My carbon or yours?

So our water district staff presented how they thought we could reach carbon neutrality by 2020. Depending on how you do the numbers, we became carbon neutral without even trying.

A lot depends on this:

(Full presentation via scrolling to March 26 2013, Item 4.1)

That's how much energy's used to cradle-to-grave a water drop from the Sierras to the outflow of a wastewater treatment plant. My district is a water wholesaler - we handle the first three steps, and then a water retailer (either a private company or city government) buys the water from us, gets it to the end user, and picks it up from there to a sewage treatment plant. You can see the main energy use is the end user, mainly because they heat it. Our staff argues that end use is by the end user, not our responsibility, and I said I'd have to chew on it. Any thoughts? Possibly relevant is that the vast majority of water we sell them never gets heated, so that end use figure conflates some very high and much lower energy using water together.

This is important not only because it says we're not causing that lion's share of energy use, but because our water conservation programs are focused on end users, so reducing their usage could be counted as an offset. That gets us to carbon neutrality pretty easily if you accept numbers that no one's really going to accept, but still more easily than I expected even with more realistic assumptions.

In other news, the Army Corps of Engineers is drawing a reasonable amount of tax money from our county but not funding many flood control or San Francisco Bay restoration projects. You can hear what passes for a "concerned statement" on my part below:



If the link's bad, click here, go to March 26 2013, and the video segment is from 1:57:50 to  1:59:04.

Contest for Planetary Solutions

Sustainable Silicon Valley has a contest for Solutions for Planetary Sustainability.  Yours truly has taken the subjects of two Rabbet Run posts (on greening the local and national Chambers of Commerce, and using electric vehicle battery power to supplement diesel generator power in blackouts) and made them into contest entries here and here.  Over 200 other solutions are also on tap.

Per modern convention, anyone who wants can register for free and then vote on solutions and give comments.  A critical soul has even tried to inspire better efforts by giving almost everyone zero out of five stars.  Feel free to support any entry you like, but the opportunity to vote ends on Friday.

Nuclear energy versus flood control - choose one

I spent most of this last week on my second trip to Washington DC on behalf of our local water district, trying to see if we can funding for flood control projects primarily, and secondarily for environmental restoration and dam safety.  I'm getting to the point now where I'm starting to understand what it is that I don't know, so maybe that's progress.

Comments I wrote about the previous trip still stand, especially regarding budgets.  Here's something new to me:  the implication of the fact that the Corps of Engineers flood control budget competes with the Department of Energy's nuclear power development program budget in a budgetary appropriations subcommittee.  DOE also supports nuclear weapons programs, but I'm not clear as to exactly where that money comes from.  As political actors starting from Obama and moving to his right support subsidies for nuclear power, that limits the amount of money we can get to support our flood control projects (which incidentally have a lot of good environmental aspects to them).  So far, it's not looking good for flood control.

In a rational world it's not clear why these two budget items would face off any more than any other two federal budget items, but that's not the hand we've been dealt.  More question in my mind then whether nuclear power deserves the vast level of subsidy it's been given.


In other news, more speculation about Santorum 2016, this time from an apparent Santorum skeptic who sez "I wouldn't put him among the top three contenders".  I suggested in the comments that we make it interesting with a nominal $50 bet over whether he fails to place third.  The apparent skeptic questioned whether he had made a prediction, so I guess I stand corrected.

Firing the right guy for the wrong reason

California's Fish and Game Commission Chair Dan Richards should quit or be fired, but it's just a shame that if he goes it's for the wrong reason.  The guy has ignored his responsibility for environmental protection and fought the establishment of marine reserves, which is what he should be fired for.  He also hunted a mountain lion in Idaho, where it's legal, although it's illegal in California based on a voter initiative.

