Marin Coalition present Rebels with a Cause

“REBELS WITH A CAUSE –

The Making of the Quintessential Marin Documentary”

 Speaker:

 Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto

Filmmakers:  Kelly+Yamamoto Productions



The modern history of Marin County is a tale of unexpected drama and courage. While planners and developers penciled out a scheme to grow the region’s population and ramp up infrastructure and density as far as Pt. Reyes, others had a different vision in mind. In December, we welcome the award-winning creators of the astonishing film Rebels with a Cause, which tells the story of a dedicated band of activists whose vision and tenacity completely changed the County’s trajectory decades ago, thereby preserving what we all enjoy today-- For more information about the film and the film makers visit: www.rebelsdocumentary.org

THE CAT, THE COCK, AND THE YOUNG MOUSE

 

  A VERY young Mouse, who had never seen anything of the world, almost came to grief the very first time he ventured out. And this is the story he told his mother about his adventures.
"I was strolling along very peaceably when, just as I turned the corner into the next yard, I saw two strange creatures. One of them had a very kind and gracious look, but the other was the most fearful monster you can imagine. You should have seen him.



"On top of his head and in front of his neck hung pieces of raw red meat. He walked about restlessly, tearing up the ground with his toes, and beating his arms savagely against his sides. The moment he caught sight of me he opened his pointed mouth as if to swallow me, and then he let out a piercing roar that frightened me almost to death."

  Can you guess who it was that our young Mouse was trying to describe to his mother? It was nobody but the Barnyard Cock and the first one the little Mouse had ever seen.

"If it had not been for that terrible monster," the Mouse went on, " I should have made the acquaintance of the pretty creature, who looked so good and gentle. He had thick, velvety fur, a meek face, and a look that was very modest, though his eyes were bright and shining. As he looked at me he waved his fine long tail and smiled.
"I am sure he was just about to speak to me when the monster I have told you about let out a screaming yell, and I ran for my life."
"My son," said the Mother Mouse, "that gentle creature you saw was none other than the Cat. Under his kindly appearance, he bears a grudge against every one of us. The other was nothing but a bird who wouldn't harm you in the least. As for the Cat, he eats us. So be thankful, my child, that you escaped with your life, and, as long as you live, never judge people by their looks."

Do not trust alone to outward appearances.

The Man Who Helped Save the Bay by Trying to Destroy It

The Man Who Helped Save the Bay by Trying to Destroy It

A critical appreciation by Charles Wollenberg.
Boom California on April 14, 2015

Editor's Note Is @Scott_Wiener a modern day John Reber with a fixation to "Save the Bay Area" by destroying it with SB827? In the 40s and 50s Reber proposed to filling the bay to reclaim land/build water storage. He was taken seriously too.

by Charles Wollenberg


A critical appreciation

In 1961 three remarkable women—Kay Kerr, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Ester Gulick— started Save the Bay, a grassroots citizens’ movement to preserve and protect San Francisco Bay. It turned out to be one of the most successful efforts at environmental activism in American history. As University of California, Berkeley geography professor Richard Walker has observed, the movement transformed the popular vision of the bay from a “place of production and circulation of goods and people… of no more aesthetic or spiritual import than today’s freeways” to a “vast scenic, recreational, and ecological open space.” New public policies ended bay fill, promoted the restoration of marshes and wetlands, and opened hundreds of miles of bay shoreline to the public. The bay became “the visual centerpiece of the metropolis, a watery commons for the region, and a source of pride to Bay Area residents.”1

Yet the dramatic achievements of the Save the Bay movement in the 1960s would not have been possible without the defeat of the Reber Plan in the 1950s. John Reber’s proposal to build two giant dams to transform most of the San Francisco Bay into two freshwater lakes would have destroyed the estuary as we know it. Had Reber’s dream come true, there would have been no bay to save. The Reber Plan also became a crucial and lasting symbolic inspiration for the movement to save the bay. Although the history of the Save the Bay movement is well documented, the rise and fall of the Reber Plan is less well known today. Almost entirely forgotten is the personal story of John Reber, a remarkable figure in Bay Area history who seemed to combine the ambition of Robert Moses, New York’s larger-than-life master planner, with the personality and personal frustrations of Willy Loman, the tragic hero of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.2


Via Flickr user Anika Erdmann.

