We are going backward

Global Warming is a consequence of lifestyle choices; of resources used because they are there and no negative consequences to us thinking we need to use them. We are evaporating eons of fossil fuels into the air we breathe and changing the earth's albedo.

Government provides rules for the allocation of resources, like how much air can be polluted. As a consequence of resource use governments manage growth and crisis- not very well. Business is exploitation of resources for growth and the deferral of risk in crisis.

James Hansen said Business As Usual was what will prevent solving the crisis of Global Warming; not a absence of available solutions.

Take Belmont's desire for a flat sewer rate or three cars per unit downtown.

According to City Manager Crist low intensity water users are not paying for the cost of infrastructure. High intensity users require larger infrastructure. LIU use it but don't pay for it is the argument. The Public Hearing will then be held on May 13, 2008, at 7:30 p.m. at One Twin Pines Lane, Belmont, CA 94002 in the City Council Chambers.

But that infrastructure is built up for the high intensity water users. And the city's unrequited commitment to sprawl has resulted in miles of non permeable roads, which have steadily increased over the last 30 years, causing runoff into the sewer, exacerbated by the higher rainfalls of global warming, now overtaxing the sewer system from 50 years ago. The total cost is estimated at $40M.

Someone said its unfair that she has to pay more to water her yard which benefits all of Belmont because it meets residential design standards for landscaping. Native plants, recycled water, and low water landscapes may be on the GAC charter but they are not presently policy. Why should a high flow user bear the costs she asked?

Because at the same time, in the Green Newsletter that Belmont sent out, we are asked to conserve water for our supplier Mid Peninsula Water Company. Given that we live in a 25" per year, semi arid low temperature climate, conservation makes sense. What is the harm with conservation anyway? That there will be more for our children? We could be even greener if local water capture, community gardens and home gardens got similar incentives like the solar waive fees and streamline guidelines to encourage installations.

In the past local government felt that growth was in the community interest and needed to be subsidized. Sewer, garbage, water, postal, electricity and gas rates and utility charges were averaged over the community to pay for consumption of open space. Downtowns were taxed to pay for sprawl; and deteriorated as people saw more value in exploiting open space than losing services downtown. Local government with the various departments at city hall make it possible to consume our way through the planet.

That infrastructure for Global Warming consumption patterns remains in place in all the jobs at city hall. Today the same low growth, now pro open space arguments, are saying that in the community interest, increased consumption (of water in this case) needs to be subsidized. Averaging the sewer rates means government still ends up subsidizing consumption rather than efficiency; while at the same time feeling a need to remind us to conserve for Mid Penn!

All things green

In the spirit of our Green Advisory Committee, ABC presented 6 ways to make your life more "green." I expected little tweaks like using compact fluorescents and recycling more - BUT

- They showed a man living in a 100 sq. ft. house and suggested that we sell our "McMansions" and downsize our living space!
- The report suggested that we move to a large city, citing New York as a green city due to the fact that most people use public transit and walk instead of owning/driving cars. The implication was that vertical development was better than suburban sprawl.

The Economist on newstands now, has an article on the politics of food for fuel called The Silent Tsunami: The Food Crisis and How to Solve it. I didn't like the proposal they have to expand aid or their nuclear bullet- enabling GMO frankenfoods; however in their defense in parallel they make an argument for enabling self sufficiency for small farmers. They can't seem to admit that we can't drive ourselves out of this pickle. Reduce driving with charged parking to reduce the need for biofuels which is raising food prices. The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year said Lester Brown when he predicted this crisis two years ago.

By the way this article contains an alarming piece of data that analysts haven't picked on yet- namely that all the defense of exporting labor, with cheap fuel and manufacturing overseas, since Bush the Elder proclaimed the New World Order, was that the greater prosperity that resulted from the maquiladoras was raising living standards worldwide particularly for the poor. The Economist article, after arguing the problems for the deteriorating living standards in the middle class says "Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day. If, on a conservative estimate, the cost of their food rises 20% (and in some places, it has risen a lot more), 100m people could be forced back to this level, the common measure of absolute poverty. In some countries, that would undo all the gains in poverty reduction they have made during the past decade of growth."

And the current issue of Time has a rather weak article on How to win the war on Global Warming which essentially relies on new technology.

The last issue of Time had a great article on The Clean Energy Myth which captures the inability to think past consumption for our cars. Our cars are not only stealing our food and killing our seas, policy makers are hoping the next generation of ethanol will starve our soil.