I'm the former chair of the Santa Clara County Fish and Game Commission, where we worked hard and mostly successfully to bring environmentalists and hunters together.  It's a shame that doesn't happen on a state level.  I'm not a hunter and I don't see an ecological need to hunt apex predators, but I don't seen an ecological problem with it either if managed properly.  If it were up to me, lion hunting would be legal here in California.

via wiki, click photo for source

Hunters like Richards who don't care about the environment are a big problem.  Environmentalists tried to get the burrowing owl, pictured above, listed as endangered under California law several years ago and were denied, and they've been on a severe decline in our area ever since.  I'd give even odds they'll be gone in 10 years in the Bay Area, although they're doing okay elsewhere.

Richards and other roadblocks should be fired, but they should be replaced by hunters who care about the environment, not just trophy maximization.

FWIW, I'll give an example of where cooperation broke down on our local level.  Our county is considering a Habitat Conservation Plan for protecting endangered species.  I tried to unite our county F&G Commission behind a letter calling on the use of hunting as a management tool for controlling non-native species, particularly pigs and turkeys, that harm habitats.  I was blocked by a right winger who's no hunter now, but just hated governmental protection of endangered species so much that he wanted nothing to do with it.  That's the type of thing we need to overcome.


UPDATE:  based on this report, I'd disagree with the assertion made at my first link that it was a canned hunt.  There may have been a canned hunt of pheasants, but the lion was wild and presumably free to go anywhere he wanted..

The Water District reducing GHG emissions and California cap-and-trade

Today's Water District meeting featured an energy usage work study session.  We use a lot of energy moving water across much of the state and then treating it, about 5% of all our costs.  While we also have a policy saying we that want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, our policy isn't very clear.  I pressed staff on this issue and another director, Linda Lezotte, also followed up:

(Arrgh, something won't let me post more than one video excerpt.  It's here for the December 5 2011 meeting at the 01:11:00 mark, for about 4 minutes.  Two of us seven directors say we need to do more than merely "cost-effective" efforts to reduce GHG emissions, the other five don't say anything.)

We're pretty good overall in our energy usage.  Maybe we can partner with Sonoma County to be better.
We're part of a joint powers authority for buying our power at a rate that's both cheaper and with lower carbon emissions than our local utility provides.  Our CO2 emissions are 435lbs/MWh, one-third the national average (see the first link, Attachment 4, p 17). Not the one-tenth that we need, but pretty good.

While California cap-and-trade doesn't apply directly to us, it does apply to the joint powers authority called PWRPA that we helped establish to get our power, and we may have a chance to sell carbon allowances from environmental improvements that we make:



(UPDATE:  okay, more linkrot, but it's towards the end of the discussion of Item 4.1 at the link above.)

In addition to what you can see on the video is the 3 hours that we spent in closed (confidential) session to discuss internally the negotiations with labor unions for new contracts.  Obviously I can't talk about what happened then, but the financial issues highlight how important the economics of all this is. If doing the right thing environmentally can help us out financially, we're going to do more of the right thing, especially right now when finances are so tight.

To fluoridate, someday, and a personal announcement

Previous post dilemmaized over whether and how to fluoridate at my next Water District Board meeting, which was yesterday. Here's the news:

Santa Clara Valley Water District OKs adding fluoride to its drinking water

Silicon Valley's largest drinking water provider took the first steps Tuesday toward adding fluoride to the drinking water in most of Santa Clara County, including San Jose, the largest city in the nation without the cavity-battling additive.

After a lively 90-minute debate at a packed meeting, the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District voted 7-0 to put the district on record supporting fluoridation.

It could've been 6-1 because of a side issue where I disagreed with my colleagues about creating yet another Board committee to oversee this, but they were willing to split up the vote so I could agree with them on the main issue and then get shot down over the new committee.

