Quote of Note:

While a number of natural factors have certainly contributed to the overall decline in sea ice, the effects of greenhouse warming are now coming through loud and clear.

        Mark Serreze, National Snow and Ice Data Center researcher

--Beauty Mountain Wilderness: 16,700 acres
--Cahuilla Mountain Wilderness: 7,131 acres
--Pinto Mountains Wilderness: 24,080 acres
--South Fork San Jacinto Wilderness: 21,540 acres

--Agua Tibia Wilderness Additions: 1,950 acres
--Chuckwalla Mountains Wilderness Additions: 14,480 acres
--Joshua Tree National Park Wilderness Additions: 81,178 acres
--Orocopia Mountains Wilderness Additions: 3,760 acres
--Palen-McCoy Wilderness Additions: 20,320 acres
--Santa Rosa Wilderness Additions: 3,300 acres

--Bautista Creek: 9.8 miles
--Fuller Mill Creek: 3.5 miles
--North Fork San Jacinto River: 10.12 miles
--Palm Canyon Creek: 8.1 miles

--Santa Rosa Peak (3,507 acres)
--Snow Creek (50 acres)
--Southeast Area (4,679 acres)

Conservation Grants

The deadline for the Angeles Chapter Conservation Grants is Friday, October 12 at 6:00 pm.

Ballona Developer Loses Lawsuit at Appeals Court

California Court of Appeal Overturns LA City Council’s Approval
to Expand the Playa Vista Development

Ballona Southeast Safe for Now

September 13, 2007, Los Angeles — The California Court of Appeal today overturned all approvals of the 111 acre Phase 2 of the massive Playa Vista development in West Los Angeles essentially stopping the project because the City of Los Angeles violated state and local environmental laws.

The court’s landmark ruling is a major victory for the citizens of Los Angeles, the environment, civil rights of Native Americans, and overall quality of life in Los Angeles. The ruling covers two consolidated cases involving groups as diverse as Ballona Wetlands Land Trust, the Tongva/Gabrieleno Tribal Council of San Gabriel, city of Santa Monica, Surfrider Foundation and Ballona Ecosystem Education Project.

The Court ruled: We conclude that the [Environmental Impact Report on the project] was deficient in its analysis of land use impacts, mitigation of impacts on historical archaeological resources, and wastewater impacts.

Halt to All Development:

In addition, the Court ordered all project activities on the 111 acre site to cease immediately: All construction activities on the project by any person are hereby ordered to be stayed effective immediately. The superior court is directed to issue an order enjoining all project activities that it finds would prejudice the City's consideration or implementation of mitigation measures or alternatives and that could result in an adverse change to the physical environment, until the City fully complies with CEQA.

The Court’s injunction is much tougher than those usually granted to land use lawsuits: The relief can be limited to those portions of the determination, finding, or decision or to specific project activities that are not in compliance with CEQA, but only if the court finds that those portions or activities are severable, that severance will not prejudice full compliance with CEQA, and that the remainder of the project is not in noncompliance with CEQA. We conclude that the misleading analysis of land use impacts, failure to discuss preservation in place of historical archaeological resources, and failure to properly analyze wastewater impacts rendered the EIR as a whole deficient as an informational document, and that these matters collectively are not severable from the project as a whole.

The Court of Appeal directed that all City approvals be overturned and permits revoked. The City must now comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, write a new Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and hold new public hearings. They must respond to public comments and give the public and City Council an opportunity to reconsider the proposed project or some alternative to it.

A Stunning Global Warming Victory

Thursday, September 13, 2007 — Yesterday will be remembered as a turning point in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. And it comes from the Green Mountain State!

Judge William Sessions, a federal district court judge in Vermont, ruled favorably in a suit brought by the Sierra Club, other environmental groups and several states, that New York and Vermont may enact the California Clean Car Standards, pending EPA approval. These standards, adopted by California and at least 11 other states, will reduce global warming emissions from cars by 30 percent when fully implemented in 2016.

According to Attorney David Bookbinder, who represented the Club in this trial, "This decision should put the nail in the coffin of the failed arguments of the auto industry. They used every tired argument about safety, job losses, lack of technology, and doubts about the science of global warming that they had — the same things they've been saying for decades. We've long known these arguments weren't true, and this ruling by Judge Sessions indicates that he didn't believe them either."

The victory means that states can now move forward with the kind of bold, visionary action that they need in order to protect their citizens and everyone needs if we are to prevent the most catastrophic effects of global warming. Along with the continued success of our Cool Cities campaign (almost 700 cities have now pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions), it shows that we don't have to wait for the federal government to finally take action. In fact, we can't afford to wait.

Judge Denies Off-Road Vehicle Access to Surprise Canyon
A Unique Oasis in Death Valley National Park

September 18, 2007, San Francisco — Judge William H Alsup denied a motion brought by off-road interests (the Little Chief Millsite Partnership and the Owners of Independence Millsite) seeking to gain access to Surprise Canyon, a rare and fragile desert stream. This is the second failed attempt in the past year by the same individuals to gain motorized access to the creek, which begins in Death Valley National Park and flows through an Area of Critical Environmental Concern and wilderness managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

In 2000, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Sierra Club sued the Bureau of Land Management for violations of the Endangered Species Act because the agency had failed to evaluate the impact of off-road vehicle use and other management policies on endangered wildlife. As a result of a 2001 settlement and consent decree, the agency closed several sensitive areas including Surprise Canyon in order to protect the spring-fed creek flowing through the canyon and the habitat and wildlife it supports. The National Park Service closed the upper portion of the canyon to vehicles in 2002. Since these closures, Surprise Canyon has experienced a remarkable recovery, evidenced by thriving vegetation and the return of such endangered species as the Inyo California Towhee after decades of absence.

