Posted by Waterplanet Alliance, a resident of the Mill Valley neighborhood, on Mar 2, 2010 at 12:09 pm

We want to thank Ed Mainland for keeping the focus on why Marin is on the verge of implementing California's first local clean electrical power project under the Community Choice Law (AB117).

The real reason is Global Climate Disruption. Yeah, even though it snowed in Washington this year.

It's too easy, when life is so easy, as it is here in Marin, to lose sight of the very near future for our planet, and everyone's children. We are in a period of climate disruption, due to our excessive use of carbon dioxide emitting fuels_oil, coal, and gas. It's that simple. Life, as we know it on earth, depends on a delicate balance of tiny little molecules in our atmosphere. We are overdoing it, with CO2. We are way out of balance.

Marin Clean Energy (a county-wide program) is a courageous step toward our community taking personal responsibility to reduce the damage we're doing to our future. In spite of all the lying baloney flooding your mailboxes and phone lines from PG&E to derail MCE and sustain their monopolistic business practices, we urge you to look with independent eyes at the tremendous value MCE brings to your children's future.

And, the price is right.

Posted by Louise L Mathews, a resident of the San Anselmo neighborhood, on Mar 3, 2010 at 1:08 pm

"And the price is right.", writes Waterplanet Alliance.

Well, Earthfooted Taxpayer says,"No price is right when it is wrong."

MEA is unable to disclose the costs of its program 'now and into the future' and is unwillingly to delay implementation.

MEA may offer an environmental future that is described at this moment as the panacea to PG&E but it won't trust an informed consumer. That in itself is a serious credibility problem.

When MEA brought Dutch Shell Oil on board as the breeder of their energy source, the environmental argument was lost.

The only argument left is if Charles McGlashen has quartered enough political lobbyists to enter the White House through an unlocked front door.

OPT-OUT and encourage PG&E to expand its green sources.

llm

Posted by Edward Mainland, a resident of the Novato neighborhood, on Mar 3, 2010 at 1:55 pm

It's now clear Marin Clean Energy is by far Marin's best deal for cleaner, greener power. Opt up to 100 percent green at 888-632-3674 or just stay put with MCE. Don't opt out. Marin's reality-based community won't be fooled by PG&E's misinformation any longer. PG&E can't even meet state-stipulated targets for renewable power, gives us nearly zero solar and less than 3 percent wind, and has budgeted $30 million dollars of ratepayers' money to squash competition and perpetuate its monopoly through Prop 16.

PG&E's mouthpiece Mr. Joe Nation keeps dodging the truth. His nose must be growing like Pinocchio's because, contrary to what he's been claiming, the County and MEA's board tried their best to work things out with PG&E before PG&E walked out of talks; MCE will provide immediately double the renewable power of PG&E's and MCE will be on track for 100 percent green power later, something PG&E can never match; countless legal and fiscal peer reviews have verified there is no risk whatever to cities being MCE members. MCE has set rates that will always match or beat PG&E's. And MCE's carbon emissions will be progressively lower.

Mr. Nation should stop his fibbing and instead dip into PG&E's $30 million Prop 16 political hit fund for more worthy community purposes.

Posted by anon, a resident of the Bel Marin Keys neighborhood, on Mar 9, 2010 at 11:18 pm

Too late - opted out - we are all going to drown, die of thirst, burn up, freeze and ignore the frightened gnashing of teeth. In the next year.

The economy is hurt, health care is too expensive, our politicians suck, Priuses have sticky throttles - you want me to what? Buy into your gw fears?

Most people are more concerned, rightly so, about their family's well being - and not 1-2 degrees of probably mostly natural warming and 1mm ocean yearly rise trends - after all, weren't we in an ice age 12,000 years ago and wasn't it warmer in the recent past? And colder, too? Wasn't Greenland green?

When they busted out the climate gate emails - that really showed the ethics of the global warming promoters.

Little to None.

Posted by Edward Mainland, a resident of the Novato neighborhood, on Mar 11, 2010 at 11:34 am

Mrs. Anonymous: You'll be doing your family, your neighborhood and your country no favors by staying in denial and taking refuge from the facts. Think about it -- the current level of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, carefully tracked by measurements at observatories throughout the world, has risen above 381 parts per million. Ice-core sampling shows that never, during the past 400,000 years, has that level exceeded 300 parts per million. We are living through a climatologically unprecedented experiment. Most mainstream scientists agree that this greenhouse effect is being caused by human combustion of fossil fuels and alteration of the planet's natural surface.

The evidence for our changing planet seems to stare us in the face -- from the previously mythical, now navigable Northwest Passage to melting glaciers just about everywhere to more intense storms (including, of course, more intense snowstorms caused by more aerial water vapor pumped by the warming). Anyone can google NASA for multi-year satellite imagery showing polar ice vanishing. Anyone can google phots of mountain glaciers shrinking almost everywhere in the world, including our own Sierras and Glacier National Park.

NASA says 2009 was the warmest year on record in the Southern Hemisphere. 2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record. Analysis by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the hottest decade on record -- due to cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean -- 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 1998 and 2007 -- as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began.

James Hansen, the director of GISS. said “There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Niño-La Niña cycle. But when we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find that global warming is continuing unabated."

Scientific theory, actual observations of the planet, and complex models - however imperfect each is in isolation - all point to ongoing, potentially dangerous human alteration of climate.

Sticking our heads in the sand like ostriches isn't going to remedy matters, Mrs. Anonymous.

Posted by Alex Cannara, a resident of the Muir Beach neighborhood, on Mar 17, 2010 at 5:10 pm

To give an idea of why those claiming climate changes have stopped or stabilized simply haven't accurate information, a quick summary is: 1) Earth has orbital cycles, one with strong climate effect about every 100,000 years; 2) the Sun has activity cycles, one that affects sunspots every 11 years; and 3) volcanism & El Nino events greatly & oppositely influence temperature & weather.