If you're so inclined, you can listen to a couple minutes of my comments while looking at uninteresting shot of the board room below (source link here):

I made clear that I wanted public education on infant formula and on reverse osmosis for those who don't want fluoride, and that we keep checking in on the scientific consensus. I think I'll win that fight. When we'll do this and who will pay for it is less clear. I think it's a legitimate expenditure of public funds, but we're not a public health agency. If they want Water District money to fix people's teeth, my vote would be that they have to wait a while. We need to fix our seismic risks at our dams, restore the environment, and reduce flood damages.

So there ends my fluoride series for this blog. My personal announcement is that after nearly nine years at my day job with the Committee for Green Foothills, I gave notice that it's time for me to do something else, starting in January. It's a great place, but it's time for me to do something new. I am very interested in climate change policy work, but am open to other ideas as well. I'm looking forward to seeing what will happen next.

To fluoridate or not to fluoridate, that is the question. Next Tuesday at my Water District Board meeting

I'll reproduce below most of an old post about fluoridation. I had previously expected to see an identical situation with climate change in terms of the debate, but it's not. I think factors overall favor fluoridating, but not quite as overwhelmingly as I expected. On Tuesday, my fellow Directors and I get to figure out next steps.

Fluoridation opponents have made lots of mistakes in my opinion, but supporters have overstated the consensus. In particular, fluoride levels four to eight times the recommended level do have rare adverse effects, which isn't a huge safety margin in toxicity issues (UPDATE: I mean rare and severe effects - some cosmetic problems to teeth are common). Very slight adverse effects on larger groups would also be hard to rule out.

The Center for Disease Control recommends mixing non-fluoridated water in formula for babies that use formula exclusively. I can also attest to hearing from the significant number of people, if still a minority, who are just anguished that we're putting something they consider toxic in their water. Home-based reverse osmosis systems can remove their fluoride, I think.

And then there's the money cost - over $4m to construct and $800k to operate. We might get funding to construct but get stuck with operating, which people forget is the bigger cost.

So. The staff recommendation is to proceed if someone else pays for it. We'll see. If we do go forward, we may need to educate people about infant formula and let people know they can get reverse osmosis kits if they want.

Anyway, here's most of the old post, with the science:

Fluoridating water, or a funny thing happened on my way to backseat driving

I originally labelled this blog Backseat Driving back in 2004 because I anticipated it to be a blog where I would second-guess decisions made by politicians and other people. That worked out fine more or less until November 2010, when for some reason I was elected to the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board. Turns out that San Jose is the largest city in the US without fluoridated water supplies (in much of the city, anyway), and the seven of us directors have to decide whether we'll help or hinder the fluoridation process. So I'm pushed into the front seat for this one.

We've got some legal and economic issues to handle (it's not quite as cheap as everyone says, I want to know where the money's going to come from), but the relevant issue here is science. I read the guest post at climate blogger Coby Beck's place, The Case Against Fluoride, fairly closely a while back, especially the raucous debate in the comments. As a spectator with some, limited reading of the available information, I'd say the fluoridators seemed more persuasive than skeptics, but it wasn't the absolute demolishing that I expected.

The fluoride skeptics really hurt their cause when say fluoride doesn't prevent cavities - it's so obviously effective that people making this claim are damaging their own credibility. I'd consider it comparable to denying that the planet has warmed in the last 50 years.

The closer issue is adverse effects, and whether a substantial number of people are very slightly harmed by fluoridation, or if a small number of people are substantially harmed. The 2006 National of Sciences report doesn't condemn fluoridation, but it doesn't absolve it, either:

Bone Fractures

....Overall, there was consensus among the committee that there is scientific evidence that under certain conditions fluoride can weaken bone and increase the risk of fractures. The majority of the committee concluded that lifetime exposure to fluoride at drinking-water concentrations of 4 mg/L or higher is likely to increase fracture rates in the population, compared with exposure to 1 mg/L, particularly in some demographic subgroups that are prone to accumulate fluoride into their bones (e.g., people with renal disease)....There were few studies to assess fracture risk in populations exposed to fluoride at 2 mg/L in drinking water. The best available study, from Finland, suggested an increased rate of hip fracture in populations exposed to fluoride at concentrations above 1.5 mg/L. However, this study alone is not sufficient to judge fracture risk for people exposed to fluoride at 2 mg/L. Thus, no conclusions could be drawn about fracture risk or safety at 2 mg/L....

