western climate initiative

a lot of the talk at yesterday's EJAC meeting was regarding the western climate initiative (WCI). committee members expressed concern at being left out of the process--apparently july 29 was the last stakeholder meeting to discuss the policy. it was met with protests. the protesters concerns are not new, and all concern cap and trade. (i'm just going to take from the signonsandiego article. group is in bold, concern follows.)

1. environmental leaders: undermine california's efforts by allowing purchases of allowances/credits elsewhere, thus deferring a low-carbon transition at home.
2. labor officials: would encourage industry to leave california in favor of areas with fewer rules.
3. several critics: said the system would be open to manipulation and gaming.

the response: "Leaders of the Western Climate Initiative said they will take yesterday's comments into consideration as they craft a final plan for release in September."

hm. so, california comes out with this great plan, lots of (sort of) accountability. EJ provisions, public health provisions. a truly major environmental public works project. but now they latch on to the WCI and suddenly it becomes another nafta superhighway. what the hell is going on? shouldn't these protests and the EJAC meeting be cluing in the WCI leaders that they need more transparency, not less? if they stopped acting like corporate pigs, they could realize that a properly designed cap and trade system could address all concerns. but instead they're shrouding themselves in secrecy. i suggest to the WCI stakeholders that this is not a winning strategy.

liveblogging the EJAC meeting

so, let's see how this goes...check out the meeting agenda/details/stream at the following locations:

http://www.calepa.ca.gov/broadcast/?BDO=1
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ejac/ejac.htm

(all times in CDT)

12h14: still no activity on the stream...guess they're running late.

12h22: explicit targeting of blackberrys for a turn off! sick.

12h27: kevin kennedy and edie chang from CARB presenting.

12h42: CARB - VMT reductions necessary to meet 2050 goal. interesting.

12h54: $2b in public health benefits, $30 savings/month in transport costs. okay.

13h11: here we go. some conflict is evident between the EJAC and their feelings about the WCI. i think they feel marginalized in the process. (i can't mention names since they're not showing them...i think the woman speaking is named james.)

13h15: argh. confusing. notes to self: WCI stakeholder meeting was yesterday apparently the last one was yesterday. EJAC has no position yet on WCI. some NOx ruling at the federal (?) level is peripherally related?

big issue: EJ protections not on the radar elsewhere, only in CA. this seems to be the biggest deal. EJAC co-chair: "we will whine bitch, moan, complain, and sue you if necessary."

concerned about EJ committees/first nations internationally. concerned about CDM and human rights violations. lots of problems with the international markets. this is really good stuff.
the EPA dude (matt?) is getting completely dominated by the co-chair.

13h23: traditional EJ rejections to CnT. although he's right that everything should be on the table for AB32 implementation, but that they're jumping the gun on the WCI etc.

13h27: claim that acid rain lessons do not apply or that the acid rain program was somehow not a successful. don't agree.

13h28: WCI concerns being aired. no public process, planning happening on a regional level, not local. no public process in other states. only being attended by elected officials with no feedback. draft scoping plan (DSP) is too vague. "what does this mean to us?"

13h32: more EJ concerns: too many transactions happening. WCI again - no participation. response from matt: claiming that public participation has to happen because it's mandated by AB32, but i don't think he knows what he just promised (monitored transactions).

13h34: matt just keeps hitting back on AB32 and its provisions. seems like a cop out. although jose's comment wasn't very coherent. i'm getting the feeling that the EJAC has really internalized the declaration against carbon trading.

13h40: from the chair: more declaration stuff, more issues about the transactions occurring in the marketplace. you CANNOT monitor each transaction, it would also have to happen under a tax or regulation. very much an international focus with the EJAC. concerns about prosecuting abroad.

13h41: luke, assn of irritated citizens. encorcement, enforcability. "weaseling out" of ag enforcement mechanisms...? redoing SIPs around ag enforcement. (this is more than one sentence.)

13h42: martha, not a good track record of enforcement. (seems like monitoring as well.) how to deal with monitoring. goldstein replies that the regulatory processes will get into the minutiae of enforcement, etc.

13h49: chair, ARB at the place where a trading program is happening. not the place where EJAC and communities are. trading program cannot work to serve the interests of the communities she represents. she thinks that nothing can be done with a trading program to make it work/be good. it's amazing that the two chairs are women and one is a woman of color. i wish i could say more on that.

13h52: amy kyle, ucb public health. research on cumulative impacts and policy approaches. suggestions on how to think about policy mandates DSP. dealing with climate change not just a pollution issue. fine. but the answer is not necessarily new technology. (fine, it's more important than control, since you can't control GHGs like pollution). how about thinking about consumption as opposed to a technological panacea? i disagree that CnT for acid rain is fundamentally different than for carbon.

