Narrating the Anthropocene: a panel - 19 Nov 2017 - Howard Zinn Book Fair

The fourth annual Howard Zinn Book Fair (HZBF) will converge around this year's theme -- The World We Want -- at City College of San Francisco's Mission Campus the Sunday before Thanksgiving, on 19 November 2017.

I've organized one of the book fair panels, titled "Narrating the Anthropocene" and I hope you can make it! We're on from 1:30 - 2:30 pm.

What's "the Anthropocene," you ask? It's a name proposed for the current geological epoch, signifying an era of Earth's evolution that is characterized by human impacts on the planet, including impacts driving climate change and the Sixth Extinction, changes in biogeography, accretion of the nuclear fallout and radionuclides produced by thermonuclear weapons tests, etc. The "Anthropocene" designation has been formally recommended to the International Geological Congress, but is already in widespread preliminary or informal use among scientists and environmentalists.

When the call went out from HZBF organizers for panel topics I began thinking about commonalities among the most powerful and gripping accounts of threats we and the co-inhabitants of our biosphere are facing in this third century since the Industrial Revolution began. Whether the accounts are fiction or nonfiction, books or articles, text-centric or illustrated (as in comic books and graphic novels), I would say the most moving and influential go well beyond aggregation of facts, figures, and statistical trends: they're centered and grounded in story.

Hence, "Narrating the Anthropocene."

Here's a description of the panel:

In reaching for the heart and the human in books that grapple with dire threats to our only biosphere, narrative -- the art of storytelling -- is a crucial tool for writers working in all genres. As our world spins further out of equilibrium than ever before in recorded history, writers of fact and fiction are calling all hands to overcome denial and paralysis, and to prepare humankind to survive the catastrophes we fail to avert. Join a panel of authors who are narrating the Anthropocene as journalists, novelists, comic book authors, and scientists as they explore the role storytelling plays in rousing humanity to engage with the crises of our current century.

"Narrating the Anthropocene" will include authors with backgrounds as journalists, scientists, and activists, whose work spans fiction, nonfiction, and comic book forms. Here's the lineup:

Liz Carlisle, geographer and lecturer in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences; and author of Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America, a work of narrative nonfiction that straddles the border between a case study in building sustainable food systems, and a heroic account of prairieland farmer Dave Oien struggling to sustainably farm his acreage in north-central Montana. 

Michael J. Fitzgerald, journalist and novelist, author of The Fracking War and Fracking Justice, in which a small town newspaper takes on a fossil fuel behemoth to protect land and communities in upstate New York. 

Steve Masover, novelist, activist, and author of Consequence, in which a San Francisco activist loses faith in the impact of non-violent protest and becomes entangled in an eco-saboteur’s desperate conspiracy. 

Jean Tepperman, Bay Area journalist, activist, and author of the comic Warning from my Future Self about building urban community to collectively cope with the effects of climate change.

It's been a delicious pleasure getting to know these authors and read their work as we prepare for next month's panel. I hope you'll have a chance to join us; to check out some of the other panels and panelists at this year's Howard Zinn Book Fair; and wander among the exhibitor tables where you'll find terrific books and opportunities to engage with the authors and publishers who brought them into being.

Again, "Narrating the Anthropocene" starts at 1:30 pm on 19 November, at the Mission Campus of City College of San Francisco (1125 Valencia St, between 22nd and 23rd, a few blocks from 24th Street BART - map). You can RSVP on Facebook if you like ... I hope to see you there in any case!

Related posts on One Finger Typing:
Pre-apocalyptic fiction: staving off catastrophe
Activist fiction: it's about engagement, not about The Issue
Howard Zinn Book Fair returns to San Francisco on Sunday Nov 15th
Radical Storytelling: Howard Zinn Book Fair photos and video

Without Consent: Tar Sands "Valve Turners" visit UC Berkeley

I spent Friday evening on the UC Berkeley campus, in a lecture hall full of activists and community members gathered for dialog with the Tar Sands Pipeline Valve Turners: five brave activists who could have stepped out of Edward Abbey's fiction, or Sunil Yapa's, or Michael Ondaatje's, or my own novel, Consequence. But in real life, these monkey wrenchers collectively stopped the U.S.-bound flow of tar sands crude oil from the so-called "sacrifice zone" in Alberta, Canada (images), where it is extracted in a mode that decimates forests, wildlife, and human communities. They did so by turning off emergency shutoff valves along the pipeline route, in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Washington.

The Valve Turners shut down the flow of tar sands crude on 11 October 2016, in solidarity with a call by indigenous Water Protectors at Standing Rock for International Days of Prayer and Action from 8-11 October. Their action was not announced in advance, but it was performed publicly. In fact the Valve Turners arranged for videographers to record exactly what they did ... and livestreamed the shutdowns in the North Dakota and Montana. Then they waited for sheriffs to show up and arrest them.

All five Valve Turners -- Michael Foster, Leonard Higgens, Emily Johnston, Annette Klapstein, and Ken Ward -- are facing felony charges. Filmmakers who recorded and livestreamed their action were also arrested and charged; some of those charges have since been dropped. Ken Ward's trial ended in a hung jury the week before last. Ward was not permitted by the trial judge to mount a "necessity defense" but some jurors figured out what had really happened based on the little context Ward was able to provide in his own testimony; and decided that reasoning, motive, and intention excused his burglary and sabotage charges. He will be retried.

Annette Klapstein, a Valve Turner who is also a member of Seattle's chapter of Raging Grannies, explained that it's not hard to shut down an oil pipeline. One can -- as she and her comrades did -- learn all about shutting down oil pipelines on YouTube. It took the group about five months and twelve or fourteen thousand dollars to prepare for and execute their action.

Why this action and not something else? Ken Ward told the crowd in 145 Dwinelle Hall that he was "searching for ways to be effective." That doesn't mean that any of the Valve Turners or their supporters believe that shutting down pipelines carrying the nastiest crude for a few hours or a day is the goal. In fact, as their decision to shut the pipelines down publicly and face legal consequences demonstrates, the opportunity to broadcast their message was the strategic goal of the Valve Turners' shutdown all along. And the core of that message isn't the looming threat of climate change: that information is out there, and anyone listening is aware of it. No, the core of the Valve Turners message is this, articulated in a crisp sound-byte by Emily Johnston:

"These companies cannot operate without consent."

Erica Chenoweth, University of Denver professor and co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict described what she calls the "3.5% Rule" at TEDxBoulder in 2013. Consider this excerpt:

Researchers used to say that no government could survive if five percent of its population mobilized against it. But our data reveal that the threshold is probably lower. In fact, no campaigns failed once they’d achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5% of the population—and lots of them succeeded with far less than that [...] 

