Gun Violence and Climate Change: Are They Related?

The tragedy of the mass murders in Newtown, CT were indeed horrible. I am extremely sad for the families affected, and not only those families but all who have suffered as a result of gun violence.  The Newtown incident indeed seems to have been the turning point for finally coming to grips around a sensible gun safety policy.

Hurricane Sandy was thought to be a similar turning point relative to the climate change tragedy too.  But unfortunately gun violence has turned the country’s attention away, hopefully temporarily, from similar urgency to act to save our climate.

But the two issues are similar.  How, you wonder?  Well imagine if President Obama put the same emphasis on acting to mitigate climate change as he is now doing to reign in our culture of gun violence.  

Below is the text of the very speech he recently gave on his plans for reducing gun violence.  I have taken the liberty to somewhat modify it, and frankly it wasn’t that difficult using some basic word and phrase substitutions.  My edits are in italics.  

Just imagine if this speech had indeed been given, perhaps sometime within the last 4 years after any one of our extreme weather disasters. When will we hear similar passion from our President on an issue that has a much more far reaching catastrophic impact than any other we have ever faced?  Will it be this year?

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, everybody.  Please have a seat.  Good afternoon, everybody.

Let me begin by thanking our Vice President, Joe Biden, for your dedication, Joe, to this issue, for bringing so many different voices to the table.  Because while reducing the impacts of climate change is a complicated challenge, protecting our children from harm shouldn’t be a divisive one.

Over the months since the tragedy in New Jersey and New York, we’ve heard from so many, and, obviously, none have affected us more than the families of those who lost loved ones or their homes and businesses.  And so we’re grateful to all of you for taking the time to be here, and recognizing that we honor their memories in part by doing everything we can to prevent this from happening again.

These are our kids.  This is what they’re thinking about.  And so what we should be thinking about is our responsibility to care for them, and shield them and future generations from harm, and give them the tools they need to grow up and do everything that they’re capable of doing -- not just to pursue their own dreams, but to help build this country.  This is our first task as a society, keeping our children safe.  This is how we will be judged.  And their voices should compel us to change.

And that’s why, last month, I asked Joe to lead an effort, along with members of my Cabinet, to come up with some concrete steps we can take right now to keep our children, our citizens and our planet safe, to help prevent massive destruction from extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy, to reduce the greenhouse gases that lead to an epidemic of pollution, wildfires, drought, flooding, and catastrophic storms in this country.

And we can't put this off any longer.  Just last Thursday, as TV networks were covering one of Joe’s meetings on this topic, news broke of another outbreak of extreme heat accompanied by wildfires, this one in Australia.  In the months since entire communities were violently taken from us via Hurricane Sandy, hundreds more of our fellow Americans have reportedly died prematurely due to air pollution.  And every day we wait, that number will keep growing.

So I’m putting forward a specific set of proposals based on the work of Joe’s task force.  And in the days ahead, I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality. Because while there is no law or set of laws that can prevent all emissions of greenhouse gases, no piece of legislation that will prevent every storm, every drought, if there is even one thing we can do to reduce this destruction from extreme weather, if there is even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try.

And I’m going to do my part.  As soon as I'm finished speaking here, I will sit at that desk and I will sign a directive giving the EPA, the Dept. of Energy, scientists and scientific institutions, schools, mental health professionals and the public health community some of the tools they need to help begin climate change mitigation and education efforts.

We will make it easier to keep the worst threat to our climate out of the US by rejecting the Keystone Pipeline permit.  We will help communities hire more resource officers if they want them and to develop emergency preparedness and climate adaptation plans.  

And while year after year, those who oppose even modest regulation and mitigation activities have threatened to defund scientific or medical research into the causes of climate change including the role of CO2 emissions and other particulates, I will direct the Centers for Disease Control and the EPA to go ahead and study the best ways to reduce it -- and Congress should fund research into the effects that pollution and catastrophic extreme weather events leading to loss of homes and communities may have on young minds.  We don't benefit from ignorance.  We don't benefit from not knowing the science around climate change and of this epidemic of climate change denial.

These are a few of the executive actions that I’m announcing today.  But as important as these steps are, they are in no way a substitute for action from members of Congress.  To make a real and lasting difference, Congress, too, must act -- and Congress must act soon.  And I’m calling on Congress to pass some very specific proposals right away.

First:  It’s time for Congress to require a national carbon tax that will set a steadily rising price on carbon.  The laws already passed, those increasing fuel efficiency standards for vehicles for example, when fully implemented, will reduce carbon pollution by 6 billion tons for the cars built from 2017 to 2025. That's equivalent to removing a year's worth of carbon pollution from the U.S. We’ve also taken the historic step of setting a carbon pollution standard for coal-fired power plants. And we've doubled the generation of clean, renewable electricity from sources like solar and wind power.

But it’s hard to enforce laws that are constantly challenged in court and distorted in their cost and benefit by misinformation think tanks. That’s not safe.  That's not smart.  It’s not fair to responsible business owners, citizens who demand transparency and accountability by energy companies and polluters, and most of all to our children who expect to have a hospitable planet around when they are adults.

If you want to ensure we do protect our planet and climate for the future -- we need to transition from a fossil fuel based economy as quickly as possible.  This will require the same or more level of commitment and support that we applied to getting to the moon.  And that was accomplished in only 10 years. This is common sense.  And an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with us that climate change is happening now and we need to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant -- including 80% of Democrats, 72% of Independents and 50% percent of Republicans, according to one survey.  So there’s no reason we can’t do this.

Second:  Congress should appoint an EPA administrator who will continue to enforce and expand our Clean Air and Clean Water acts. As the outgoing administrator Lisa Jackson said on the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, “we will continue to promote commonsense strategies that encourage investment in energy efficiency and updated technologies. The history of the Clean Air Act is the history of environmental innovation, and we intend to carry on that tradition”.  

