On Sunday, September 16th, the San Francisco Chronicle contained an extended meditation on global warming. The “Insight” section asked, “Is California the world’s last best hope against climate change?”

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but another major set of articles in the same edition explored the social and economic changes that occurred as a result of World War II. The immensity, and importance, and rapidity of the transformations that World War II brought can hardly be overstated. Things changed, in fundamental and irreversible ways, across the full spectrum of our national existence, and they did so because an entire nation thought that its very life was in danger. The fact that the nation was lead by a President who ranks with Washington and Lincoln didn’t hurt! Franklin Roosevelt was no Bush league leader.

If you haven’t been focusing on global warming issues, I’d like to invite you to do so. Please check out the references I’ve placed in the transcript to today’s Land Use Report.

For the next couple of days, I’ll discuss the land use policy implications of the global warming crisis that challenges our future. In a different way from World War II, but just as fundamentally, global warming poses a generational test. We must make fundamental changes to our personal lives, and to our national life, or the world we have known will pass away. “Is California the world’s last best hope against climate change?” It may well be.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

September 16, 2007 Chronicle article on climate change
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/c/a/2007/09/16/IN3ERM8TK.DTL

September 16, 2007 Chronicle article on World War II transformation in the Bay Area
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
file=/c/a/2007/09/16/MNLSS6I1J.DTL

The 11th Hour Website
http://wip.warnerbros.com/11thhour/

11th Hour Action
http://11thhouraction.com/

An Inconvenient Truth Website
http://www.climatecrisis.net/

An educational guide to “An Inconvenient Truth”
http://www.participate.net/educators/

Whether or not the dangers of global warming are being overstated (and you can tell I don’t think they are) it would be prudent for all of us to operate on the basis of a “no regrets” approach. In other words, we should base our actions on what is sometimes called a “worst case scenario.” Most of the things we need to do to reduce global warming emissions are truly “no regrets” actions. They’ll have benefits even if the threat from global warming turns out to be less than the worst case.

To make a difference on global warming, we need to make changes on the scale of the changes our nation made to fight and win World War II. The “good news” is that World War II demonstrates that we can make such fundamental changes very quickly, when we decide, as a society, that we want to do so. The changes called for now (as in World War II) are not only personal, but economic, and political, and social.

In terms of land use policy, reducing global warming requires a fundamental reconfiguration of our current land use patterns. In short, “no more sprawl.” In terms of transportation policy, we must make a major move away from transportation based on individual vehicle trips, so that we “share rides” to get around. Making those changes would really be “no regrets” because they will not only reduce global warming emissions, they’ll strengthen our economy, and help us to rebuild and reconnect socially and politically.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

If you are not convinced that global warming poses the kind of challenge to our civilization that puts its continued existence into question, please go see Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth,” and Leonardo DiCaprio’s “11th Hour.”

• The 11th Hour Website
  http://wip.warnerbros.com/11thhour/
  
  
• 11th Hour Action1
  http://11thhouraction.com/
  
  
• An Inconvenient Truth Website
  http://www.climatecrisis.net/
  
  
• An educational guide to “An Inconvenient Truth”
  http://www.participate.net/educators/

In responding to the Great Depression, and in fighting and winning World War II, the nation acted as a nation. We did not, in other words, act individually to resist Fascism, or to build economic recovery. Our policies were not established by a bunch of individual choices added up (or by what is now called “the market”), but by a set of laws, and rules, and regulations adopted by government.

Transformative political leadership made this possible. Franklin Roosevelt was a great President, but let’s not forget how controversial politics was. There were huge debates about what our economic and other policies should be, and national leadership changed, and experimented, and kept working at the problems till a solution was found. If we are going to confront global warming the way the United States confronted the Great Depression, and World War II, we are going to have to reconnect with government, and support highly controversial and experimental efforts to find collective ways to deal with the problems. The “market” is not going to save us.

Setting higher standards for vehicle efficiency is a good example. Government sets the standard, and then industry meets it. We changed automobile factories into war factories in two years during World War II. Why not super-efficient cars, in a similar time frame? California is taking this approach, and it’s “no regrets.” Recently, the federal courts upheld the government’s right to do that.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Decision in Vermont case affirming right of government to set vehicle efficiency standards
http://www.vtd.uscourts.gov/Supporting
%20Files/Cases/05cv302.pdf

I began this week’s series on global warming with a question from the San Francisco Chronicle, “Is California the world’s last best hope against climate change?” Yesterday, I noted that our state has been taking the lead in establishing stronger fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, and that the federal courts have just upheld the legality of this approach. A citation to the opinion is in the transcript of yesterday’s Land Use Report.

Setting higher fuel efficiency standards for individual vehicles will help reduce global warming emissions. What we really need, however, is to reduce the number of individual vehicles out there on the roads. We’ve built our economy (and premised our land use patterns) on a system that depends on individual vehicle trips. That is literally “killing us,” both because of the global warming consequences, and because of the adverse air quality impacts that come with this kind of transportation system.

A transportation system that makes us “share rides” more would reduce air pollution and global warming emissions. And traffic congestion! Could we set up such a system? The answer is clearly “yes.” The question is whether we’ll take the political steps necessary.

Senate Bill 375, which I’ve talked about before, would really help. So would the techniques advocated by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute. Check them out below.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Senate Bill 375 would tie future transportation funding to “smart growth.” You can get information on SB 375 (and on all California legislation) at
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov.

Victoria Transport Policy Institute
http://www.islandnet.com/~litman/

Friends in Unity With Nature (the Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends) will hold a meeting on global warming on Sunday, September 30th, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., at the Quaker Meeting House in Santa Cruz. The Meeting House is located at 225 Rooney Street, at the Morrissey Exit on Highway One. You can get more information on the KUSP website. You are very cordially invited to what I think will be an informative and motivational gathering.

This week, I’ve been focusing on global warming, and to summarize my main point, if we are going to overcome the global warming crisis, we will need to make not only “personal” but also “political” changes, and fundamentally restructure our land use and transportation systems. No “market based” approach will be able to do this. We will need active and daring governmental engagement. I am pleased to report that there are important things that can be done right in our local communities, while we wait for national leadership.

The California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, requires each local government to evaluate any action that could have a negative environmental impact, including private actions requiring a governmental permit, and then make sure that such actions are mitigated, to the fullest extent economically feasible, to eliminate the negative impacts. On this basic law, we can build a transformative program, right at the local level, that can change our land use and transportation practices.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

The Friends in Unity With Nature meeting is entitled, “Global Warming: The Tip of the Iceberg.” Panelists include Mark Carr, Ph.D., from Long Marine Lab, U.C. Santa Cruz; John Seager, President and CEO of Population Connection, based in Washington, DC; and Richard Stein, MD, an Analyst Member of the C.G. Jung Institute in San Francisco. For more information on the Quaker workshop on global warming, please contact David S. Kossack at 831-427-3733, or by email at dkossack@cruzio.com.