The data are clear: When people rely on civil resistance, their size grows. And when large numbers of people withdraw their cooperation from an oppressive system, the odds are ever in their favor.

The secret sauce? Annette Klapstein gave it away on Friday evening:

"You just have to be absolutely relentless, that's how you get it done."

There's a lot to get done in the current era, in which authoritarian, oligarchic government is spreading like highly infectious disease. It can't be scoured away unless and until enough people resist, as the Valve Turners have shown is well within the realm of what's possible.

But you don't have to face felony charges to participate!

For example, have a look at Friday's Washington Post article, Swarming crowds and hostile questions are the new normal at GOP town halls -- particularly if  you live in or near a red state or congressional district. Yup. That could be you...

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow, and you can show the love you feel for fearless work that each of the Valve Turners has done on behalf of our common and humane future by helping to support their legal defense at www.shutitdown.today.

Whether or not you click the Donate link, consider inviting a few friends and neighbors over to work out how you will become a part of the 3.5%.



Thanks to TastyCakes and Jamitzky via Wikipedia Commons for the public domain image of Syncrude's base mine 25 miles north of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada.



Related posts on One Finger Typing:
A half-dozen things to consider three weeks after electocalypse
Oakland coal ban: real politics amid the Drumpfoolery
Sticking your neck out
Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes

What I learned at the 2016 Bioneers Convention

I went to my first Bioneers conference after watching from afar and reading about the organization's work for quite a few years. This past weekend marked the Bioneers' 27th annual event, organized by founders Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simon. I attended on Saturday, the second of the three-day conference.

So ... what are "bioneers"? From the organization's website:

Bioneers are social and scientific innovators from all walks of life and disciplines who have peered deep into the heart of living systems to understand how nature operates, and to mimic "nature's operating instructions" to serve human ends without harming the web of life. Nature's principles—kinship, cooperation, diversity, symbiosis and cycles of continuous creation absent of waste—can also serve as metaphoric guideposts for organizing an equitable, compassionate and democratic society. 

Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (1997) and co-founder of the Biomimicry Institute, was the speaker I most looked forward to seeing in-person as the convention approached (I read her book earlier this year, better late than never). Crystalizing the ethos and tone of the event on Saturday morning, she pumped up the audience in San Rafael's Veterans' Memorial Auditorium by urging:

Don't ever ask small questions. It's not time -- yet -- to adapt to climate change.

Then, after pointing out that 33% of the world's population are "smallholder" farming families, and that 70% of all food eaten is produced by smallholders on farms of five or fewer acres, Benyus posited a key observation made by Bioneers who are looking to examples embodied in evolved systems for practical, achievable solutions to seemingly-intractable problems:

There's too much carbon in the air, but not enough in the soil.

This is not a newsflash. But it points in some important directions. How so?

Well, later in the day, Rebecca Burgess of Fibershed spoke, at a panel called Carbon, Climate, Food and Fiber, about five pools of carbon on our planet, through which the element can and does transition through its many mutable forms: atmosphere, biosphere, fossil, ocean, and soil. Burgess told panel attendees that a net 136 gigatons of carbon has been lost from soils since the Rotherham plow was invented in 1750 (tillage of soil contributes significantly to the one-third of human greenhouse gas emissions produced by agriculture); but at the same time pointed out that rates of carbon drawdown from the atmosphere that is possible on grassland and farmland "already under human management" could ameliorate the climate-changing levels of carbon that human activity has shifted into the atmospheric pool within five years.

Achieving that drawdown would require that all grassland and farmland "under human management" be transitioned to permaculture practices, which is hard for this very junior bioneer to imagine ... but doing the arithmetic to describe the possibility as one that we as a species could choose to realize pivots attention away from paralyzed, doom-and-gloom visions of Earth's future -- and shines a bright light on our responsibility as a species to choose well and consequentially at a crucial moment in our biosphere's history.

Bren Smith, the founder of GreenWave spoke during the morning plenary session on Saturday, as well as on a panel that afternoon titled Reshaping Our Relationship to the Ocean. Smith speaks in a genially-calculated voice that puts his working class, Newfoundland fisherman origins front and center: "I'm not an environmentalist," he said to an auditorium full of environmentalists. "Give me a gun and I'll shoot moose from my kitchen ... I grew up on seal hunts." But the fact that he's doing heroic environmentalist work became clear when he described his "vertical farms," suspended from buoys off the Atlantic coast of North America. GreenWave's farms produce kelp and other seaweeds ("It's embarrassing to grow vegetables...," Smith moaned with a wink) as well as bivalves including mussels, clams, and oysters with no inputs (fresh water, fertilizer, etc.).

GreenWave summarizes its accomplishments and mission on the organization's website:

After 15 years of experimentation, we have developed a new method of ocean farming designed to restore ocean ecosystems, mitigate climate change, and create blue-green jobs for fishermen — while providing healthy, local food for communities.

Describing kelp as "the soy of the sea, except it's not evil," Smith spoke of shifting a major fraction of food production from soil-depleting land-farming to sustainable, job-producing ocean-farming that would put bivalves and sea-vegetables "at the center of the plate" and push wild fish to the edge. Would that be a problem for a world population increasingly ravenous for sushi and grilled salmon? "Wild harvesting is not a strategy for the future," Smith asserted during the afternoon Reshaping... panel. To the point of dietary trends, Smith put his challenge simply:

If chefs can't make what we grow delicious, they should quit their jobs ... it's what they're here on earth to do.

As a former professional cook myself, I can get behind that sentiment.

Bill McKibben -- acknowledging himself to be exhausted and depleted by weeks on the road battling to defeat the narcissistic bully and all-around horrorshow currently running as G.O.P. candidate for the presidency -- rallied the conference's attendees by recalling our attention to the successful battle to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline:

"when we started, nobody really thought we would win ... victory is that now everything gets fought ... fossil fuel resistance is everywhere."

Not least, of course, in North Dakota at the Standing Rock protests against construction of the "Dakota Access Pipeline" (DAPL) ongoing today, which weighed heavily on this weekend's conference crowd. Once again, the Bioneers' signature insistence: that we can win this.

I was encouraged in that vein to find (in the conference's Exhibit Hall ) a display put together by fifth graders from the Helios School in Sunnyvale that collected artifacts of environmental campaigns that the students studied in the course of considering work they would need to do as they grow into adult responsibility (that is, responsibility for the screw-ups we adults are bequeathing them). Raphael, one of the fifth graders, was happy to learn that I had participated in the No Coal in Oakland campaign, which was one of the subjects of his class's research. He knew about Mayor Libby Schaaf's role in opposing transport of coal through Oakland, and in the course of our conversation we realized that both of us participated in the rally earlier this year that preceded the Oakland City Council's vote to ban coal transport through the city and port. What the world needs now is more ten year old environmentalists like Raphael and his classmates!

