Climate Action, plastic bags Board of Supervisors, Nov 3

Received an email from Ross Clark, City of Santa Cruz's Climate Coordinator, the year 2008 Climate Greenhouse inventory report would be ready "any day" now.

Another report, the City's Climate Action Plan is in draft form (private?) and will available "soon after the new year."

At this morning's County Board of Supervisors Meeting most of the discussion was about Arana Gulch Master Plan, which calls for an asphalt bicycle lane that an EIR says will cause serious harm to a rare, endangered plant. The issue has divided the environmental community, but appears to have the votes to pass, Supervisor Mark Stone asked for time to review the information.

I spoke for 3 minutes during Open session re: Climate Change, thanking Supervisor Coonerty for the Oct 24 proclamation as International Day of Climate Action. But I stressed the need now for action, before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December:

• full disclosure/full transparency of all the data, goals, reports that the County has, even if not complete, such vehicle miles traveled, energy use, ICLEI draft reports, etc. and referred to my September 25, 2009 letter
• Asked that by Thanksgiving, finish what they have, release whatever they have and start to act
• By act, I refered to UK's 10:10, Bablyon, NY's 12x12, Secretary Chu's "low-lying fruit", read "Moving Cooler" report even if they don't like it
• Also, start educating and engaging the public. If adults can not calculate the CO2 released by driving to the mall, teach our children to.
• Other ideas (before I ran out of time): 1 day a week "no car", green roofs (not just solar) and stressed again the need to act, not send to committees, task forces, etc. the science has changed.

I was disappointed with Supervisor Stone's plastic bag initative which was sent to COE and Public Works to draft an ordinance (and return in 6 months) After the meeting ending, he said it would be better if State of California acts on this. I asked him why he couldn't write the ordinance? Is Santa Cruz so different from the other municipalities working on this? He seemed to fear "litigation."

I also asked him about banning single-use coffee cups, but he smiled and said one issue at a time.

More on plastic in Linda Fridy's Mid-County Post article.

My own thoughts:
One issue at a time? How much time does our local government think we have? 6 months to write an ordinance?? And I also thought "single-use" was an adjective, so I immediately began to think: what else is "single-use" in everyday life? After all, "single-use" is a relatively new idea. Before McDonald's, ok before Michael Jackson, we didn't throw everything away after 1 use - I can remember that.