Comment Log Display

Reducing the carbon emissions that contribute to global warming is
one of the critical challenges of our time. California must learn
to live sustainably, and not continue to capitalize the resources
needed for future generations, particularly its land resources.
Since 1990, more than 500,000 acres of land has been urbanized in
California (Edward Thompson Jr., 2007), and the rate of development
has increased exponentially. This is a trend that simply cannot
continue. Farmland not only provides food and serves as habitat for
wintering waterfowl and other wildlife species, it acts as a carbon
sink to offset the emissions generated with other land uses (Sloan
et al, 2005). 

CARB has an important opportunity to recognize the devastating
effects of past land use practices in California that have resulted
in sprawl - low density, auto dependent communities located far
away from job centers that have increased our dependency on
automobiles, increased the cost to taxpayers of maintaining road
and service infrastructure, negatively impacted family and
community life with long commutes, eliminated wildlife habitat,
permanently reduced our available supply of food production
resources, and increased the amount of carbon emissions released
into our shared atmosphere from vehicle miles traveled. A shift in
the way we plan and build communities in California needs to
happen. This shift can be accomplished in ways that create economic
opportunity, but it won’t come about with out clear direction from
the State that current land use and development practices need to
change.

Increasing the target emission reduction for land uses from a
paltry 5 MMT to at least 11-14 MMT will send a strong signal to
local communities to make the important shift to a more condensed
land use model that makes better use of infill opportunities,
public transportation alternatives to private automobile use,
reduces infrastructure costs, and ultimately achieves a better
quality of life for all Californians while substantially reducing
the carbon emissions that are contributing to the climate change
problem. Please increase the emission reduction requirements in the
land use sector of the AB 32 Scoping Plan to 11-14 MMT to send the
signal that our shared environment depends on making significant
changes in the way we design and develop communities.