My nomination for Saturday's best soundbyte came from Ariel Greenwood, a self-described "feral agrarian," who participated with Rebecca Burgess and two others on the Carbon, Climate, Food and Fiber panel:

We're all active agents in our environment.

That's the core of what Bioneers are about. Active agency, the heart of what it's going to take for humanity to dig its way out of the mess we've made of our biosphere.


Images (from the top of this post) include: Janine Benyus speaking at the Saturday morning plenary session of the Bioneers 2016 conference; Rebecca Burgess and Ariel Greenwood, with John Roulac and Guido Frosini, on the Carbon, Climate, Food and Fiber panel on Saturday afternoon; and a portion of the Helios School exhibit of artifacts from recent environmental movements and campaigns. This blog was originally posted on Medium.


Related posts on One Finger Typing:
Should we care how crops are grown *before* food insecurity spreads?
Oakland coal ban: real politics amid the Drumpfoolery
Monoculture v complexity; agribusiness and deceit
Paying what things cost
Bioneers and Occupy Wall Street

Oakland coal ban: real politics amid the Drumpfoolery

Last night the Oakland City Council held its scheduled second reading of a ban on coal handling and storage that was originally approved in late June. It's worth a mention that on the same night, Alameda County's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban fracking: the fifth county in California to to so. Oh, and more ridiculous sh*t went down in Cleveland.

The two Oakland measures banning coal were placed on the council’s consent calendar: an ordinance to prohibit storage and handling of coal and coke throughout the city, and a regulation that applies the ordinance specifically to the proposed Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal, from which developers were planning to ship coal from Utah and other western states to Asia. The council's single vote on the consent calendar multiple measures was unanimous: 8 ayes, with all council members present. Following more than an hour of citizen and community testimony on a range of issues, the consent calendar was passed in a single vote, no roll call, so quickly that the couple dozen coal activists in the council chambers missed our chance to cheer.

Unsurprisingly, Oaklanders filling the chambers, overflow rooms, and hallways didn't seem to regret missing the chance to monitor the Republican Party convention's second evening of crashing and burning, live and simultaneously, in Cleveland. There was plenty of actual governance beyond the coal ban on the agenda: the council was taking testimony on a ballot measure to fundamentally strengthen citizen oversight of it's much-worse-than-problematic police department (the council will vote on 26 July whether to put the measure on the ballot); and two proposals to "sharply limit property owners' ability to raise rents" as protection against displacement driven by the the current tech-bubble economy were passed later that night. The meeting ended around 1:20 a.m.

The scene at City Hall, my own participation in the No Coal in Oakland work (a campaign more sharply focused on nuts-and-bolts local politics than most of the many forays I've made into other issues and movements over the decades), and a nagging awareness of the ongoing celebration of cesspool-politics in Cleveland, recalled to mind a piece Adam Gopnik penned about the Obama presidency in The New Yorker about two months ago. From Liberal-In-Chief, 23 May 2016:

His words have been varied, but his purpose has been consistent and his point simple: liberalism isn’t centrism. It isn’t a way of splitting the differences between two sides, and finding an acceptable soft middle. Liberalism of the kind he practices, the President has been saying, is the most truly radical of ideologies, inasmuch as it proposes a change, makes it happen, and then makes it last. Someone proposes a more equitable world—the enfranchisement of working people, or of African-Americans, or of women, or marital rights for homosexuals—and then makes it endure by assuring those who oppose it that, while they may have lost the fight, they haven’t lost their dignity, their autonomy, or their chance to adapt to the change without fearing the loss of all their agency. “The civil-rights movement happened because there was civil disobedience, because people were willing to go to jail, because there were events like Bloody Sunday,” Obama told Stephanopoulos. “But it was also because the leadership of the movement consistently stayed open to the possibility of reconciliation, and sought to understand the views—even views that were appalling to them—of the other side.” Liberalism is a belief in radical change made through practical measures.

How does that happen at a local level, in ways that engage hundreds and thousands of unelected citizens in determining the future of their own communities -- in ways that stand a chance of realizing progressive twenty-first century goals, many of which were lent fire and urgency by Bernie Sanders' recent successful run at the presidency (and I mean successful -- by any measure other than winning the Democratic Party nomination)?

Following last night's City Hall victory, Margaret Rossoff, one of No Coal in Oakland's principal organizers, circulated to NCIO campaign activists a report summarizing how the group won a citywide ban on coal (I am excerpting rather than linking to the whole report, as it has not been made public at this time). She noted:

NCIO attracted people with long histories of political organizing in a wide variety of contexts, who between them had deep and broad knowledge of Oakland politics, successful campaign strategies, environmental justice struggles, legal analysis, environmental science, and more. The group included members who were vehemently anti-establishment and cynical about the possibility of success with the elected council, along with a couple of people who had served as elected city officials. We included at least one Republican and quite a few socialists working together, deeply religious people alongside atheists, and a few folks with histories of past conflict who focused on our shared goal. Our passionate commitment generated mutual respect within the campaign and widespread appreciation for the campaign.

The rails were no-doubt greased for this kind of broad-based coalition building by the Bay Area's general environmentalist tendencies, and the blinding obviousness of damage done to planet and people by digging, transporting, and burning coal. As Rossoff put it:

Coal already had a terrible reputation.  A widely recognized imperative to close existing coal-fired plants, including a national campaign by the Sierra Club, provided context for our local struggle.  The local dangers of coal dust escaping from railroad cars and the exacerbating effects of burning coal on climate disruption were intuitively obvious to people we spoke with.  Of course, we needed to amass scientific data to justify the ordinance banning coal, but in our community work we were building on a pre-existing narrative.

But ... go back and follow that link to Robert Reich's post on Bernie's 7 Legacies that I snuck in a couple paragraphs up.

I fully acknowledge the urgency of defeating, on November 8th, the jackbooted buffoon who has now hijacked the Republican Party. But "urgent" doesn't mean "only." There's plenty to be done locally (including but not limited to campaigning for progressive candidates in down-ballot races across the U.S.) as The Donald goes down to his rightful place as World's Loudest Loser. And we can succeed locally -- and, eventually, more broadly -- if we attend steadily to the work at hand, without getting derailed by national media spectacle and the likes of Pokémon Go.

