[GPSCC-chat] Plenary

[Wes Rolley]

I won't be able to make the Plenary.  However, I am spending some time 
working the phones to try and make sure that we get local Press 
Coverage...e.g. call to Managing Editor of Merc/News to make sure that 
they cover it.

There are many things on the agenda, not the least of which is the fact 
that for many it will be the first, maybe the only, opportunity to watch 
and listen to our candidates for statewide office.

Having said that, I am compelled to make the following comment regarding 
the seriousness of the climate change situation as we know it now.  The 
big unknown for climate change has involved the potential for a massive 
release of methane gas from frozen deposits under the Arctic Ocean. 
Methane may be comparatively short lived in the atmosphere, its 
influence being measured in decades rather than centuries, but it has 
not been used as a primary feedback into the climate models on which 
most predictions have been made.

The news just today,  is that the Univ. of Alaska / Fairbanks has 
released a study indicating that this release of methane has begun. For 
detailed information / discussion, one could read Joe Romm's Climate 
Progress.  I will write my own take at California Greening.  The tone of 
many is not hopeful and it appears that we will surely blow well past 
the levels (350 ppm) that many used as a target.

As we evaluate the performance of our candidates, we should pay a lot of 
attention to the fact that both of the major Republicans, Whitman and 
Poizner, would postpone implementation of the one thing that CA is doing 
about climate change (AB 32).  It is also clear that Jerry Brown will 
read the polls before he says much.  Republican Assemblyman Dan Logue is 
heading a well funded (oil co?) initiative effort to suspend AB 32 
http://www.suspendab32.org/

The world can't wait. Greens must speak out.



-- 
"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