Comments wesrolley has made

One of the dangers of doing it all at once: Health Care, Energy, Consumer Financial Protection, is that it all gets to be too much for the media to keep up with and something has to fall off the front page.  If you think of long term consequences, maybe the financial deserves to be reserved to the financial section.. but when did the media or Congress ever think long term or really understand ecology?

Wes Rolley: CoChair, EcoAction Committee, Green Party U

What the public needs to understand is that is is not being flim-flammed.  I don't think that the back room negotiations to produce a "passable" version of Markey-Waxman will be passable when the smell test is applied.

However, I could not agree more with your final sentence.  The way off the ship is not to end our dependence on foreign oil but to end our dependence on fossil fuels.  Unfortunately we have the entire fossil fuel lobby telling us otherwise, daily, sponsoring NBC's Nightly News, underwhiting PBS's News Hour and Nightly Business Report.

It is all that 'don't need to know' stuff that makes me think it is a montebank's game.

You heard a different speech than the one that Brian Williams reported on the Nightly News.  I guess we all lose a lot when we have to take the Readers Digest Encapsulated form.

You can imagine with how much humor I greeted the RSS feed of this item.  It provided me with the Headline: "... I was terrified."  followed by the add that says "I have great white teeth.

That really obscures the fact that many are truly terrified, even of Waxman-Markey and the fact that the discussion draft left unanswered questions about CO2 and the fate of coal... may it RIP.

Who gives a tweet

Twitter may be in... even Chuck Grassley can do it.  But... you blog posts last year were significantly better.  I care more about your thoughtful analysis than the immediacy of Grr and Yah.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

George Will is a good man.

But good people often do strange things when facing reality means they would have to change their belief system.  In Will's case, he would have to admit that government is the only entity that can take effective action to mitigate what is coming; that we will all have to make adjustments to our life styles; that the US may be forced to care for tens of millions of refugees as the deltas of the Ganges, Mekong and Irrawaddy Rivers go under water.

So, rather than consider that, they deny the facts, they find excuses to do nothing, some may even pray that they are right.

George Will is a good person... just a bit stubborn about facing reality.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Not bad but....

I messed up when the page flickered on me.

I was going to say that I am one of those you consider a jazzhead and have been since I first heard Mingus (I played bass) and hung out at the Light House in Hermosa Beach.

So, in the little brother category, I prefer Chris Mooney's brother Davey.  Maybe a stylistic preference.  

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

There is an alternative

Not all Democrats are like DeFazio.  Unfortunately, most Republicans are like John Boehner, or even (gasp) James Inhofe. This is what brought me to the personal conclusion that the alternative to type of disconnect that is evidenced here lies outside of both parties and into the Green Party.

I received the following in my email this AM. I am not sure of the original source.  It tells you exactly what to expect from tax cuts.

    "Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
    "A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

    "Q. Where will the government get this money?
    "A. From taxpayers.

    "Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
    "A. No, they are borrowing it from China. Your children are expected to repay the Chinese.

    "Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
    "A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

    "Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
    "A.  Shut up."

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Gingrich may be an idiot

but he is in front of the camera and we are not. All we seem to do is to talk to each other, or to Joe Romm at Climate Progress.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Buckley and Galbraith

Reading through all of this, I was reminded of the long archived 1970 debate at Cambridge Univ. headed by William F. Buckley, Jr. and John Kenneth Galbraith. The proposition was "This House Holds the Market Is a Snare and a Delusion".  Even Ariana Huffington was a participant but she changes so much I don't remember on which side.

My point: Other than adding a side comment about ecology, and for too many it is only a side comment, not much has changed.

Wes Rolley
CoChair, EcoAction Committee, Green Party US.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

And the same goes for nuclear

If the nuclear industry had to account for all the mining contamination that comes, it would not be so cheap either.

But, you will have to replace a bunch of Congress Critters to make either coal or nuclear do that.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Ths is in Rahall's District

One thing I forgot to mention.  This pond and the Marshfork Elementary School, is in the 3rd Congressional District. That is Nick Rahall's District... as in the Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Ask Robert Byrd what he wants.

