Happenings in the Harbor
Some brief recaps of stories making news around the port:
Sunday's LA Times ran multiple articles involving the need for green space and taking advantage of the LA River land and state bond monies.
Funny that this is what many residents down in the port have been screaming about for the San Pedro and Wilmington waterfronts. Hmmm.....
At last weeks BHC meeting David Freeman and Ms. Lopez Mendoza (heavy on the Freeman) made some really agressive comments and statements on air pollution.
And last but not least, a young woman from the Coalition for Clean Air quoted Tony Cardenas in the public comments as saying that "No Net Increase" is not good enough, because the air quality in 2001 was totally unacceptable.
Freeman has been quoting Bernard Parks from the Mayoral debates when he said that "No Net Increase" was a joke because the Port had been a "sewer of air pollution" in 2001.
Brave words. Now all we have to do is get some action to back them up...
Sunday's LA Times ran multiple articles involving the need for green space and taking advantage of the LA River land and state bond monies.Funny that this is what many residents down in the port have been screaming about for the San Pedro and Wilmington waterfronts. Hmmm.....
At last weeks BHC meeting David Freeman and Ms. Lopez Mendoza (heavy on the Freeman) made some really agressive comments and statements on air pollution.
And last but not least, a young woman from the Coalition for Clean Air quoted Tony Cardenas in the public comments as saying that "No Net Increase" is not good enough, because the air quality in 2001 was totally unacceptable.
Freeman has been quoting Bernard Parks from the Mayoral debates when he said that "No Net Increase" was a joke because the Port had been a "sewer of air pollution" in 2001.
Brave words. Now all we have to do is get some action to back them up...
Posted by Anonymous @ 10/04/2005 05:10:00 AM
12 Comments:
Well done Mayor Frank. Nothing like putting the old ball in play.
Also, you might want to check out the Bernard Parks quote with him. I think the precise word he used may have been "cesspool", although I guess the point gets across either way.
Whatever to this topic. People can yell and scream all they want at this point. The solutions to our environmental problems are not engineering problems - they're economic problems. And because they are grounded in economics, politicians have some severe problems fighting the commercial status quo. I doubt many activists fully realize why it always seems like such an uphill battle.
I heard "Open Source" on September 27, 2005 (they podcast from the University of Massachusets), the show was called "Businessess Takes on Climate Change". In a nutshell, the show illustrates that large corporations on down to private individuals act in everyone's collective evironmental interests when it makes economic sense for them to.
That's it. Not, "Punishing everyone with 'environmental' dictates leads to conservation."
Every entity that is blocking the progress of the conservation and environmental movements is doing so, typically, out of self interest. Gasp! Self-interest! Aaaagggh! Run for the hills!
The beauty of self-interest is that you can predict it. This is why, even though you shouldn't believe what a politician says to you, you should trust in their motives.
As criminal as some people like to paint self-interest, it will end up saving us, and here is how:
Companies and invidivuals, once they feel the real costs of their behavior (through high gas prices, for example) modify the way they act to minimize their costs.
An environmental policy grounded in outrage will not work in America. One that is grounded in finding a way for all interested parties to profit through conservation is the only way out.
Not because they are forced to by insane laws that generate more paperwork, but by honest changes in the economic landscape.
I don't care what economic model is used, or who subsidizes whom, but I am not going to be driven out of my home by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach without a battle to the end. Trust me, there are plenty of people in San Pedro, Wilmington, west Long Beach, and up the 710 to East LA and Commerce who feel the same.
Maybe the ports would like to hire ubrayj02 as a financial adviser. Great. Whatever works.
Folks who think this is a harbor area problem should take a careful look at the map on pages 26 and 27 of last week's LA WEEKLY, previously posted by Mayor Frank.
While we in San Pedro have the highest cancer risk in the Air Basin, at 3275 per million, downtown LA is not that far behind at 1589. Note that these are 1999 numbers, and the emissions of the ports have doubled since then.
USC School of Medicine researchers say that the diesel exhaust particles stay in the air for days. The wind carries them around the basin, from San Bernardino and Riverside to downtown LA.
Don't forget the other 30 health impacts I listed on this blog some weeks ago, or check out the LA WEEKLY story. USC and UCLA research now shows that the particles are so fine that they pass from the lungs into the bloodstream. Thus unborn children are profoundly impacted, and diesel exhaust is now implicated in Alzheimer's disease.
This cannot stand. As our friend Dr. Miller never tires of saying, "Wake up and smell the diesel, it's killing you!
One thing I have personally noticed about the most prolific and outspoken activists I've met is that their principles usually stop being effective at their property line.
Shreaking works when no one acknowledges there is a problem. When politicians can start inserting boilerplate environmental-speak into their campaign speaches you know that the shreaking phase is coming to an end.
There are some pretty serious questions that need to be examined not by politicians, but by the citizenry in Southern California. I've heard dozens of people at hearings (bless their souls) testify loudly and with no irony about the need to both preserve wildlife (stopping a business from growing) and their wonderful green lawn (raised water rates).
This is not about wearing post-consumer goods. This is about what people have come to this region to do.
Most people have come to California looking for a blank slate, and an opportunity for economic success. Several generations have made very heavy investments in ignoring everything about this place that made it a "Place" - its geography, indigenous people, and wildlife.