14h01: benefit leakage has not been analyzed. positive aspects of climate change policy could be shared. and...the sound cut out.

14h10: sound back. that was very frustrating. comments and q's for dr. kyle.

14h12: interesting that most of the other academic-types that had previously commented on the process/plans have been engineers/economists. interesting that we've got a public health professional talking to the EJAC.

request from luke for concrete recommendations to the board...and sound cut out again.

14h17: hm. sound cutting out could possibly have been my fault...back now.

14h18: i gather that dr. kyle's talk included the notion of including other metrics alongside GHG emissions. this was kind of talked about in kaswan's article as well. i think it's a good idea.

14h21: concern that public health has not been focused on to the same extent as econ impacts or emissions reductions. i would argue that this is not the mandate of AB32. public comment period now beginning for folks in the audience.

14h22: alternate for small business for california on the ETAC, talking about providing some incentives for energy efficiency. wants to use energy efficiency for offsets. it's really hard to measure gains from energy efficiency, though. see alan meier.

14h28: peggy hock, united solar. haha, she's definitely hawking her company's project. CSI program provides a base? we're looking for cuts below? i have no idea what's going on. i think she's addressing the wrong committee. distributed generation, the voluntary market is not covered? most people are not looking at AB32? we all want to include renewables? but if you look at how it's being implemented, the entire voluntary market is being left out? include distributed generation in the cap and trade market. she totally wasn't listening to the earlier part of the conversation? this is kind of hilarious.

sitting at the electricity cafe. all want to lower our bill. all utilities, dairies, car manufacturers, lots of people ordering way too much stuff. a bunch of people just ate salad. the bill was lowered. everyone pays the same. first sellers only have to turn in their receipts. this really has nothing to do with EJ. okay, i think what she's saying is that industry is not going to get credit for installing PV or wind, only what's going to come out of the smokestack.

jane is responding well. DG, renewables important. getting the folks at the table.

14h38: jean costa sierra club...oh god. problem with "granting pollution rights." ok, ok, she's legit. two pubs: carbon trading - a critical conversation on climate change, privitization, and power), sweden, 2006..lohmann et al. (apparently available free online!) stop using fossil fuels, stop using the atmosphere as a sink. global forest coalition, global justice ecology project "true cost of agro fuels" full costs.

14h45: tom bonn, offroad vehicle sierra club. no more free pass for offroad vehicles. i'm not sure how this is relevant either. are these folks not aware that they're adressing the EJ committee? srsly.

14h50: lunch.

15h29: meeting should be starting back up pretty soon, but i just had a thought. i got the feeling that the EJAC wants to have concrete recommendations to give to CARB. why don't they try to look at giving recommendations for the cap and trade programming instead of stonewalling it? absolutely all of the EJ objections can be dealt with with proper design. we then have appropriate penalties in place and let the market work. fortunately i have a piece that outlines just what they should recommend...

15h53: comments on specific reduction measures.

15h57: (ah, CARB guy was james goldstein), luke volunteers to do some analysis on methane lagoons in the SJV.

16h03: sound down again, sigh. re-entered with some discussion on reusing manure from the dairies as fertilizer.

16h15: questions on energy efficiency, energy in general, CCS. nothing too crazy.

16h20: LCFS time. tom (?), build 30-60 corn ethanol plants in CA. this dude is really upset. and now the video is choppy. (SIGH!!) okay, way anti-corn ethanol opinion. "state alternative fuels plan", not sure what this is. these are all plans. LCFS is a regulation. no one thought CE was a panacea at the time. delucchi (was on the team that) wrote the LCFS and i'm sure he noted all of the uncertainties.

16h24: kevin from CARB: trading and regs not incompatible. good point.

16h25: question from chair on "flexibility" is it equal to trading? confusion on how to allocate reductions to certain measures. for transport they applied pavely, then took 10 percent more to get the LCFS reduction. clarification on the flexibility inherent in the LCFS, letting all refiners trade to get the 10 percent. trading between LCFS and CnT undefined.

16h29: interesting reaction by the chair to the response. something about the regs being too complex...interesting point, "why not just make gas $4.50/gal?" why not $9/gal? she says, "did i mention i'm in favor of a carbon fee?"

16h31: comments from jose and the EHC guy about increasing use of electricity having to come from renewables (and the SOUND IS OUT AGAIN!!!! these last few times have definitely not been my fault.)

16h34: discussion on the diesel risk reduction plan. no idea how this came to be discussed. (sigh, again.)

16h37: goods movement. tom, waste should be considered also as a goods movement commodity. (sludge moving to kern county, manure to kern county, hazardous ash to kern county, municipal solid waste to avenol (?) ) . okay. let's reduce consumption as opposed to "treating at the source." (i'm a broken record.)

