Take a dive with BP's spill -- Yuk

Thanks to RepowerAmerica, Al Gore in action on the internet he invented, for tipping me to this new view of the gush.

You can help set Florida's goals for 2060

Fifty years from now, they could be following your goals.

I heard about this Wednesday at the monthly meeting of the Miami-Dade County Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, of which I'm an appointed member, in a briefing by an official from the Florida Department of Transportation. Before now the FDOT planned out 20 years -- the last plan was considered and issued in 2005 for 2025. Now we're going deeper into the future, and setting goals, objectives and strategies out to 2060.

There's a website, http://www.2060ftp.org/. The FTP stands not for file transfer protocol but for Florida Transportation Plan. You will see that there's a meeting in Fort Lauderdale May 11-12 of the Steering Committee, where your presence is welcome.

Click on the Calendar link, and you'll see that in June there's a meeting in downtown Miami of a Regional Workshop. Again, your presence is welcome. You also can send in your ideas and suggestions. That's at the Miami-Dade College Wolfson Campus, 2:30 p.m. on June 2.

After the presentation I couldn't stop myself from saying, "If I were issuing a plan going out to the year 2060, I would start by saying this will be a 50-year period of tremendous environmental challenge due to climate change. But in all you've said and shown on the screen, the environment and climate change hardly even get mentioned."

In other words, FDOT needs a lot of help in formulating a plan for 2060. Go to it, please. Save the planet.

Manatee cam

Our dear friends at FPL are nice to manatees. Here's a link to the live shot of manatees enjoying warm water from an FPL plant's outflow.

And thanks to our friends at the Miami Herald for their story on this oddity. The manatees can been seen even in the middle of the night, so there are lights on the scene.

The answer to post-health-care funk: Get money out of politics

It’s very concerning now. We progressive Democrats are demoralized by health-care passage in the Senate, while the Republican losers assert they’re happy campers and will go home to stir up more trouble than ever. This is exactly the reverse of the morale that ought to apply to these camps. There is, no doubt, some bravado and exaggeration on each side, but I think it’s generally a true portrait. Our side has to grow and change in a hurry, or we could slide down to a lower level for the next battle – the environment, which is even more important than health care. It’s the planet that’s at stake, not just a few million human beings and their crummy health.

For next steps I’m looking for tips from Organizing For America, from MoveOn, from Progressive Democrats of America; that is, from the Obama White House, from the grassroots liberal establishment, and from the PDA’s curious inside-outside mixture of being inside Congress (80-plus in the Progressive Caucus) and outside among people willing to demonstrate and occasionally be arrested.

As of this evening, OFA has sent out an email asking to thank the Senators who voted for the bill. MoveOn.org still has Joe Lieberman on its front page. PDAmerica.org is boasting that it was named by The Nation magazine as the most valuable political group of 2008. Yes, not a typo, of 2008.

So, let’s agree that they haven’t issued quick advice on how to think and act in order to salvage the historic presidency of Barack Obama. We are, nonetheless, thinking about this vital mission. Even if it is Christmas.

I do not think the progressive side will have to drag Barack Obama, kicking and screaming, to do the right thing. If he can be convinced that he will be re-elected, he’s for it. But what will be the right thing? The Hawaii vacation may have come at exactly the right time to refresh the president’s thinking and morale. This should be a time for bold action, not mealy-mouthed compromise. Open thinking and debate, not disgusting deals on Nebraska Medicaid.

A forthright approach would be to start a new tack altogether – get money out of politics. This is what has left us in a post-health-care funk. Let’s start thinking about fixing the root problem of our health care, the environment, our wars, our corruption. The people will thank us.

FL-18 Ros-Lehtinen: Saving the Atlantic and its fisheries is “unacceptable”

Talk about short-sighted. And this is my member of Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-FL-18. As always, except for her very reluctant vote in favor of expanding children’s health insurance after numerous votes against it, she is on the wrong side of an issue. O woe, she bleats in the US House. If they impose these rules limiting fishing for grouper, her constituent in the Florida Keys will have to give up his charter fishing business. Exactly. Her constituent has been over-fishing since he was able to start an outboard motor, and it’s got to stop.

I don’t see that this foolishness has made it into the Miami Herald, so thanks to Keys newspapers  for bringing up Ros-Lehtinen’s willful neglect of the world we live in. She prefers the narrow interests of a few of her constituents to maintenance of the food chain we all inhabit. Check out the story linked above. She says it’s “unacceptable” for rules against over-fishing to drive commercial fishermen away from their boats. Well, that’s how she’s quoted, and it sounds like her.