I understand that the West Virginia request for the stimulus package is to invest in CCS so that they can keep the economy going.  

I don't think that a Senate with Robert Byrd and James Inhofe will allow much to happen without a filibuster and Obama does not have the votes to break on unless we provide them.  Pressure on elected as the new Congress takes its seats.

Wes

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Coal can do that

David, I find it ironic this Ad at the bottom of the page while I read you tab dump.

Clean Coal
Clean Coal: America's Energy Future
www.coalcandothat.com

Also, I appreciate the reference to Ed Mazria and Architecture 2030.  Their work is too often not even on the radar for too many environmental organizations but we won't build a better refrigerator until someone writes new building codes and then gets local planning commissions to make sure that they are enforced.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Vilsack was payback

I am sure that most people with an environmental conscience are going to question Vilsack's appointment.  There is a lot more at stake here than just biofuels.  I would check out the fairly even handed treatment of Vilsack from the Center for Rural Affairs. http://blog.cfra.org/

Vilsack as a spokesperson for GMO's was bad.  Doing the same as Sec. of Ag. is going to be worse.

Vilsack as an advocate for industrial agriculture without regard for the product actually being called "food" is not a sign of change.

Of all the appointments made so far, this is the one that bothers me the most.  You don't fix health care in America unless you start with food. You don't fix energy / peak oil types of problems unless you start with food production, fertilizer use, etc. You don't fix a free market economy without dealing with farm subsidies, another Vilsack weak point.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

More later...

I should hope so.  There are many who do not view this as a shining example of Change. The issue is support for unending subsidies and factory farms... all of the issues that make environmentalists and family farm advocates feel queasy in their stomach.

Others are not so sure.  Make sure to look at these comments at the Center for Rural Affairs. A pretty unbiased reading.  

The Center was writing / publishing more recently about U. of Nebraska Regent, Chuck Hassebrook.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

I have a problem finding carrots.

There are many things for which I do not have a choice.  While my electricity supplier (PG&E) is better than some, there is no connection at all between the cap and trade proposal in California (AB 32) and the Public Utilities Commission that sets the rates I pay for Electricity.  Introduce Can and Trade.  PG&E purchases credits.  The costs go up and so does my utility bill.  My only option is to use less and I already have cut back several times.  All it has done is to make my life as a retiree more precarious.

Then, let me take the other half of what I get from PG&E, the gas to hear my home.  We have our thermostat set at 62 most of the day in the winter... raise it a little just before going to bed... lower to 55 at night.  The cost to retrofit my home for improved energy efficiency... new windows, foam insulation, etc. far exceeds the savings that I could achieve during my lifetime.  Replacing three windows with highly efficient, double pane, etc. would cost my entire year's gas bill.  I have 24 to do. So, how do you cap my use and how do I end up paying for it?  Because, in the long run, none of these corporations will pay anything.  It will all be passed on to me.  

Now, how do you get the public to agree to that this year, right now, as a task to so while looking for the replacement job that they just lost and some scientists are saying that it is already too late to stop CO2 below 650 ppm?  

Where is the carrot for me, the person who is going to end up paying for it all?

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

First B of A, then the rest

This is a great first step.  There are very good reasons that I have an account with CitiBank.  It has to do with the ease of maintaining accounts with relatives in Japan.

However, I will still tell CitiBank that they should follow the lead of B of A, adopt a similar policy or I will move my account.

I would encourage everyone with an account at a major bank to do the same.  Right now is a good time to do so when no bank wants to lose any deposits.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Khosla Ventures renewables portfolio

isn't shabby either. Almost makes me believe that Sequestration is gonna work, at least near the ocean.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Maybe Nichols is the problem.

If Obama is considering a top job for Mary Nichols, he is not as intelligent as I thought.

A recent press release from the Green Party of California called on Schwarzenegger to fire Nichols.  When working at EPA, she ignored all enforcement obligations and pushed for a pollution credit scheme that failed miserably.  PEER has a report the pretty well documented both failures.