16h40: more skepticism about using forests as sinks. this is good. can't regulate acts of god! true. apparently CARB is hoping to do some rigorous monitoring to meet the 5 MT of forest sequestration they've got in 2020. reaction from the committee is that you can't predict these weird things that'll happen. (freezes, lightning strikes, etc.) also people live in the forests and we can't kick them out to maintain them.

16h48: refineries. phil, exclude all refineries from trading and offset purchases, regulate technology at the same facilities. ah, include reduced demand for refinery product. apparently this isn't in the appendices (they must assume constant or growing demand for refined product). jessie wants to include fuel storage tank facilities for VOC regulation. eliminate flared emissions. drilling proposals now on the map for wilmington, 1000 new wells in LA county. all of the abandoned or orphaned oil wells have not been accounted for in the scoping plan.

16h56: land use, local gov't actions, and regional targets. 8 new etoh plants in the SJV. land use cuts both ways. leo (EHC), wants all cities and localities to set their own targets based on what they have rather than waiting for them to come forward. require targets and work with them to set them. a brand new high-density development on a greenfield is not smart growth. right on, leo. involve ports. especially the UPSD, for example.

17h10: leo- energy is a land use issue. i'm not sure exactly what he means. (CARB has assured me that the meeting will be available on their archive at a future date...might have to review.) biggest idea is that without regional/city targets, we won't make the statewide cap.

17h13: water. ag is strikingly absent from the water discussion. not enough to push efforts forward. concern about dam construction, EJAC wants to make sure it's not on the table.

17h17: wondering about 10^6 solar roofs, and high speed rail. where did the numbers come from (2, 1, respectively). much less than the 5 MT expected from forests. could be double counting gains from the roofs if they're in the RPS also.

17h22: a level of squishiness with all the measures. some seem to be uncertain at best, others already happening. sustainable forests, pavley. interesting to note that the DSP has one number that will be the reductions (no error bar). proposal for backup reductions. LCFS fails, forests fail, chair is concerned that then more stuff will go into the trading part. (this wouldn't be a problem, and in fact would be a good back up plan). i don't think it would be necessary to have a complete suite back up measures ... CARB says they'll hit harder on other measures, and keep their ear to the ground on new approaches. a contingency plan sounds like a good idea, though. just start retiring some coal fired power plants or something...

17h29: kevin says that there's some discussion about setting the cap much lower as a contingency. he says rightly that CnT provides the contingency if it's properly designed.

17h31: CnT.

"Everyone knows that we are anti-cap and trade."

chair wants recommendations on how to formulate suggestions on the DSP.

what if the CnT doesn't work is the question...what if another approach doesn't work??? what if nothing works? geez. the EJAC is being kind of condescending wrt CnT. mention of the easter bunny was not that cool.

"strong and well-evidenced body of knowledge that says this trading will not work." what body of evidence is this? everything can be done without CnT...that's not true. this is completely absurd. CnT has not been documented to not work, around the globe. ugh. she wants to segregate CnT in the plan. i think this is already done? right, and this is what kevin is saying.

it just occurred to me that it's unfortunate that the EJAC is super biased on this issue and not approaching the discussion in good faith. there is no simple solution that will cost 1.5 times more than CnT.

what the chair is saying now is reasonable. namely that there should be a stronger emphasis on scenario analysis. kevin is saying that this is what's going to be in the "Economic supplement." but probably that document will probably have the conclusion written first.

co-chair arguing for carbon fee, saying that it gives certainty. i mean, it provides certainty wrt the price of carbon, but not wrt reductions.

interesting that no one is talking about a carbon tax, but a carbon "fee."

17h55: okay, i'm losing concentration. apparently the webcast is going down in 5 minutes but the meeting will continue. i suppose if there's one thing i'm surprised at is the skepticism of the EJAC towards carbon trading. it is economically equivalent to a tax, but you don't have to say "tax." this is its virtue. surely they understand this? they didn't get back to the public health kind of stuff. i'll be following this closely...

18h00: hm, okay, one thing they're now discussing is some kind of over allocation initially, i'm not exactly sure what this is about. woo, apparently people already on the webcast can stay!

18h03: andrea cook, some kind of sustainable energy center. question to jane about getting good offsets. how to do it? many of the members do not support voluntary offsets at all. lesson is that offsets are really sketchy. agree.

18h08: cynthia babbage, lots of stuff about her community impacts. she's really upset with the entire notion of trading, there wasn't much sense there.