"This is a great day for Surprise Canyon. The creek is a haven for people and wildlife, with its cascading waterfalls, towering cottonwoods and lush willows that are home to desert bighorn sheep, endangered birds, and rare species found nowhere else in the world," said Chris Kassar, a wildlife biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The off-road interests had purchased inholdings on old mining claims in Death Valley National Park with the intention of using their ownership of those lands to seek motorized access to the canyon, and brought this motion for contempt against the Bureau of Land Management when it attempted to enforce the consent decree entered in 2001. The groups argued that the consent decree gave them a right to motorized access, but the court disagreed . And to the off-road groups' argument that the Bureau is taking too long to process their access applications, the court replied that the issue must be raised in a new lawsuit "rather than seeking to enforce an old decree in someone else's case concluded years before any agency action was requested."

Karen Schambach, California director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, says her members — employees of federal and state resource agencies — welcome the decision, but are still concerned about the future of Surprise Canyon. "We have our finger in the dike, and so far it is holding. But the longer challenge is somehow getting the off-road community to adopt informed land ethics. Unfortunately, this newest generation of extreme off-roading is doing more and more damage every year to these special areas that were formerly safe by virtue of their inaccessibility. We need more than lip service to environmental responsibility from groups like Blue Ribbon Coalition, who think it is all right to destroy sensitive habitat as long as they pick up their trash."

Previous off-road vehicle use caused serious damage to the canyon. In the 1990s, highly modified four-wheel-drive vehicles began to scale the canyon. The drivers cut down plants and trees, filled in portions of the streambed with rocks, and used winches to pull vehicles up near-vertical waterfalls. A number of vehicles overturned when trying to negotiate the waterfalls and other steep terrain, dumping oil and other pollution into the stream.

Because Surprise Canyon is narrow and constrained through much of its length, it is not possible to resume off-road vehicle use without causing substantial adverse impacts to the creek, the wilderness character of the area, important water resources and other natural values.

"Surprise Canyon is on a path to natural restoration. It was torn up and damaged, but now is thriving with native plants and wildlife," concluded Kassar. "Allowing damaging off-road vehicle activity to return to the canyon would set recovery back by decades, and this decision is at least one more step toward ensuring that doesn't happen."

2007 Legislative Session Wraps Up
by Bill Magavern

Some Progress on Energy, Air and Flood Protection, but
Important Work on Land Use, Ports and Toxics Put Off

September 14, 2007 — The California Legislature has sent to the Governor some important bills to make our buildings and fuels greener and guard against floods, but deferred until next year the vital tasks of spurring smart growth, requiring utilities to generate more power from renewables, reducing toxic chemical hazards and cleaning up the filthy air at the mega-ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland.

Bright spots of the 2007 session for the environmental cause included:

1. Cleaner Fuels: SB 210 (Kehoe) would require the adoption of a low-carbon fuel standard by 2010 that achieves at least a 10 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and maintains or improves upon air quality benefits gained by current gasoline and diesel fuel standards; AB 118 (Núñez) would raise about $150 million annually for clean fuel and clean air programs.
2. Greener Buildings: AB 888 (Lieu) would set green building standards for commercial buildings, starting in 2013. AB 1058 (Laird) would set green building standards for new residential construction. AB 35 (Ruskin) would require CAL-EPA to set sustainable building standards for the construction and renovation of state buildings. AB 1109 (Huffman) would require the adoption of energy efficiency standards for all general purpose lights.
3. Flood Protection: SB 5 (Machado) would require the state to prepare a Central Valley Flood Protection Plan by 2012. AB 5 (Wolk) would reform, restructure and rename the state Reclamation Board, which is the agency in charge of flood protection in the Central Valley. AB 70 (Jones) would provide for limited shared contribution between the state and local governments when local governments approve new developments in previously undeveloped areas, and thereby increase property damages resulting from a flood for which the state is liable.
4. Clean Air: The Healthy Heart and Lung Act, AB 233 (Jones), sponsored by Sierra Club California and American Lung Association of California, would improve enforcement of rules that limit toxic diesel emissions. SB 719 (Machado) would reform the San Joaquin Valley’s lackluster Air Pollution Control District by adding expertise and urban representation.
5. Endangered Species: The endangered California Condor is suffering from lead poisoning, because the birds eat bullet fragments when scavenging carcasses. AB 821 (Nava) would require the use of non-lead bullets when hunting big game within the range of the condor.

We are now asking Governor Schwarzenegger to sign these and other green bills. He has until October 14 to sign or veto the measures on his desk.

Governor Forces Fish and Game Commissioner to Resign
Action Urged by NRA and Republican Legislators
by Paul Mason

September 15, 2007 — There was a flurry of media attention this week when the Schwarzenegger administration forced one of their appointees to the Fish and Game Commission to resign, following a letter from 34 Republican Legislators orchestrated by the National Rifle Association. The loss of Judd Hanna, a thoughtful, conservation-oriented Republican, from the Commission is a serious blow to wildlife conservation, particularly the effort to protect California Condors from lead poisoning.

Sierra Club California has been supportive of efforts at the Commission to require the use of non-lead ammunition within the range of the Condor. We also support Assembly Bill 821 (Nava) which would force the Commission to adopt regulations banning lead ammo in the range of the condor. That bill is currently on the Governor's desk, awaiting his signature or veto.

Governor's Press Release on Canal and Dam Bond

Governor Schwarzenegger announced a $9 billion comprehensive water infrastructure proposal to be introduced in the legislative special session that he called in response to California's water crisis. The plan invests $600 million from Propositions 50, 84 and 1E to immediately relieve pressure on the Delta from environmental challenges and to respond to a recent federal court ruling that will reduce water deliveries to Southern California. It also includes $5.6 billion in water storage, nearly $2 billion in Delta restoration (in addition to the above-mentioned $600 million), $1 billion in grants for conservation and regional water projects and $500 million for specific water restoration projects. Written in two bills authored by Assembly Republican Leader Michael Villines (R-Fresno) and Senator Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto), the proposal represents a combination of ideas previously detailed in proposals by the Governor and legislative leaders.

"Our water crisis has gotten worse with the dry conditions and the recent federal court action that is going to have a devastating impact on the state's economy and the 25 million Californians who depend on Delta water. We need a comprehensive fix," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "That is why we are introducing two bills to solve California's water crisis in both the short and long-term. I look forward to working and negotiating with my partners in the Legislature so we can approve a comprehensive upgrade to California's water infrastructure."