(In California, 2 mg/L was the limit, and 0.7 is the new proposed goal. -Ed)

Neurotoxicity and Neurobehavioral Effects

Animal and human studies of fluoride have been published reporting adverse cognitive and behavioral effects. A few epidemiologic studies of Chinese populations have reported IQ deficits in children exposed to fluoride at 2.5 to 4 mg/L in drinking water. Although the studies lacked sufficient detail for the committee to fully assess their quality and relevance to U.S. populations, the consistency of the results appears significant enough to warrant additional research on the effects of fluoride on intelligence....

Endocrine Effects

The chief endocrine effects of fluoride exposures in experimental animals and in humans include decreased thyroid function, increased calcitonin activity, increased parathyroid hormone activity, secondary hyperparathyroidism, impaired glucose tolerance, and possible effects on timing of sexual maturity. Some of these effects are associated with fluoride intake that is achievable at fluoride concentrations in drinking water of 4 mg/L or less, especially for young children or for individuals with high water intake. Many of the effects could be considered subclinical effects, meaning that they are not adverse health effects. However, recent work on borderline hormonal imbalances and endocrine-disrupting chemicals indicated that adverse health effects, or increased risks for developing adverse effects, might be associated with seemingly mild imbalances or perturbations in hormone concentrations. Further research is needed to explore these possibilities....

(Removed discussion of bone cancer as not very troubling given its rarity. Ed.)

These were the most troubling findings, mostly about what hasn't been proven, and mostly dealing with levels that are five times what's planned for drinking water. The report expressly ignored the benefits of fluoridation. It's important to balance out potential concerns over rare, severe complications related to fluoride with the certainty that rare, severe complications can result from cavities.

The bottom line as a policy maker in my little arena is that I shouldn't try and figure out the science myself, but I should try to figure out what the scientific consensus is, figure out where the consensus doesn't yet exist, and then plug that information into everything else we have to balance.

The science seems to favor fluoridation, but it's not a slam dunk. And we still have potential policy barriers, and the overall cost issues. Figuring this all out will be interesting.

Tidal wetland sediment accretion might keep up with sea level rise in one location. Maybe.

I attended our annual Santa Clara County Creeks Conference last Saturday, with an even better than usual program that included a panel on tidal wetlands restoration in South San Francisco Bay, where we're bringing back 16,000 acres of tidal wetlands from former saltponds (will post a video link when it's online).

The restoration has barely begun, but the land that sank after being separated from tidal flows has gained sediment rapidly, something that's necessary to create a complex environment of open water, partially submerged, and emergent tidal environments. While it's slowed more after the first few years that individual ponds have been opened to the the tides, they're still adding sediment, two inches annually, far more than the worst projections for sea level rise.

So, good for us. Except that California is a geologically young area with lots of gradients, erosion, and sediment flow. Our particular part of San Francisco Bay might also disproportionately benefit from the "backwash" of sediment from the rest of the Bay.

Our tidal wetlands can keep up where they are, for now, but whether that will work in other places is less clear.  Still, it's one small piece of good news that demonstrates the value of restoring tidal wetlands, which have been lost to a far greater extent in the US than even freshwater wetlands have.

The tipping point range in land use planning is between 1 house per 10 acres and 10 houses per acre

Matt Yglesias has been on a tear for the last year or two on 1. how land use restrictions are NIMBY power grabs that are actually bad for the environment, and 2. conservative libertarians screw up the issue by focusing on land use restrictions in rural areas but not in more developed places.