When twenty-year-old John Reber came to California from his native Ohio in 1907, he planned to become a teacher. But he couldn’t resist the siren call of show business and instead became an actor, director, and writer. He wrote screenplays for Mack Sennet comedies. (Reber said his method was to write tragedies and then “throw in a couple of custard pies” for laughs.) For two decades, he made a good living writing and directing plays and pageants in communities up and down California. Local service clubs such as the Elks usually sponsored the productions, which featured townspeople in the cast. Reber estimated he staged more than 300 performances in sixty towns and cities with local casts of 100 to 5,000 people. This put him in contact with “all the best people,” influential men and women who might later support his bay plan. Senator and former Governor Hiram Johnson said Reber knew more people than anyone else in California. Reber believed his show business experience prepared him to create his grand plan. “What is master planning but stage managing an area?” he asked. According to Reber, the implementation of the plan would be “the greatest pageant on earth.”3

Reber argued the bay was “a geographic mistake,” interfering with the efficient operation of the surrounding metropolis. Because of the bay, the transcontinental railroad ended in Oakland instead of its natural destination, San Francisco. Reber initially favored an earthen causeway to bring the rails directly into the city. But as he traveled around California and learned of the extraordinary value of freshwater to the state’s development, his plan became far more ambitious. By 1929 his proposal included two large earth-filled dams, one located just south of the current Bay Bridge and the other at the approximate location of today’s Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. While the tops of the structures would serve as transportation corridors for rail and auto traffic, the dams would also block saltwater intrusion into both the north and south bays, creating two massive freshwater lakes. Under the Reber Plan, only about 15 percent of the present bay would have remained subject to ocean tides. Reber estimated the lakes would store about 10 million acre-feet of water, more than twice the capacity of Lake Shasta, California’s largest reservoir. The water would have been available for residential and industrial use around the bay and for irrigation in regional agricultural areas such as the Santa Clara Valley.4

The Reber Plan also proposed massive amounts of new bay fill, creating about 20,000 acres of additional dry land on what was once wetlands and open water. The largest fill would have been off the Richmond, Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville shoreline. The plan envisioned a twelve-mile freshwater channel through these new lands, linking the two lakes and allowing runoff from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers to circulate in both the north and south waterways. The plan included locks to allow shipping to pass from salt water to freshwater. Reber added features as time went on: additional port facilities, an aqueduct to transport water to the San Joaquin Valley, an airport, a regional transportation terminal, and a high-speed military freeway connecting the Bay Area to Los Angeles. As World War II approached, Reber planned new military elements, including naval bases on filled land along the Marin County shoreline and secure hangars and fuel storage facilities in caves created by the excavation of fill for construction of the earthen dams. Later Reber promoted the proposed transportation corridors as evacuation routes in the event of atomic attack.5 During its nearly thirty years of design and debate, the Reber Plan was an organic document, changing to reflect new circumstances and political realities. But the transportation links and the freshwater lakes remained the key elements of John Reber’s grand vision.


The Reber Plan, via Flickr user Eric Fischer.

Reber belonged to a generation of Americans who had great faith in massive public works. Beginning with the construction of the transcontinental railroad, an enterprise heavily

Dixie School community ‘shocked, saddened’ by loss of 2nd grade teacher

Dixie School community ‘shocked, saddened’ by loss of 2nd grade teacher

Dixie Elementary School teacher Debra DiBenedetto works with members of the Outdoor Classroom Club she organized. (Provided by Dixie School District).

By KERI BRENNER | kbrenner@marinij.com | Marin Independent Journal
PUBLISHED: October 30, 2018 at 2:51 pm | UPDATED: October 31, 2018 at 6:18 am


Students, parents, teachers and staff in the Dixie School District mourned the death Tuesday of second-grade teacher Debra DiBenedetto, a beloved long-time educator at Dixie Elementary School who was struck and killed by a car Monday evening while bicycling on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in West Marin.

“It’s just a tremendous loss to our community,” said Dixie Superintendent Jason Yamashiro. “Our hearts go out to the family and to everyone who’s grieving.” He said an impromptu shrine was growing Tuesday outside the Dixie Elementary School office in upper Lucas Valley.

“As you can imagine, we are all shocked and saddened to hear this news,” Yamashiro said. DiBenedetto, 63, lived in San Geronimo, according to the coroner’s division of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. She had been with the district for 23 years, staff said.Dixie Elementary School second-grade teacher Debra DiBenedetto. (courtesy Dixie School District)

Paula Drake, 24, of Fairfax, driver of the 2006 Ford Explorer that authorities said traveled onto the shoulder of the highway where DiBenedetto was riding before crashing into the bicycle, was in custody Tuesday at Marin County Jail. She was being held in lieu of $500,000 bail on suspicion of one count each of felony gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and felony DUI.

An autopsy was scheduled for Thursday or Friday, coroner’s office staff said.