Technologies and actions that harm our environment such as hydraulic fracturing or placement of pipelines that put clean water sources at risk and contribute to emissions of methane exacerbating climate change, have no place in our society.  A majority of Americans agree with us on this. 

And, by the way, so did Richard Nixon. 

Richard Nixon, one of the staunchest defenders of “New Federalism”, a view which directed money and power away from the federal bureaucracy and toward states and municipalities, believed he could respond more efficiently to the needs of the people. After a groundswell of citizen outcry leading to the first Earth Day demonstrations of 1970, he sent dozens of environmental proposals to Congress, including the Clean Air Act of 1970, perhaps one of the most significant pieces of environmental legislation ever passed. He also created two new agencies, the Department of Natural Resources and the Environmental Protection Agency, to oversee environmental matters.

And finally, Congress needs to help, rather than hinder, regulatory agencies as they do their job.  We should get tougher on all forms of fossil fuel extraction and consumption, especially on those who skirt regulation and do all they can to dismantle, distort and ignore them.  And we should severely punish anybody who helps them do this, including fossil fuel funded studies that are specifically authored to hide or falsely counter scientific outcomes of environmental studies.  Since Congress will have to confirm a director of the EPA, they should confirm someone, who will be as strong an advocate for the climate as was Lisa Jackson.

And at a time when budget cuts are forcing many communities to reduce emergency responders, cut disaster relief funding and delay infrastructure repairs and hardening improvements, we should put more resources into these and other activities.

Let me be absolutely clear.  Like most Americans, I believe the Constitution requires us to “promote the general welfare”. I respect our strong tradition of free enterprise and the right of businesses to pursue a profit.  There are millions of responsible, law-abiding businesses and ethically acting corporations in America who cherish their right to entrepreneurial and capitalistic endeavors. 

I also believe most business owners can agree that we can respect the Constitution while keeping an irresponsible, unethical, greedy and law-breaking few from inflicting harm on a massive scale.  I believe most of them agree that if America worked harder to restrict emissions, eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and invest in clean energy, there would be fewer atrocities like the one that occurred from Hurricane Sandy.  But we have to acknowledge that because we’ve already delayed, actions taken today won’t yield an observable benefit for a long time but that only means we can’t delay any longer. It will take some time to have a renewable energy infrastructure in place and instead of spending time and money on extreme energy sources, we should be investing in our future. That’s what these reforms are designed to do.  They’re common-sense measures.  They have the support of the majority of the American people.

And yet, that doesn’t mean any of this is going to be easy to enact or implement.  If it were, we’d already have cap and trade or a price on carbon or stricter emissions regulations or a ban on fracking.  

This will be difficult.  There will be pundits and politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical, all-out assault on liberty -- not because that’s true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves.  And behind the scenes, they’ll do everything they can to block any common-sense reform and make sure nothing changes whatsoever.

The only way we will be able to change is if their audience, their constituents, their membership says this time must be different -- that this time, we must do something to protect our communities and our kids and all future generations.

I will put everything I've got into this, and so will Joe.  But I tell you, the only way we can change is if the American people demand it.  And by the way, that doesn’t just mean from certain parts of the country.  We're going to need voices in those areas, in those congressional districts, where the tradition of anti-regulation, anti-science and anti-taxation is strong to speak up and to say this is important.  It can't just be the usual suspects.  We have to examine ourselves and our hearts, and ask ourselves what is important.

This will not happen unless the American people demand it.  If parents and teachers, police officers and pastors, if hunters and sportsmen, if Americans of every background stand up and say, enough; we’ve suffered too much pain and care too much about our children to allow this to continue -- then change will come.  That's what it's going to take.

In a letter that a child, a victim of Sandy wrote me, she said, “I know that laws have to be passed by Congress, but I beg you to try very hard.”  Julia, I will try very hard.  But she’s right.  The most important changes we can make depend on congressional action.  They need to bring these proposals up for a vote, and the American people need to make sure that they do.

Get them on record.  Ask your member of Congress if they support a rising fee on carbon to help reduce emissions and steer us towards cleaner energy choices. Ask them if they support investments in renewable clean energy technologies.  And if they say no, ask them why not.  Ask them what’s more important -- doing whatever it takes to get a A grade from the Koch Brothers and their front groups that funds their campaigns, or giving parents some peace of mind that their grandchildren will have a livable planet? 

This is the land of the free, and it always will be.  As Americans, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights that no man or government can take away from us.  But we've also long recognized, as our Founders recognized, that with rights come responsibilities.  Along with our freedom to live our lives as we will comes an obligation to allow others to do the same.  We don’t live in isolation.  We live in a society, a government of, and by, and for the people.  We are responsible for each other. And our Creator would demand that we use those inalienable rights being good stewards of the planet given us.

The right to live safely in coastal communities, that right was denied to people living in communities from Rockaway, New York to New Orleans.  That most fundamental set of rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- fundamental rights that were denied to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, farmers wiped out from the recent droughts, communities destroyed by recent wildfires on too frequent a basis to tolerate, and all the families who’ve never imagined that they’d lose a loved one to extreme weather events -- those rights are at stake.  We’re responsible.

When I visited Staten Island, I spent some private time with many of the families who lost their children that day.  And one was the family of Brandon and Connor Moore. Brandon was two years old and Connor four when they were swept out of their mother’s arms by the rushing flood waters while trying to flee their home. I expressed to them as a father, as a parent, my heartbreak over what they went through.