Now, she is repeating the same thing in California. Those who don't recognize their mistakes can never learn from them.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Where is the outrage?

I just don't get it.  Our government bailed out Chrysler before.  Now, we have to take on all three?  Watching World Focus on PBS, I see concerns in Vauxhall (UK), Opel (DE) and other automakers caught up in the failure of GM.

Yet, this gets not a single peep.  Comments from my fairly green neighbors follow two tracks.  One is let them fail, because there is no end to their follies. It is the moral hazard argument that we heard so much about earlier but not lately.

It is my personal view that the reason for the failure is that all the auto executives lived in Grosse Pointe mansions and could not longer relate to the middle class that they expected to buy their product.  Japanese trading company C. Itoh had a chairman who took the train to work every morning rather than the private car to which he was entitled.  It was that sense of the needs of the common man that he was afraid to lose. GE Execs never had it.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Green Support

You are right.  It is a bit late to jump in.  However, let me point to the fact that it is a very, very contentious issue in San Francisco.  One of the strong supporters is Ross Mirkarimi, the lone Green on the BOS.  Another strong supporter  is Mark Sanchez, Green Party candidate for BOS in another district and currently President of the Board of Education in San Francisco.

In a way, the factual benefits of Prop. H are being ignored and it is a partisan battle for Mayor Newsome to break up the "progressive majority" that currently give him so much grief.

Read the Green Party Press release on the subject here.  Sanchez is in a dead heat with a Newsome backed Dem. for the seat.
.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

$15 Billion / year

is just 2 NPP's.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Market or politicians?

We have seen what happens when the market decides what real risk is and how to deal with externalized costs.  We have gone from "irrational exuberance" to "shocked disbelief" in that bank chairman would not act to protect their shareholders.  It is as if Michael "greed is good" Douglas were running the banking system.

I am not certain how we deal with the coal crisis as long as key politicians hold hands with coal industry executives and dine with them on the Riviera.

Note: in New York, it appears to take a politician (Cuomo) to begin some action.  What will it take in West Virgina or Wyoming where Massey Energy and Peabody Energy (see, they even take the word coal out of their corporate names) have deep pockets and politicians like the thankfully soon to be ex-congressperson, Barbara Cubin, have to stay in office.

Take a hard look at the West Virginia governor's race and tell me what difference the choice there will make.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

West Virginia is Ground Zero.

If we are at all concerned about global warming, energy and what the economic crisis is going to do, then we have to be concerned about politics.  Ground zero in this fight is in West Virginia.  While the national media might make a passing reference to it, as they did with Biden's visit recently, the key race is that for governor.

Joe Manchin III is the incumbent Democrat and seems to be as much in the pocket of Massey Energy as was the Supreme Court Justice in West Virginia, seen dining around the Riviera with the head of Massey. Court case, anyone?

There is one candidate in this race, Jesse Johnson, who has his head screwed on right when it comes to coal.  No more mountain top removal.  Now silly schemes to pass off coal as gasoline.  Development of alternatives for energy and for employment.

If you don't blieve me, check his web site http://www.jesse4wvgog.org/ He is running on the appropriately named Mountain Party ticket.

I don't understand why David, and everyone else who understands that continued dependence on coal for electricity generation will guarantee that we never solve the global warming problems, is not calling for support of Johnson. Change the political leadership and you have a chance to change the outcome.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

The fallacies of nuclear

Many of the analysis of nuclear costs that I have seen begin with the utility that uses nuclear material and do include costs associated with nuclear waste.  However, I have yet to see one that includes full costing of the effects of mining. The experience of the first uranium mining boom is that the mining operations have little or nor oversight, create and proliferate significant contaminated soils and then declare bankruptcy before they are required to pay for the cleanup.

OK, I get it.  Most people don't care because that is all out in the desert, like where the Indians live.  

Check the statistics on breast cancer among Navajo women. Better yet, read about the research now being done at Northern Ariz. Univ.