Details of the $9 billion comprehensive water infrastructure proposal include:

• 600 million from Propositions 50, 84 and 1E to immediately relieve pressure on the Delta from environmental concerns
• $5.6 billion in above and below ground water storage
• $5.1 billion in surface storage
• $500 million in groundwater storage
• Identifies three locations for surface storage (Sites, Temperance Flat Reservoir and Los Vaqueros Expansion Project.)
• Specific criteria to assure public benefits and environmental benefits
• $1.9 billion for Delta Restoration and water supply reliability
• $1.4 billion for habitat restoration
• $500 million in early actions to address environmental concerns in the Delta
• $500 million in grants for specified watersheds throughout the state, including the San Joaquin River, Klamath River, Los Angeles River and others.

In January, building on his Strategic Growth Plan from last year, the Governor introduced a comprehensive plan to invest in additional surface and groundwater storage to meet the needs of population growth and manage the effects of climate change on California's hydrology and water delivery systems. The plan will help communities protect against flooding, and capture water from storms and snowmelt run-off to supply cities, farmers and business with water during drought conditions.

The Governor's comprehensive plan also includes significant funding toward restoration of the ailing Delta and would lead to the development of a new conveyance system. Twenty five million Californians rely on the Delta for clean, safe water. It also irrigates hundreds of thousands of acres of Central Valley farmland and it is the backbone of California's $32 billion agricultural industry.

Last year, the Governor directed the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force to develop a Delta management plan. The task force will present its findings and recommendations by January 1, 2008 and its Strategic Plan by October 31, 2008. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is also underway, being developed with broad participation from water agencies, environmental organizations and local representatives.

Our Moral Footprint
by Vaclav Havel

September 27, 2007, Prague — Over the past few years the questions have been asked ever more forcefully whether global climate changes occur in natural cycles or not, to what degree we humans contribute to them, what threats stem from them and what can be done to prevent them. Scientific studies demonstrate that any changes in temperature and energy cycles on a planetary scale could mean danger for all people on all continents.

It is also obvious from published research that human activity is a cause of change; we just don't know how big its contribution is. Is it necessary to know that to the last percentage point, though? By waiting for incontrovertible precision, aren't we simply wasting time when we could be taking measures that are relatively painless compared to those we would have to adopt after further delays?

Maybe we should start considering our sojourn on earth as a loan. There can be no doubt that for the past hundred years at least, Europe and the United States have been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are following their example. Nature is issuing warnings that we must not only stop the debt from growing but start to pay it back. There is little point in asking whether we have borrowed too much or what would happen if we postponed the repayments. Anyone with a mortgage or a bank loan can easily imagine the answer.

The effects of possible climate changes are hard to estimate. Our planet has never been in a state of balance from which it could deviate through human or other influence and then, in time, return to its original state.The climate is not like a pendulum that will return to its original position after a certain period. It has evolved turbulently over billions of years into a gigantic complex of networks, and of networks within networks, where everything is interlinked in diverse ways.

Its structures will never return to precisely the same state they were in 50 or 5,000 years ago. They will only change into a new state, which, so long as the change is slight, need not mean any threat to life.

Larger changes, however, could have unforeseeable effects within the global ecosystem. In that case, we would have to ask ourselves whether human life would be possible. Because so much uncertainty still reigns, a great deal of humility and circumspection is called for.

We can't endlessly fool ourselves that nothing is wrong and that we can go on cheerfully pursuing our wasteful lifestyles, ignoring the climate threats and postponing a solution. Maybe there will be no major catastrophe in the coming years or decades. Who knows? But that doesn't relieve us of responsibility toward future generations.

I don't agree with those whose reaction is to warn against restricting civil freedoms.Were the forecasts of certain climatologists to come true, our freedoms would be tantamount to those of someone hanging from a 20th-story parapet.

Whenever I reflect on the problems of today's world, whether they concern the economy, society, culture, security, ecology or civilization in general, I always end up confronting the moral question: what action is responsible or acceptable? The moral order, our conscience and human rights — these are the most important issues at the beginning of the third millennium.

We must return again and again to the roots of human existence and consider our prospects in centuries to come. We must analyze everything open-mindedly, soberly, unideologically and unobsessively, and project our knowledge into practical policies. Maybe it is no longer a matter of simply promoting energy-saving technologies, but chiefly of introducing ecologically clean technologies, of diversifying resources and of not relying on just one invention as a panacea.

I'm skeptical that a problem as complex as climate change can be solved by any single branch of science. Technological measures and regulations are important, but equally important is support for education, ecological training and ethics — a consciousness of the commonality of all living beings and an emphasis on shared responsibility.

Either we will achieve an awareness of our place in the living and life-giving organism of our planet, or we will face the threat that our evolutionary journey may be set back thousands or even millions of years. That is why we must see this issue as a challenge to behave responsibly and not as a harbinger of the end of the world.

The end of the world has been anticipated many times and has never come, of course. And it won't come this time either. We need not fear for our planet. It was here before us and most likely will be here after us. But that doesn't mean that the human race is not at serious risk. As a result of our endeavors and our irresponsibility our climate might leave no place for us. If we drag our feet, the scope for decision-making — and hence for our individual freedom — could be considerably reduced.

Vaclav Havel is the former president of the Czech Republic. This article was translated by Gerald Turner from the Czech.

Sprawling Sierra Growth Risks
Lives and Homes to Severe Wildfire

September 18, 2007, Sierra Nevada CA — The Sierra Nevada Alliance released the results of two years of research documenting that sprawling patterns of growth in the Sierra are more expensive and dangerous to protect from wildfire. The report finds that major wildfires like the Angora Fire in South Lake Tahoe will become more common and more destructive, if current growth patterns continue.

The new report, entitled Dangerous Development: Wildfire and Rural Sprawl in the Sierra Nevada, discovered that between 1990 and 2000, the number of people living in extreme or very high fire threat areas of the Sierra increased by 16%.

As the Sierra continues to grow, this trend of more development in wildfire-hazard areas will continue. In the Sierra, for example, the population is expected to triple by 2040, and this new report finds that 94% of the land slated for residential development is in areas considered "extreme" or "very high" fire threat.