Officer Andrew Barclay of the California Highway Patrol said the incident was under investigation, but preliminary evidence shows that DiBenedetto was westbound on the right-hand shoulder of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard when she was struck by the Explorer, also westbound, just west of Railroad Avenue at about 5:30 p.m. Monday.

Barclay did not have details on how the crash occurred, but he said it appeared on preliminary review the Explorer veered onto the shoulder first before striking the bicycle.

“It was not a side-swipe or a hit with the side mirror or anything like that,” Barclay said. “It appears the collision was (at the) right front of vehicle, (at the) headlight area.” Paramedics at the scene said DiBenedetto was not wearing a helmet, Barclay added.

Barclay said he had no word on Drake’s blood alcohol content at the time of the crash and he did not expect either the Marin County Sheriff’s Office or Marin County District Attorney’s Office to release that information in advance of charges. Laboratory analysis on the blood test could take some time, according to the Marin County District Attorney’s Office staff.


“The only thing the district attorney will provide is if and when charges will be filed,” Barclay said.Paula Drake of Fairfax is seen in this booking photo taken Monday. (courtesy Marin County Sheriff’s Office)

Yamashiro said a team of grief counselors and psychological support staff were on hand at the elementary school Tuesday to meet with students, parents and staff. Counselors were also dispatched to Miller Creek Middle School, since many of the students taught by DiBenedetto have moved on to middle school as well as high schools such as Terra Linda or San Rafael. He said Mary Jane Burke, Marin County superintendent of schools, has sent a notice to all Marin school superintendents making them aware of the situation in case they have students who knew DiBenedetto, who was active countywide on outdoor education and environmental issues.

“She was deeply committed to outdoor creek restoration and had a great impact on her students,” Yamashiro said. “She was also deeply committed to her peers and colleagues and was well-loved and well-respected.” He said Emily Shaw, a district first-grade teacher who had been on leave, arrived at the elementary school Tuesday to take over DiBenedetto’s second-grade class while the district regroups and recovers.

“She was an icon for the community and the school,” said Brad Honsberger, president of the Dixie School District board of trustees, who said he has known DiBenedetto for 15 years. “This hits everybody. It’s completely senseless.” See the Full Article HERE

We're all Gonna Starve

Heat islands in Cities are oppressive. Another reason to love and protect suburban Marin

California’s Cap-and-Trade Scheme Adds Financial Insult to Environmental Injury

Lower-Income and Minority Communities Bear the Brunt of Pollution Trading’s Flaws

05.2.18

By Nikita Naik [1]

The myth that market forces can solve all problems is alive and well with California’s cap-and-trade scheme. Instead of commonsense regulations that require polluters to reduce their climate-destroying emissions, policies like cap-and-trade and carbon taxes rely on market forces to do the same job. But time and again these schemes end up proving ineffective and problematic, especially for environmental justice communities.
Cap-and-trade programs purport to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by allowing polluters to buy and sell pollution credits based on an industry-wide limit, or “cap,” on total allowable pollution. But there is no evidence that these programs significantly reduce carbon emissions. Supporters of market-based pollution controls naïvely contend that polluters only require a higher trading price to properly discourage them from spewing toxins. But all these programs do is create a Wall Street-style casino for polluters to trade the right to continue — or even increase — pollution.
Cap-and-trade is essentially a pay-to-pollute scheme that creates incentives that undermine environmental justice, sacrificing equity in favor of industry profits. The companies that buy credits and increase pollution — and simultaneously reap profits by avoiding any pollution control costs — tend to be in communities of color and lower-income areas, only adding to existing environmental injustice.
In our recent report “Paying to Pollute: The Environmental Injustice of Pollution Trading [2],” we described how pollution trading schemes hurt socially and economically disadvantaged communities. These populations already face higher pollution exposures because of the disproportionate location of toxic facilities, like power plants, in their neighborhoods. Pollution trading incentivizes the purchase of pollution credits in these vulnerable areas, creating toxic hotspots that concentrate multiple, harmful pollutants, such as particulate matter and NOx, which tend to remain in the area where they are originally emitted.
Theoretically, California’s cap-and-trade program addresses the underlying environmental justice disparities by directing half the revenue generated from selling pollution credits to disadvantaged communities and low-income households. But this modest compensation is trivial compared to increased pollution that threatens human health and the environment. As the Indigenous Environmental Network and Climate Justice Alliance [3]stated: “Token revenues distributed to environmental justice communities from carbon trading or carbon pricing can never compensate for the destruction wrought by the extraction and pollution that is the source of that revenue.”
Furthermore, it turns out that little of the promised compensation even gets to the targeted areas, according to a new study from the University of California, Irvine [4]. Instead of serving the disadvantaged and low-income communities as mandated by law, the study found that funding went to projects dispersed over a larger region, diluting its impact. This means that communities that are experiencing the worst environmental and health burdens are also getting shortchanged on promised compensation.
The UC Irvine study focused on Orange County and found that only 8.5 percent of the promised funds directly benefited socially or economically disadvantaged populations. Orange County counted investments in regional transportation as the same as investing in disadvantaged areas, which “overstates the degree of investment in these places,” according to the authors.
The study highlights that unjust cap-and-trade programs not only perpetuate the historical imbalance borne by environmental justice communities, but also consistently fail to remedy disproportionate pollution burdens.
States must reject market-based programs and restore and strengthen effective regulatory pollution controls. The Clean Air Act successfully reduced pollution and protected human health and the environment. The best way to reduce climate emissions is to prohibit additional emissions and require an immediate and sustained reduction of greenhouse gases. We need to strengthen pollution controls and redouble enforcement efforts, focusing on reducing pollution in environmental justice areas. A carbon casino doesn’t stop climate change, it only delivers profits to polluters.

