OIL SPILLS, clean energy initiatives, fears of global warming and a painfully slow economic recovery make for a potent brew as we struggle to find solutions.
California is once again ground zero with its fragile coastal environment and polluted air, decaying highway and water infrastructures, an education system that gets failing grades, runaway deficits, more than 12 percent unemployment, and an economy ravaged by declining revenues, municipal insolvency and government paralysis.
Why either Jerry Brown or his likely opponent, Meg Whitman, would want to run this state is a good question.
Perhaps the best answer is that one of them thinks he knows how, having done so before, and the other is willing to spend any amount of money for the tutorial.
In a foreshadowing of things to come in Washington, where Sen. Barbara Boxer is having trouble rounding up support for a giant cap-and-trade bill opposed by coal-burning states, proponents of a cleaner and healthier environment are looking optimistically toward November’s election when Californians will vote on AB 32, which mandates a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
The goal is ambitious and industry forces are mounting an all-out effort to defeat it.
Its passage would be the final hurrah for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who has become perhaps the greenest governor in the nation, startling even the state’s powerful environmentalist lobby by announcing his reversal of support for expanded oil drilling off the California coast. But after the disastrous Gulf Coast oil spill, this is plain common sense coupled with smart politics.
Critics of the decision were quick to say it will cost jobs, drive up prices at the pump, and discourage investment in new energy technologies. We have heard that before.
In Marin, the high-decibel battle over the clean energy initiative has yet to play out, with grassroots advocates contending it is essential if we are to stave off the effects of global warming and opponents led by utility colossus Pacific Gas and Electric are equally adamant that it may not do much good at all.
PG&E has been so heavy handed in pushing the “opt out” choice, which permits cities and homeowners to vote against the Marin Energy Authority as their preferred energy provider, that it has been sanctioned by the state Public Utilities Commission for its overly-aggressive marketing.
Caught in the middle of this fractious dialogue are the consumers who must decide whether the financial and administrative risks of what is disarmingly labeled community choice aggregation (read as a municipal takeover of electric power) are preferable to an energy future dependent upon a company with proven methods of delivery and service and little interest in fostering competition.
The two opponents vying for the First District supervisorial seat, Kerry Mazzoni and incumbent Susan Adams, have been drawn into the debate with Adams staunchly in favor of the initiative and Mazzoni expressing skepticism.
Only people living on another planet would dispute the wisdom of wanting the benefits of cleaner and safer air and water, and investing in the necessary technologies to accomplish it. A majority of voters also favored sweeping health care reforms, although that majority was in bitter disagreement over the best approach.
One thing is certain. Earth is a shared living space and the damage to any one of us is damage to all.