I'd say that sealing last night's legislative victory keeping coal out of Oakland gave hope to the prospect that we might yet win still bigger contests than a presidential election, so long as we keep our eyes on the prize.


Related posts on One Finger Typing:
Coal hazard "protection" fallacies exposed by Oakland public health experts
Oakland doesn't need an oil train disaster, thanks but no thanks
Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes
Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place

Coal hazard "protection" fallacies exposed by Oakland public health experts

The City of Oakland will rally on the afternoon of Saturday 25 June outside City Hall, in opposition to the prospect of coal storage and handling in the city. Coal transport proposed by developer Phil Tagami would funnel up to nine million metric tons of coal through the city's proposed Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal (OBOT) each year, sending mile-long trains of Utah coal through West Oakland every day for the duration of Tagami's 66-year lease of the OBOT site.

Immediately upon learning of this threat to the community's health and waterfront, city residents have organized to push elected leaders to take a stand against this misuse of publicly owned space. The City Council will vote on a proposal to ban coal storage and handling at the Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal (OBOT) at a special meeting on Monday, June 27 at 5 pm (rally at 4).

As debate over the terminal unfolded over this past year, coal proponents have advertised they will use new technology to shield port workers and their West Oakland neighbors from the toxic, corrosive, and explosive dangers of transporting coal through the former Oakland Army Base. But fantasies can't protect Oakland's workers and families from coal's frighteningly real threats.

A Public Health Advisory Panel on Coal in Oakland figures in their report, An Assessment of the Health and Safety Implications of Coal Transport through Oakland , that up to 620 tons of dirty coal dust could be blown into West Oakland every year if the coal terminal proceeds [p. 17].

And that's just for starters.

As the Health and Safety report explains, coal isn't easy to transport or to handle [p. 43]:

• It can spontaneously burst into flame in its solid form (in fact, combustibility is why coal is dug out of the ground in the first place).
• It's highly explosive when suspended as dust particles in confined spaces, such as covered railroad cars and enclosed coal terminals.
• Coal is toxic to humans, especially when inhaled as dust.
• Coal dust is filthy: if coal is shipped through Oakland, 90-620 tons of black, sticky particles will get into and onto everything in its path -- from homes to cars to clothing to playgrounds -- each and every one of the 66 years the Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal (OBOT) is leased to coal profiteers.

Can these hazards be mitigated by technology? Here's what Oakland is up against:

Export of coal through Oakland requires that coal be transferred from the mine site to rail cars, transported by rail over many hundreds of miles to the port facility, transferred from rail cars into the port facility, transferred into storage heaps pending shipment, transferred out of the storage heaps to the wharves, loaded into ships, and then shipped out to the destination. Each step creates opportunities for release of dust and for hazards to adjacent workers, residents, businesses, and communities. [p. 43]

Coal proponents claim that technology can protect against potential harms. But the proposed technology is unproven, and in some cases has never been tested in real-world conditions (i.e., has not been field-tested).

• Claims that the coal terminal would be wholly enclosed is not how existing coal terminals are designed or implemented, and these claims run contrary to design documents submitted by coal project advocates. For example, by the developers own admission (in its “Basis of Design” document), the stockpiles of coal will be moved from the domed terminal to be stored outdoors for unspecified lengths of time before being loaded onto ships. [p. 47] In the description of its enclosed conveyor system, the Basis of Design document reveals that different types of conveyors will be used, depending on the phase of coal transfer, and not all of them will be covered. All indicators point to the likelihood that a “wholly enclosed” terminal is at best an untested fantasy, and at worst a bait-and-switch lie.
• If coal dust is contained in an enclosed terminal, it will present “potential for suspension of coal dust in the air, which can be explosive and ignited by spark, static electricity, or heat.” [p. 47]
• Filtering technology creates potential for fires like one reported earlier this month in a dust collection system at the John Twitty Energy Center in Springfield, Missouri. Though filtering and wetting strategies may be used if coal ships through Oakland, “no safety analysis has been conducted for the potential transfer of bulk coal through OBOT” [p. 47-48].
• Coal advocates have asserted that no review is necessary for environmental impacts such as air pollution, water pollution, production of solid wastes, noise levels, or safety & traffic hazards, but their claims regarding regulatory compliance appear to be shaky at best. For example, wastewater disposal plans are not specified in OBOT plans, raising concern about the potential for coal processing to significantly poison the San Francisco Bay ecosystem. [p. 48-51]
• “The project area has seismic vulnerabilities that could create hazards in the likely event of an earthquake, as the soils are in highest category for liquefaction.” Replacement of soils near the OBOT wharf has been proposed, but this remedy may be insufficient and requires additional review. [p. 51]

The Public Health Advisory Panel on Coal in Oakland report offers 145 well-researched and footnoted pages of reasons to distrust assurances that grievous hazards can be magically neutralized by technology that is unproven, uneconomic, or 'optional' at the discretion of profit-motivated coal proponents.

There is only one way to protect our workers and communities from coal hazards: banning its transport through Oakland and its OBOT.



A version of this post was originally published on the No Coal in Oakland web site. Numbers in square brackets refer to page numbers in the report An Assessment of the Health and Safety Implications of Coal Transport through Oakland. Thanks to Toni Morozumi for the image of Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre marquee advocating "No Coal in Oakland."



Related posts on One Finger Typing:
Oakland doesn't need an oil train disaster, thanks but no thanks
Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes
Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place

Oakland doesn't need an oil train disaster, thanks but no thanks

Come 27 June 2016, Oakland, California's city council will vote on an ordinance to ban shipment of coal through the city's port.

The text of the ordinance is not yet drafted, and may not ban coal at all: it may instead require mitigations that are unlikely to be achievable, enforceable, and/or effective in protecting the health of people who live near the proposed bulk terminal that developers hope to use to ship coal mined in Utah and slated for dirty combustion in Asia. The ordinance may or may not also address a ban on or mitigations for shipping crude oil, fuel oil, and gasoline.

To call the city's mayor, Libby Schaaf, and the councilmembers' attention to just how crazy-dangerous it would be to permit oil transport through a port surrounded by communities they were elected to protect and serve, No Coal in Oakland activist Michael Kaufman sent to Oakland's elected officials yesterday afternoon a partial list of tanker car spills and pipeline explosions that have occurred over the past three years.

Here's what Michael Kaufman wrote to Oakland's Mayor Schaaf, nine councilmembers, and city staffer Heather Klein:

Dear Ms Klein, Mayor and Council Members

Please consider [this] list of tanker car spills of fossil fuels and other hazardous commodities that have been endangering our citizens in the last three years.