---

Source URL: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/california-cap-and-trade-scheme-adds-financial-insult-environmental-injury

Michael Crichton on Environmentalism as a Religion

Which are Worse: Train Salesmen or Cheap Car Salesmen?

Although car salesmen get accused of sleazy sales tactics the only ones I've encountered have been the utmost professionals. Train advocates however are a different matter.

Posted by Richard Hall , October 15, 2013 at 06:20 PM

Wanna buy a train?

My respect for car salesman right now is at an all time high having dealt with the highly professional Jim Leavitt of San Rafael and the truly amazing Steve Dolowitz of Petaluma Honda, who sadly passed away at the age of 56 in 2006.  However SMART and its many advocates seem to be adopting the tactics akin to cheap car salesmen. You know the one - it's called the four square system.

The salesman writes down:

1. the price of the car
2. the monthly payment
3. the trade in value
4. the downpayment

Then they work out which of the four elements you care about the most and before you know it the elements you fixated on are great and you're in the finance managers office signing away hundreds more than you needed to as the other elements have been twisted in the dealership's favor.

With SMART it worked like this. It was worked out that we the taxpaying voters of Marin and Sonoma cared deeply about reducing 101 congestion. Also being Marinites we liked the sound of anything that sounded sustainable and green, and what could possibly be greener than a train? Surely that's common sense. Who would ever question it?

Questioning the Unquestionable - is it Really Green?

But this is where the cheap sales-trick falls apart. If you dig deep enough, and it's nicely buried, you can work out the SMART trains' emissions. These are ultimately calculated based on "passenger mpg" and as with mpg the higher the number the better.

SMART is supposed to commence operations in late 2016. The locomotives are meant to have a lifespan of 30 years so this puts the midpoint of operational life at 2031.  Whitehouse legislation mandates that the average fuel economy of new cars in 2025, that's 6 years earlier, will be 54.5mpg (Source: the Whitehouse). Of course we need to adjust this downwards as:

i) It will take time for the existing vehicle fleet to be replaced. But the 2031 locomotive lifespan midpoint is 6 years beyond the Whitehouse mandate
ii) Advertised mpg for cars can be optimistic; the reality as we've all discovered comes in around 20% under (give or take)

So let's discount the average car's advertised mpg by 20%. Actually let's be more severe than that to keep the transit advocates happy - let's discount car advertised mpg by 50% and assume that the train mpg is gospel (for once, what they say is the reality).

The Walkable City- A Planner explains his vision for Walkable Cities

How do we solve the problem of the suburbs? Urbanist Jeff Speck shows how we can free ourselves from dependence on the car -- which he calls "a gas-belching, time-wasting, life-threatening prosthetic device" -- by making our cities more walkable and more pleasant for more people.

This self loathing baby boomer claims that "suburbs" are killing us and a awful problem. He claims he can makes us healther, economically more prosperous, solve global warming and more with "Smart Growth Cities."  God save us from the do-gooder, know it alls who want to "improve" our lives by taking our property rights, local democracy and economic liberty.

Marin County's Green Pioneers

Marin County's Green Pioneers

In the mid 1930s four Marin women in lives of comfortable circumstance, who did not have to take on the task of saving Marin’s natural resources, did so. Sepha Evers, Caroline Livermore, Portia Forbes and Helen Van Pelt, environmentalists before the term was coined, shook the powers that be to start a movement that eventually saved many of Marin’s open space treasures – and founded an organization that still carries on their activist tradition.