Here’s a different analysis, from the Dec. 3 issue of the New York Review of Books, a review by John Terborgh, a Duke professor whose passion is preservation of the tropical world. Sorry to report that his trenchant article is available only to subscribers. He laments the failure of (no less than) modern democracy to protect natural resources.

“This is because both the regulators and the regulated are inextricably linked as each side pursues its self-interest. Fishers, many of whom are paying mortages on expensive boats and gear, fear a loss of income if limits are imposed. Staying afloat financially in the present takes priority over prospects of a more bountiful future. Thus, the industry reflexively resists any imposition of limits and makes sure the politicians understand this priority. In turn, the politicians fear losing their seats if their constituents rise up in wrath against them. The upshot is that the resource loses nearly every time.”

Did we all get that? “The upshot is that the resource loses nearly every time.”

The overall message of Terborg’s article is that the world is in overshoot in practically all areas. Too bad we don’t have wiser representatives in Washington than Ros-Lehtinen.

There are meetings soon of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to consider these rules on over-fishing. There still may be time for you to send in a public comment. Don't forget to send a note to Ros-Lehtinen.
 .

Take the stairs!

My next car. Just decided.

FL-18: Ros-Lehtinen hosts MoveOn/Dems and enjoys

A little triumph was recorded when five members of the Miami Beach Democratic Club had a meeting with our staunchly Republican member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. It happened Thursday evening in the congresswoman’s Miami office. The occasion was to propose President Obama’s Green Jobs initiative.

Bottom Line: Ros-Lehtinen was pretty enthusiastic about it. And happy to meet a bunch of her constituents, even if they all voted against her, and our leader, Dave Patlak, was the candidate against her in 2006. And your blogger here runs several blogs that sometimes are pretty critical of her. It’s the way things are. No hard feelings.

You can see the video of it here:

This was a joint effort of a vast infrastructure of progressive endeavor, with MoveOn a big player through its current program called Power Up America. A week or so earlier we had met as a MoveOn council drawing in people with interests in green jobs and green business of small scale. Also prominent in the background was Green for All, a grassroots organization whose founder, Van Jones, now is part of the Obama administration as special adviser on green jobs. So we can say an arm of this effort reached up to the White House.

The goal is to help the economy recover as well as to redirect economic activity along environment-friendly lines.

As the congresswoman said at the end of the meeting: “Save the planet and save money too.”

Her overall positive reaction to the presentation still leaves the question of where she will put her vote when it comes down to that. Ros-Lehtinen is famous for being nice to her constituents and as helpful as possible. But then she votes the way the Republican leadership orders. So far she has been a reliable No vote on the Barack Obama programs and budget. Maybe things will be different now that she's met with us and may have a better understanding of Green Jobs as a way to stem a tide of unemployment among her constituents.

(also posted on the Florida Progressive Coalition blog.)

The summit, a day later. And the fly in the ointment.

Friday morning devoted to C-Span, and it runs on into the afternoon. Recapping the summit in London and all the subsequent talk. Barack Obama was the star as I tuned in to the indispensable source of information. Unfiltered. Unspun. There he was talking to young people in Strasbourg, France, a townhall in a sports arena that looked like the one where I saw him speak in Broward County a half-year ago, except so many in the crowd were brilliantly dressed – there in France. Makes me want to run out and buy something black. If I had any money.

Anyway, the president represented us as well as can be and, without having taken a note, I say I’m sure he inspired thousands of young Europeans (there where France and Germany come together over a dish of pork chops and sauerkraut) to admire the United States and want to endorse its wise leadership.

Then the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, was on the C-Span screen declaiming his version of a summit that can be seen as doing all that’s possible at this juncture to pull us through our economic meltdown. And now the British PM, Gordon Brown, is out with the same message to a vast hall full of reporters in London, and here comes Germany’s Angela Merkel. Thank you, C-Span!

My personal aside: 20-30 years ago I was one of the reporters in those halls in Jerusalem, London, Tokyo, Munich, Brussels -- and don’t forget Reykjavik, where Reagan and Gorbachev came within an eyelash of resolving the nuclear arms race. The adrenalin that flows in these venues is not to be underestimated. If I get together with fellow veterans of Reykjavik, inevitably, we’ll recall how the hair rose on the backs of our necks as we heard Secretary of State George Schultz chronologize the leaders’ talks that came to the brink of success in eliminating the superpowers’ nuclear arms – and then stepped back into more modestly goaled terrain. Hair on necks returned to normal stance, but sweat on brow took time to cool.