I think he's got something of a point, but has to be careful not to overplay it. In several places, including my actual work blog, I've written how there are tipping points in the density of development for each environmental value where marginal increases become generally beneficial, and below that point are generally detrimental. See the link for more details, but because the tipping point is a gradual transition in each case, and occurs at a different level of density for each particular environmental value (walkability tipping point is at higher density, farming and open space at lower levels), I think it's better to talk about a tipping point range.

At a residential density of 1 house per 10 acres, I can think of no environmental reason to support a marginal increase in that density. That would reduce the natural habitat value, make farming more difficult, and put more SUVs on the roads that have to drive long distances to get anywhere useful, all for a tiny increase in housing stock. This is where land use restrictions make enormous sense from an environmental viewpoint (and where conservatives put all their efforts to eliminate restrictions). At a density of 10 houses per acre, the reverse is true - the environmental advantages of low density for farming and open space no longer exist and so can't be harmed further, while walkability and public transit use are feasible, and increases in density mean large increases in housing stock.

So I agree with Matt on the high density end but not at the low end, leaving the small matter of the two orders of magnitude in the middle unresolved. I think for most environmental values, though, the tipping point range can be narrowed to fall between 2 residences per acre and 5 residences per acre. Half acre lots have some, modest, value for open space and wildlife. Just as I can think of no environmental reason to slightly increase densities at very low levels, there are few reasons to do so at the half acre lot size or lower. Conversely, increases from 5 residences per acre to something higher can at least add significant housing amounts and get closer to urban densities that reduce driving.

Of course, the useless zone of 2 to 5 residences per acre is what most of suburban construction has created in the last 60 years.

UPDATE: I should add that the policy relevance is primarily regarding rezoning areas that haven't been fully developed, and redevelopment of urban areas. Incremental changes like whether to permit "granny units" on parcels also apply. And as per the comments, all the above is a generalization subject to exceptions. Clustering development can maximize open space, and dense development can be a stupid idea in the wrong place (like a local proposal to put new development in San Francisco Bay).

How Republicans are encouraging command-and-control environmental regulation

The short answer is that Republicans encourage command-and-control environmental regulation because they're stopping environmental innovation that's often market-based, and old-style regulation is what's left. Proof:

• 1. National level. The big thing is climate change. The Republicans, with the help of some environmentalists on the left, killed cap-and-trade legislation. The carbon tax favored by the left environmentalists never got anywhere at all, and that's it for market approaches. What's left is command-and-control regulation through the Clean Air Act and the EPA. Another example is ocean fisheries, where Republicans have killed environmental attempts to establish "catch shares" that individually reward fishers when fish populations grow. So instead, we go with the old-style telling fishers how much of what to catch, when, and how they can do it.

• 2. State level. Here in California, the geniuses behind Proposition 26 have made it much harder to charge a fee on polluters for the damage they cause to the environment. (Incidentally, I attended a conference last week where a room full of lawyers could not figure out the effect Proposition 26 will have on government regulation, so fun times are ahead.) But all it affects is fees, not direct regulation and prohibitions, so one effect is to push direct control instead of recovery of externalities.

• 3. Local level. We've been trying with some success in the Bay Area to reduce the use of single-use takeout bags. The plastic bag industry, even before Prop 26, fought attempts to put a small fee on takeout plastic bags by litigation that argued this promoted paper bags with mixed environmental consequences. The result has been a semi-complete ban on plastic bags, ban on paper bags with no recycled content, and a fee on allowed paper bags. The industry efforts converted the fee into an outright command to ban plastic bags.

Conservatives often like to cite the law of unintended consequences when discussing environmental regulation. Not only does this overlook the unintended consequences of environmentally harmful actions, it misses the unintended consequences of promoting old-school environmental regulation instead.

Tipping points for local land use policies

(Reposting this from the Green Foothills blog.)

In a housing deficient area like here in the San Francisco Bay region, it's wrong to simply say any new house anywhere is a good thing. This is true economically as well as environmentally - a potential house 10 miles due east of San Jose might sound like a quick jaunt away from Silicon Valley, but that would actually put it in a place with no roads, no services, no groundwater in reach, and no geologically-safe spot to build on. It wouldn't sell economically, as well as being bad environmentally.