When homes are scattered in remote, rugged locations, it is very difficult for firefighters to reach those homes in time, safely evacuate residents, and defend the homes from approaching wildfire. Roads are often too narrow for fire trucks to navigate, and there are no fire hydrants or other sources of water for firefighters to use. There is often more flammable vegetation in these sprawling, remote areas, making it easier for fires to get out of control and threaten the lives of residents and firefighters.

“Every day we are building new houses in extremely dangerous parts of California and the Sierra,’ said Autumn Bernstein, Land Use Coordinator for Sierra Nevada Alliance and the author of the report. “This should be a wake-up call that destructive wildfires like the recent Angora Fire in Lake Tahoe will become more common, unless we all start working together to plan ‘fire-smart’ communities.”

‘Fire-smart growth’ can save lives and money. In contrast, denser patterns of development, like those in historic downtown Truckee, Nevada City or Quincy, are safer and cheaper to defend from wildfire. The report demonstrates that these historic communities have a smaller perimeter to defend against an approaching wildfire. Homes are clustered together rather than spread apart, so firefighters can defend many homes at once. Because there are better roads and centralized water systems, firefighters can more quickly reach fires approaching homes and put them out before they can ignite homes.

“Communities already face huge challenges when it comes to preventing catastrophic wildfire,” said Jay Watson, board member of the California Fire Safe Council. “Developers and local officials need to carefully consider risks to residents and firefighters when deciding where and how our communities grow. ”

Clustered development also makes it cheaper and easier to reduce fuels in the surrounding wildlands. When homes are clustered together, the number of acres that need vegetation management to reduce fire danger is dramatically lower than in the case of scattered, low-density development.

“We can’t afford to keep growing in unsafe patterns,” said John Pickett, Tahoe Basin Coordinator for the Nevada Fire Safe Council. “As the Sierra grows, we should focus on infill development that will keep our communities safer from wildfire.”

Strategies for ‘Fire-Smart Growth’

The report recommends that counties and cities in California and the Sierra should focus on fire-smart growth strategies.

1. Infill first: Focusing new development within existing communities can help minimize new fire danger. Counties and cities should identify infill sites such as vacant lots, empty warehouses and old railroad yards and channel new growth into those sites. A good example of this type of development is the Truckee Railyard project, which will add new houses on a vacant railyard in downtown Truckee.
2. Concentric outward growth: When there is no more room for infill development, communities should grow outward in a compact and orderly fashion, building new neighborhoods that mirror the historic, compact design of the older community.
3. Restrict rural sprawl and leapfrog growth: Counties and cities should restrict sprawling, low-density growth and leapfrog subdivisions that encroach into wildland areas and increase wildfire danger.

“We can build thriving communities that are safer and sustainable, by practicing ‘fire-smart growth',’’ said Bernstein. “Or we can continue to build in dangerous patterns, and face more tragedies every fire season to come. The choice is ours.”

Save the Date for the California Policy Issues Conference

This will be the Fifteenth Annual California Policy Issues Conference by the Pat Brown Instititue. It will take place on Thursday, November 15, 2007 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles.

Every year, the California Policy Issues Conference, the annual anchor of our Public Policy Education Program, engages Californians across the sectors in spirited discussions, debates and dialogues on the most significant public policy issues of the day.

This year's conference is titled: "The Livable City: Shaping California's Future" and will focus on important urban development issues that include smart growth, managed development, sustainability, and social inclusivity. While infrastructure remains the focal point of the planned conversations, it is policymaking in the era of budgetary challenges, looming energy crisis, environmental challenges, and the deepening social divides that will define the framework for this all-day event.

Fighting the Wrong Water War
by Carl Pope

Tuesday, September 4, 2007, Sacramento CA — California is getting ready to resume its twentieth century water war. On Friday, a federal judge ordered state and federal officials to maintain enough natural water flow through the San Joaquin Delta to protect the endangered delta smelt, a key indicator species for the ecosystem. Water agency officials who had argued strongly against such a ruling claimed that the decision would mean rationing for both agricultural and some urban water users and could reduce overall water diversions from the Bay Delta ecosystem by a third for the next year while a longer-range plan is developed.

The controversy made front pages last May, when a preliminary court ruling signalled that major changes might be in the works. On one level, this latest episode is simply the latest in a long struggle over allocation of limited water supplies in California. That the smelt is in trouble is not really in dispute; only 25 showed up in a critical population count this spring. And the water managers who don't want to do anything yet are arguing, in effect, that they are mismanaging the fishery and the water system so badly in so many ways that we cannot be sure that the volume of water diversion is the critical factor. Instead, they assert, such factors as pesticide run-off, illegal or unregulated water pumping by agricultural interests, and siltation of the waterways might be the culprit. Since all of these problems are under the control of the same water agencies and regulators, it's hard to feel much sympathy.

On another level, this is the latest fruit of the past seven years of natural resource recklessness by the Bush administration. The Bay/Delta Accords, a set of agreements on how to protect the San Francisco Bay/Delta Ecosystem developed during the Clinton administration collapsed when the Bush administration simply walked away from the table. Simultaneously, seasonal water exports increased by 49% in contrast with the 1990's, and the smelt (and other Delta fisheries) began a precipitous decline. So even the 35% reduction in exports from the Delta basically restores the levels of the early 1990's, when the Bay/Delta Accords were negotiated.

In any case, the state is preparing to fight the wrong water war. All of the players, even though they know better, act as if the issue were still how to allocate the historical supply of water. But with the warming of the climate, it's clear that California's future water supply won't look anything like it used to. Most Californians think their state "stores" its water behind dams and reservoirs. Water managers, however, are acutely aware that the real storage mechanism for the state is in ice and snow — and that it is literally inconceivable, if the snow pack disappeared, that man-made dams could ever compensate.