 And now I think about the short lives that they lived and the life that lay ahead of them, and most of all, I think about how, when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now -- for Brandon and Connor.  For the 1000 other innocent children and adults killed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. For the more than 600 people killed in 14 weather disasters in 2011 or the more than 300 people who lost their lives in the 11 major weather disasters just last year in 2012.  For the men and women in big cities and small towns who fall victim to hardships from loss of livelihoods and homes now on a regular basis.  For all the Americans who are counting on us to keep them safe from harm.  Let’s do the right thing.  Let’s do the right thing for them, and for this country that we love so much. 

Thank you.  Let’s sign these orders.  

Ode to the Jersey Shore

First of all, let me express my sincere sympathy to everyone who has been affected by Hurricane Sandy.  I too have been impacted, but my pain doesn’t compare to the lives snuffed out and the homes battered or gone forever from this violent storm. 

We’ve heard about such storms so often before. We’ve seen images of people standing in line with buckets to get water or fuel, trying desperately to either get dry, cool off or get warm depending upon time of year, people desperate for help just to find a way to eat.  But these scenes, until Katrina, usually were from other parts of the world.  Now such occurrences are so frequent we don’t even hear much about it unless it knocks on our own door, and knock it did.  These are the impacts of climate change and sadly I fear that this is only the beginning of a lot of pain, physical and mental, yet to come.

My pain is not physical but it seems real enough. I refer here to the memories of my family life growing up and then raising my own family in New Jersey, and how much of what is left of it now are only my memories.  Seeing the scenes painting the TV airways endlessly has reminded me of what we all lost.  It forced me to take a long overdue walk down memory lane.

My best memories of childhood revolve around my dad, the military man, an outdoorsman who loved life and his family more than I can describe. We never had much money, but we had what we needed and we always had enough.  Our lives weren’t built around acquisition of goods but rather around experiences and adventure, closeness and family.  As a child, one of my favorite things was the Sunday “mystery ride”. We’d all pile in the car and not know where we were going although I suspect my dad did.  It almost always involved a drive somewhere to the Jersey shore.  

There were long Sunday dinners at Ho Wah’s Chinese Restaurant in Belmar, followed by the real deal soft serve ice cream somewhere in Pt. Pleasant.  A special treat was a stop at the Asbury Park boardwalk where, if my mom was in the right mood and dad’s wallet still had a few bucks left in it I could ride the carousel and try to grab those precious rings.

Then there was our little motor boat - in the eyes of us kids it was the biggest yacht in the ocean!  This was the domain for the guys, my brothers, but on occasion I got to go too.  I wasn’t much of a fisherman but I loved digging and diving for clams, especially in the bay.  I learned how to swim at the age of 4 when my dad threw me overboard.  And the greatest times of all were when mom came too, filling the picnic basket with cold chicken and bologna sandwiches, fresh fruit and home made cupcakes all enhanced with a pinch of beach sand. We’d find a sand bar or small island, pull up the boat, hit the beach and life was good - until the ride home.  There is no torture worse than a sandy butt inside your damp bathing suit stuck against hot, vinyl seats covered with gritty beach towels.  But it was all worth every itchy, squirmy minute.

My pre-teen and teen years were consumed with daydreams of becoming a surfing beach bum, somewhat influenced by the movie “The Endless Summer”.  Oh how I wanted to surf.  We’d spend a few weeks every summer in Lavallette, or Seaside Heights or somewhere on Long Beach Island.  I’d get up at dawn and hit the beach. I’d watch the surfers until the obligatory departure from the water as the lifeguards arrived at 10 am and the beaches became swimming only.  That’s when I’d make my move, hoping to befriend one of those lucky guys who might be willing to let me try, just once, that evening.  It never worked, but finally my dad decided I could buy my own board to try it out.  My proudest possession became a clunky, heavy, used 9’ 10” piece of death that I could barely carry, but I was so proud!  I spent two summers trying to make that work to little avail.  Yet my dad would carry that board for me over sand dunes, through parking lots, down what seemed like miles of sand until we could get to the surfers’ beach.  I became an expert paddler, but with the weight of that board I rarely caught a wave but it didn’t matter - I was able to be out there, on the water, with the others, just living life.  

That's me with those spiffy eyeglasses!

High school and college years belonged to the Seaside Heights boardwalk.  I have never watched the TV Show “Jersey Shore” but I can say that from what little I know about Snooki, the boardwalk was a different place back then.  It was our hippie hangout. We’d walk from one end to the other, moving along when we’d see the security guys headed our way.  Back then my rants usually revolved around anti-corporate, anti-pollution tirades and the Vietnam War.  I played guitar and vented through the music of the likes of Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills & Nash, Bob Dylan, Country Joe and the Fish, etc.  I never thought of myself as anything other than mediocre but I always drew a crowd, sometimes a pretty big one.  I’d be sitting on a bench singing away, just me, in my bell bottoms and P coat, surrounded by people.  The security guys didn’t like that much so finally one time I was brought to their security office and “detained” for performing without a permit.  However, being a “juvenile” had its benefits and it never lead to actual arrest.  (Neither did my detention for surfing in a non-surfing beach but that’s another story).

Eventually I matured, finished college, married and had children of my own.  And yes, the Jersey shore became their favorite place too.  I asked them this week about some of their fonder memories and what fun we had reminiscing!  There was the time that I got wrapped up buying salt water taffy at the Casino Pier end of the Seaside boardwalk, and all four adults never realized that my 3 year old son had just continued strolling his way on down to the other end.  Now I was glad those security guys were around as we managed to safely retrieve him from them. 