Now it’s piquant that the Reykjavik of my 1986 memory is the first country to go bankrupt. (Pardon me for conflating Reykjavik with Iceland; the capital has over half of Iceland’s population of about 320,000.) So I must ask whether the reporters who did the G20 summit will go home and find the meltdown continuing unabated, the way the nuclear arms situation continues today? Or will they have a happier outcome than those of us who saw the Reykjavik Summit as an opening to much more progress than has occurred?

Well, excuse me for pouring cold water on the parade. Where will our U.S. situation fall apart? In Congress, of course. Here’s some evidence, from the indispensable blog (testimonial from Tom Friedman) Climate Progress.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/04/new-gingrich-rush-limbaugh-energy-tax-conservatives-deniers-global-warming/

And this post from Climate Progress names all the Senate Democrats who are piling on to the conservative line on the environment. http://climateprogress.org/2009/04/03/conservatives-win-senate-democrat-converts-to-their-polluter-appeasing-message/#more-5220

The problem that we – meaning human beings living on Earth – have with the conservatives is that they’re against the strategies needed to keep living on Earth. As Climate Progress says:

If you want to tackle global warming, if you want to avert the unimaginable misery of 5.5° to 7°C warming and 850 ppm for the next 100 billion people who walk the planet this millennium, you have only three strategies:

1. Put a serious price on carbon
2. Spend a gazillion dollars on clean technology development and deployment
3. Mandate the use of efficient, cleaner technology.

[And yes, for 450 ppm or lower, you need all three.]

The question is, how can you get a global climate treaty through the Senate with the requirement of 67 votes? Not possible. Prospects are gloomy. And progress on climate/environment issues is urgently required. To save the planet and turn the economy onto a sustainable path.

Some “Green” convention: Obama delegate is forced into a Hummer

Jim Jackson is an Obama delegate from St. Petersburg, Florida, who arrived in Denver a little early to spend time with relatives and found the rental car situation down to the bottom of the barrel – a Hummer!

“If you see an Obama delegate riding around town in a big red Hummer, yes it is me,” Jackson said in an email Friday morning. “So much for a green convention.”

He said he’d been trying to replace it – in vain. “Want to trade? anything?”

“Unless there is a sudden influx of cars I am stuck with this environmental disaster for the duration.”

Does anyone have a transit pass for Jim Jackson?

UPDATE: To reinforce the green aspect of the convention, the Florida Democratic Party mentioned in a news release Friday that:

The delegation was also recently certified as a “Green Delegation” as part of the DNCC’s "Green Delegate Challenge." Through the purchase of carbon offsets, our delegations travel to/from and time in Denver will be carbon neutral, in an effort to help curb global warming and promote environmentally sustainability.

Picture your block under water

Earth Day 2008. I’m heading out this evening to hear the Army Corps of Engineers’ inadequate plans for dealing with the Everglades. Previewed Monday on the Miami Herald’s op-ed page, the plan will say there’s not enough money to do the right thing. Funny. There’s trillions to do the wrong thing. Paltry pocket change for the Everglades.

The link to the Earth Day horror story includes an aerial photo – graphically altered – showing South Beach at high tide in the future, perhaps two generations down the line, when sea levels have risen enough so that high water creeps up from Biscayne Bay and runs seven or eight blocks through the street. We’ll have Washington and Collins Avenues left to party on.

Are you ready for that? Why aren’t we doing anything about it? Surprise, it’s that old problem: poor representation in Congress. They don’t know and don’t care to know. Minds elsewhere. And forget about the local political leaders. They know the problem but don’t care. Their billions are for stadiums and tunnels for white elephants.

A few weeks ago I saw this photo representation at a meeting organized by the Sierra Club to learn about the Everglades. Pretty shocking, but there is some little bit of hope. It requires, however, that we actually do something about restoring natural water flow in the Everglades. This is a little tricky to understand, so I’ll try to do it in bullets:

• · The canals and highways that have destroyed the natural water flow in the Everglades also led to less sediment being deposited downstream. Think of how the Mississippi River has been confined within levees that control flooding and the result has been the retreat of the land in the delta. Same thing is happening in the Everglades: less sediment replenishing that which washes away, ergo less land.

• · If we open some of the canal banks and put the Tamiami Trail up on an elevated roadway, more-natural water flow would gradually help build up the mangroves on the edges of Florida Bay, thus raising the level of the land. This could help fend off the effect of sea-level rise and also stop the intrusion of salt water into the aquifer that supplies our fresh water.