The four women, members of the Marin Garden Club, became alarmed that completion of the Golden Gate Bridge would make Marin an easy car commute from San Francisco and bring an influx that would jeopardize the county’s open hills and valleys.

Calling themselves The Citizens Survey Committee, they raised $2,500 to pay for a planning study that produced Marin County’s first set of planning maps and a report to guide the county’s future growth. Many of the report’s recommendations had to do with the preservation of open space “before it was too late.”

The Marin Independent Journal wrote in editorial alarm in January 1934: “Our picnic spots are nearly gone. ‘No Trespassing’ signs are posted all over. We must act if we believe in building for the future. Papermill Creek, inviting bay beaches, from Tiburon to Santa Venetia, must be saved. No community on earth is more favored than Marin with the wealth and beauty of potential playgrounds. If we don’t acquire some of these lands, the opportunity will surely slip away from us.”

MCL’s first conservation battle was Mount Tamalpais State Park. Together with groups such as the Tamalpais Conservation Club, MCL worked to expand the park from its beginning nucleus of 200 acres in Steep Ravine. From Mount Tam MCL turned westward, envisioning a major park effort that would preserve the County’s western shore. MCL efforts created Tomales Bay State Park and assisted in the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore. MCL also fought to save the Marin headlands and Richardson Bay and helped to purchase a number of other park and natural resource areas in both east and west Marin.

One of the most dramatic chapters in MCL history was the battle to stop 879 acres of Richardson Bay from being filled - by bulldozing the Tiburon hills and depositing the fill into the bay - and turned into a town for 10,000 people. The regulatory agencies that would have halted such a tideland development did not exist in 1949 when this proposal came forth. MCL leaders worked their political and fundraising magic to bring together a coalition of local forces to defeat the development and effect purchase of the property. It took a decade but in 1958 clear title on lands from Belvedere to Strawberry Point established the sanctuary that is now known as the Richardson Bay Audubon Center and Sanctuary.

Richardson Bay Audubon Center

Another of MCL’s most publicized achievements was thwarting plans for commercialization of Angel Island when it was declared surplus by the federal government and negotiating to have it added to the state park system instead. The island is the site of military installations and immigration encampments dating back to 1775 and home to abundant and diverse animal and bird life. When the government decided to abandon it after World War 2, MCL jumped in to underwrite interim fire and police services rather than let it go on the auction block for private development, and then led the charge to fold it into the state park system. When Angel Island became a park in 1954 MCL worked for another 14 years to ensure that its master plan precluded commercial enterprises and protected its wildlife and habitat areas.

“We really saved that from becoming a cheap Coney Island, which a Nevada firm hoped to develop,” MCL leader Caroline Livermore said later about the campaign to preserve Angel Island.

In the early 1960s MCL worked with the Nature Conservancy and Audubon Canyon Ranch to defeat plans the Bolinas Harbor District had to build a resort hotel and yacht harbor complex in Bolinas Lagoon. It was a scheme that seems bizarre today: dredging mud from the upper section of the lagoon and placing it on Kent Island to increase the size and height of the island to make it possible to build a hotel, parking lots, an office, a helicopter pad, docks and other facilities. MCL worked for a year and a half to assemble funds to buy the island and arrange to have it given to the County. The island passed into the public domain by a vote of the Board of Supervisors which took place only hours before the Harbor District was going to file a condemnation suit to block the County’s action.

MCL worked in 1972 for the passage of a measure to create the Marin County Regional Open Space District. In the late 1970s MCL campaigned vigorously to protect sensitive areas of California’s coast from offshore oil drilling.

The early 1970s were also the time of Marin’s battles with logging. Events leading to Marin’s ordinance regulating logging began in November 1968 when MCL learned that an Oregon logging firm had purchased timber rights to a ranch on Bolinas Ridge. MCL leaders went to battle, the logging firm wound up in court and eventually was restrained from lumbering due to environmental and public health issues. In 1971 Marin enacted a ordinance regulating logging, which, however, became moot in 1982 when regulation of timber harvesting was turned over to the California Department of Forestry.

The League’s Water Committee’s efforts contributed directly to defeat of a peripheral canal in 1982 – a massive political effort to divert Northern California water to the Southland and a threat that continues to periodically raise its head. MCL President Ted Wellman served as Chair of the Marin County Unit of the California Coalition against the Peripheral Canal and was a major force in halting the water diversion plan at the ballot box.

Increasingly, MCL found that it was important to help develop public policy relative to environmental issues and work toward implementing that policy. This involves constant research, careful evaluation and preparation of position statements.