My dad, then “Pere Pere” to my kids, was also a big part of their lives.  Their best memories also revolve around a boat, fishing and clamming.  He often took the three of them for the day while I was working, and they proudly came home with their “catch”.  I still gag at the memory of the eel my son caught and was determined to eat.  “Pere Pere says you just have to skin it, slice it up and fry it, that’s all”.  I tried, oh how I tried and boy did I massacre that poor animal.  But by the time we were done we managed to each get a few small bits of what today I remember looked a bit like fried calamari.  I couldn’t eat it although I didn’t let on as he was so proud.

My daughter remembered too the wonderful times on the water - diving for clams just like her mom loved to do.  But she was the boardwalk fly and loved the rides.  She particularly recalled the “Fun House that blew up all the girls' shirts and skirts” every time they went in it. She reminisced, “Remember the spinning tunnel tube on the way out?”  Seaside was always the destination for prom weekends and then special weekend getaways with her son and husband as an adult.  She said, “I'll never forget the excitement when you got to the bridge and knew you had arrived down the shore or the emptiness you felt coming back over the bridge to go home.”

4 generations have enjoyed the shore together. Here's grandchild #1, now 20 yrs old!

My youngest son, now also in the military, sent me his memories too. I had totally forgotten about the time he was off on his bike in Ocean City. We heard screeching tires a block away and immediately knew it involved him.  Fortunately, it was minor.  

“Certainly my most firmly imprinted memory would be getting hit by that car.” he wrote. “However, even that couldn't ruin the fun of being near the ocean or the healing burn of living in those waters the following days. The horseshoe crabs are certainly a grand memory and I'll never forget the hours of fishing and clamming with Grandpa. Hours of trolling those shallows for the telltale scrape of my rake as it passed through that mud. Inner tubes with baskets floating by our sides and an old row boat with that tiny motor. Endless walks and boardwalks, such mysteries held beneath (not always good and some confusing to small kids, like random long balloons). Burying each other in the sand and trying to dig holes so deep we could all get in. I remember the hurricane while we had a house there and us standing on the beach leaning into the wind, nothing could dampen our fun or ruin our time. And most of all, who could forget the body surfing? That stretch of sand is some of the only fond beach memories I have left. A time when the sand and the seas were a play thing, such fun could be found. I hope to find such things again with my own children. That stretch of beach that seemed so simple, some would even claim less fancy than most, was a world apart. I have found no place like it and hold fewer memories of a place more magical. The smell, the feel, the memories, no storm can wash that away!”  

Sandy may have succeeded in demolishing all these wonderful places but not the sweet memories.  We’ve all gone our separate ways but remain a close family, and that closeness was sealed by the grains of Jersey Shore beach sand I am sure still linger somewhere in our belongings today.  

These are the kinds of memories that will become harder and harder for families to achieve thanks to many leaders in government and business who refuse to acknowledge climate change and its devastating impacts.  I fear that we have created a world where the memories imprinted on the brains of my grandchildren will be filled with the horrors of trying to adapt to a climate that no longer nurtures human survival.  I hope I am wrong.  But I will continue to fight for climate change action until the day I die, because there are so many more memories, wonderful memories of a livable, pleasant planet, waiting to be made.

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ EPA - But Who Would Pay?

It’s the silly season again, and we are pounded daily with the election memes: Corporations are people too, 47% of Americans are moochers, EPA job killing regulations, and on and on.  If you are a political junkie like me it’s easy to get totally consumed by it all and lose your sanity in the process.  So to protect my mental health I took an unplanned vacation and headed to southern Utah to refresh my spirit basking in the glories of our National Parks, namely Canyonlands and Arches. Nestled near the Colorado and Green Rivers and surrounding the town of Moab are some of the most spectacular red rocks, geological formations and canyons I’ve ever seen.

My mental health sojourn didn’t last long.  One cannot visit the town of Moab without driving by the “UMTRA” site and spotting the radioactive hazard symbol on signs dotting the fence along our route.

This of course lead me to find out just what this was all about.  Briefly, here’s what I found out.

The site opened in 1956 for uranium ore processing by Uranium Reduction Co., who sold it in 1962 to Atlas Corp.  Atlas operated the site until 1984.  The site is approximately 500 acres on the west bank of the Colorado River. 130 acres on this site are contaminated by uranium tailings and tailings contaminated soil stored in an unlined impoundment.  Atlas began remediation in 1988 continuing through 1995 but work ceased when Atlas’ plan to cap it in place was derailed when uranium was found leaking into the Colorado River at a rate of 530 times the federal radiation limit. To avoid legal consequences Atlas would have had to also restore groundwater health. After studying the potential cleanup cost that approached $1 billion they found it cheaper to declare bankruptcy in 1998.  Atlas relinquished their license and forfeited their reclamation bond of only $5.25 million and got out of town, leaving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission holding the bag.

The NRC cannot possess a site it is responsible for regulating, so PriceWaterhouseCoopers was appointed the trustee and they initiated reclamation with the forfeited bond money.  Eventually through an act of Congress responsibility for cleanup transferred to the Dept. of Energy in Oct, 2001. DOE studied the situation and determined removal and offsite storage of the contaminated soil and active ground water remediation were required.  The contaminants are now being moved to a storage site 30 miles north in Crescent Junction via rail, a special rail line that had to be built for this specific purpose.

The scope of the cleanup is mind boggling but equally so was the placement of the tailings site in the first place.  This pile of contamination was placed less than 750 feet from the banks of the Colorado, a river that supplies drinking water to the cities of Las Vegas, Tucson and San Diego.  Historical flood data shows that several times floods have scoured the surface and leveled the area to a depth of 25 feet, washing everything in that location eventually into the river.  And Atlas wanted to “cap in place”?  Cap in place - 16 million tons of contaminated radioactive soil, to a depth of 110 feet, the 5th largest tailings pile and the most dangerously polluting one in the country.  Go figure. (A good history of the project via Grand Canyon Trust can be found here, some of which has been used in this blog).