Alternatively, a potential high-density housing location near a train station might appeal to environmentalists but seem too risky economically. There are different tipping points for different issues, and there's increased opportunities for cooperation where they overlap.

So here are some ideas:

Transportation: adding housing in an area that has little future prospect to use public transit is unlikely to help the transit situation. Transportation goes through a tipping point at a certain level of density that can use transit effectively. Any increase in that density makes transit even more cost effective. Proximity to good transit also creates a tipping point, where any increase in density is beneficial. Inner suburbs might be the tipping point density level.

Walkability: making a low density residential area slightly less low-density isn't going to make the area more walkable, it just puts more cars on the roads. On the other hand, adding more housing to an area that is already walkable means more people will be using the local stores, making them more financially viable. The tipping point is when an area is already walkable, or likely to become walkable. Urban townhouses and brownstones are the tipping point.

Natural open space: at first glance, there doesn't seem to be a tipping point: any increase in density decreases open space and habitat potential. Even a tiny yard might offer potential habitat that an apartment block wouldn't. However, dense housing removes pressure to construct less dense housing somewhere else. And habitat values for common wildlife decrease rapidly once roads and structures take up more land than natural habitat. Low-density suburbia probably constitutes a tipping point for natural open space.

Farming: farming may be even more sensitive to density than natural open space. Rural residential levels of density, one house per acre or even less, probably constitute a tipping point.

Financial: up to a certain point, more is better. Two homes on 50 acre lots are worth more than one on 100 acres. A tall apartment building might be more risky and appeal to a smaller market segment than a small condo building, however.

So what's the upshot of all this? From the environmental perspective, somewhere around low density suburbs, maybe two houses per acre, is the point where almost all environmental incentives are to avoid increases in density. Somewhere around the level found in inner suburbs, maybe 10 houses per acre, the environmental incentives are to support increases in density.

And from the inner suburbs up to city areas where multi-story apartments are possible, the environmental and financial interests are closely aligned.

This is all a simplification, of course. Dense housing in the wrong place is just a mistake. Natural open space in an urban area near a stream can also be very beneficial given the importance of stream environments. But it does point to areas of overlap.

What I've been up to at the Water District

Thought I'd cross reference some posts I've done for my Water District blog. I'll have to decide whether they're really relevant here or not for future posts. As I've said before, the work is turning out to be more about good government than straight environmentalism, but the two concepts certainly overlap when you're talking about watershed restoration, flood control, and water supply.

New chair and vice chair, and thoughts about the Gold Street project

Second board meeting: environmental review issues, ag water, and water rates

First day on the job, and questions about being the Chair in 2011

And here's a nice editorial from the San Jose Mercury News:

Mercury News editorial: At last, new leadership for Santa Clara Valley Water District

"There was a concern in the past that the (Santa Clara Valley Water District) board was somewhat dysfunctional," observed its new chairman, former county Supervisor Don Gage, as he accepted the gavel Tuesday.

Somewhat? That's putting it mildly.

What a relief to have Gage and Vice Chairwoman Linda LeZotte at the district's helm. Along with Brian Schmidt, they were elected in November as reformers. Having them head the board for the next two years -- the vice chairman generally ascends to chairman -- should reset the district's course.

....

The district for years has been distracted by board and management blunders. Now it can concentrate on the critical work of protecting our water supply, including shoring up dams that are vulnerable to earthquakes.

At the risk of repetition: What a relief.

First day on the job

My first water district board meeting was on Tuesday the 14th, and I've yet to rescue the world from all that's terrible. Actually, we did okay. If you feel like watching nearly six hours of scintillating and occasionally confused dialog, you can see it here.