That kind of attitude can only be turned around by changing people's minds - not by yelling at them or your own political represntatives. One of the best ways to change someone's perspective is by making environmentalism profitable.
Public hearings are stale: green investments, micro-credit, transfer of development rights, and community organizing are fresh. There are financial and organizational tools that are just sitting in the shed waiting to be used.
Enough with the bullhorns.
ubray
You fail to distinguish between self-interest and exploitation. Our current "self-interest" policies promote exploitation of both the planet and its people.
Once exploitation is deeply entrenched, as it is now, it takes strong legislative policies to influence the trend. Right now, with the current Administration, legislation is trending back toward exploitation, rather than conservation.
It is naive to think that changes in the market, or economics, or even availability of resources can cause exploitation to simply fade away.
Although this is a common argument, the current state of affairs clearly indicates that it is a false one.
As Kurt Vonnegut said - If the human being does not change its ways, the Earth will identify it as a virus, and the Earth's immune system will eventually cast the human off.
anoymous at 3:52 p.m.,
No way dude. I am unrealistic for proposing mechanisms for changing the current status quo? Yet you suggest what? Changing human nature? WTF?
Exploitation is a deeply ingrained instinct. You can't eliminate the urge to exploit. The only real option is: you have to hack it.
If you're hung up on moral philosophy you won't even have a seat at the table when it comes time to carve up the resource pie.
There is a reason why environmentalists get kicked around so much.
You, my friend, are being naive for ignoring the power of market economies and efficient government regulation.
Seriously, you can rail against human nature, or you can acknowledge it and find ways to sculpt the environment it operates in.
p.s. Sorry for sidetracking this thread.
Exactly my point - exploitation is a strong human instinct (for many - not for all).
As I said, exploitation can only be controlled by strong legislation - effective government regulation, as you say.
Are we not on the same page?
Maybe.
I used to think that all that was required was a legislature and an executive branch that basically puts its collective foot down.
But the picture is WAY more complicated than that (putting aside the implications of government scorning outside input).
What if we could have Congress go nuts and ban all sorts of sources of pollution? My guess is, after the economic crash, we'd have a lot of illegal and undocumented abuses of the legal system.
The way I see it, laws are just one part of the picture. They're like water works that divert a stream. Commerce flows naturally, like a stream.
Humans can collaborate to make that stream flow in a particular way (to benefit themselves in the long term, hoepfully). We can respect it's natural tendencies, or we can ignore those tendencies. In either case they're still there.
Business models and investment strategies need to be developed (and they currently are) that make a profit off of the preservation of the environment. There will have to be room that is made in our legal system for things like that, but laws alone will not get us to that point.
Mayor Antonio, it was both smart & brave to bring Ms. Kennard back to manage the Airport Department. Now, you need to find as good a leader for the Port - and it's not Mr. Bruce Seaton or Ms. Stacey Jones. They are both dinosaurs and need to be given the "Kim Day Treatment".
As for the topic you raised today, let me start by quoting the San Gabriel Valley News (Oct.3,2005) "And the cargo coming into ports in Long Beach and Los Angeles has increased from the equivalent of 5.1 million 20-foot containers in 1994 to 13.1 million containers in 2004, according to data from the Port of Long Beach."
We Angeleno's need to ask What mitigation has Wilmington & San Pedro received in exchange for this huge increase in industrial activity and the subsequent decrease in quality of life and health? The Wilmington & San Pedro Waterfront Promenades were supposed to be a "down-payment" on the mitigation owed to the communities. Instead, the Port now says the Waterfront Improvements must pay for themselves and make a market rate-of-return. Turning the Waterfront Access projects into profit-centers and tourist-traps will require additional mitigation, and leaves unaddressed the original need to mitigate for a decade of unrestrained industrial growth.
I hope the Mayor will remind the new Harbor Commissioners that the community is still owed substantial mitigation for the past actions of the Port - and the best mitigation is to create a non-commercial public waterfront, with parks and promenades for all Angeleno's to enjoy.
5:19 Human nature being what it is self interest will hold sway. Even the concept of altruism has been called into question by E.O. Wilson and others. What makes you think that human kind will turn from the brink until absolutely required and a study of history will reveal this. But you sound like someone who will take extreme measures to save us from ourselves like some supernanny. Back in the day, someone posed the question of whether being ecologically sound as a society would mean having to giving up what many see as basic liberities in this county. You sound more than willing to take this path.
Historically, innovative technologies that are "green friendly," if you will, have been squashed by large corporations who are protecting their own special interests.
There are technologies, such as solar, that get little or NO federal funding. Yet the Federal goverment is willing to funnel trillions of debt to our children in order to wage war and protect oil. What ECONOMIC SENSE does this make for the collective individual. It only lines the pockets of a few.
Solar, and other energy sources that are self sustaining, could certainly be profitable in the long run, but need a boost from the government in the short run, just like the oil industry, the rail system, etc. Do you think these current industries were sustained without government subsidies? Remember the great land grab of the railroads?
The federal government is now throwing bad money after bad. It is time to invest, as a nation, in renewable energies.
If you are looking for solutions, invest in, and call for the government to invest in, renewable energies.
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