Today MCL takes stands on government proposals, development projects and ballot propositions. Its citizen watchdog committees are monitoring dozens of projects at any one time and their members constantly appear before governmental bodies to encourage decisions that protected the environment.

Each year, MCL honors local environmental activists at the Annual Dinner with the Marin Conservation League Environmental Awards. Past winners have included Peter Behr and Elizabeth Terwilliger.

"Science proves kids are bad for Earth", says Bioethicist

Science proves kids are bad for Earth. Morality suggests we stop having them.

We need to stop pretending kids don't have environmental and ethical consequences.by Travis Rieder / Nov.15.2017 / 4:17 AM ET

Double trouble.Matt Nighswander / NBC News


A startling and honestly distressing view is beginning to receive serious consideration in both academic and popular discussions of climate change ethics. According to this view, having a child is a major contributor to climate change. The logical takeaway here is that everyone on Earth ought to consider having fewer children.

Although culturally controversial, the scientific half of this position is fairly well-established. Several years ago, scientists showed that having a child, especially for the world’s wealthy, is one of the worst things you can do for the environment. That data was recycled this past summer in a paper showing that none of the activities most likely to reduce individuals’ carbon footprints are widely discussed.

The second, moral aspect of the view — that perhaps we ought to have fewer children — is also being taken seriously in many circles. Indeed, I have written widely on the topic myself.

But scientific evidence and moral theorizing aside, this is a complicated question with plenty of opponents. In what follows, I will address some of the challenges to this idea. Because while I recognize that this is an uncomfortable discussion, I believe that the seriousness of climate change justifies uncomfortable conversations. In this case, that means that we need to stop pretending the decision to have children doesn't have environmental and ethical consequences.

The argument that having a child adds to one’s carbon footprint depends on the view that each of us has a personal carbon ledger for which we are responsible. Furthermore, some amount of an offspring’s emissions count towards the parents’ ledger. The seriousness of climate change justifies uncomfortable conversations. Matt Nighswander / NBC News

Most environmentalists accept this sort of ledger view when it comes to recycling, driving, and flying, but support begins to decrease when applied to family planning. The opposition is typified by Vox writer David Roberts, who argues that “such an accounting scheme is utterly impractical” because it seems to entail that one is never responsible for one's own emissions. Because "we don’t want to double-count,” as Roberts says, this means parents are really only responsible for their kids’ emissions.

The flaw in this objection is the plausible-sounding caveat: “we don’t want to double-count.” Because why wouldn’t we want to double-count? If moral responsibility added up mathematically, then double-counting would be a serious problem. But I think it’s clear that we should not accept a mathematical model of responsibility.

Consider a different case: If I release a murderer from prison, knowing full well that he intends to kill innocent people, then I bear some responsibility for those deaths — even though the killer is also fully responsible. My having released him doesn’t make him less responsible (he did it!). But his doing it doesn’t eliminate my responsibility either.

Something similar is true, I think, when it comes to having children: Once my daughter is an autonomous agent, she will be responsible for her emissions. But that doesn’t negate my responsibility. Moral responsibility simply isn’t mathematical.

If you buy this view of responsibility, you might eventually admit that having many children is wrong, or at least morally suspect, for standard environmental reasons: Having a child imposes high emissions on the world, while the parents get the benefit. So like with any high-cost luxury, we should limit our indulgence.

Having many children is wrong, or at least morally suspect, for standard environmental reasons.

The rebuttal to this argument is that individual actions simply don’t make a significant difference, and that institutional action is how you actually have an impact. Do everything you can to minimize your emissions, and the “earth won’t give a damn.”

All of these claims are true. Most individual actions won’t matter in the context of a trillion ton, all-time anthropogenic carbon budget. And indeed, policy and collective action are important for seriously mitigating the harms of climate change.

But does this mean my individual actions are morally permissible? I think the answer is clearly no.

If morality only applied to meaningful change, then morality would rarely recommend actions of symbolic integrity or defiance. We would not, for example, praise the activist who stands up for what she believes in until there was evidence that her tactics work. And those who sacrifice their own interests in order to contribute minuscule amounts of time, money, or labor to alleviating global hunger or poverty would look like suckers rather than saints.

I don’t think these judgments sit well with our moral sensibilities. On reflection, many of us believe that it is wrong to contribute to massive, systematic harms, even if each individual contribution isn’t causally significant. This explains why many of us think you are obligated to do things like recycle, especially when it’s easy. Your recycling doesn’t matter much to the environment — the earth doesn’t give a damn — but you should do it anyway.