These spills, explosions and pollution of neighborhoods and water ways will continue without end, until our elected leaders ban fossil fuels from being loaded or off loaded in our communities.Below is a very incomplete list of just some of the spills and explosions that have occurred in North America during the last three years. Oil pipeline capacity is maxed out in North American. Consequently oil rail car use has expanded forty fold from 2008.

The prior NTSB chair said that the overwhelming majority of oil train cars are not built to carry the toxic oil now being massively produced.  The rules to control this form of oil transportation must be updated quickly; more quickly than is happening on the federal level.

The current rail cars for fossil fuel, DOT 111 type rail cars, are not crash resistant.  This type of car is being banned and replaced in Canada but not in U.S.  However some of the crashes and spills are also coming from newly designed, CPC-1232 type cars, which are supposed to be more crash resistant.

Normal fire departments don't have the capacity to deal with oil rail car spill, explosions and fires.

[...]

1. 03/27/13 Parkers Prairie, MN; 30,000 gallons of oil spilled
2. 03/29/13 Arkansas Exxon Pegasus Pipeline burst, 5,000-7,000 barrels of crude spilled
3. 05/21/13 Jansen Saskatchewan; 24,000 gallons of oil spilled
4. 06/27/13 Calgary, Alberta; oil train derailed on a bridge over Bow River, emergency crew prevented a spill
5. 07/06/13 Lac Magantic, Quebec; Explosions from derailed oil cars killed 47 people and destroyed 30 buildings in town center
6. 10/19/13 Gainford Alberta; 4 derailed oil tankers. evacuations were required due to explosions and fire
7. 11/08/13 Aliceville, Pickens County, Alabama; 90-car derailment, 749,000 gallons spilled. Fire burned for 2 days.
8. 12/30/13 Casselton, ND; 400,000 gallons of crude spilled, explosion caused evacuations of 2,000 people
9. 01/07/14 Plaster Rock, New Brunswick; explosion and fire caused 150-person evacuation for 3 nights
10. 01/20/14 Philadelphia PA; 6 train cars carrying Bakken crude derailed over Schuylkill River near university of PA and major hospitals, no spill
11. 02/13/14 Vandergrift PA; 4 tankers spill nearly 3,000 gallons of oil
12. 04/30/14 Lynchburg, VA; 17-car derailment, +29,000 gallons of oil spilled into the James River, threatening the Richmond, VA water supply
13. 1/13/15 In Mississippi pipeline burst and put out smoke seen by satellites
14. 1/17/15 Yellowstone River, Glendive, Montana Oil Spill, 40,000 gallons of oil
15. 1/26/15 North Dakota Williston 3 million gallons of brine leaking since 1/6/15.  Leak has reached the Missouri River
16. 1/27/15 Natural Gas Pipeline explosion in Brooke County, West Virginia from Pennsylvania Fracked Gas moving to Texas
17. 2/14/15 Timmons, Ontario 100-car Canadian National train carrying crude oil derailed.  30 cars caught fire.  The tankers were the newer, CPC-1232, "safer" kind.  The fires burned for days blocking a main rail line for three days.
18. 2/16/15 Mt Carbon, West Virginia Bakken Crude 109 car train, 27 tanker cars, the newer CPC 1232 cars, derailed and spilled crude into the Kanawha River.  Vapor pressure in tank cars was 13.9, higher than allowed by N Dakota. laws.   Tanker  cars exploded catching house on fire. 1.5 mile circle of evacuation.  Fire crews let fires burn for days.
19. 3/4/15 North Dakota Tioga spill 19,000 gallons of brine saltwater chemical petroleum mix
20. 3/5/15 Galena Illinois near Dubuque Iowa a unit oil train, 103 tanker cars derailed and exploded along the Galena River.  1 mile evacuation
21. 3/7/15 Gogama, Ontario 94 car oil train had 35 CPC-1232 oil tanker cars derail, with 5 falling into the Makami River, explosion and fire.
22. 5/6/15 Heimdal, ND another train blew up with 6 tankers carrying 180,000 gallons of Bakken Crude exploding.  Heimdal was evacuated.  Four separate fire department were dispatched and two Hazmat teams.  The EPA is monitoring air quality.  It is the fifth explosion in 2015 to date.  This one was using the updated tanker cars, CPC-1232.
23. 7/1/16 Maryville Tennessee just south of Knoxville, one CSX car derailed, broke an axle and punctured the tanker and sparked a huge fire, which burned for over a day.  The car was carrying Acrylonitrile, used in making plastics.
24. When it burns it releases cyanide gas, which can be fatal.  Evacuated a 2 mile radius, and 5,000 people.  Ten cops were hospitalized due to exposure.  55 were hospitalized with 25 admitted to the hospital.
25. 11/7/15 Alma Wisconsin 25 cars derailed and fell into the river with 20,000 gallons of ethanol spilled into the Mississippi River, highways closed, residents evacuated
26. 11/8/15 Watertown Wisconsin, near Milwaukee, 110 car oil train, 13 cars derailed, 100s of gallons of crude oil spilled, Homes Evacuated

[I've added links to news sources for the first ten. You get the idea, and readers can search the intertubes no less effectively than I can.]

No Coal in Oakland -- whose state senator, Loni Hancock, found that 92% of her district's constituents oppose the proposed Oakland coal-export terminal -- is asking city residents to stand up and be counted at the 27 June council vote ... and to turn out for the first half-hour of tonight's City Council meeting to speak to the folly of shipping fossil fuels through the city's port.



Related posts on One Finger Typing:
Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes
Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place
Northern California mobilizes for climate action as Paris talks near



Thanks to Sûreté du Québec via Wikimedia Commons for the image of the Lac-Mégantic oil train derailment disaster.

Northern California mobilizes for climate action as Paris talks near

People across Northern California are determined to voice their demand that the U.S. government do the right thing at the COP21 talks beginning in Paris later this month. "COP21" is the 21st annual meeting of the "Conference of Parties" under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Since early summer I've been working with a diverse coalition of labor, social justice, environmental, and faith groups under an umbrella we call the Northern California Climate Mobilization. We're organizing a march and rally in Oakland, California on Saturday November 21st, and we're expecting a tremendous crowd. Details on the web site if you're local to the Bay Area; RSVP on NCCM's Facebook event page.

What do we want? Here are the highlights from the mobilization's Points of Unity:

Challenging climate catastrophe

the Northern California Climate Mobilization demands

A global agreement to implement

dramatic and rapid reduction in

global warming pollution

Keep fossil fuels in the ground!

100% clean, safe, renewable energy!

End all fracking, tar sands mining and pipelines, offshore drilling, arctic drilling.

Stop expansion of the extractive economy. Wind, solar, geothermal power now.