Any congress critter who votes for nuclear needs to agree to move their families to the Window Rock or Farmington, breathe the air, drink the water, go to the hospital.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Astroturf Arnold

While Arnold is talking about his conference, and he was doing this at the Commonwealth Club of California last night.  You can listen to a rebroadcast  Sun, Sep 28, 2008 -- 4:00 am  on KQED from San Francisco.  Available on the web at http://www.kqed.org/

Let me quote Dan Bacher, Editor of the Fishsniffer magazine on Schwarzenegger's greenness. "Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose horrendous environmental policies have resulted in ecological catastrophe for the California Delta and the collapse of Central Valley salmon runs, today again attempted to delude the media and the public about his environmental record by mouthing off about his "committment to building a green economy."

Schwarzenegger is like that other superhero, the Hulk, who was only green when he had to be.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

McCain policies

There are several things at work here.  Since they knew they were going to lie, and they knew that some in the media were going to call them on it, it was only natural that they began with an attack on the media, right form the convention speeches.  Now, when the media issues its fact checking correction, they can say ... "I told you the liberal media would be against us."

The days of Great Republicans, like Lincoln Chaffee and Pete McCloskey are over.  Of course, Chaffee is now an independent and McCloskey registered Dem.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Palin and the Media

The best analysis was given by Kathleen Hall Jamieson on Bill Moyers' Journal last night. Examples where the media, in their haste to get the story out, blew it.. other examples where they got it out quickly and accurately.  

All I look for in the media is a fidelity to fact, a term that Jamieson used.  Lacking that, all we have is a James Carville - Mary Matalin side show.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

68 is not now.

There is a movement to recreate 68 at the Dem convention in Denver.  I hope it is not successful.  If some feel that this is the only way that they can be heard, we are in deeper doo-doo than I thought.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Answer this for me

You say the Republicans push an unpopular agenda and that the Democrats let them get away with it.  Neither sound like political parties that we want running this country.  

So, why then do so many turn away from the idea of a third party based on the assumption that "they can't win."  

Environment be damned, as long as we win the White House.

That is not the future that I want.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Salzburg

Having spent a semester abroad in Salzburg, I know that there is much to endear.

Wes

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Jones is right.

The only problem is that for every time a Van Jones gets in the Media, we have to hear a bunch of globally warmed hot air from the likes of a Dana Rohrabacher who views the floor of the House of Representatives as his personal propaganda publisher. Unfortunately, he gets his order from Charles Koch.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

John McCain, the man who made robo call for Pombo.

He just did it again.  Knee jerk reaction again.  Anyone who seriously thinks about nuclear electric power, and that include Ahmadinejad as well as McCain, need to take a long drive out to Flagstaff and talk to Stefanie Raymond-Whish at Northern Arizona Univ... or better yet go on over to Farmington New Mexico and talk to her mother, Nellie Sandoval, a breast cancer survivor.

Rayomond-Whish is doing research at NAU which documents uranium's behavior as an estrogen mimic and provides us with a direct link to cancers.  

Every nuclear energy plant should be mandated to pay for every instance of cancer around any of the mines that provide the raw uranium and all of the way up the chain.  

McCain will say whatever is politically expedient, support whatever is popular among Pomboid Republicans and smile while he does it.

Then, he should come back and explain why women's lives are so cheap, why Indians are still expendible and what he is going to do about rising health care costs.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

End of coal?

I would hope so.  We need to reinvent our energy economy.

We should not forget that we also need to reinvent the economy for all those miners who now have a chance to work in the fresh air and sunshine.

The two go together.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Assume?

David, there is the old addage that to assume makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me".

You assume too much about Mainstream Media.  Do you actually think that John "Give Me a break" Stossel will cover this?  Actually, his comments on "The Globe is Warming, but Why? The Debated is Not Over" carries 738 comments.  How many posts here carry attract that much attention, even though the truth is here, not there. (In all fairness, I did not count the number calling Stossel an idiot versus the number calling him a hero).  

How do we break past this?  I really wonder.  It is about as important as anything we need to do.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Play it again, Dave.

I don't have any problem playing Dave's songs. I use Firefox, have Shockwave Flash installed, allow some software loading and have told my AVG Firewall to allow connections out from some applications.