(Picture from Moab UMTRA Project Fact Sheet, link above)

Today the removal work is 1/3 finished with total completion expected in 2025 depending upon annual appropriations.  Currently the cleanup is proceeding at an annual cost of around $31 million/year with total cost likely to exceed $1 billion by 2019.  

My friends - this is just one project.  This is a DOE responsibility.  This is not related to any EPA Superfund site.  That’s a whole ‘nother story.

1 in 4 Americans live within 3 miles of an EPA designated super fund site.  The program began in 1980 and as of 2007 there were over 47,000 hazardous waste sites listed, with 1,569 designated as on the Super Fund National Priorities list.  From 1980 thru 1995 a tax placed on oil and chemical companies was collected for remediations, but that tax collection ended in 1995 at which point 68% of the trust fund came from the taxes collected. When the tax collection ceased, the makeup significantly flipped to the public sector.  17% of the super fund trust fund in 1995 came from “appropriations from the general funds” - meaning you and me taxpayer, while as of 2007 it was 59%.  Funds from recovery of money from the polluting company, if they could be found, was 6% through 1995 and rose to 19% as of 2007.  All of the costs and input of funds and how they are spent is well documented in a 2007 audit report from the GAO.  On average, $1.3 billion a year is appropriated from the trust fund by Congress for the EPA superfund work.

These two stories, representing BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF TAXPAYER MONEY, are only the tip of the iceberg.  But it leads me to ask this question: If Corporations are people too why does the government own this problem?  Granted, many of these sites are from military activities and the government should rightly own those cleanups, but what about all the corporate polluters?

Today’s Libertarian and GOP followers decry big government.  Many in those ranks proclaim they would eliminate both the EPA and the DOE if they could.  EPA is repeatedly blamed for “job killing regulations”.  (I won’t ponder how many jobs EPA has actually created in subcontract work to companies doing the cleanups).  Conservatives consistently espouse ideals of “personal responsibility”, a worthy ideal.  Where is the responsibility of corporations to prevent polluting in the first place and should it occur, cleaning up after themselves? Or is it that corporations really aren’t people so personal responsibility doesn’t apply? Where is their responsibility to the rights of the public to have safe drinking water and clean air?  Why do corporations spend billions on lobbyists to try and kill any regulation that would force them to be responsible citizens given their egregious history of flouting that responsibility, yet run when forced to pay for their own mess?  They have not earned the right to be trusted with good stewardship of the earth.  If they had we would not need an EPA in the first place.  You reap what you sow.

So we don’t need no stinkin’ EPA?  Imagine our country without one.

As we left Canyonlands National Park after a wondrous day of marveling at the incredible geology overlooking the Colorado River, the road out of the park was lined with oil derricks.  The drill, baby, drill, mine, baby, mine mentality is knocking on the doors of our national treasures.  I thanked Tim DeChristopher every day for helping bring attention to the possibility of more drilling on the edge of the parks.  Ironically, the very week we were in Moab it was announced that the leases he bid on in an effort to protect the parks through civil disobedience were formally dead because the companies involved missed a 90 day deadline to file a lawsuit.  The decision of the US 10th District Circuit Court of Appeals ended years of haggling and discord over an oil and gas auction held during the Bush Administration.  Unfortunately it didn’t end Tim DeChristopher’s jail term where he is still today serving a two year sentence for trying to protect our National Parks.

How many corporate polluters, oil spillers, methane spewers, coal ash and noxious gas polluters, water and soil polluters, fracking fluid polluters are currently serving time for their lack of “personal responsibility”?  I haven’t researched the answer, but I am betting that it equates to roughly the same number of those serving time from Wall Street and banking manipulations of our financial markets.  A big fat fingered ZERO!

What's Labor Day Beyond an End of Summer Celebration?

With so much rant fodder flying around in the last few weeks it’s been difficult to settle on one given such a rich landscape of possibilities.

Originally I was going to rant on my passionate feelings about the plank in the Republican platform disallowing any exceptions for abortion - basically taking away all possibility of choice for women who have been rape victims.  I was steaming on that one, but Andrew Solomon did a very eloquent job in elucidating my arguments (thanks Andrew!) so you can read it for yourself.  

Then after nearly a week of  the “Ayn Randian Rugged Individualistic Mine, Mine, Mine” monologues of the RNC I decided I’d blog about taking back my country from the “It’s Mine I Worked For It-You Didn’t” crowd but I found a much more eloquent plea  from Jennifer Granholm so here you go, it’s better and more widely read than anything I would write. 

Letting the thoughts of the week sink in then, and luxuriating in the idea of having a three day weekend with absolutely nothing on the agenda, I realized that the best topic of all was staring me right in the face: exactly why I have a 3 day weekend.

According to the US Dept of Labor, “Labor Day...is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. (emphasis is mine).

Labor Day was born from the sweat and broken backs of laborers who were the lifeblood of the Industrial Revolution.  From the days of the Pullman riots to the final creation of the official Labor Day holiday in 1894, workers made it clear that their contributions to making the US a vibrant economic engine would not go unrecognized. In 1898 AFL President Samuel Gompers called it "the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed...that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it."  

OK I admit, I had to look up the word “phalanx” to be sure I understood the full comport of this quote so I’ll share that definition with you: “a number of individuals, especially persons united for a common purpose.”

So why was this uniting “for a common purpose” necessary? In the late 1800‘s, American laborers, adults and sometimes children alike, worked 12-hour days and seven days a week, frequently in extremely unsafe or unsanitary conditions for barely a basic living, in our mines, factories, mills and railroads.  They made America what it is today in spite of such conditions. 