Not sure if I did anything myself that directly helped the environment. I did speak in support of a project that helps endangered fish by keeping invasive species out of our streams, but it was really a budgetary comment (the program to help endangered species had spent a lot of money to date on planning and design, so I wanted to express my support for seeing some money starting to be spent on actions that help the fish).

I think a lot of our environmental work is going to be like this, where the environmental benefit results from getting good government efforts through first.

And today, I spoke on behalf of the Water District at the ceremonial ground-breaking for a new pedestrian overpass crossing Highway 101 here in Mountain View (it extends a creekside trail, thus the Water District connection and funding). That was fun, definitely environmental, and I got the chance to blather on despite having no personal responsibility for the decisions that all happened long before me. Life of a politician....

Lomborg misunderstands city subsidence and sea level rise

Maybe I should ignore this Bjorn Lomborg Op-Ed like everyone else has, but one part got a rise out of me. He compares subsidence that's happened in certain cities due to groundwater depletion to the long-term, multi-century sea level rise of 15 feet (actually it could be more than that), and says that we've handled "large relative sea-level rises without much difficulty." In other words, adaptation is no big deal.

I don't know the cities he's talking about, but I do know about subsidence in San Jose along San Francisco Bay. Contrary to Lomborg's statement, it's a big deal and a serious problem, especially when combined with other potential flooding problems that usually exist because cities are normally located near rivers.

The other point Lomborg misses is that city subsidence is geographically limited. The only area that needs to be protected from relative sea level rise is a small stretch of shoreline. And cities are the most economically valuable land on the planet, so the cost of protecting them relative to their value constitutes the best possible scenario.

Sea level rise, even minor sea level rise, is a much bigger deal. Here in Santa Clara County, we're going to have to deal with it, and it's already costing taxpayers money. Flood projects for near-sea-level creeks are right now being designed to handle sea level rise, which is the only intelligent way to construct these long-term structures. Adaptation is already here, it's a significant problem, and the question is who should pay for the costs. Seems like greenhouse gas emissions would be a good place to look for a tax to pay for greenhouse gas costs.

What Captain Kirk would do with the Texas oil companies and Proposition 23

Proposition 23 would use its weasel language to kill California's premier law to fight climate change, AB 32 (requiring rosy economic conditions that rarely happen before AB 32 could come into effect). It's a tool of Texas oil companies to delay inevitable action to address climate change.

The oil companies could have vigorously expanded into alternative energy, but they chose this approach instead - trying to slow down their demise by taking California and the rest of the planet with them.

I agree with Captain Kirk:

You can start after minute 1, or at minute 2:30. I need to learn how to edit these things.

Attention literalists: I don't advocate doing this to real humans (or real Klingons), but for the fossil fuel corporations that are trying to take us down with them, I've had enough.

The No on Prop 23 Campaign is here.

Bay Area Local: endorsing Teresa Alvardo in Santa Clara County, April Vargas and Dave Pine in San Mateo County

It's interesting to actually know some of the people running for office pretty well.  I've met Teresa Alvarado a number of times over the years in my day job of protecting open space from sprawl, and she's a committed environmentalist running for county supervisor in the biggest and most conservative supervisor district in Santa Clara County.  If she wins in this very tight race, her influence in representing the areas where developers are often pushing for sprawl could be a tremendous influence in protecting all 700,000 acres of Santa Clara County.    If you know anyone who knows anyone in South San Jose/Evergreen, Morgan Hill, San Martin, or Gilroy, please please please send them to her website at the link.  And they can also listen to a debate between Teresa and her fellow candidates.

I've known April Vargas and Dave Pine, both running for separate county supervisor seats in San Mateo County, for years as past and present members of my organization's board of directors.  You won't find a harder worker than April, in many ways the anti-politician due to her lack of egotism.  Dave is also smart and committed, and I think he's running without real opposition.

