The article in the
Washington Post on Sunday caught me by surprise - not by what it said, but by the fact that they actually ran the story. How did they manage to let this one slip by the White House censors?
"Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend."
Read that again and let it sink in. Go ahead, I'll wait.
The article goes on to quote James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, saying that Earth is warming much faster than predicted. When Hansen posted data on the Internet in the fall suggesting that 2005 could be the warmest year on record, NASA officials ordered Hansen to withdraw the information, but
last week he confirmed that his predictions turned out to be correct.
Here's the deal - we either start modifying our behavior NOW or Mother Earth is going to modify our behavior for us. It should be terrifying the hell out of all of us that this Administration thinks conservation is a dirty word, anyone who suggests that the USA is being a pig about consuming resources is unpatriotic and environmentalists are just a bunch of cry-baby tree-huggers.
We all know why they don't want us to stop buying gas-guzzling SUVs and putting our groceries in plastic bags - it's greed. Arrogant, criminal, disgusting greed. Don't these people have kids? Don't they worry about what's going to happen if they keep ignoring the warning signs? Regular people do have kids and worry about them. And regular people are starting to stand up to the bullies who think profit is all that matters.
One of those bullies here in California's 49th Congressional District is SDG&E. They've been trying for years, despite public outcry, to run high-voltage power lines through the district. Hidden beneath explanations about reliability and connecting to alternative energy sources, is the real reason -- to carry energy produced in Mexican power plants, which are not subject to the responsible environmental regulations that the people of California want, up to LA and northern California. Sempra Energy, the parent company of SDG&E, owns a 500-megawatt plant just 3 miles south of the border at Calexico. While our Congress mulls over plans to build a wall all along our southern border to keep out migrant workers - no wall will keep out a far more dangerous intruder: pollution.
What's more, the utility's proposed route would scar the Anza Borrego Desert State Park and San Diego's backcountry with a swath of industrial-strength towers, and the fire and health dangers that come with these high-voltage lines. And approval to build these lines would give SDG&E "eminent domain" powers over any private or local government property along their approved route.
SDG&E claims that the lines are needed to bring renewable energy to San Diego, but their tactics are far from reassuring. They asked that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) waive a requirement for an initial report on the line's environmental impact on the area, and to evaluate the need for the transmission line separately from the evaluation of any specific route. The citizens of the communities that could be affected by any of SDG&E's proposed routes aren't taking this lying down. What started as a little more than a dozen people in a Julian living room last month has grown to a well organized grassroots opposition calling themselves The People's Power Link. On Tuesday, I'll be joining them at a rally to say NO to the Sunrise PowerLink at 1:00 PM outside the Ramona Community/Seniors Center, followed at 2:00 PM by the CPUC's first public meeting about the Sunrise PowerLink application.
This isn't the first time the people of the 49th District have stood up to SDG&E. Back in early 2001, SDG&E, Enron, Nevada Hydro and the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District were lobbying to put high power transmission lines through Rainbow Valley, then suddenly switched and pushed for a forest route up on the plateau. The citizens of Southwest Riverside County organized and fought it.
A year later, SDG&E was back with a new scheme - the Valley Rainbow Interconnect - a 30-mile, 500,000 Volt transmission line across private property between Romoland and a new substation to be built south of Temecula. Once again citizens objected to another unnecessary project.
When Temecula's Pechanga Indians blocked putting the line through their lands, Reps. Issa, Calvert and Hunter pushed legislation to use federal lands, routing through the Cleveland National Forest - the same route citizens had fought with the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District. If you wonder why our Congressmembers, who are supposed to be representing the people, would slip in legislation counter to the will of the citizens, look no further than their list of campaign contributors. Electric utilities were Issa's top campaign contributors in 2004.
Like the Sunrise PowerLink that SDG&E is currently pushing, the Valley Rainbow Interconnect would have been a gateway to get power form Mexico's dirty plants up to Los Angeles and Northern California. In December 2002, the CPUC voted unanimously against the project, saying it wasn't needed.
Three months later, the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District's plan was back in play, minus Enron. The Water District doesn't answer to CPUC . Once again Darrell Issa stepped in to introduce a bill that would direct the USDA Forest Service and the Federal Bureau of Land Management to designate a transmission line corridor through the Forest on the water district's proposed route. Issa claimed he wasn't doing this for SDG&E, but for the water district. His bill was called the "Cleveland National Forest Responsible Electricity Act"!
Funny thing about the water district's plan (called LEAPS) is that it would have an 87% energy efficiency. That means that it would generate LESS energy than what was required to produce it. BUT, it would make money. It works like this - at night, when demand and rates are lower, they would pump water out of Lake Elsinore up to a man-made reservoir. Then, during the day, when demand and rates are higher, the water would flow back down to the lake, generating electricity - 87% of the electricity that was required to pump the water up to the reservoir. No one seems to agree on the environmental impact of pumping all that water out of the lake every day. Some even suggest the aeration could be beneficial. The location of the reservoir, on the other hand, could be an ecological disaster. The only thing holding up this plan is funding.
Are the people who oppose these power lines suffering from selfish NIMBY? Is there a genuine need for the electricity these lines will bring as California grows? So what if the power is going to LA, don't they have a right to get the electricity they need? These are all legitimate questions that the People's Power Link has addressed at each of their meetings with presentations by Jim Bell on viable energy alternatives and Bill Powers (an engineer with the Border Power Plant Working Group) with realistic assessments of the region's electricity needs.
Southern California is blessed with ideal conditions for generating solar energy. Jim Bell's book, "Creating a Sustainable Economy and Future on Our Planet" provides a step by step plan for making the San Diego/Tijuana region energy independent using solar energy. And the very same State agency which is considering SDG&E's latest bid to move dirty energy, the CPUC, earlier this month approved the California Solar Initiative (CSI), a comprehensive $2.8 billion program that provides incentives toward solar development over 11 years -- the biggest such undertaking thus far in our nation.
I attended a forum this weekend at a home that uses solar panels to meet all of their electricity and hot water needs. Part of what makes it work, and an essential part of Jim Bell's plan, is to increase energy efficiency and practice basic conservation in your everyday life. This is something we can all do, with or without solar electric and water heating systems on our roofs. In light of the dire news about our future in today's Washington Post, I suggest we make educating the public about the necessity for conservation a top priority.
And I have a question for SDG&E and the man who is supposed to be representing the people of California's 49th Congressional District, "How many times do the people have to say 'No!' before you get it?"