No coal exports or crude-by-rail bomb trains in Northern California.

A dramatic and rapid reduction in global warming pollution is necessary to create:

• A world united to repair the ravages of climate change
• A world with an economy that works for people and the planet
• A demilitarized world with peace and social justice for everyone; where Black Lives Matter; with justice and respect for immigrants and migrants; where good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities belong to all

350.org is calling for a Global Climate March on the weekend directly preceding the start of COP21, Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S. -- and people across the world are mobilizing. (Because we judged it would be harder to turn out a crowd on Thanksgiving weekend, NCCM decided to hold our mobilization the weekend before, on November 21st).

At this stage of global dialog, not to mention current global awareness of climate change induced or inflected crises -- from California's drought to Syria's war and its associated, harrowing migrant crisis -- it's hardly necessary to recap the fact that humans have induced a set of existential threats to our entire biosphere.

But it's probably worth pointing out some of the circumstances and threats that make climate change and climate justice local issues for the Bay Area (cribbing liberally here from a set of talking points that NCCM is developing):

• The Bay Area, with the rest of California, is enmeshed in a four year drought. Our air has been smoky all summer from wildfires burning through our treasured wilderness, farms lie fallow for lack of water, residents are radically conserving at home (this last is not a bad thing, but its necessity is noteworthy).
• El Niño conditions may relieve the drought by the end of the coming winter, but warming water and storms have already begun to wreak havoc on our offshore ecosystems: dead whales and emaciated seal pups are washing up on our beaches in unprecedented numbers. Untold damage is being done to our fisheries. On October 15th, a "1,000 year rainfall event" dumped torrents of rain on Southern California in an hour, causing a mudslide over Highway 5 (the principal north/south route along the entire west coast of the U.S.) that closed the interstate for 45 miles of its critical length.
• Transport of volatile crude oil on "bomb trains" to refineries in Richmond California, and a local developer's attempt to railroad the City of Oakland into allowing transport of dirty coal from Utah through Oakland's port, endangers every family who lives in neighborhoods bordering rail routes.
• We in the Bay Area have families in the Philippines, Pakistan, Africa, Syria, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, New York, Alaska, and other places where extreme weather events are taking lives and displacing people today. Climate change and climate justice are global issues, and everyone is impacted, everywhere.

And so the Bay Area is turning out on November 21st, as COP21 approaches. What's mobilizing where you live?


Related posts on One Finger Typing:
Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes
Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place
The fossil fuel industry and the free sump that is our atmosphere: Zing!

Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes

There's plenty that has already been written and excerpted from Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home, in the ten weeks since it was published by the Vatican on 24 May. But I took my time reading through the full text (in English translation), and am only now ready to shine my own small light on this deep and comprehensive text by the spiritual leader of some 1.25 billion people. I'm not a Catholic or Christian myself, and disagree strongly with some of the Church's teachings, but Pope Francis got to the heart of several existential problems facing humankind, touching on fundamental themes that he argued and illustrated in ways that speak to audiences well beyond the bounds of Christendom.

It turns out that Bill McKibben too is only now weighing in on Laudato Si', in his piece The Pope and The Planet in the current, 13 Aug issue of the New York Review of Books [article is behind a pay wall]. As McKibben describes the encyclical:

Instead of a narrow and focused contribution to the climate debate, it turns out to be nothing less than a sweeping, radical, and highly persuasive critique of how we inhabit this planet--an ecological critique, yes, but also a moral, social, economic, and spiritual commentary.

I agree.

After reading it through I see the text (which I will no doubt re-read) emphasizing four core themes, though they don't encompass all of what Pope Francis has to say in Laudato Si':

1. Humankind is a peer among living beings in the material world
2. Shared responsibility is the ethos required to sustain our common home
3. We can't rely merely on markets and engineering to resolve the present crises
4. Synthesis -- not reductive analysis -- is the path to true understanding

To condense down the many of Pope Francis' 246 paragraphs I highlighted as I read Laudato Si' to produce something even vaguely blog-post size, I had no choice but to leave out richly-thought and clearly-articulated stretches of Pope Francis' prose. The 17 trimmed paragraphs below add up to a bit more than four percent of the full encyclical; I encourage everyone I'm capable of encouraging to read the entire document. It's 82 pages in PDF format. A full consideration of the breadth and complexity of the Pope's thinking is well worth the investment of time and attention.

In the excerpts below, the cited numerals [in square brackets] refer to the numbered paragraphs of Pope Francis' encyclical. I have omitted endnote references published in the original.


Humankind is a peer among living beings in the material world

The current pope took his name to align his papacy with St. Francis of Assisi, and is the first pope to have taken the name Francis. Early in his encyclical on the environment, Pope Francis clearly draws the link between his theme and the beloved patron saint of animals and the environment:

Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. [...] His response to the world around him was so much more than intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that exists. [...] If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled. [11]

Greater investment needs to be made in research aimed at understanding more fully the functioning of ecosystems and adequately analyzing the different variables associated with any significant modification of the environment. Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another. [...] [42]

This is a key perspective, for Pope Francis and for all humanity: we are an integral part of Earth, and the purpose of its diverse beings, aspects, and materials is not to 'serve' humankind in any subsidiary way. We are co-equal, interdependent inhabitants -- not rulers or masters. Much follows from adoption of this considered, honest humility.


Shared responsibility is the ethos required to sustain our common home

The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change. [...] Humanity still has the ability to work together in building our common home. [13]

Climate change is a global problem with grave implications [...]. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades. [...] There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by environmental degradation. [...] Our lack of response to these tragedies involving our brothers and sisters points to the loss of that sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded. [25]

[...] A true “ecological debt” exists, particularly between the global north and south, connected to commercial imbalances with effects on the environment, and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time. [...] The warming caused by huge consumption on the part of some rich countries has repercussions on the poorest areas of the world, especially Africa [...]. [51]

It is remarkable how weak international political responses have been. The failure of global summits on the environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance. There are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected. [...] [54]

The current global situation engenders a feeling of instability and uncertainty, which in turn becomes “a seedbed for collective selfishness”. When people become self-centred and self-enclosed, their greed increases. The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume. It becomes almost impossible to accept the limits imposed by reality. In this horizon, a genuine sense of the common good also disappears. [...] Obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction. [204]

Not everyone is called to engage directly in political life. Society is also enriched by a countless array of organizations which work to promote the common good and to defend the environment, whether natural or urban. Some, for example, show concern for a public place (a building, a fountain, an abandoned monument, a landscape, a square), and strive to protect, restore, improve or beautify it as something belonging to everyone. Around these community actions, relationships develop or are recovered and a new social fabric emerges. [...] [232]

Environmental catastrophe will not be averted unless we each and all pull the weight we are capable of and responsible for pulling.