All of which was neatly captured in Darkow's cartoon from 4/16/08
In the pull down menu pick 4/16/08

The consumerist source of green house gases are brilliantly summarized by Michael Pollan in 4/20/08 issue of the NY Times Magazine in a column titled Why Bother? He says for us to wait for technology to solve the problem means we are not serious about changing anything.

There were other good articles in this issue including Not-So-free ride by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner on using insurance to get people to drive less by correctly pricing the externalities of driving; and The Green Issue- Some Bold Steps, which left out the boldest step, which is that there is no way to drive and still get to the carbon production level that the biosphere can sustain (5lbs of co2/day) which concludes this excellent article by Seth Zuckerman in Sierra magazine, and matches a number 1.3 times higher of 1.2 tonnes of CO2 annually calculated by Monbiot. The average American produces 133 lbs of CO2 mostly from driving. Carbon emissions are expected to rise through 2020.

Does government always find a way to pass the buck?

At the Belmont Green Advisory Committee meeting there were a lot of great ideas on how to green the city for climate change. However we never set a base line on how to measure emissions or what goal we were going to develop policy for (more later).

We know at the federal level that there is very little happening. Renewable energy was still underfunded and big oil and coal continue to rack in the subsidies. Almost a 6/1 difference. And the President continues to drag his feet. CA ability to regulate tailpipe emissions is attacked. And the feds are doing everything to keep 1493 from becoming law.

At the state level we got AB32 which mandates changes. However the implementation is seriously struggling. AB 2744 by Huffman would allow MTC to charge 10 cents per gallon for 25 years to fund transit. Its stalled in committee with a 6-7 vote today. And incredibly Southern California, is pursuing its own gas fee at 3% of the retail value of gas which looks like 12 cents at present prices and may be a better way to access it.

But it will probably have a harder time in committee.

On a national level NY was unable to move congestion pricing through because of a conflict between the mayor and the legislature and governor in Albany which doesn’t bode well for cross jurisdictional agreements.

Global Warming is caused by the use of fossil fuels which requires an infrastructure of power lines and fueling stations and roads all of which are built by city government. 80% of the fossil fuels we consume need to stay in the ground through 2300 because of the 200 year lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere. That means that to a rough extent we need to live on 20% of the infrastructure we have.

Can Belmont address its challenges without pointing fingers at state and federal sources?

Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement (MCPA)

We've met with all the council members about the mayor signing the MCPA.

The Mayor has asked for a followup meeting to discuss some more.

To summarize:
1- The MCPA is a request (we urge) from cities to Congress to address Climate Change.
2- The MCPA is an agreement between cities to reduce GHG toward Kyoto's targets.

For the US the Kyoto target is 7% below 1990 emissions.

There is nothing binding on cities on how to achieve Kyoto targets. No density limits or housing and transportation links or green building criteria or coal reductions. The third section of the MCPA provides 12 examples of what could be done (such as) one of which offers a density example.

Cities (which make up 70% of Green House Gas emission worldwide) need Congress to act
1- so that energy loads don't shift to polluting countries through imports.
2- incentives are developed for people to live an alternate energy or low energy lifestyle.

Past Mayor Coralin Fierebach said she would not sign this agreement objecting to the density example.

But as Chris Mohr of HLC points out there is a huge environmental impact to how policy is currently implemented primarily because a lack of transportation choices and a job housing imbalance result in super commuters who benefit no one. We need regional solutions to many of today's problems from air quality to water to a jobs housing balance.

By not requiring anything the MCPA takes into account that Belmont is a unique suburban city requiring its own unique solutions to climate change. 7% below 1990 levels can be achieved without density by addressing three of the five big emissions sources that Al Gore identified: coal, cars, and buildings.

At a recent Senate hearing of the Sustainable Transportation Committee in Redwood City before Senators Leland Yee and Tom Torlakson the major points of all the transportation chiefs in the Bay Area was
1- we need to plan better to get to a jobs housing balance by taking advantage of what we have
2- we already know how to build low emissions walkable cities. Now we need to incentivize people to live an alternate or low energy lifestyle.

Signing the MCPA is part of the Sierra Club's Cool Cities program

The Cool Cities web site for California shows 106 cities that have signed. 16 of these cites are from San Mateo which is over 50% of our cities.