[Sosfbay-discuss] It isn't easy being green

[Wes Rolley]

The following was submitted to Morgan Hill Times today.  It should run 
on Tuesday.

According to the calendar, spring is just around the corner. It is a 
time when the term Green Foothills has real visual meaning. This year, 
the green is not just the color of spring but rather may define the 
entire year.

Many major companies advertise to prove their greenness. Honda claims to 
be the Greenest Car Company in America. PG&E shows you acres of solar 
arrays in the desert. NY Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, proclaims 
that "Green is the New Red White and Blue."

However, I keep hearing Kermit sining in my ear. "It isn't easy being 
green." One might wonder if that is still true and, if it is, why that 
might be so. After all, didn't Al Gore win an Oscar and a Nobel Prize? I 
believe it is still true and that the reasons come from the manner in 
which our individual economic situations affects with our collective 
political behavior.

The earth is heading toward calamity and the time in which we can do 
anything is rather short. The problems will come from two major sources, 
a rise in sea level and a significant change in rainfall patterns.

The rise in sea level will have significant economic consequences and 
the displacement of coastal populations, even in the United State where 
a high percentage of our population lives within 50 miles of the ocean, 
but more significantly in countries like Bangladesh that do not have the 
capability to recover on their own.

The change in rainfall patterns will mean a major shift in agriculture. 
Areas that are now major food producers may be inundated by sea rise or 
may become the victims of drought. In California, the latter is more 
likely as most of the Central and Imperial Valleys are farmed heavily 
through irrigation. These areas may end up as unproductive.

But, you might ask, what does that future problem have to do with me 
today? Some are facing the possibility of losing my job in a recession. 
Others don't know if they can continue to afford their current mortgage, 
especially if property values continue to fall. All of these are major 
problems that fact this country right now, not a problem of the future 
like global warming.

While the collective penalty on society for failing to heed the warnings 
of Al Gore or NASA's Dr. Jim Hansen is great, the individual penalty on 
me, on my family, is rather small. If I fail to act, if I ignore the 
warnings, nothing really bad is going to happen to me personally. It 
might happen to my grandchildren but America has an overwhelming faith 
that technology will solve everything even though some of that 
technology is what got us into this problem in the first place.

We have a lot of reasons not to focus on climate change and only one 
huge future reason to do so. So, when it comes time to vote this year, 
assuming that we all will, the candidates position on global warming and 
energy use will probably not be the reason that we select one candidate 
or another.

In fact, there is little difference between Obama, Clinton and McCain on 
this issue. Our vote will  more to do with their rhetoric about our 
current real estate driven economic problems than it will about their 
position on energy production. We will pay more attention to how they 
propose to deal with Iraq than what they are doing to prepare for an 
eventual rise in sea levels.

If we are actually going to start being green, it has to be personal, 
local, and it will have to make economic sense for the each of us as 
individuals. But, many of us don't have any idea about what to do other 
than to change to lighting our home with CFL's or buying a hybrid car 
that we can't afford, not an easy sell with a recession looming.

The City of Morgan Hill is taking an approach the would encourage us to 
take some actions that would be good for our health. That is great. The 
number one thing that we can do to make health insurance affordable it 
to reduce the need for professional health care. The rest of the Green 
Plan as described in Times are steps in the right direction, and if that 
is all we do, it would guarantee that the worst forecasts from Dr. 
Hansen would come true.

Attending the Spring Green Forum on March 17 would be a good place for 
individuals to start. Holding is on St. Patrick's Day is clever. The 
Forum starts at 7:00 PM at the Community and Cultural Center. Learn 
about the City's Environmental Agenda and what the City plans to do.

There is a lot more that the City could, and should, do . Since 40% of 
our country's energy use comes from building operations, we need the 
city to put requirements for improved energy efficiency into our 
building permit process. We need neighborhood or home owners association 
to allow their members to reduce the costs of solar panel installations 
through collective contracts for installation.

It can be done. It needs to be done. There are no secrets. It just 
requires you to believe that there are going to be consequences if we do 
not act.


-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
http://www.refpub.com/ -- Tel: 408.778.3024