We can't rely merely on markets and engineering to resolve the present crises

That is to say, real solutions will necessarily be disruptive to how people in developed nations live.

[...] Human beings must intervene when a geosystem reaches a critical state. But nowadays, such intervention in nature has become more and more frequent. As a consequence, serious problems arise, leading to further interventions; human activity becomes ubiquitous, with all the risks which this entails. Often a vicious circle results, as human intervention to resolve a problem further aggravates the situation. [...] We must be grateful for the praiseworthy efforts being made by scientists and engineers dedicated to finding solutions to man-made problems. But a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly. [...] [34]

Whether believers or not, we are agreed today that the earth is essentially a shared inheritance, whose fruits are meant to benefit everyone. [...] The principle of the subordination of private property to the universal destination of goods, and thus the right of everyone to their use, is a golden rule of social conduct and “the first principle of the whole ethical and social order”. The Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute or inviolable, and has stressed the social purpose of all forms of private property. [...] This calls into serious question the unjust habits of a part of humanity. [93]

The basic problem goes even deeper: it is the way that humanity has taken up technology and its development according to an undifferentiated and one-dimensional paradigm. This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object. This subject makes every effort to establish the scientific and experimental method, which in itself is already a technique of possession, mastery and transformation. [...] Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational. This has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit. [106]

[...] The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the real economy. [...] Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems, and argue, in popular and non-technical terms, that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth. [...] Their behaviour shows that for them maximizing profits is enough. Yet by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion. [109]

[...] Once more, we need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals. Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations? Where profits alone count, there can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature, its phases of decay and regeneration, or the complexity of ecosystems which may be gravely upset by human intervention. Moreover, biodiversity is considered at most a deposit of economic resources available for exploitation, with no serious thought for the real value of things, their significance for persons and cultures, or the concerns and needs of the poor. [190]

Synthesis -- not reductive analysis -- is the path to true understanding

This fundamental concept is not unrelated to the first theme I called out (Humankind is a peer among living beings in the material world). Pope Francis nailed it, particularly in his section titled The Globalization of the Technocratic Paradigm:

It can be said that many problems of today’s world stem from the tendency, at times unconscious, to make the method and aims of science and technology an epistemological paradigm which shapes the lives of individuals and the workings of society. The effects of imposing this model on reality as a whole, human and social, are seen in the deterioration of the environment, but this is just one sign of a reductionism which affects every aspect of human and social life. We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about the kind of society we want to build. [107]

Although no conclusive proof exists that GM cereals may be harmful to human beings, and in some regions their use has brought about economic growth which has helped to resolve problems, there remain a number of significant difficulties which should not be underestimated. In many places, following the introduction of these crops, productive land is concentrated in the hands of a few owners due to “the progressive disappearance of small producers, who, as a consequence of the loss of the exploited lands, are obliged to withdraw from direct production”. [...] The expansion of these crops has the effect of destroying the complex network of ecosystems, diminishing the diversity of production and affecting regional economies, now and in the future. [...] [134]

[...] It cannot be emphasized enough how everything is interconnected. [...] Just as the different aspects of the planet – physical, chemical and biological – are interrelated, so too living species are part of a network which we will never fully explore and understand. [...] It follows that the fragmentation of knowledge and the isolation of bits of information can actually become a form of ignorance, unless they are integrated into a broader vision of reality. [138]

[...] By learning to see and appreciate beauty, we learn to reject self-interested pragmatism. If someone has not learned to stop and admire something beautiful, we should not be surprised if he or she treats everything as an object to be used and abused without scruple. If we want to bring about deep change, we need to realize that certain mindsets really do influence our behaviour. Our efforts at education will be inadequate and ineffectual unless we strive to promote a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society and our relationship with nature. Otherwise, the paradigm of consumerism will continue to advance, with the help of the media and the highly effective workings of the market. [204]

* * *

To conclude with McKibben, again from The Pope and The Planet:

[...] at least since the Buddha, a line of spiritual leaders has offered a reasonably coherent and remarkably similar critique of who we are and how we live. The greatest of those critics was perhaps Jesus, but the line continues through Francis’s great namesake, and through Thoreau, and Gandhi, and many others. Mostly, of course, we’ve paid them devoted lip service and gone on living largely as before.

But lip service isn't going to work this time around, devoted or not. Rejecting leaders and pundits (McKibben names Thatcher, Reagan, and David Brooks) who "summon the worst in us and assume that will eventually solve our problems," McKibben rightly observes that:

Pope Francis, in a moment of great crisis, speaks instead to who we could be individually and more importantly as a species. As the data suggest, this may be the only option we have left.

Related posts from One Finger Typing:
Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place
Asking the wrong questions about GMOs for disinformation and profit
The fossil fuel industry and the free sump that is our atmosphere: Zing!
Weather? Climate? Change?


Thanks to Agência Brasil, via Wikimedia, for the image of Pope Francis at Vargihna, Brazil.

Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place

On Saturday -- on my way to a march protesting the transport of Bakken oil via "bomb train" through Richmond, California and other cities and towns -- and within lethal range of homes, schools, churches, shops, and workplaces -- a coal train was slowly rolling south (toward the Port of Oakland) as I stepped off the BART train. Its engine was too far ahead to see from the platform. After hauling my bike down the stairs, through the station, up some more stairs, and peddling to the corner of W. MacDonald and 16th, where I met and chatted with a friend, then finally headed west toward the march's starting point ... yep, that the train was still chugging past.



That was dispiriting.

On the other hand, the march that kicked off at Atchison Village, stopped at the entrance to Kinder Morgan's Richmond railyard, and wound up with a rally at Washington Park, was spirited and colorful. The photo below shows Forest Ethics organizer Ethan Buckner speaking to the crowd at Atchison Village.

Ethan spent the night in jail earlier in the week, arrested by the California Highway Patrol for hanging a banner off a railroad bridge in Benicia, part of a week of action aimed at stopping lethal transport of volatile crude (whose extraction via fracking from the Bakken formation dangerously exacerbates CO2 emissions that are changing Earth's climate, not to mention the earthquakes and fouled aquifers) along routes that endanger anyone and everything within a kilometer of the tracks (see the Canadian National Post timeline of the Lac-Megantic train disaster, in which a bomb-train killed 47 people).

Here's an excerpt from a call to participate in Saturday's march:

In Richmond, the fight against crude by rail is the latest example of the fossil fuel industry’s blatant disregard for the climate and the health and safety of communities of color. We know we don’t need this toxic and explosive extreme oil - already, our communities are building solutions for climate resilience and social justice. Together, we demand an end to extreme fossil fuels as we usher in a just transition to a clean, equitable, and thriving economy for all.

