Jay Halcomb is a Guerneville resident and the vice chairman of the Redwood Chapter of the Sierra Club.

https://www.redwood.sierraclub.org/s...ateEnergy.html

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On climate change: Education and action must go together
By JAY HALCOMB
Press Democrat, Sunday December 31, 2007
https://www1.pressdemocrat.com/artic...50/OPINION0304

After many decades of investigative science -- and thanks to Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change -- some "inconvenient truths" about climate change are resonating with the public.

Every politician is now forced in some way to tackle what has become an emergency.

A local case in point is Sonoma County Supervisor Paul Kelley's recent trip to the UN climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, on behalf of the Sonoma County Water Agency.

The trip appears to be one of many initiatives on behalf of the water agency to address climate change.

As part of a move to secure state funding, the agency announced in a press release that "Under the proposed program, the county would move toward 100 percent renewable power as well as increased use of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. The agency's carbon reductions could be* significantly larger if cooperative carbon sequestration programs with local farmers are implemented . . . 'One of the side benefits of a program like this is that it could make Sonoma County an attractive location for new clean industries and entrepreneurial leaders in green tech,' said Kelley."

While the water agency should be applauded for taking action on this issue, it -- along with other government agencies, political leaders, business owners and citizens -- must have a clear understanding of the problem before it begins offering solutions.

"Business as usual" will become a thing of the past,** but faltering or wrong steps taken now can become excessively costly and ineffective.

Our business and political leaders will need to work seriously on alternatives to replace our present energy sources and uses.

One thing we do know is that climate change is a problem which can only be seriously managed through institutional changes.

Our adaptations to global warming, as they occur, are going to significantly affect our ways of life in the future in several key areas: transportation, energy, agriculture, construction and land use.

We are going to have to manage the financial impacts of all these changes, and we'll need to fairly distribute both the costs and the benefits of the new environmental technologies which we will be inventing.

In what respects are our individual lives going to be effected in 10 or 20 years? Specifically, how are our business* practices and lifestyles going to be different in Sonoma County -- for a businessman, a housewife, a farmer -- or for a city or county planner?

How will our pocketbooks be affected?

Learning more about these critical issues is the responsibility of an informed citizenry.

Many of us still lack the kind of basic information we should have about these issues to make good decisions -- information which is available from experts who understand this issue.

As a way of educating and inspiring the public, the Redwood Chapter of the Sierra Club is co-sponsoring a lecture by Stephen Schneider, a professor at Stanford University.

Schneider is the founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change, a member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from its inception and a contributor to all four IPCC assessment reports.

His invaluable national and international experience on how pollution impacts our planet and its biosphere will help us understand how we can decrease our energy consumption and reduce our carbon footprint.

To quote Mahatma Gandhi: "A technological society has two choices: first it can wait until catastrophic failures expose systemic deficiencies, distortion and self-deceptions. Secondly, a culture can provide social checks and balances to correct for systemic distortion prior to catastrophic failures."

Jay Halcomb is a Guerneville resident and the vice chairman of the Redwood Chapter of the Sierra Club.
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