So, while Governor Schwarzenegger is advocating new surface water storage projects, almost no public attention is being paid to the new reality. In a California where rainfall will be less predictable, probably smaller in total quantity, and where less of it will be stored as snow, the state must turn to other potential water storage mechanism; namely, in soils. California should be evaluating all of its land use decisions in terms of their impact of sub-surface recharging of aquifers from local rainfall. Los Angeles, for example, gets quite a bit of precipitation most years. But the city is engineered to treat that rainfall as a liability, and, much like a roof with gutters, to rush it to the sea as fast as possible. Instead, Los Angeles needs to begin thinking of that rainfall as a very valuable asset — perhaps the city's most valuable asset — and reengineering itself to behave more like a sponge — to capture and hold the rainfall. (A major conference in Los Angeles this summer on ground-water recharge, for example, contained, as far as I can tell from the paper titles, not a single discussion of how to maximize the permeable urban surface in the LA basin.)

Why isn't this happening? Not, I think, because the state's leadership cannot think in terms of big new ideas — Sacramento, and Los Angeles City Hall are not Washington DC. But the reality is that all of us are going to have a hard time replacing old mental maps in our heads in which climate is a constant which we exploit, when the new reality is that it is a variable to which we must continually adjust. And California's wrong water wars are just one example.

Why Not Let Them Burn?
by Carl Pope

Wednesday, September 5, 2007, Helena MT — Montana has been suffering an enormously bad wildfire season — the legacy of a century of timber industry-driven forest mismanagement and global warming. For the past five years, ever since President Bush flew to Portland, Oregon to announce his "Healthy Forests" initiative, the threat of fire has been used as the timber industry's chief argument for continuing to cut down fire-resistant old-growth forests. The Administration — and Congress, which passed Healthy Forests — have failed abysmally in their proclaimed mission of prioritizing the protection of homes and communities in the urban-wildland interface. This summer, when the Angora fire swept through the Tahoe Basin, we learned that the Forest Service had done only half as much thinning and brush clearing as it had promised a few years earlier.

The Montana legislature has been similarly irresponsible. When Governor Brian Schweitzer asked for $25 million to fund the state's fire-fighting needs, Republicans in the legislature blocked his request on a party-line vote. Now Schweitzer has called a special session of the legislature because Montana has had to spend the money fighting this summer's fires. In response, as David Sirota passes along, the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator John Sinrud, attacked the Administration for spending the money to defend people's houses, saying, literally (and you can hear it on YouTube), "Why not just let 'em burn?"

At the same time, the reactionaries claim that Schweitzer never asked for the money in the first place — a claim the Helena Independent Record refutes. As Sirota says, Senator Sinrud's comments should remind us that the President's "compassionate conservatism" was always, in the hearts of his supporters, an oxymoron.

Reactionaries don't want to use government to protect people—never did. There's something to remember at election time: As the old aphorism puts it, "never give a man a job he doesn't want."

A Tale of Two Continents
by Carl Pope

Friday, September 7, 2007, Ilulissat, Greenland — I'm back in the New World, even though I had to get here by way of the Old. The symposium, "The Arctic: Mirror of Life" which brought me here to this Greenland settlement, originated farther east, in the Old World, when we took off from Heathrow Airport with the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Churches, Bartholomew I, the "Green Patriarch." Bartholomew has been holding these symposia on "Science, Religion and the Environment" for more than a decade, each year exploring the issues in one of the world's oceans or seas. (Last year, the Amazon qualified.) Yesterday, in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI specifically endorsed the Symposium and led prayers for "greater respect for God's creation." Three days earlier, he led an eco-friendly youth rally, attended by an estimated 500,000 faithful, in which the Pontiff called on world leaders to act "before it is too late."

The Patriarch's leadership, and the Pope's appeal, are not the only signs that the Old World has leaped ahead of the Americas environmentally. Flying over the coast at Liverpool there is a nice, neat off-shore wind farm dotting the Irish Sea. On the flight itself, the only available paper is The Times of London, a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid. This isn't the New York Times or the Financial Times, mind you — it's a tabloid. But it covers the Pope's ecological appeal. And it has a lengthy and thoughtful story on how the BBC has decided that its job is to educate, not motivate, and that Live Earth-style mass appeals (in British terms, "campaigning") are not what a media outlet should do. Then there is a full-page ad by the Saintsbury grocery chain. The entire selling point is that Saintsbury's organic carrots cost exactly the same as its competitor, TESCO's, but that Saintsbury's packaging is biodegradable. The tag line? "Same prices. Different values." And the front-page, full-color story covers new studies showing that food additives are almost certainly part of the story of hyperactivity and learning disability among children and runs with a half-page follow-up telling readers precisely which artificial additives are implicated. (Interestingly, about half of the bad actors are banned in the US already — so while Europe's sensibilities may have leaped past ours, regulations still lag.)

On the flight we are given a brief brochure on Ilulissat which explains that its inhabitants have a foot in both the Old World and the New. "We get the news as fast as anyone. We see the results of global warming, caused by the past two centuries of western industrialization, of which we are also a part. ... Taking part in the modern world, and at the same time preserving the essential Arctic survival skills, is demanding." And what are those ancient skills? "Being able to make your own decisions — as in the old hunting days. Sitting in the qajak (kayak) one had no time to ask before shooting — the hunter had to be self reliant... Quick decisions, and swift competent movements, based on your own judgment. That is the ideal .... however, the coin has a back side to it. Brought up in the spirit of Illit aalajangissuat a person can be very much alone ... some get stronger in this individualistic oriented process of learning how to be an up-to-date Greenlander — others do not."

Ironically, the core meaning of lllit aalajangissuat — it's up to you — is rendered pointless by global warming — it is no longer up to any one of us, it must be up to all of us together.

A Tale of Three Arctics
by Carl Pope

Down the Greenland Coast

September 8, Ice Fjord, Greenland — The silent prayer group that assembled on deck today may have been the most diverse gathering ever seen in Greenland. Led by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Istanbul, the group includes a Sunni Muslim imam from Nottingham, Jim Ball, Executive Director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, and the Lutheran Bishop Sophie Petersen of Greenland, who could at one point be seen handing a young African girl to a Shia cleric from Iran. Additionally, there are Hindus, Buddhists, a rabbi from Paris and another from Israel, and Archbishop Emeritus McCarrick of Washington, DC.