The past several years have seen relatively stable temps, and if we only take account of the 4 influences above, an excellent fit with the data appears. Since we've lacked sunspots & El Nino for several years, and this year is an El Nino one, what should we guess temps will be for the year -- up or down? Since we've been at a lull in the sunspot cycle, but the next few years will show increases, again, what should we guess about temps over the next several years?.

Gamblers & con men are aware of a basic error we often make -- the Pascal Wager. In statistics, a bet that has very large possible payoff, but very, very low chance of actually paying off, is the kind of wager a professional doesn't make, but wants others to make when playing his/her game. A lottery is such a wager. Given the reams of data from honest science folks around the world, betting against global warming is a Pascal Wager -- also known as a Fool's Wager.

I'll be happy to provide a PDF that displays the data and implications, if anyone wants it.

cannara@sbcglobal.net

650-400-3071

Posted by Jaker, a resident of the Marinwood neighborhood, on Mar 19, 2010 at 10:27 am

Just because global warming is real does not mean that cutting anthropogenic carbon production is an appropriate response. Lets keep the arguments logical.

And because global warming is real, why has it become politicized by changing the public name to climate change? Why go there?

Reduction of carbon emissions is good for many reasons- energy independence, clean air, etc.

Every person who feels strongly about Reduction of carbon emissions should be out campaigning for increased nuclear generation. The facts are clear- it is clean and after oil, cheapest.

But they don't, so they must have an "agenda."

Global warming will be really good for some people - Canadian land owners for example. but most natural events are good for some and bad for others.

What hutspa to think that your puny laws can change it.

What hutspa to think that you should tell others what to do about it.

I suggest you clean up your mess, for whatever reason you made it. I am also trying to clean up your mess, too, but for real reasons, not fake ones.

Posted by Ed Mainland, a resident of the Novato neighborhood, on Mar 19, 2010 at 4:57 pm

Mrs. Jaker:

Anyone is free to call global warming whatever they want. Informed people call it severe impending climate disruption with tragic environmental, economic and social consequences.

Nuclear power is absolutely the worst and most ineffective way to reduce carbon emissions. It takes too long, it is prohibitively expensive, the capital costs are outta sight, and its legacy is radioactive waste that can't be stored safely for the millions of years it's active. Plutonium, for example, is one of the most highly toxic elements known and adds to the threat of nuclear terrorism if terrorists get some. Nuclear plants make lots of it.

Nuclear power is now way more expensive than wind and even thin-film solar photovoltaics which can be set up on places like Woodland Market, Tam Racquet Club, and other businesses and roof spaces around Marin, thus totally avoiding major transmission costs of bringing in electricity from far away.

Why try this costly Rube Goldberg contraption, nuclear power, when results are faster and cleaner with conservation, efficiency and renewable power sources like solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, small hydro, tidal and ocean power?

Scientists have concluded, in peer-reviewed reports anyone can read, that the consequences of global warming will, on balance, be extremely bad and dangerous. You can either believe mainstream scientists or you can believe Rush Limbaugh. You choose.

Most of the Marin community -- according to polls -- wants to "clean up the mess" or at least be part of the Great Cleanup by greatly expanding greener energy sources. By far the best way to get more authentic renewable power is through Marin Clean Energy and not the incumbent utility, which is lagging badly behind state targets for both renewable power and energy efficiency.

We need to choose for a better way. Marin can show the way. MCE.

Posted by johnnymarin, a resident of the San Rafael neighborhood, on Apr 18, 2010 at 4:39 pm

I like the Jaker argument best. The disruption of our economy is not worth the changes they are trying to implement. Let China and India take the lead since they are the real polluters.

Posted by Ed Mainland, a resident of the Novato neighborhood, on Apr 21, 2010 at 7:25 pm

Cleaner energy and fewer greenhouse gas emissions are the road to a more stable, renewed and more vigorous economy. Many studies confirm that AB 32, the state's global warming law now under attack by economic reactionaries and big polluters like Valero, will generate new economic benefits.

India and China obviously have to be part of any global solution to the climate challenge. Interestingly, China has now become a world leader in many clean energy techologies, especially wind power, leaving the United States, as so often, behind in the dust.

Meanwhile, nature won't wait for the "teabaggers", dittoheads and backward thinkers to catch up with reality. Glacier National Park has lost two more of its namesake moving ice fields to climate change, which is shrinking the rivers of ice until they grind to a halt. Warmer temperatures have reduced the number of named glaciers in the northwestern Montana park to 25. The U.S. Geological Survey says the rest of the glaciers may be gone by the rest of the decade.

From the Himalayas to Alaska, glacier melting has accelerated in recent decades as global temperatures have increased. The melt-off shows the climate is changing. Natural Resources Defense Council reports that weather records show Clacier was 2 degrees hotter on averagefrom 200 to 2009, compared with 1950 to 1979.

Denial, obfuscation, ignorance are now no longer options.

Posted by Jon, a resident of another community, on Jul 12, 2010 at 2:21 am

We need to go back to living off the land, back to the old and glorious medieval times. Too much hi-tech drivel like computers and cellphones pollutes the air and corrupts our minds. Whatever happened to books, and letter-writing?? And when a man would romance a woman with a poem or a song? We have fallen from grace and burning in the fires big time. Everything we're doing is wrong, from gas guzzling trucks to home cosmetics. Technology is polluting the earth! Of course the earth is getting hotter. Too many roads and cities absorbing heat and not enough trees and simple fields. People in general are also quite mean in cities, but country folk are nice. There's a difference. Too much technology is ruining us inside and out and it's not going to change. We need to go back in time!