Being green good for economy

Being green is good for the economy (so much for jobs vs. environment):

[In 2006, Silicon Valley had a] dramatic surge of venture funding into ``clean technologies'' that address pollution and the affect of greenhouse gases. The ``cleantech'' funding to valley firms soared from $141 million in 2005 to $516 million in 2006.

From the SJ Mercury. Khosla and Doerr are among the big leaders there. I expect this is just the beginning of this boom.

And to top it off, our illustrious president spoke of the need to "confront the serious challenge of global climate change" in last week's State of the Union speech. I guess it must be real now.

Global warming is much in the news these days. It's clear momentum is building.

The new Congress with Barbara Boxer at the head of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will soon hold hearings and Pelosi is said to want a bill this session.

Vinod Khosla is in the news every other day on his fuel investments. Cellulosic Ethanol is the grail there (and for good reason - corn based ethanol provides little or no global warming benefit due to all the fuel that goes into growing the corn!)

And the San Jose Mercury had an excellent 4 part front page series:

• Under water by 2100? Risk of the rising sea
  
• Deaths, disease likely to rise
  
• State's agriculture and health at risk from higher temperatures
  
• Hotter days, fewer species
  

But what is little in the news is that far and away the most effective mechanism for reducing global warming is efficiency. Not very sexy - weather stripping, double paned windows, florescents (ok, compact florescents are getting some useful hype). According to a Lawrence Livermore study nearly 60% of our energy (all types) is lost to inefficiencies.

And to fix that we need action at every level personal, local, state, national.

Ok, so where are we now? We got a good splash and the San Mateo council has our attention. The planning session went pretty smoothly and people are engaged. The most concrete thing that happened was that the council and staff committed to having a proposal for consideration. That means staff is to go and research what other cities are doing. Arne Croce, the city manager, communicated by email a few days ago that they are looking into ICLEI. That's an important step.

The bad news was that there was no commitment on timing. At the meeting Arne suggested that this would make sense as a proposal for the 2008 workplan. Certainly the city staff has a lot of important work to do but that's a long way off. We're going to have to look at how we might move this along more quickly.

More public support is still needed.

A little behind... Redwood City held discussions on Tuesday but no decision was made. Council appears sympathetic but it looks like on 2/12 it will make a decision to sign the Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement and move forward.

Kudos to Rick and the rest of the team there for helping get things going!

Business is really getting it. Today a big announcement included CEOs from Caterpillar, DuPont, Alcoa, General Electric and others urged national action with mandatory emissions caps.

Let's hope this translates to real action both in legislation and in business making this process easier. Standards, tools, support are all needed. Some of it is surfacing for local businesses and cities through organizations like Sustainable Silicon Valley and ICLEI.

Other news: Redwood City took up the question of their action on climate change yesterday. Our local volunteer there Rick was there, hope to hear soon what happened.

For some months I've been wondering where to connect to the broader climate movement. The Climate Change Action blog looks like a good place. it's out of the UK and it has a global perspective.

They just posted this terrific new video on YouTube A Real Education: New Music Video.

There are lots of signs the movement is building. This is one of them.

Wow. Santa Monica wants to be a net-zero city

Santa Monica wants to be the nation’s first “Net Zero” city. Through energy efficiency, solar and other renewable energy, the city envisions generating clean energy that matches its total energy consumption.

Now that's leadership.

Missed this yesterday. Great editorial from the San Mateo Daily Journal applauding the city's step forward and urging progress.

...Seldom does the conversation center on what every individual or smaller organization can do.

The San Mateo City Council is taking on that conversation with a new focus on what the city government can do to conserve energy as not only an example to its residents but to other government agencies.

There is no better time than now. The science of global warming is ever in flux and while there is some dispute over how great its threat may be, everyone has a vested interest in not only keeping it in check but doing whatever we can to conserve energy. Doing so will help to eliminate greenhouse gases but also minimize our reliance on foreign energy sources from increasingly unstable parts of the world. It will also save money.
...
San Mateo is smart to take the lead. It can set its own course without the meddling of others but can also be an example to not only other communities, but its residents. Taking the lead also means the city could draw new business as technology and best practices are developed at a quick-fire pace. That new business means new revenue.

Progress! Today the council asked the staff to study and bring forward a proposal for reducing its climate change impacts beginning next year. This is as much as could be expected at today’s study session. Council member Brandt Grotte should be applauded for bringing forward the proposal and Carole Groom was especially supportive. San Mateo is already doing good things with the green library, support for transit-oriented development, some modest green vehicle purchasing and other things but concerted attention will yield significant improvements. Everyone acknowledged that there is currently little expertise in this area so this gets the city working on this.

We had great turn out with Peter, Susan, Mark, Karen and Wil from the core team as well as newcomers Adam and Gerald. Also present and deserving of thanks were Michael of the Unitarian church and Stephanie of the League. Plus 15 messages from our alert!

I had hoped to catch city manager Arne Croce at the end of the meeting but was unable to. What we don’t have is any kind of time frame for the proposal or how it will be developed – these are the first questions now. A couple council members sounded cautious notes so it is by no means a done deal.

So still a lot to do to make this real but this was a step forward. Congratulations all around – now we continue to build partnerships and community awareness to make it real.

Stay up to date by subscribing to the YahooGroup (below on the right of the home page).

Update: Things are changing, even ExxonMobil is changing its tune. But we still need everyone to do their part.

Update 2: Great article in today's San Mateo Daily Journal

Great front page media story today in the San Mateo Daily News.

Article covers not only our push in San Mateo but also the broader regional effort.

Also received word that the League of Women Voters has sent a letter (I am not speaking on behalf of the League) and will have a presence at the council meeting.

About a dozen additional people have sent in messages to the council in favor of the city taking action.

I don't have a feel for how the council will respond. Make your voice heard - send a message to the council and come join us!

Details below.

City Council annual planning meeting is coming up!

The city will decide what its plans for the year are. A number of us are going to speak on behalf of the proposal. It's unclear how this meeting is run and what we should expect. The agenda is not very clear but this discussion will be part of the "Annual Planning Session" at 4:30. If you can make it, please come!

Tue 1/16 4:30pm

City Hall
Conference Room C
330 West 20th Avenue
San Mateo, CA 94403


Still trying to catch my breath from yesterday. Setup the web sites and sent out the alert using CitizenSpeak. Some of the tools are new to me and the approach here is experimental.

I spoke with the Examiner and Daily News. Both expect to run articles today or this weekend on the proposal before the city.

Fast-forward: We've been scrambling so I just got this up today but we've done a lot. Since our kickoff, members of our team have had several meetings with officials:

• Bob Beyer, Director of Community Development
• Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo
• Brandt Grotte, council member
• The local League of Women Voters

Most important, we sent in a letter to the city council. We're asking the city to setup a "Green Ribbon Taskforce" to create a comprehensive plan for the city.

Today Stephanie, David and I met with Linda Asbury of the Chamber of Commerce. It was a friendly meeting. Linda said that if she could probably help identify individuals to serve on the taskforce if it is established and invited us to present to their social policy committee. But she also made clear that local businesses are not talking about climate change. We're going to have to prepare carefully for a presentation to their policy committee...