There is an alternative that I also tried and worked.  The actual MP3 file that is loaded to plan this music is given as a URL. It is more work, but if you do a view page source, you can copy the URL and paste it into the browser and play the music with whatever player you have for MP3 files.

Having said that, I would respectfully request David to continue on this vein... though it seems that he is a bit more attuned to rock than county.  I was reminded of my college days, when Dylan was just a young guy that we heard about making the coffee house circuit and The Times They are a Changin' had not yet been recorded. If we get a few more like Kathy to carry this activism into the current pop culture like we once did, then maybe there is some hope.

Unless we do, there is none.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

The reason we need Pollan's message

My local (circulation <5000) paper carried an Earth Day OpEd by Michael Berliner. When I criticized it at my own blog, I got the following comment posted.

As a biologist I am proud, not only of my own "carbon footprint" but also admire the 'carbon footprint' of every honest capitalist, and capitalist business in the world.

Environmentalism is a religion not a science, and its followers are either dupes, while its proponents make fraudulent use of science to further their sense of power over other men. Such is the nature of all tyrannies.

We have a lot of work to do.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Frustration Indeed

With all of the work being done regarding mountain top removal and the recognition that step 1 in the battle against global warming has to be to stop king coal, it is indicative of a certain tendency among those who consider themselves "progressive" to be willing to go all out against something and never lift a finger to build the alternative.

Best example, no one added a comment to this post.

I saw the same thing happening with the fight to preserve California's Redwoods.  As long as it was Pacific Lumber and Robber Baron Hurwitz that one cold rail against, there were plenty of people concerned.  But, only the locals stuck around to try and put the economy back together again.  

Oh, yeah.  I forgot.  We are all supposed to jump into our RV's and SUV's and drive up there for our vacations.

Sorry for the sarcasm.  It has just been a day when I saw the same thing happen one too many times.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Repeat, or not

If Nader merely repeats to 2000 campaign, it will not be good for anyone, including himself.  If he applies the same energies to a broader message then a lot of scenarios are possible.

If Nader runs the same campaign all over again, then he will draw less votes than before, a sign that the political climate has changed and he did not.

My personal opinion.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

West Virginia Mountain Mama

I remember John Denver's first sining about Country Roads.  Maybe Dave can resurrect that for his Friday Music Blogging.  I can't think of any set of images that so completely cancel each other.

Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River
Life is old there, older than the trees
Younger than the mountains growin' like a breeze.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

How is Hillary going to win?

Here are some of the things that can push Hillary back to the top.

Florida.  They had a primary.  Clinton won. The Democratic Party said that it did not count.  So, here is their problem. They could say say:

(1) We are sorry, it really did count.  In this case, Obama has a real beef in that he followed the rules while Clinton made a last minute appeal for Florida votes, saying that she would work had to seat the Florida delegation.

(2) Recognizing the polarizing effect of that decision, they could say that Florida deserves a "do over."  Now, Clinton has a beef.  She won the primary and they are going to take it away.  What hppened to the "will of the people."

(3) The party could hold fast to their original position, but that will never happen because nothing could do more to hand Florida to the Republicans in the General Election than to disenfranchise the entire state.  Heck, it might even allow the Green Party  or Libertarians to grow.  I can imagine how Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney would play this.  I am sure that the Democratic Party does not want Florida to be decided, once again, in court.

Now, repeat all of the above in Michigan.

Add Florida to Clinton's side, which the pundits fail to do, and you have a very different picture.

So, you have a very different view and, just like the Super Delegates, is is all in the back room and never in the hands of the voters.  What will Obama's young supporters do if they see back room deals take it all away?

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Where is George Miller? Henry Waxman?

It would seem that Congressmen Miller and Waxman should have a field day with this.  Miller is a long time advocate for worker's rights and Waxman has been a severe critic of slovenly governmental operations.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Massey Watch

At one time, I ran a blog called PomboWatch.  It stayed up until Richard Pombo was down... for the count.