The confusion around this sort of moral claim is understandable. Our moral psychology has not yet evolved to solve the problems of today. Humanity grew up in relatively small groups; Rules like “don’t harm others,” or “don’t steal and cheat” are easy to make sense of in a world of largely individual interactions.

That is not our world any longer, though, and our moral sense is evolving to reflect that difference. Moral decisions are no longer about math; Being a part of the solution matters.

The importance of this argument for family size is obvious. If having one fewer child reduces one’s contribution to the harms of climate change, the choice of family size becomes a morally relevant one.

I am certainly not arguing that we should shame parents, or even that we’re obligated to have a certain number of children. As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t think there is a tidy answer to the challenging questions of procreative ethics. But that does not mean we’re off the moral hook. As we face the very real prospect of catastrophic climate change, difficult — even uncomfortable — conversations are important. Yes, we should discuss the ethics of making babies with care and respect; but we should discuss it.

Travis Rieder, Ph.D, is the Assistant Director for Education Initiatives, Director of the Master of Bioethics degree program and Research Scholar at the Berman Institute of Bioethics.

Editors Note:  This article published by NBC proves that Environmental Alarmists have gone full bat sh*t crazy. Using this professor's logic, genocide and infanticide is a moral choice if not an imperative.  Tyranny is knocking on our door. We must push these idiots back with sound Constitutional principles of liberty or descend into madness.

Green Tyranny: The Propaganda Machine

Trees Are the Answer

‘The Ugly Environmentalist’

‘The Ugly Environmentalist’ 

 by JONAH GOLDBERG July 14, 2017 

The rhetoric of climate-change alarmists grows ever more hysterical. One of the hallmarks of the “Ugly American” is the habit of thinking foreigners will understand what you’re saying if just shout it louder and louder. The Ugly Environmentalist does something similar. He exaggerates the challenge of global warming by using ever more hysterical rhetoric, thinking that if the last doomsday prediction didn’t work, this one will. 

For instance, Stephen Hawking, the famous astrophysicist, recently said that the consequences of Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord were monumental: “Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees (Celsius), and raining sulfuric acid.” 

As Nathan Cofnas notes in the Weekly Standard, this is nuts. The share of the atmosphere taken up by that vile gas carbon dioxide (which just happens to sustain all plant life) is 400 parts per million. It’s been much higher than that in the past without boiling the oceans or raining acid from the sky. Cofnas also mentions that Venus is nearly 26 million miles closer to the sun, and that the share of carbon dioxide in the Venusian atmosphere is 965,000 parts per million, or about 2,412 times greater than Earth’s. 

And that’s Hawking, a serious scientist (at least in his own field). Journalists, always looking for novelty and drama, can be worse. A recent New York magazine cover story on climate change assured readers that all of the previous climate-change alarmism was too tepid. Basically, by the end of the century, the living will envy the dead and much of the planet will be uninhabitable or a reenactment of a Mad Max movie.

 To the credit of some journalists and climate scientists, the New York magazine article got considerable pushback, even from normally alarmist Penn State professor Michael Mann. 

Rachel Becker, a science writer, had a good take as well. Research shows that “scare tactics can backfire when people put up their psychological defenses against the threatening information,” Becker wrote at The Verge, “rather than defending against the threat itself.” 

That’s true. The more you sound like some cowbell-wielding street preacher wearing a sandwich board that says “The End Is Nigh!” the more likely it is that people will ignore you. Particularly if your last few terrifying predictions didn’t pan out. 

But this focus on how using scare tactics doesn’t persuade skeptics overlooks another problem. What about the people it does persuade? If you honestly believe that climate change will end all life on earth (it won’t) or lead to some dystopian hell where we use the skulls of our former friends and neighbors to collect water droplets from cacti, what policies wouldn’t you endorse to stop it? 

There’s a rich school of journalistic and academic nonsense out there about how democracy may not be up to the job of fighting climate change, and why people who question climate change must be silenced by the state. It’s remarkable how many of the people who rightly recoil in horror at the idea of using, say, the war on terror to justify curtailing civil liberties have no such response when someone floats similar ideas for the war on climate change. 

I believe, along with the late economist Julian Simon, that humans are the ultimate resource. We solve problems, and I think we’ll solve climate change too. 

The environment editor for the left-wing British newspaper the Guardian, Damian Carrington, recently wrote a piece fretting about how having kids doesn’t help fight climate change. Jill Filipovic, a feminist writer, endorsed the article. “Having children is one of the worst things you can do for the planet,” she wrote on Twitter. “Have one less and conserve resources.”

 I found this interestingly dumb. Filipovic is precisely one of those writers you’d expect to go ballistic if some conservative Christian opined about the reproductive choices women should make. But if it’s in the name of the environment? Let’s wag those fingers, everybody! 