The cemetery at Illulissat seems surprisingly large for a town of its size. The cold Arctic air preserves the wooden crosses, and the flowers are, unsurprisingly, plastic, so they too last and magnify the visual marker of the graveyard. But this March the cemetery grew in a tragic, stunning sign of how global warming and globalization are combining to take human lives. In a village which 20 years ago supported itself hunting marine mammals on the sea ice, fathers taught their sons the skills of the hunt. The sea ice has now vanished and the hunt along with it, so fathers no longer teach their sons. There is new employment in Illulissat tourism, oil exploration, commercial fishing but the collapse of the traditional subsistence culture has left despair and hopelessness among the young. This March, in a town of only 5,000 people, 14 teenage boys took their lives.

At the symposium on how global warming impacts Greenland, one speaker — the Greenlandic poet Aqqaluk Lynge, President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council — challenged those who argued that a warmer climate means longer growing seasons, more mineral exploration opportunities, and greater shipping revenues for Greenland, and that Greenlanders should simply adjust to the new reality. Lynge’s lines, it seems to me, can serve as a clarion call for all of us who wrestle with how to balance efforts to adapt with preventative action aimed at limiting global warming as much as we can: "Adaptation will rise to the surface as we continue to battle climate change. It is through the battle that adaptation will play itself out best. As it did in our struggles with our colonizer, with the commercial whalers, and with the oil companies."

MS Fram Sailing South

September 9 — It has been a long day of religious and scientific discussion on board, framed by the concept of the Arctic as a Mirror of Life. We are reminded that the mirrors of the ancient world were much less faithful than today’s, and that the biblical metaphor that we see the world as "through a glass, darkly" reflected that reality. Because the Arctic is often the place where the impacts of industrial activity in the lower latitudes are most strongly felt, it can serve as that kind of mirror now, giving us a view of what is happening globally.

One shocking example: In the spring, when the hole in the ozone layer opens over the Arctic, the ultraviolet light that streams through interacts with atmospheric mercury pollution in the gaseous phase, and catalyzes it into the metallic phase. The mercury then falls to the earth's surface. This process — a relatively recent discovery — is so powerful that ten percent of all mercury emissions from the entire globe each year fall to earth in the Arctic in this brief six week period.

MS Fram Approaching Nuuk

September 10 — Patricia Cochran, an Inupiat leader from Nome, Alaska, is sharing her Arctic experiences with our colloquium. She shows the slides many of us have already seen — of villages and streets in Alaska collapsing as the permafrost melts and the Arctic Ocean’s turbulence increases as sea ice retreats. She also makes it clear that in Alaska, as in Illulissat, global warming is already taking a toll in human lives. "The look and feel of the ice is different. Even experienced hunters no longer know how to read the weather and the ice. My friend Mary had hunted and fished safely for years. She knew her land very, very well, and was an exceptionally good hunter. One day she didn’t return. We found a snowmobile but not Mary. We know what happened: she fell through the ice on the river, as so many others have.

"Hundred year storms now happen in Nome almost every year. Global warming is destroying the climate system on which the Arctic peoples depend and which supports their lives." Mary, like the other Inuit here, is clear about one thing. "We will not be victims. We were here before all these other peoples, and we will be here when they are gone. I know I can survive in any environment, because I listen to the land."

The Beginning of Life and the End of Civilization?
by Carl Pope

Tuesday, September 11, 2007, Isua, Greenland — Here, on a rocky outcrop perched 2,000 feet above Davis Strait and 1,000 feet below the cap of the Greenland ice sheet, a shale face about the size of a plasma tv screen contains the world's oldest known surface rocks — 3.8 billion years old. The shale was laid down in an ocean — probably the world's first ocean, since further back in the so-called "Hadean Age," the planet was probably too hot for liquid water. In the middle of the face, tilted almost vertically, are thin slices of black rock interlayed with thicker buff bands, like a devil's food cake with very thick mocha frosting.The black bands are remnants of ancient sea floor, and their shiny sable color is the marker of ancient life — organic carbon metabolized from the ancient ocean by the world's first known life.

Minik Rosing, the Greenlandic scientist who established that the black layers are left over from organic life is reasonably confident that the ancient life laid down here was not the first life — there is too much carbon for truly primitive life forms to have accumulated — and that these creatures had mastered the art of photosynthesis. We just haven't found any rocks from the moment when life first emerged. This means that life emerged on Earth not after a long waiting period, but almost as soon as the ancient oceans had cooled enough to permit it to evolve — almost as if life had been programmed into the dawn of the universe, waiting, like a seed, for the right conditions to emerge.

As our helicopter lifts off, heavy snow flurries threaten our ability to reach the top of the ice sheet, but Greenlandic pilots are skilled at using the canyons to escape bad weather. Soon we are in another ancient landscape — this one made of ice, and far more rugged and beautiful than the rockscape below it. But the degradation of the ice cap is discernible to the naked eye — it's like watching an ancient creature, some huge, scaly ice-dragon breathe its last. The crevasses and summer melt are part of the normal life of glacial ice, but at the edge of the sheet there are huge circular openings, like huge vortices of ice, which funnel melted water to the sea. These provide new evidence that the ice, which used to close the drain holes each winter, is no longer being replenished.

Vast quantities of meltwater, milky with “glacial flour,” pour off and from underneath the ice sheet, and as the volume of meltwater grows, the risk to our societies increases. Life's beginning, and the evidence that our civilization is at risk, lie only a kilometer apart.The Greenland ice sheet is the anchor which holds the oceanic thermal circulation in place, and makes London's weather more like Washington's than Labrador's. It also contains enough water — if melted — to raise world sea level by 20 feet. Goodbye Florida, Bangladesh, Venice, the Nile Delta, and many of the world's great coastal cities.

Back on the ship, the dialogue is sober, depressing, marked by the realization that the world has been failing to avert climate catastrophe. As Vandana Shiva of India puts it, "Our challenge is to make a political tipping point come faster than a climatic tipping point." Can we do it in time? We have the means. Do we have the will? How do we move our hearts?