Throughout its long and stormy history, the rise of the Labor movement and its subsequent formation into unions has been the topic of much study, discussion, turmoil and at times violence.  Through all the push and pull of workplace dynamics and in spite of political and financial variables stressing the tenuous relationships with labor, the success of the movement cannot be denied.  All workers today, regardless of union or non-union status, benefitted from the success of collective bargaining.  Thanks to the Labor movement most workers today enjoy minimum wages, non-discriminatory hiring and firing practices, safe workplaces, and critical benefits such as sick time, vacation time, health insurance and severance pay.  Indirectly pressure from the Labor movement and the country’s struggles to emerge from the Great Depression also resulted in the creation of our current social “safety net” of Social Security and Unemployment Insurance.

In the last few years the Labor movement has come under assault from political forces that wish to harken back to the pre-movement days when employers called all the shots and saw workers as their minions to order about as they please. Yes, unions and in particular, the public sector, have often negotiated and won contracts that seem at odds with today’s economic times.  Those issues do need to be resolved.  But not all unions and union terms are bad just as not all employers and management are bad.  That the movement has now become a political football to be kicked around as a symbol of all that is wrong with America is an egregious abandonment of the very blood that coursed through early America’s veins and grew us into the great country that we claim to be.  That we cannot come together as one to resolve our issues in a fair, civil and even handed way only spells America’s demise.

That is why I find it incomprehensible that President Obama’s comments have been so taken out of context, vilified, then made a central theme of this week’s RNC “We Built It” show.  

We should be celebrating the success of a country that has come through so many hard times, many examples of which were given in the various RNC speeches.  Every one of those “we struggled” speeches talked about the hard labor of grandfathers and fathers, and the sacrifices of grandmothers, mothers and children to support the family.  They all contributed to and participated in the Labor movement.  Yes, many of them were entrepreneurs who to their credit took risks with the what little advantage they may have had.  But none of them, I repeat NONE OF THEM did it totally alone.  If they had we would not be where we are today.  Someone taught them to read, write and cipher.  Someone built the ships upon which immigrants arrived on our shores. Someone nursed them to health when they were sick and provided surgeries and medicines to make them healthy and able to work. Someone forged the steel and provided the lumber that made their wagons roll over the roads and trains roll over the rails that someone else laid down.  Someone else produced the raw materials that another business made into a product that another store sold who delivered it to the customer in an airplane that someone else built.  That’s why it’s called a SUPPLY CHAIN - not a SUPPLY LINK or a SUPPLY THREAD or a PIECE of a CHAIN or - oh you get it, don’t you?  

As Jon Stewart described, it was “a convention theme at a political campaign cynically based around something the president never actually said” and “a party-wide persecution complex, where any reference to the collective good is somehow taken as a denigration of an individual’s achievement.”  But isn’t individual achievement for the collective good how America got here in the first place?  Why can’t we celebrate the marriage of those ideals instead of using it as a wedge to split the populace into us and them camps?  

So as we celebrate this Labor Day weekend, enjoying our holiday pay for Monday while we golf, or barbecue or hang out at the pool or beach saying goodbye to summer, let’s remember how we got here, and who’s sweat built this country - the common sweat of every generation of American worker that melded together the fabric making our way of life possible.  

Again, the US Dept. of Labor web site says it all:

“The vital force of labor added materially to the highest standard of living and the greatest production the world has ever known and has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker.”

I'm MAD AS HELL!

It's been many, many years since I have felt like acting out that scene from the movie Network and yelling "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it any more!" 

I held back all throughout hanging chads and missing ballots. 

I didn't scream it when the Republicans jiggered with the Gore-Bush election and the Supreme Court handed it over.

I didn't consider it very often throughout the Bush, Jr. era, even when he abandoned the hunt for Bin Laden to revenge daddy and invade Iraq leading to the deaths of thousands. 

I held my tongue when the Citizens United decision was announced.

But this Republican party, you know the one that is run by elite rich white men who think they know what's best for everyone, particularly women, has finally done it.  So let me say, loudly and clearly, "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!"

I always considered myself a moderate with a good set of values inherited from my blue collar military-brat Catholic upbringing. Although I unabashedly have aligned with Democrats all my life, I never thought of myself as on "the far left". I always was fairly progressive with social issues but leaned more conservatively on fiscal issues. I can even say that I have at times voted Republican. 

But NO MORE.

Values are defined as "the moral principles and beliefs or accepted standards of a person or social group."  Some of my core values are compassion, integrity, honor, tolerance, equality, family, peace, justice, and respect. The current Republican party fails on all of those in so many ways, more than I can discuss here.

Moreover, the one thing I abhor most of all is a hypocrite.  You believe something different than I?  That’s ok, that’s what diversity and democracy are all about.  But 30 years of corporate real world experience showed me that you if you don’t “walk the talk” you won’t be respected as a leader - as my mom hammered into me, “Actions do speak louder than words”.  

So let’s review recent actions of the current Republican party:

• Does the Romney-Ryan budget strike you as compassionate and in line with Ryan’s professed Christian values? One advertised as necessary for deficit reduction and designed to reduce services to the poorest of our country, radically changing Medicare for seniors while providing huge tax cuts for the wealthy and outrageous subsidies of taxpayer dollars to industries that have no need of them? And a budget that won’t do a thing for the deficit for more than 20 years? The LA Times explains the Ryan budget here. Even the Catholic Church doth protest!

• Do the efforts of many Republican governors, state legislators, and party operatives to suddenly discover a non-existent voting fraud problem they are determined to "fix" in a myriad of ways that serve only to prevent likely Democratic voters from getting to the polls sound anything like integrity, justice or honor?  Does this sound like the actions of a party that respects our Constitution and the rule of law (or is it using law to get to rule??)  Ohio is working hard to disenfranchise voters as just one example.