I believe, along with the late economist Julian Simon, that humans are the ultimate resource. We solve problems, and I think we’ll solve climate change too. 

But if you really want to yoke your reproductive choices to the issue of climate change (a bizarre desire if you ask me), maybe you should have as many kids as possible and educate them in science and engineering so they can come up with a solution. 

For instance, did you know America may end up complying with our Paris-accord obligations despite our withdrawal? It’s all thanks to breakthroughs in natural gas, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Thank goodness the people who came up with that stuff didn’t have parents who believed all the hype.


Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449477/climate-change-alarmists-environmentalists-hyberbolic-rhetoric-increasing

National parks lifetime passes for seniors jump by 700 percent

National parks lifetime passes for seniors jump by 700 percent

By Mark Prado, Marin Independent Journal


POSTED: 07/11/17, 5:56 PM PDT | UPDATED: 1 MIN AGO0 COMMENTS





Seniors will face a 700 percent increase on lifetime passes next month as the National Park Service looks to add dollars to its coffers for new projects.

The passes can be used at places such as the Muir Woods National Monument and other parks where entrance fees are collected.

This week the park service announced the passes for those 62 and older will jump from $10 to $80 on Aug. 28. The move will generate an extra $37.6 million annually for the park service. Park service officials acknowledged the congressionally approved change made last December — and signed by former President Barack Obama — has had mixed reaction.





“There has been a lot of buzz on social media,” said Kathy Kupper, park service spokeswoman. “Some like it, others see it as a pretty steep increase.”

Marin has the oldest and fastest-aging population in the region. One in four Marin residents — 64,000 people — are 60 or older. Within 15 years an estimated one in three will be 60 or older, according to the County Area Plan for Aging for 2016-2020.

“The ability to access outdoor spaces is a basic part of having an age-friendly community where older adults can stay active and engaged,” said Lee Pullen, director of Marin County’s Aging and Adult Services division. “The fewer economic barriers to this, the better.”





Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, saw both sides of the increase.

“The pass is still a great deal, but it does speak to a larger issue that there is a lack of support for our parks and public lands in the budget,” he said. “Congress needs to find ways to make parks more accessible and not nickel and dime people.”
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Marin environmental activist Nona Dennis — a senior herself — said money is needed for parks, but added, “to go from $10 to 80 bucks will be discouraging for some seniors I know.”

The pass has cost $10 since 1994. Previously purchased lifetime Golden Age or senior passes will be honored for the lifetime of the pass holder.





The December legislation did introduce a new annual senior pass for $20. Seniors who purchase an annual passes for four years can trade them in for a lifetime pass at no additional charge.

The senior pass covers all entrance fees and day use fees and may provide senior discounts for things such as tours or campsites. The pass also waives the entrance fee for traveling companions. At per-vehicle fee sites, the pass admits the pass holder and all passengers in a noncommercial vehicle. At a per-person fee site, the pass admits the pass holder and three other adults. Children under 16 are admitted free.






There is still time to cash in on the $10 lifetime pass. It can be purchased at that price before Aug. 28 at a national park — like Muir Woods — or other federal recreation area that charges an entrance or day use fee. The pass can also be obtained by mail or online for $10 before Aug. 28 but there is an additional $10 charge for processing. Due to expected high order volume, there could be delays with online and mail order processing of up to several months, according to the park service.

“The money that is generated by the new fees will stay in the parks,” the park service’s Kupper said.

Dixie Outdoor Classroom is now open

The Dixie Outdoor classroom is open today at Dixie Elementary School on Idyleberry Rd.  Created with a generous grant from the Las Gallinas Lions club and with labor provided by the Friends of Marinwood-Lucas Valley, the Friends of Miller Creek Watershed and the children of Dixie Elementary School.  

Debra DiBenedetto, the teacher that spearheads the project is justifiably proud of her accomplishment,  "The kids have been just great".  The classroom will be used to teach about environmental science and the natural history of Lucas Valley.

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Chasing the Ice

Matt Ridley: How Fossil Fuels are Greening the Planet.

The Cross Family Story - Washington Dept of Ecology harassment

In 2016, the Washington State Department of Ecology began a targeted harassment program accusing small farmers and property owners of having a "potential to pollute" the watershed because they have an animal on their property. In Whatcom County alone, many people were forced too euthanize or give away their pet goats, sheep, horses, llamas, or other farm animals to avoid the targeted legal and financial threats from the Washington State Department of Ecology. This agency never provided any evidence of pollution or real problems. The agency just said that a "potential to pollute" existed