Environmental Committee

Summer 2010

Environmental Committee Report to Board, February, 2010

The highlight of the morning was the presentation by Boulder Creek resident, Margaret Bruce. Margaret is Director of the Center for Climate Action. Margaret discussed what her organization does, and one of her first tasks when she became Director was to organize the trip for 100 California government and business leaders (including the Governor) to the United Nations’ Convention on Climate in Copenhagen. Then through a few photos, and a vivid description, she discussed what happened there, what wasn’t accomplished and why little COULD be accomplished, and the very exciting, enlightening and intense things that were going on outside of the Official Delegates’ meetings – including the 450 displays by hundreds of organizations from every part of the world, and the exciting programs and speeches going on.

She felt, as she watched the official delegates being herded out for a break and herded back in to the “cloistered” meeting rooms, where no one could interact with them or find out what was going on, that it was basically impossible for an agreement to be reached. The diversity of the needs and cultures and problems and desires and priorities of the 169 countries represented at the closed sessions is just too disparate for there to be 100% CONSENSUS on the wording of any agreement, or any part of an agreement. Her description of this was truly mind-blowing; while some countries are already suffering from the rising sea level, while others are welcoming the ice breaking up in the arctic, so shipping and oil exploration can take place up there, and on and on.

It became very clear to her that dealing with the energy problems and global warming would be undertaken at a SUB-national level; that the leadership would be from the governors or mayors in the US, making agreements with other governors and mayors in other countries. We’ll be seeing an agreement of some kind between the US and China, but not one that would work for the 167 other countries. …. So the UN model of a top-down all-encompassing agreement just isn’t going to happen. The US has had an electric grid for 100 years; China has had one for 10 years. We have mountains of studies and data, going back years, about our energy use and production and pollution and more; other countries like India don’t have any of that….and no way to come up with it at present.

Her description of the various other activities was engrossing, from a group satirizing the countries causing the most obstruction to any agreement (usually Canada and Russia – tar sands and natural gas proponents) by awarding a daily “Fossil Award,” to extraordinary exhibits demonstrating the number of airlines in the air at any one time or a giant 40-foot diameter ball demonstrating what one ton of CO2 looks like.

Margaret concluded her discussion with a passionate discussion of the current effort to sidetrack AB32, California’s farsighted effort to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions and more. She pointed out that hundreds of California companies have invested many many millions of dollars, creating thousands of jobs and more into the future, because of this great legislation. Those seeking to sideline it, claiming it will slow down the economic recovery, are mired in their selfish old ways and must NOT be allowed to prevail.
Wow! The questions and discussion ranged far and wide, and it was very exciting. We are very lucky that Lynn McKibbin had a brand new powerpoint projector she wanted to learn how to use, because it worked beautifully, and Margaret’s photos added a lot to the feel of the event at Copenhagen.

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