It seems to me that a full time MasseyWatch would be a good use of someone's time.  

I also think it would be a good use of time to pay attention to the acts of Congressman Nick Rahall (D. WV) who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources... a committee that has much to say about coal and little to say about mountain top removal.

Don't get me wrong.  Rahall has been a breath of fresh air compared to his predecessors (Pombo and Alaska's Don Young). Still I would question his ability to take any strong action regarding coal demand or coal mining (other than mine safety) and, at the same time, to keep being re-elected from W. Virginia.  

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Science Debate 2008

I would think, then, that you would support the concept of a science debate.  It would, at least for a few hours, push these idea to the forefront and offer the chance to draw distinctions.  

There is one reading of the political tea leave that says Hillary has it won.  Obama can not win the nomination without California and he can not win California without the Latino / Hispanic vote.  I knew the Dolores Huerta was supporting Hillary. Yesterday, in Salinas, CA, the United Farm Workers endorsed Hillary and that will just about lock up the Hispanic vote here.

So, with Hillary vs. McCain or Romney, what do we get?  Tennessee Ernie Ford had it right.

And for all of you solar lovers, the stock of First Solar was down 45% from its high to day and that of Sun Power was done 50%.  Buying opportunity of a sign of things to come from either party.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

What is the real story on coal?

Well, it has definite international implications as a case is now being pursued in Canada to collect from Detroit Edison for mercury contamination of Canadian waters.  That should bring out the America First, Last and Only types.

Then, we have the settlement with Massey Energy over watershed contamination. Another big ($20 Million) fine for King Coal.

"Massey is now going to pay for their Clean Water Act violations and we are glad the federal EPA is finally paying attention," said Earthjustice attorney Steve Roady. "However, it is inconsistent that EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are actually allowing Massey and other coal companies to blow the tops off West Virginia's mountains and bury nearby streams with their waste. Thousands of miles of Appalachian streams have been buried because the EPA and the Corps have failed to follow the Clean Water Act."

Massey's mountaintop removal mines use some of the most environmentally devastating types of mining, flattening the landscape and burying miles of streams. Mountaintop removal mining has already permanently buried more than 1,500 miles of streams and flattened 500,000 acres of mountains in Appalachia.

The contacts are:

Virginia Cramer, Sierra Club, 202-675-6279
Jared Saylor, Earthjustice (202) 667-4500
Vivian Stockman, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (304) 360-1979
Cindy Rank, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy (304) 924-5802
Joe Lovett, Appalachian Center for the Economy & the Environment (304) 645-9006
Judy Bonds, Coal River Mountain Watch (304) 854-0479

Finally, let me remind you that the Mountain Party of WV (affiliated with the Green Party) makes this a major issue:

"I've been to many states to bring the message that WV is `ground zero" in the global climate debate. Mountaintop Removal is still a term that Greens in others state have not heard of and I'm working to change that situation as I speak across the nation," said [Green Presidential Candidate Jesse] Johnson. Johnson just returned from Minneapolis where he addressed state Green Party members at their convention.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Green Party Energy Platform

I have been browsing the proposed new Green Party platform statement on Energy.  I will not copy it all, as it has not gone through the formal approval process. (Also I am looking at an edits from the earlier platform, strikethroughs, etc. and cleaning it up would be a PITA)  However, in outline, it is one that goes far beyond this discussion of Yucca Mountain and the hemming and hawing of Obama and Clinton.

Not only does it call for no new nuclear facilities, but also for the decommissioning of what we have.

It call for removing the subsidies from fossil fuels so that the true costs are visible.  

It calls for the development of a distributed grid so that available wind / solar / hydro can be used to dynamically meet demand, as Kassel Univ. shows can be done.

In total, if small g greens are looking for a reason to vote for ecological sustainability, I assure you that the substance is here.

By the time everyone counts the votes on Feb. 5 and figures out that there is still no clear winner for the Democrats, we will have a statement of ecological action for the first 100 days should everyone decide to elect a Green president rather than a green washed one.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Irrantional voters

Is this a good time to invoke Bryan Caplan's latest book, the Myth of the Rational Voter?