• · Is this worth a billion? Saving not only the Everglades but also inhabited South Florida? I’d say so. Our leaders in Congress think all they’ve got is a couple hundred million, so we’ll get far less than enough to deal with the problem. On the other hand, they’re trying not to do something that would interfere with doing the right thing later on.
  

Earth Day 2008. Be thankful for small favors.

Clean energy? McCain couldn't lift a finger

This is something I'll remember in November when someone tells me that McCain is the one. Following are the first paragraphs of an email that came in from the Sierra Club, reporting that the "moderate" and "centrist" and "uniter" John McCain couldn't be bothered to vote on a good measure.

Dear Larry,

Last night one vote prevented the Senate from advancing an economic stimulus package that included important clean energy incentives -- a key addition to the package passed by the House last week.

Even though John McCain was in Washington last night, he was the only Senator who missed the vote, and he insured its defeat. This latest vote against clean energy comes at a time when McCain's speeches are full of promises to increase America's use of clean energy and calls to his fellow Senators to pass the stimulus package "to get some people back to work, and get our economy going, and get some investment in our economy." [PBS, NewsHour, 2/1/08]

Big talk, no action.

Now playing on your computer: Presidential debate

It's on Grist (?), click here on grist.org and you can see Clinton, Edwards and Kucinich lay out their programs on energy and climate change.

Stuff in our water?

Over at the Eye on Miami blog, deep concern is expressed at the state of the water coming out of our taps. I have to agree: it was shocking to read the Miami Herald a week ago when our watchdog judge, William Hoeveler, ripped everyone for having let stuff get into our tap water. Then I got busy and forgot to raise a ruckus. Mea culpa. Somehow I forgot that this blog is available, too. So, in case anyone is out there reading, here's the link to Eye on Miami's rant.

And here's the story in the Herald from July 14.

While you're writing your letter to the Herald, let's filter some water, OK?

Here, birdy, birdy. Birdy?

A couple weeks ago the bald eagle appeared in this blog, thanks to a delightful article in the New York Times reporting the majestic birds are living all over Florida -- some in the suburbs. Makes you feel good, doesn't it? The national bird is back. Relax. All's well.

Here's the antidote, which I believe the NY Times also has written about recently, but now it's on the front page of the Friday Miami Herald: our common birds are in a steep decline all over the United States. It's because we're paving over their habitat, and other reasons. So complains the Audubon Society.

So please read them both. This blog is fair and balanced.

Gelber: Crist in "right direction" on environment

State Rep. Dan Gelber, the minority leader in the House, was on WINZ 940AM this morning preparing to attend the environmental summit where Gov. Charlie Crist is to announce his plan to impose targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in Florida. Gelber said it will be "a very big first step in the right direction."

This is not just a Florida story: The NY Times writes it up today, noting the caveat that federal law may not permit Florida to depart from federal rules on auto emissions.

As we've been hearing for some time, the term-limited Gelber will run for the state Senate seat being vacated by Gwen Margolis, who is retiring after a laudable career as a Democrat in elected office. She was in the state House in 1974-1980 and the state Senate 1980-92, and was the first woman to serve as Senate president. After losing a race for the U.S. House of Representatives to E. Clay Shaw in 1992, she was elected to the Dade County commission, and then in 2002 she was elected again to the state Senate from the 35th district.

If you weren't up at 7:24 to listen, click this link to hear what Dan Gelber had to say on the Jim Defede Show.

Eagles in Florida suburbs

Here’s the NY Times take on how Florida is home to a lot of bald eagles, and a surprising number of them are living like many of us – in the ‘burbs.

I fell in love with this article at the third paragraph. The wonderful idea that the eagles “have discovered their inner Updike” and moved to the suburbs got to me. I’ve been reading John Updike’s novels since Rabbit was a basketball player. That character has been in a cemetery plot for quite a while now, but the eagles are doing better than we might have expected and now are off the endangered list.

My boyhood home was in Dubuque, Iowa, where the spectacular town park on the bluffs over the Mississippi River is called Eagle Point Park. We never wondered about the name – there were no eagles to be seen in the '50s or '60s, so the name of the park must have been fanciful. Now if you go there you may see 15-20 bald eagles soaring over the Mississippi. Thanks to the ban on DDT and other conservation measures, they have been back now for years. In the summer I often visit friends who have a house on the Chesapeake, on the eastern shore of Maryland. It’s like over the Mississippi – sometimes a dozen or more eagles soaring over Tilghman Island, down past St. Michaels.

The Times article reports that some real estate developers see the presence of eagles as a marketing tool, which may end up creating larger conservation areas for the majestic birds. Let’s take that with a grain of salt. This is Florida, after all.