• Does the continued war on women, from transvaginal probes right up to this week's most egregious affront to women regarding rape sound like justice and equality? Does this sound like a party that really believes in “the sanctity of life” at any cost? Or is this just being used so even more restrictions to abortions, contraception and the morning after pill can be codified into law, ensuring America comes closer to conforming to one particular religious point of view? And the "war on women" is real and goes deeper than "misspoken" words. It is embedded in the official Republican party platform.

• Does the mantra “Don’t tread on me”, or such diatribes as don’t “let the government get between you and your doctor”, or we believe in “protecting” all life, or any of a number of Bible references to justify some ideological stand square with the likes of trying to legislate thru constitutional amendments who can marry whom, and what choices a woman can make about her own body?  Does that sound like smaller government to you?  Why is it ok to pass laws that restrict personal choices of an intense individual nature such as gay marriage (which hasn’t hurt a single person as far as I know) but not regulations that protect the environment and prevent horrific water and air pollution? Such regulatory laws bring hoards of “big government” hacks out of the woodwork, yet in the absence of such regulations hundreds of thousands have been harmed at a cost of billions per year (medical costs, cleanups, etc.). Why is science an “inconvenient truth” to the GOP? Science is what moves our world forward.  Yet the GOP seems to latch on to any junk science that supports their ideology regardless of who it may hurt.  My goal in life is to protect my family, and the generations of my family to come.  But if the GOP has their say, we likely won’t survive beyond a few generations.  Does this sound like a party that really respects “life” and the “family”? The party continues to march right to the extreme while driving us to extinction.

• Is the constant assault on groups who "aren't like them" such as our diverse citizenry, our LGBT community, and specifically Latinos, African-Americans and Muslims sound anything like equality and tolerance?  Does the hate that spews forth from any number of right wing religiously driven organizations that are embedded within the Republican party square with what you were taught Jesus would preach?  Does a nation that values its heritage of diversity built on immigrants who made this country what it used to be, respect that other religions may have their “God” that is just as valid and loving as the Christian one?  Our nation is NOT founded as a Christian (or any other religion) state and a few key individuals worked to keep it that way.

• Does a government that has the largest military in the world and wants to spend even more on defense represent a party that respects peace and justice as it’s first line of offense?  According to SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “The United States spent $728 billion on its military in 2010, or about 45 percent of the world’s total, more than the next 14 largest military spenders combined and nearly six times more than the next biggest spender, China. The US spent slightly less in 2011.”  At a time when budget austerity is the mantra of the day, why is it necessary to INCREASE the defense budget and rescind sequestration of it at the expense of the middle class and programs that serve them?  Why are members of Congress continually pushing for defense programs in their constituencies yet crying about the need for spending cuts anywhere else that isn’t in their backyard?  Why do they push programs even the Pentagon doesn't want? Jobs? Then why are many other job creating programs getting cut? (The Wind Production Tax Credit comes to mind.) Again, government driven jobs = “big government” doesn’t it? Or are the big government jobs only ones not in their own district? Does this sound like a party that truly acknowledges a real fiscal crisis? 

Romney and many of his Republican cohorts are spending this week scrambling to distance themselves from Todd Akin, but it’s not out of horror at what he said - it’s the specter of defeat, possibly costing them control of the Senate, that is their driving force.  It is not because they recognize that he crossed any line - that line doesn’t exist in their world. But he did possibly throw a real kink in the works of their goal of total control.  

Conservative is defined as "disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change." (I shudder to think how far back they wish to preserve....) Be aware, and be scared people.  The election is only 77 days away now.  Our choice is clear - conserve the status quo, one which moves us ever backwards down a dark path of government by the rich for the richer, based on a false theocracy and ruled by plutocrats, or one in which true democratic principles of freedom, equality and justice are respected and will have room to flourish and serve to make us a “more perfect union”?  The choice, hopefully, will be ours through the voting booth (for those of us who can actually get into the voting booth) and not sold to the highest bidder.

So, get up out of your chair....but before you do, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThB0uAbjhGY

Note to readers who made it this far: I recognize that there are many good people in the Republican party who do not necessarily buy into the far right extreme either. I am not intending to disparage all Republicans and certainly the Democrats have had their issues too.  But the above reflects the platform of the party and the policies being pushed by their leadership and hence, drives my rant!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

In 1977 Jimmy Carter was President and America was still recovering from the 1973 oil embargo which caused many us to sit, curse, read and rant while waiting in long lines at the gas station. Three months into his presidency, Carter recognized we needed a national energy strategy that would provide energy independence from hostile countries while hastening a transition to renewables.

"We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us”, he explained.  He concluded by stating: “We have always wanted to give our children and grandchildren a world richer in possibilities than we've had. They are the ones we must provide for now. They are the ones who will suffer most if we don't act.”

Inspired by that speech, which aligned with my conservation minded living, my husband and I put solar hot water heating on our rooftop in New Jersey and started a small solar contracting business.  With the incentives in place at the time, business boomed....until 1981.  That was the year President Reagan took office and removed the solar panels from the roof of the White House.  It was also the year that we closed our business and lost our shirts.

Fast forward 35 years. What has changed? Although climate change was not the driving force for this speech, much of the situation that existed then continues today.  The main difference is the recent exploitation of domestic oil, coal and gas reserves, much to the detriment of the environment.

35 years of inaction.  35 lost years of innovation and the adjacent jobs.  35 years of spewing CO2 and other pollutants into the air.  And where are we now?  Staring down one extreme weather event after another with no end in sight.  A non-existent national energy plan that touts “all of the above” without even a thought to the environmental damage nor the tremendous jobs and innovation opportunities that could result from different choices.  