It seems as if his major point, that votes are an expression of preferences over beliefs, seems to be true.  People would rather vote for the Comfortable Lie than to acknowledge the Inconvenient Truth.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

And here is another

http://www.aqmd.gov/prdas/matesIII/draft/ES.pdf

This is from the South Coast Air Quality Management District. It highlights increased cancer risks related to traffic to and from the ports in San Pedro, Long Beach.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

You are right, but it won't make any difference.

To take the subtitle from Frank Luntz's new book, "It's not what you say.  It's what people hear."

I don't think that people want to hear Hillary now because her campaign is about what She will do for US and Obama's is about what We will do together.

Voters do not make rational choices.  

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

DKOS

David,
You really ought to move your blogging to dailykos, this style fits right in.  Emotion over facts.  But then, I guess we can't trust any Democratic pollster, can we? I guess that I had better repeat from another comment. "Al From, former Leader of the Democratic Leadership Committee, said in Blueprint Magazine (1/24/01) that according to their own exit polls, Bush would have won by one percentage point in Nader hadn't run."

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Werner Dumanski

If Nanosolar has Werner Dumanski heading it's Manufacturing, and they do, then this effort has a lot more substance than you imply.  Dumanski has solid credentials from IBM / Hitachi. This is not stock hype or he would not be there.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

An Unreasonable Man

Did you watch An Unreasonable Man.  I thought that Nader's comments on the Kerry Campaign of 2004 were an example of where we tried, but failed.

On a personal note, I can tell you that this Green worked his ass off supporting a Republican (gasp) named Pete McCloskey, and then supporting Democrat Jerry McNerney in that 11th CD of of California.

I organized and ran a rapid response media watching group that did influence that campaign. I used Green Party language and wrote, commented on, fact checked press releases that came through the desk of Robert Caughlan while he was working as McNerney's Press Secretary.

I would venture to say that this Green had an effect on that election and that I influenced the McNerney campaign to use a rhetoric that was a bit more "progressive" than the Blue Dog Democrats were comfortable with.

If you go back through the archives still available at, SayNoToPombo, you will see my posts there, under the nom do blog of "delta" that continuously interjected Green Party ecological concerns into that race.

So have we been able to change the policies of the Corporate Democrats? No. Nor will we until they realize that they will lose votes by not responding. It is this lack of concern that allowed a Barbara Boxer to express her ongoing lack of concern for the effect of subsidizing cotton farming in the desert of California, irrigating it with subsidized water that was pumped by below market cost electricity.  Boxer's comments?  "We have our cotton people and our rice people".

You do a lot of good by continuing to defining the issues and filling it in for those who don't have the time to cover it all.  Your public conversation with Revkin was valuable. Stay away from cheap shot political comments and I will continue to support what you do.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Bartlett may have something right.

The Financial Times reported on 12/11/2007 that the effects of rising prices and grain shortages are being felt on the world markets.

The global economy is facing a second wave of food inflation after the US agriculture department on Tuesday warned of significant falls in stocks of corn, wheat and soyabean and heavy demand.

Officials forecast US wheat stocks would shrink to their lowest level in 60 years, dropping from 312m bushels to 280m by the end of the 2007-08 crop year.

We may not have the time for incremental gains in one area (CAFE) when we give them back in others. This is yet another reasons that I firmly believe that there needs to be an alternative to corporate Democrats that is not spelled "Republican."

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

One more reprot on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T59_nT2q-IQ

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

West Virginia

You know West Virgina Politics.  Grandpa Byrd with his finger on everything.

Here is West Virginia Politics in a  nutshell.  They have a law on the books that says someone running for office in West Virginia must be a registered as a voter in the party under which they are running.  The would leave out Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  Both were registered in states that did not have party affiliation as part of the registration process.  No problem, we know what they are.  

However, when the Mountain Party of West Virginia became the local face of the Green Party, all of a sudden it is an issue. Greens can't run in West Virginia because they are no members of the Mountain Party.  It all depends on whose ox might be gored, or in this case if they can keep all opposition out of the race.

