts. Their report focuses only on the $5 billion direct payment system. They identify $35 billion in savings by FY 2020, and suggest that $650 million of that could be redirected into "existing rural-based programs to provide incentives for renewable clean energy, energy efficiency, and advanced dedicated biomass energy crops."

Worthy goals, but something tells me that if our nation's dedicated public servants do come up with some ag policy cuts in their looming budget deal, they won't be looking to "reinvest" them anytime soon.

Anyway, enjoy your "Wednesday." If this keeps up, I'll change the name of the feature to "Subsidy Saturdays."

Foaming at the Mouth

Daughter and I were talking about Thursday's disappearing/reappearing blog post on food waste. She mentioned that she had learned in school that Americans throw away enough styrofoam cups every year to circle the earth 436 times.

She had that number right, though it may be slightly dated. The statistic came from the National Toxics Campaign (now defunct). But according to their research, in this country alone, we were tossing away 25 billion of those styrofoam cups every single year. But that's just the cups. That doesn't even count all those to-go containers that are used once and discarded, like the formerly happy meal above left.

With a bit of clicking, I was able to find out way more about styrofoam (aka polystyrene) than I ever wanted to know. Here:

More Dangerous Than Terrorism

Just a reminder....

Arctic ice is melting faster than expected and could raise the average global sea level by as much as five feet this century, an authoritative new report suggests. 

The study by the international Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, or AMAP, is one of the most comprehensive updates on climate change in the Arctic, and builds on a similar assessment in 2005 

It says that Arctic temperatures in the past six years were the highest since measurements began in 1880, and that feedback mechanisms believed to accelerate warming in the climate system have now started kicking in.

People, this worries me a lot more than the folks who sent the Underwear Bomber to terrorize us. This is the world our kids have to live in.

Three Fifty Dot Org, please.

Happy Save the Frogs Day

Scientific studies prove that frogs are one of the five coolest animals (along with vultures, rhinos, sloths and penguins). Unfortunately, scientific studies also show that amphibians in general - and frogs in particular - are the most endangered animals on the planet. Nearly a third of all amphibian species are on the verge of extinction, leading to the unfathomable possibility that your children or grandchildren might live in a world where frogs are only a memory.

In response, scientists have created Save the Frogs Day, and today, April 29, 2011,  is the third annual worldwide event in support of the little guys. There are 118 events in 20 countries across the globe, scheduled anywhere from March to June. You can find out more at Frog Day central.

Frogs are at risk from a variety of factors: "habitat destruction, infectious diseases, pollution and pesticides, climate change, invasive species, and over-harvesting for the pet and food trades." If you want to know what to do to help, you could start by distributing this fact sheet (PDF) - even if you're reading this sometime other than Frog Day.

The main site goes into more detail about conservation strategies, and in particular about the need to control invasive species and pesticides. The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity has a handy form letter regarding one particular brand of pesticide that is devastating frog populations.

I don't want to live in a world without frogs. So please... don't let them croak.

Good News/Bad News

A couple weeks ago I linked to a short interview with the venerable Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute. Mr. Brown had some disturbing forecasts about global food supplies – and he still does. But if you'd like your pessimism and your optimism mashed together into a palatable meal, head on over to AlterNet for a longer interview that explores the interconnectedness of our looming crises, and hence, the interconnectedness of any solutions. This is by way of publicizing a documentary airing on PBS this week, entitled Plan B:

That's because the acclaimed environmentalist has deeply studied the variety of environmental and geopolitical tipping points we are fast approaching, and found that we're headed for a seriously dark dystopia if we don't turn civilization as we know it around, and fast. A catastrophic confluence of food and water shortages, overpopulation and pollution, collapsed governments and communities and more natural disasters than Roland Emmerich can dream up await us on the other side of Plan A, which Brown calls "business of usual."

We have to fully understand the depth of our collective predicament if we're going to work together to address it. There are, of course, a lot of people whose paychecks depend on not understanding it, but my grandchildren's paychecks depend on figuratively knocking those people upside the head. See if you can get one of them to watch the film with you. One step at a time.

For the Mill

I don't stop by the Grist webzine often enough, but it's always worthwhile when I do.

I was diverted there to hear sensible centrist Dave Roberts explain why sensible centrists are wrong when they say both renewables and nuclear have to be part of the climate change solution.

And then, thanks to Web serendipity. I found myself reading about how bananas may be going the way of the frog. And about the world's greatest toilet, Japan's bad-ass wind farms, a rundown on America's greenest commuters, and how P2P isn't just for MP3.

The title of this piece is the best part, so I won't spoil it for you. Also, if you missed the comic book version of how the climate bill died in the Senate, it's still there.

Finally, there's a video of cows dancing with joy at a fresh meadow of spring grass, after getting out of their barn following a long winter of munching hay. What's not to like?

Of course, you could have found all those links on their front page, too. Point being: they do good work, so boost their traffic stats when you can.

1998: Sprawl and the Growth Lobby

This morning's paper brings the news that Tucson's urban core has continued to lose out to suburban growth over the past decade - just like in the previous few decades. This is a trend that can't continue forever, but it could get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Obviously, the "viable growth management plan" referred to below did not pass. It appeared on the 2000 ballot as Proposition 202 and received less than 30% yes votes in the face of strong industry pushback. Pima County subsequently developed a Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, and Tucson voters evertually passed a watered-down light rail plan after rejecting a more comprehensive version. But the momentum of sprawl will continue... until it doesn't. Seems like more overdue homework to me.


(Illustration by the great Andy Singer)

There's been a lot of talk about growth and sprawl lately, not just here in Arizona, but nationwide. The Sierra Club has started a national campaign against sprawl, recognizing that without such an effort, achievements in environmental reform will be incremental at best. We're losing too much of Mother Earth as the six-billion-and-counting of us spread out for more elbow room.

And here in the Grand Canyon State, we have a chance to put a viable growth management plan on the November ballot. Citizens for Growth Management is behind the effort, and they need 112,000 signatures by June 2nd, which is not impossible, especially if you help them.

Not only does reckless and haphazard sprawl rip up our precious Sonoran Desert and endanger native flora and fauna, but it's being subsidized by your tax dollars. For too long Tucson residents have been paying for new infrastructure to help developers raid the desert and make a buck. Too many of our politicians have been happy to help them, but maybe those days are coming to a close.

1995: GATT & the Ecology of Commerce

"Free" trade agreements continue to be controversial, and provoke splits in both parties' coalitions. Meanwhile, the long run is getting shorter every day, and sustainability continues to be our only option.

Just as the December issue went to press, the lame-duck 103rd Congress ratified the odious GATT treaty. Sold under the comforting rubric of "free trade," the GATT treaty is anything but. Like NAFTA before it, the agreement is more like an interlocking set of protectionist measures, mostly forced on the poorer nations by the richer ones on a take-it or-leave it basis.
With profound contempt for the democratic process, the GATT agreement was negotiated behind closed doors by the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, then rammed through Congress on a "fast-track" basis, with a minimum of debate and no amendments allowed.

The real tragedy of GATT and NAFTA is that with input from labor and environmental groups and indigenous populations, they could have been genuine free trade agreements, and formed a basis for global cooperation and economic justice. The agreements between the richer and poorer nations in the European Community provide a useful model for what might have been. Opponents of our bogus free trade pacts are not opposed to the principle of free trade, just to the shameless corporate giveaways we've seen in the last year.

Combined with the serious attitude problem to be found in the 104th Congress (about to take power as this issue goes to press), the GATT agreement presents major impediments to any attempt to save the planet. Both developments promise a further concentration of economic power, even further removed from any sort of popular control.