God Grant Us the Wisdom to Act in Time
by Carl Pope

Thursday, September 13, 2007, Narsasuaq, Greenland — The bright blue icebergs that dot Eric's Fjord don't calve from a local glacier.They have been carried by ocean currents from the East Coast of Greenland all the way to this southwestern inlet where Norse settlement of Greenland began. Leif Erickson was seeking this harbor when he was blown off course to Newfoundland and "discovered" America. In summer, the icebergs from East Greenland sometimes pack the fjord and interfere with navigation. But in the winter — until recently — the fjord froze solid, making it Greenland's winter highway system for sleds and snowmobiles. In the last decade, however, the ice has softened and local residents are trapped in the dark polar nights in their little villages, unable to reach the outside world, visit their friends, or often get medical attention.

On this day, blue ice still glitters against green fields through the observation windows of our ship as Patriarch Bartholomew solemnly closes the six-day Symposium. As he speaks, I am struck by the varied journeys that brought people here to contemplate the fate of the climate. There is, for example, Massoumeh Ebtekar, one of the Iranian students who seized the US Embassy, and later became Minister of the Environment in the Khatami government. Now serving on the Teheran City Council, she watches as the current Iranian government, filled with hardliners, tries to roll back Khatami's environmental legacy. Svend Auken, former Danish Environment Minister, who worked closely with the Sierra Club and other NGOs to strengthen the original Kyoto Protocol, is now witnessing the new Danish government slash spending on environmental protection. Vandana Shiva, from Dehra Dun, India, is striving to undo the India-US nuclear agreement that she sees as a stalking horse for American nuclear manufacturers. Cardinal Emeritus Theodore McCarrick, representing the Vatican, spent most of his life in the parishes of the poor, in both Central America and Harlem, and sees climate change first and foremost as a threat to his flock and an affront to his denomination's mission to the weak. Jens Hansen, from the University of Aarhus, was here to report on his new findings that, across the Arctic, Inuit and other indigenous women are having twice as many girls as boys, probably because of very high levels of PCB pollution from emissions further south concentrating in the Arctic. Antonio Nobre, a biologist from Brazil, sees in climate change a huge threat to the biodiversity of his beloved Amazon, but also sees saving the Amazon as a way of curbing global warming.

Addressing the assemblage, the Patriarch is direct. He says climate change is our time's "kairos", a Greek term for a moment of eternal consequence. He compares this juncture in time to the other great kairos events in Christian history: for Paul, his conversion; for Mary, the Annunciation; for Christ, the crucifixion. A kairos, he says, makes its own demands: demands we are not free to ignore. We do not have time, he warns, to balance the need for action against its possible risks. "The sea is warming, the ice is melting, and the catastrophe already visiting the Arctic will not stop here."

He closes: "God grant us the wisdom to act in time."

Progress on Global Warming?
by Carl Pope

Monday, September 17, 2007, Columbus OH — Action in Congress on a new energy future and global warming is slowing again — a sign that the influence of the carbon lobby in our capital is alive and well. But to be able to come to Ohio and sit down with both the Governor and the Lt. Governor to discuss the opportunities that a clean energy future offer even a coal state like Ohio shows that America is moving on the issues, even if Washington DC is still stuck in an ice floe.

The biggest news of the past several weeks was the federal district court ruling that Vermont and other states can adopt California's clean car standards, which will reduce carbon dioxide pollution per vehicle by 30 percent. The National Association of Auto Dealers alerted their members that this could mean much stronger pressure for congressional action, but lawyers for the auto industry are still reassuring the companies that somewhere, someday, they will find a judge who will say that black is white and carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. If they do, such a ruling will be promptly appealed to the US Supreme Court, which has already ruled on the issue.

Meanwhile, governors are weighing in with Congress. A letter from thirteen governors — ranging from California and New York to Utah and Maine — called on the auto industry to form a partnership and clean up its act. Seven governors, largely from coal and auto states, had sent a letter a few days earlier also urging Congress to act — but hinting that they wanted a weaker bill than the one which passed the Senate. What's significant is that both sides are now asking Congress to act. Reality is beginning to sink in.

The National Governors Association, led by Republican Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, launched a major clean energy initiative. Pawlenty said that, "Our nation has enjoyed more than a hundred years of inexpensive energy, seemingly inexhaustible oil and a relatively forgiving environment, but America can no longer rely on business-as-usual to meet its energy needs, and the nation's governors are prepared to lead the way in crafting a sensible, sustainable clean energy future." Pawlenty also mentioned the elephant in the automotive global warming living room — that "if enough states adopt a policy, it becomes a de facto national policy."

For his part, New York Attorney-General Andrew Cuomo kicked off a new, state-based initiative to counter the Coal Rush. Opening an investigation into whether investments in coal-fired power plants by five big utilities — AES Corporation, Dominion, Dynegy, Peabody Energy and Xcel Energy — were financially prudent, or, given the inevitability of costs for emitting carbon, whether the companies were exposing their investors to unnecessary and undisclosed risk.

Are we meeting the challenge that Patriarch Bartholomew I issued in Greenland last week? Are we acting in time? It's too soon to say, but America is moving.

The Essence of Cynicism
by Carl Pope

Thursday, September 20, 2007, Jackson WY — It is disconcerting, upon my return from a melting Greenland, to be confronted by Bjorn Lomborg's latest toxic confection. Greenland, after all, is still governed by Denmark. And Lomborg is the Danish statistician who several years ago, in a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist, claimed that environmental problems were all, at their root, myths, that every day and in every way things are getting better and better.

Lomborg was briefly the darling of Denmark's Conservative government, but he is out of fashion even there at this point. If The Skeptical Environmentalist was Panglossian in its optimism, his new foray, Cool It, is breathtaking in its cynicism. Lomborg now concedes that global warming is real, and will do lots of real harm. But nothing too horrendous happens for a few years. And he argues that it will be very expensive to stabilize the world’s climate. We should just wait until everyone in the world gets rich. Rich people really won’t care about global warming, because they will be able to build sea walls against flooding, install air conditioning against heat waves, and import their food if they can no longer grow it. Really — that's the heart of his argument.

The real message is that the future doesn't matter. It hasn't done enough for us. And Lomborg is not alone. A British energy expert on our Greenland trip recounted an overture the oil industry made to him a few years ago. He's a Conservative, so they assumed he might work for them, and they were quite explicit about their strategy, "We're not going to be able to convince people that global warming is not a problem. We're just going to keep them confused for another decade about how much of a problem it is. And, in a decade, there won't be any choice but just to adapt."