I am sure that the powers that be in WV don't want to see a party actually run candidates when the platform calls for:

Protection of our air, water and land: sustainable energy, sustainable agriculture, pro-environmental economic development; a halt to mountaintop removal coal mining in order to preserve precious forestland and streams; timber regulation that reduces flooding, erosion and eliminates clear-cutting and destruction of old-growth forests; full enforcement of current environmental protection laws; and phasing out the most ecologically harmful sources of energy.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Coal vs. Non-Coal, Ethanol vs. ???

The devil is always in the regional details.  Even normally progressive Barbara Boxer refuses to deal with the problem of Farm Subsidies to the big growers of commodity crops (ethanol anyone) because "we have our cotton people and our rice people".  Glad we don't have corn in California.

The combined distortions of the RFS mandate in this energy bill, along with the subsidies for corn production, are still going to make this a doubly expensive proposition.  I will pay the subsidy as a tax payer and I will pay for the RFS generated transfer from food to energy not at the gas pump, but in the supermarket.  Again... another reason not to be poor in America.

Get rid of the Farm Subsidies ($4.5 billion for corn in 2005)  and get rid of RFS and see what you have left.  When discussing energy, you need to put the farm subsidy costs into the equation.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Air Board has a good press agent

There are a few things that come through to me loud and clear.  You knew that Schwarzenegger was going to put all of his emphasis on a Cap and Trade Policy as soon as he appointed Mary Nichols. She had the same job when the goal was to end acid rain by trading pollution credits.  Was that a success?

I agree that the measurements are necessary. They will tell us whether anything is working.  And, if they move in the right direction, Schwarzenegger / Nichols will spin the story as saying that it was Cap and Trade that was responsible.

At the same time, there has been little or no coverage of the fact that the California (yes, California again) Energy Commission has adopted new building standards. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the story last week.

California should make all new homes so energy-efficient by 2020 that they won't need to draw power from the state's electrical grid, according to a plan for meeting the state's future energy needs.

Adopted unanimously Wednesday by the California Energy Commission, the plan contains dozens of recommendations that touch on almost every way California generates and uses energy. They are designed both to lower the state's energy use and to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels.

I would rather have the latter.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Everyone talks about the weather

but no one does anything about it... or the climate. Faced with predicted long term below average rainfall in the Southwest, even with a special session of the California Legislature having been called, politics as usual has ended up in, once again, doing nothing.   Of course, nothing is better than some of the plans that they were tossing around.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

Dualism - defeatism

The duality of right - wrong, good - bad, left - right, loser - winner is so ingrained into political discourse that one has only to suggest a third way is at all possible.  Just try to interject the idea of any other answer, such as a 3rd political party, into the discussion and you arouse immediate hostility. I know because that is what I get as a Green.

On the subject issue, Climate Change, I have been a vocal supporter of Ed Mazria and the Architecture 2030 approach of forcing change through building codes, local permitting processes, etc.  It takes a lot more organizing to pull this off, but it does more to eliminated the need for future new coal fired or nuclear energy plants than any protest on the steps of the capital.

Even to start showing political opinion as a triangle would be a novel idea.  Another one would have been to use the recent Step Ip Up sessions to organize people for local action on energy standards for new / renovated building.  But that is not the way progressives organize protest.

Wes Rolley CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US

What was missing.

When I looked at the format for the meeting, I was surprised to see that there was no mention of a Green Party candidate, not even Cynthia McKinney, the most well known.  If there is one party where you would think that everyone would have a well thought out position on this issue, it is the Green Party.

Just to start, candidate Kent Mesplay is eminently qualified to respond. He holds a Ph.D. in the sciences (wouldn't that be original) and works with the Air Quality Control Board in San Diego.

In the discussion of "centrist" positions that you had with Andrew Revkin, there was an concern over inside the beltway, policy wonk thinking.  Was that the reason why the choices were exclusionary, that the only people invited were those that the major parities deemed to be worth?

CoChair - EcoAction Committee Green Party US