This summer, the fight against oil trains is heating up across the Bay Area, California, and North America. Richmond is on the front lines of two major oil train fights: first, environmental justice leaders have been fighting to shut down the illegal Kinder Morgan oil trains terminal, which was permitted behind the backs of the community. In addition, the proposed Phillips 66 oil trains terminal in San Luis Obispo County would bring an additional 2.5 million gallons of toxic, explosive tar sands oil daily through the city. Already, the climate justice movement in Richmond and beyond have been stepping up to fight both projects. Now is the time to turn up the heat.

So what about that coal train?

Well, I can't say for sure but I'm guessing it was headed for the Port of Oakland, where the city (both government and citizens) and real-estate developer Phil Tagami are in a nasty fight over whether the dirty coal is to be shipped through the port. A rally followed by a speakout at the Oakland City Council meeting next Tuesday, 21 July, will demand a coal-free Oakland.

The threat to people and planet posed by our deeply-embedded reliance on fossil fuels to power economies around the world isn't going to be neutralized easily. Anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to climate change politics over the last fifty years knows that. Regular people need to engage en mass if we're going to successfully drive a wedge between politicians and the massive energy companies that grease their every lubricious surface.

Later this year, the United Nations Conference of Parties will have its 21st annual meeting, in Paris this time around (COP21 is one of the meeting's several appellations). Here in the Bay Area, organizing has begun for a mass action to demand "a global agreement to implement dramatic and rapid reduction in global warming pollution" (from the emergent coalition's Points of Unity statement, to be finalized later this week and published online soon). The coalition keeps tweaking its name, but this week it's the Northern California Climate Mobilization.

What's happening in your part of the world?



Related posts on One Finger Typing:
The lemming situation: things we've known for 50 years about environmentalism
Human are like rats and cockroaches: the coming feudalism
Unvarnished truth is hard to swallow

Does driving less mean living in the cloud(s)?

About a year ago CalPIRG put out a report called Transportation and the New Generation. I wrote about it in If you don't want to drive you've got to be driven. In my own post, I quoted from the group's press release:

A new report released today by the CalPIRG Education Fund with Frontier Group demonstrates that Americans have been driving less since the middle of last decade. The report, Transportation and the New Generation: Why Young People are Driving Less and What it Means for Transportation Policy shows that young people in particular are decreasing the amount they drive and increasing their use of transportation alternatives.

Yesterday, the NY Times published an article about this year's report in the same vein, A New Direction, published by the federation of California's CalPIRG and other state Public Interest Research groups, U.S. PIRG. From the article, Young Americans Lead Trend to Less Driving:

People tend to drive less during recessions, since fewer people are working (and commuting), and most are looking for ways to save money. But Phineas Baxandall, an author of the report and senior analyst for U.S. Pirg, said the changes preceded the recent recession and appeared to be part of a structural shift that is largely rooted in changing demographics, especially the rise of so-called millennials — today's teenagers and twentysomethings. "Millennials aren't driving cars," he said.

Okay, that last sounds just a wee bit overstated, but the report itself (PDF) does support the gist of Mr. Baxandall's generalization:

• Americans drove more miles nearly every year between the end of World War II and 2004. [...] By the end of this period of rapid increases in per-capita driving -- which we call the "Driving Boom" -- the average American was driving 85 percent more miles each year than in 1970.
• Americans drive no more miles in total today than we did in 2004 and no more per person than we did in 1996.
• On the other hand, Americans took nearly 10 percent more trips via public transportation in 2011 than we did in 2005. The nation also saw increases in commuting by bike and on foot.
• A return to the steady growth in per-capita driving that characterized the Driving Boom years is unlikely given the aging of the Baby Boom generation, the projected continuation of high gas prices, anticipated reductions in the percentage of Americans in the labor force, and the peaking of demand for vehicles and driver's licenses and the amount of time Americans are willing to spend in travel.

Sobering stuff: "anticipated reductions in the percentage of Americans in the labor force."

But what caught my eye in the NT Times article was this, from Michael Sivak of U. Michigan's Transportation Research Institute, referring to the proportion of young people who are signing up for driver's licenses:

Online life might have something to do with the change, [Sivak] suggested. "A higher proportion of Internet users was associated with a lower licensure rate," he wrote in a recent study. "This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that access to virtual contact reduces the need for actual contact among young people."

I don't like the smell of that. Here's how the U.S. PIRG report described the relationship between virtual life and driving (bolded emphasis is mine):

Millennials are more likely to want to live in urban and walkable neighborhoods and are more open to non-driving forms of transportation than older Americans. They are also the first generation to fully embrace mobile Internet-connected technologies, which are rapidly spawning new transportation options and shifting the way young Americans relate to one another, creating new avenues for living connected, vibrant lives that are less reliant on driving.

Urban and walkable neighborhoods? I'm all for that. I'm not a millennial by any stretch of the calendar, but I live and work in an urban and walkable city myself ... and I'd readily say that ability to get where I need to go without having to drive much at all is a top contributor to my day-to-day satisfaction.

But ... that business about mobile Internet-connected technologies: does that mean that if I'm strolling around my urban and walkable neighborhood, and you're strolling around yours, that we needn't actually meet face-to-face because the "vibrant lives" one can construct via Twitter, Skype, Tumblr and Facebook make actual social interaction superfluous?

Do. Not. Agree.

Coincidentally I half-heard a radio advertisement yesterday for some ATT internet service or other. I didn't transcribe the commercial, but the setup had a couple of (young-sounding) business dudes talking, on the phone I guess. One suggests meeting for coffee to discuss business dude stuff. The other -- smug and secure in the cradle of his high-bandwidth ATT intertube service -- declines. "I have a great connection," he says (or words to that effect). "We can meet on-line."

I admit it: I spend way too much time staring at my screens, both at work and at home. But I like to keep in mind (most of the time, anyway) the simple truth that digitally-mediated interaction ain't even a small fraction as rich, as satisfying, as informationally dense, or as socially weighty as your old, reliable F2F.

Don't you think?


Related posts on One Finger Typing:
If you don't want to drive you've got to be driven
Sharrows and stripes: bike lanes for a common good
Moving one's life to the cloud


Thanks to Thue via Wikimedia Commons for the image of a car wrecked in Copenhagen, Denmark; to Oldmaison (Charles Le Blanc) for the image of texting while walking (via Flickr); and John C. Abell for the image of @LenaGroeger and @Ericc29 @wired in at #nextwork (via Flickr).