Comment Log Display

Here are my writtten comments (to supplement what I stated in San
Jose)

Thank you for doing this outreach as well as for drafting this
scoping plan to reduce global warming here in CA.

My concerns lie with the Land Use AND Cap & Trade or California
Carbon Trust parts of the plan:
•	Land Use – Jerry Hill mentioned yesterday’s SF Chronicle
editorial, “The Planning Void”
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/07/EDC61267N3.DTL)
which indicated that reductions of only a “scant 2 million metric
tons through better land use decisions (will be achieved in the
current draft)….Incredibly, that would be less than the
(reductions that the) air board plans to achieve from encouraging
proper tire inflation.”
•	The editorial described SB 375, a regional land use and
transportation bill that allows ARB to set reduction targets.  I
believe that bill has the potential to do to land use,
transportation, and regional planning what AB 32 itself has done
to climate change.
o	I had attended the Land Use Sub-Group Action Team workshop in
Oakland, convened by the Energy Commission and ARB, and I was very
encouraged – I learned a lot as well!
	I was highly impressed  by one particular slide using the 
3-legged stool metaphor for achieving GHG reductions in
transportation:
•	More fuel efficient vehicles, e.g. Pavley
•	Low carbon fuel standard
•	Land use and transportation improvements that result in reduced
VMT – and that was mentioned to be the ‘weakest’ of the 3 legs and
it shows!  This ‘leg’ needs strengthening!

Many preceding speakers also spoke to strengthening the land use
element, including neighborhood amenities like small grocery
stores to walk to.  However, that means providing the consumer
base to make them survive financially, and that means adding
density to existing neighborhoods, which is very controversial,
especially but not solely in affluent communities. While "all land
use is local" prevails in our state, if we are to get people out of
their cars so as to reduce GHG emissions, ARB is going to have to
consider this problem. 

Hopefully SB 375 will be the key to tackling this challenge!

Moving on to:

•	 Cap & Trade or California Carbon Trust: 
o	Clearly the fact that carbon is currently ‘unpriced’ is a major,
if not the major cause of global warming.  
o	I would like to see the alternative of a carbon tax considered.
This then brings up the issue of where to apply the carbon
revenues.

•	I would like to see what NASA’s Jim Hansen calls a `carbon tax
and 100% dividend’ (
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080604_TaxAndDividend.pdf),
similar to the Cap & Dividend mentioned earlier, considered where
the carbon tax is returned to all California residents in the form
of a carbon dividend deposited directly into their bank accounts –
sort of like the Alaska Permanent Fund in reverse.  Alaska shares
all oil and gas revenues with its citizens.  A carbon dividend
would reward citizens who use less fossil fuels because they would
spend less in carbon taxes….while all citizens would receive the
same dividend.

•	Many preceding speakers repeated, “We should be making polluters
pay”, presumably referring to Big Oil, the Hansen Cement Plant, the
power generators, Big Agriculture.
o	I prefer to use the line, “Make consumers pay”….For example, to
just look at two areas where consumers would be accountable:
	to be accountable for my transportation choices:
•	The vehicle I drive
•	How much I drive
•	How fast I drive
•	The fuel I use.
	To be accountable for my housing choices
•	Where I live, which often determines how much I must drive
•	How much energy I consume in my house

To sum up, strengthen the land use component, greater emphasis on
reducing vehicle miles traveled; consider other options to cap &
trade that price carbon but are more ‘seamless’, that make the
costs evident and less elusory and easy to avoid.

Finally, consumers, as well as polluters, need to be held
accountable for our choices.

Thanks for coming to San Jose today!  Obviously you know the
way:-)!

.