I'll use this opportunity to get back on my hobbyhorse against candidates loaning money to their campaigns.  I don't object to candidates donating to their campaigns, but loaning money creates a situation where a winning candidate receives a direct financial benefit from contributors whose donations to the campaign then gets paid to the candidate to retire the loans.  Candidates and contributors might not think of it in those terms (although I'm sure some do), but it's a messed up system that should be changed.  A legal prohibition might run into problems from the current Supreme Court that thinks unlimited money is fair because everyone is free to loan millions to their campaigns, but it's worth a shot.  Teresa and April haven't loaned money to their campaigns, but each have opponents who have.

Finally, I might as well disclose that I'm personally thinking about running for local office - haven't made any final decisions yet.  Could be interesting....

More snows of San Francisco Bay

We're going on five days now of snow in the high-elevation hills above San Francisco Bay. We've got the possibility of more snow on the way, so some of this snow could last for two weeks.

Thought I'd take advantage of this to recycle two posts: first, on how the Bay Area and anywhere else with intermittent snowfall will see some significant effects of climate change as we go from a few snowfalls per year to a few snowfalls per decade. In addition to what I wrote before, I'll just add the aesthetic impact: hills turn into mountains when their top halves are snow-covered. It'll be sad to have that happen less often.

And second, a post on how we'll see increased flooding because winter storms that would've stored some of their precipitation as snowfall at higher elevations will be more likely to drop it all as rain, all at the same time. I think it should be possible to model this effect quantitatively.

UPDATE: bonus blogging - GingkoGate is now breaking in the comments at Jules' and James' blog. They won't get away with it.

7-11 equals "small business"?

At my day job we played a role in San Jose passing the best takeout bag ban in the country for a major city - banning plastic and requiring highest recycled content that's currently feasible for paper bags.

I went to a number of meetings before yesterday's City Council showdown. The 7-11 retail chain mobilized against us, getting their franchisees to come to meetings and forecast economic ruin (also, claiming bans would make it easier for people to bring guns into the stores). At the Council meeting though, these people never identified themselves as part of 7-11, only "small business" managers and owners. Unfortunately I had already spoken so I couldn't call them on their little astroturf trick, but it didn't matter. They weren't convincing.

Bay Area local: get thee to the Computer History Museum before 2010

John Mashey was nice enough to show Inel and me around the Computer History Museum where John is a trustee and docent. Main highlight was one of two working Babbage engines in the world, and this one is only there on loan until the end of the year, so you might want to visit while it's there and they're giving demonstrations.

I also thought the Hollerith 1890 census tabulating machine was pretty amazing, which counted tabulation results by creating electrical connections through liquid mercury. And seeing John's work there was cool too.

Glad I finally got to go, and I'll have to come back and linger some time.

Climate change and the snows of San Francisco Bay

I went on a run yesterday up at Castle Rock State Park, passing by my favorite waterfall/rock climbing spot. The creek surprised me by only trickling over the cliff at the same rate we'd see in late summer, despite all the stormy weather in the last week.

The potential explanation for the low flow was in patches on the forest floor around me - a lot of that precipitation came down as snow, some of it hadn't melted, and what had melted had slowly seeped into the ground instead of flashing into the streams.

A lot of non-locals don't realize the Bay Area gets snow every year (and even some local economics professors should know better). There are hundreds of thousands of acres in the Bay Area that lie above 2,000 feet in elevation, are virtually uninhabited, and get ephemeral snow for a few hours at a time each year. Tens of thousands of acres are above 3,000 feet, and snow can last for a few days at a time each winter, in addition to the ephemeral snow.

I've not seen anywhere how places like San Francisco Bay will be affected by the climate change switch from occasional snow to rare snow. I'd guess it will be a less-severe version of what will happen in the Sierras - higher winter stream flows, lower groundwater tables and lower summer flows. And while there'll be fewer hard frosts, there will also be fewer occasions where snow will protect plants from hard frosts.

And finally, fewer chances to bring some snow down to throw at your loved ones, like I did.