It turns out that many of the advocates of sequestering the carbon emitted by burning coal for electricity are equally cynical — they too are just buying time. Blogger David Roberts, posting on Gristmill, passes on the following bit of intelligence from the Climate Change Skeptics news group.

Recently, CEI emeritus Myron Ebell was complaining to the group about sequestration — he noted that it's expensive and unworkable at scale. Along comes Richard S. Courtney, long-time climate change skeptic, former Senior Material Scientist for British Coal, now Technical Editor for CoalTrans International — coal shill for life. He lifted the veil from Myron's eyes:

"Firstly, the value of carbon sequestration is political. n.b. it is not technological or economic. There is opposition to power generation systems that emit CO2 as waste (this is similar to opposition to nuclear power systems that emit radioactive waste). A response to the opposition is needed until the AGW scare is ended. And claims of carbon sequestration (cs) provide that needed response although everybody knows cs would be too expensive for it to be used."

Is it possible that all this cynicism is a European phenomenon only, and that America's global warming deniers are genuinely confused? Somehow I doubt it. Myron Ebell, for example, has not surfaced in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to blow the whistle on this hypocrisy. Do all advocates of carbon sequestration secretly believe that it will be too expensive to use?

Certainly not. And we ought to do the research to find out whether the technology is viable, both economically and technologically. Some climate deniers are genuinely unconvinced of warming's reality, but behind a huge part of the campaign to stop action is the fundamental premise that Lomborg lays out: The future doesn't matter, and rich people don't need a natural environment or a stable climate. They can get out of New Orleans or Greenland or Bangladesh if they have to.

Where the Goods Are Odd
by Carl Pope

Monday, September 24, 2007, Juneau AK — Politics in this state is almost as out-of-kilter as the climate is. As the Arctic ice-cap shrinks, so does Alaska. Melting permafrost, bigger waves and a higher sea level are all eating away at the Arctic coastline, from Nome to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The village of Shismaref is vanishing into the sea, and the estimated cost of relocation is $180 million.

In response to this reality, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens in February, changed course by declaring that global warming was a real problem and helped get the Senate to pass the first improvement in fuel efficiency standards since the 1970's. But that was then. Now Stevens has unburdened himself of the view that while, yes, there is a human contribution to warming, the largest force was a 700-900 year natural warming cycle which he's confident is coming to an end. Since by his own description there is a 200-year variance in how long the cycle lasts, it's a little hard to fathom why Stevens is confident that things will turn around in the lifetime of his current constituents, much less his own.

But Stevens can, perhaps, be pardoned for whistling past the graveyard. In recent weeks, allegations that Bill Allen — the head of VECO, an oil services company which had benefited from many of Stevens's legislative activities — also illegally paid for the renovations of Stevens house, and that his company used corporate employees to raise campaign contributions, have dominated the news in Alaska. Allen, it appears, has been cooperating with the FBI. His conversations with Stevens were taped by the Bureau. Construction workers have confirmed that they worked on Stevens's fund-raisers while being paid by VECO. On September 19, Alaska Republican Governor Sarah Palin asked Stevens's son, Ben, a former state senator also under investigation for his ties to VECO, to resign from the Republican National Committee slot he holds. Two days later, Palin called on Ted Stevens to explain to the people of Alaska what was going on. "Not hearing anything in terms of information that can be shared regarding the senator's innocence is kind of frustrating for Alaskans," Palin said. "Alaskans are getting more anxious to hear any information that he can provide regarding his innocence."

Meanwhile Don Young, Alaska's Congressman, amended his campaign reports to reflect $38,000 in back payments, because VECO employees told the government they had also worked on Young's fund-raisers while being paid by their company. Whether this "Whoops, I made a mistake" tactic will protect Young is up to the prosecutors.

Palin, elected in 2006 on an anti-corruption platform, is clearly trying to clean up the mess she inherited. Last week she also announced the death of Young and Stevens' infamous "bridge to nowhere" — an enormous boondoggle first highlighted by the Sierra Club back in 2005. Palin told officials to find a "fiscally responsible alternative" for connecting Ketchikan to its airport. "Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," Palin said.

On America's last frontier, where there are far more men than women, there is an old saying that goes: "Alaska, where the odds are good, but the goods are odd." Governor Palin must recall that aphorism often these days as she cleans up after the state's alpha-male politicians and business leaders. Meanwhile, Nome and Shishmaref slip into the sea.

The Clinton Global Initiative
by Carl Pope

Wednesday, September 26, 2007 New York NY — That was the point former President Clinton made repeatedly today in his interactions with World Bank President Robert Zoellick. Clinton asked Zoellick what the Bank's role was in enabling poor countries to develop and expand access to electricity and energy services by providing them options other than fossil fuels, and Zoellick simply wouldn't answer the question. Clinton clearly understood that without a new development paradigm, China and India, Africa and Latin America will simply not be able to commit to avoiding worldwide climate catastrophe. Zoellick appeared to have no interest in engaging on this issue. Over and over today the point was raised: We cannot solve global warming without addressing underlying problems, like how to make forest preservation economically beneficial, how to deal with illegal logging and the global trade rules that encourage it, and how to give Third World countries access to technology and clean energy options.

Whether you come at this dilemma saying to yourself, "We need to do this in a holistic way that brings humanity together" or the other end of the same vision, "This is the holistic problem that can enable us to bring ourselves together," today's opening of the Clinton Global Initiative was infused with the need for ecological, systematic thinking and acting.

Earlier in the morning, Al Gore made an urgent appeal calling on the world to negotiate a new global warming treaty in 2009, not 2012, and to put it into effect immediately. He argued that, done right, such a global response could also give us the tools and resources to tackle poverty and conflict. And Jane Goodall, in closing out the sessions on global warming, quoted an Inuit leader from Greenland as saying to her, "In the North, we know what you are doing in the South, because we feel the consequences before you do. In the North, the ice is melting. What will it take to melt the ice in the human heart?"