Right here in San Diego we are facing our own energy problem with the current shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear plant.  Nuclear energy is touted as clean but the risks associated with it are clear, as Fukushima readily exposed.  The two reactors currently generate 2150 MW of energy.  But just in San Diego County alone we have 7000 MW of rooftop solar waiting to be installed.  Rooftop - as in homes and parking lot covers, not as in utility scale desert installations.  WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

That’s why I joined Citizens Climate Lobby at their annual national conference, “The Cure for Climate Trauma” in Washington DC a few weeks ago.  In addition to informative speakers and workshops, the main focus was a week of lobbying by 175 citizens from across the U.S. and Canada to ask Congress to take effective steps to stop climate change. Volunteers met with over 300 congressional offices to press for a bi-partisan bill that will place a steadily rising price on carbon-based fuels with the fees collected returned to citizens to offset higher costs, thereby accelerating the shift to clean energy and energy efficiency. What we discovered is both exciting and disturbing.  

The good news is that the conversation is resonating on both sides of the aisle, as Republicans consider tax reform and look for ways to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, while Democrats are attracted to the clear market signal that will create opportunity for green jobs and investment.  Economics is just one aspect that points to this clear and transparent solution, as it will unleash American innovation and development.  The scientific community recognizes the speed at which the Earth is heating up and the risks to human health.   Faith communities around the world are publishing statements acknowledging the problem and urging an immediate response.  Even the American military is on board, recognizing the threat to national security and cost in American lives.

According to the feedback we are getting, Congress needs to hear from constituents.  Our legislators need support to take on the most powerful industry in the country.  They need to hear that people want to stop the flow of subsidies as we establish the real cost of dirty energy and move into the clean energy economy.  So get the word out to your family and friends to call Congress, asking for Carbon Fee and Dividend legislation and an end to fossil fuel subsidies.  It is no exaggeration to say that the next election will decide the fate of the world.  Energy is the conversation we need to be having as we choose our next Congress.

An Open Letter to Chick-Fil-A Management (based on an actual letter sent to my local franchise):

Enclosed please find several coupons I was holding on to until I could have an opportunity to buy breakfast at your establishment, which I frequented for lunch.  However, given the recent events regarding the corporate view on same-sex unions and relationships, I can no longer spend my money on your business.  Please let me explain, as this isn’t just a media inflamed emotional act.

First of all, I applaud anyone, including Mr. Cathy, who lives by and expresses his beliefs, whatever they may be.  I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment and therefore I do not take issue with any statements that have been made historically or recently by any member of Chick-Fil-A’s management team.

However, through the act of donating money to organizations with stated anti-gay missions it is clear that Mr. Cathy is going beyond speech and using corporate profits from my purchases to promote his agenda, which includes supporting organizations labeled as true hate organizations and specifically working to undermine our LBGT community.  Here are just a few examples of actions of one of them, the Family Research Council:

• As described on their website: "Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed.  It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects.  While the origins of same-sex attractions may be complex, there is no convincing evidence that a homosexual identity is ever something genetic or inborn. We oppose the vigorous efforts of homosexual activists to demand that homosexuality be accepted as equivalent to heterosexuality in law, in the media, and in schools. Attempts to join two men or two women in "marriage" constitute a radical redefinition and falsification of the institution, and FRC supports state and federal constitutional amendments to prevent such redefinition by courts or legislatures.”   
• They oppose the expansion of civil rights laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity as illegal bases for discrimination.
• They are a member of ProtectMarriage.com, a coalition formed to sponsor California Prop 8 to restrict marriage to opposite-sex couples only, which passed in 2008.
• Their Sr. Researcher for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg stated that gay behavior should be outlawed and that "criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior" should be enforced.
• FRC President Tony Perkins has repeatedly voiced the false association of gay men with pedophilia, saying that "If you look at the American College of Pediatricians, they say the research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a danger to children." The opinions expressed by Perkins are contradicted by mainstream social science research on same-sex parenting and the likelihood of child molestation by homosexuals.  One need only look at the long time happily married “heterosexual” Jerry Sandusky scandal to realize pedophilia is a sickness unrelated to sexual orientation.

This is personal for me.  My 20 year old grandson is gay.  He is a fine upstanding young gentleman with more decency, tolerance and love in his heart for all kinds of people than any of these so-called “Christians” who work hard to distort and defame the message of Jesus Christ.  If one wants to refer to the Bible as a guide for acceptance of traditional marriage I ask you, which Biblical version of the marriages described below do you advocate?

• Polygamy? Jacob had two wives; Moses also had two wives; King David had seven wives; Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.
• What about when a man dies without having a son? Deuteronomy 25:5-6 indicated that his brother must marry his widow and have children in his name.
• War and Pillaging? If a soldier was part of a conquest he could forcibly take a prisoner of war wife according to Deuteronomy 21:11-14.  Imagine if our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan held that Biblical view?
• Rape? If a man rapes a virgin then he has to marry her (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), but I guess if he raped a non-virgin then no marriage necessary?  
• Or not marry at all as St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:32-25? 

This was all prescribed or condoned in the Bible although I doubt any of it would be permissible today.  Times evolve, cultural mores change over time to handle the circumstances the world creates.  The Bible should not and could not be taken literally for many instances of various forms of violent behavior that would be grossly illegal and unacceptable today.  The Bible was intended to be a guide, a story, a set of parables by which humans could determine how to live with, support and tolerate each other in a loving, nurturing way to ensure human survival.  

My grandson today, though far from perfect, embodies all the traits that Mr. Cathy would be proud to see displayed by any of his own children.  To deny him the right, when the time comes, to legally enter a long term loving relationship that harms no one, allowing him to be a happy, contributing member of society is as mortal a sin as I can think of, one which I hardly think Jesus Christ would condone.