18h14: lisa ojos. question about taking out refineries because we don't want to take a chance. california has a unique opportunity to lead in terms of all their great regs, not just CnT. good one kevin, citing the global momentum towards CnT, citing California's effort as trying to get the state's take on CnT taking all of the EJAC concerns into account. What does an EJ-friendly CnT look like, in other words. rather than picking another policy instrument.

does CA support an 80/20 regs/CnT split for the other WCI partners? kevin says the other states may not have the same policy infrastructure.

jane asks about the uncertainty at the federal level relating to CnT, cites mitch mcconnell (senator from kentucky?) saying we'll never have a CnT program.

18h32: it's over?

i think the most important thing i learned is that the declaration does reflect the majority (entire) view of the EJAC. they appear to be completely unwilling to work with CARB on any aspect of CnT. i'm not sure how this is going to play out in the end (a lawsuit if CnT proceeds?). i've said it before, and i've said it again. detaching from helping to design the mundane details of the CnT represents a grievous error on the part of the EJ folks. the disdain they seemed to hold for CARB was also surprisingly (maybe it wasn't towards CARB only). i feel like CARB is on their side in terms of wanting to get firm reductions and wanting to protect public health, and they've done this in the past through firm regs. shouldn't the EJ folks be giving them the benefit of the doubt? they've been one of the few agencies consistently on their side...

AB32 draft scoping plan

yesterday, the california air resources board (CARB) released the draft scoping plan detailing their plan to achieve the goal of 1990 emissions by 2020 (a 30 percent reduction from business as usual). the sort of bottom line: "...estimates [from economic models] indicated that the overall savings from improved efficiency and developing alternatives to petroleum will on the whole outweigh the costs. This balance is largely driven by current high energy costs and the degree to which measures increase energy efficiency throughout the economy and move California toward alternatives to fossil fuels" (p. 52).

if you recall, the governor also stated that we should achieve an 80 percent reduction from 2050 business as usual, but this was clearly not the focus of the present plan--either because of the obvious difficulty of achieving that target in the face of population pressures. they mention it only a couple times, once explicitly mentioning that trees are the way to go: "Forests are unique in that planting trees today will maximize their sequestration capacity in 20 to 50 years. As a result, near-term investments in activities such as planting trees will help us reach our 2020 target, but will play a greater role in reaching our 2050 goals" (p. 27). another choice 2050 reference is to improving urban forms (p. 33).

we knew that CARB would probably recommend a cap and trade system. we knew they'd also blend in regulations, since that's obviously their specialty. we got both of these things. regs come in the form of an increasing commitment to energy efficiency, an expansion of the renewables portfolio standard (to 33 percent), the implementation the various transport measures (pavley, LCFS). the cap and trade should be linkable with the western climate initiative. this is sensible, although it's unclear whether there are future plans to join the EU or other schemes. their accounting of GHGs for 2020 is pretty stylized. observe their table 4 which shows the envisioned sectoral responsibilities for reductions. (note to CARB: keep your sector names constant. cf. table 4 and figure 2.)

so transport is responsible for a huge chunk of the reductions. (that means i'm employable.) that's a straight up 30 percent reduction envisioned from that sector. exactly proportional to the total reduction required. a similar proportion is envisioned in electricity while commercial and residential and industry require comparably fewer reductions. however, if cheap reductions are available in those sectors, we'll get at them with a cap and trade scheme.

here's where things get a little funny. that 30 percent transport reduction is substantial. how do they hope to achieve it? they're coming almost entirely from the low carbon fuel standard and pavley (increasing fuel economy). (i should also note here that i'm a little suspicious of their 2020 projections in general--it's possible that they've severely underestimated. details of their modeling are to be released in an appendix to the draft plan at some future date. using EMFAC, transport emissions grow ~120 percent times over the period 1990-2020, whereas here it only shows a growth of 26 percent. smoke and mirrors?)

i suppose that as long as the cap is set properly (although, the transportation weirdness indicates that their overall projection might be completely off) we don't have much to worry about. but they should be more upfront then about what they think their regs are capable of.

additionally bizarre is a complete absence of measures which seek to change behavior. the implicit assumption is that technological change (the largest portion of which--pavley--actually lowers the per-mile cost of driving) will meet transport's share of reductions. then contrast it with language included in the plan:

"Beyond including vehicle efficiency improvements and lowering vehicle miles traveled, the State is reducing the carbon intensity of motor fuels consumed in California" (emphasis added, p. 25). woah, woah, woah. nowhere else in the report do they mention lowering VMT except briefly when then talk about fee-based reductions where they specifically mention congestion pricing, per-mile insurance premiums. they estimate reductions from these, but do not talk about them on the same level as the tech measures and do not include them in their accounting. this could be do to different schools of thought at CARB. it might also be that their 2020 transport estimate is deflated and they realize that much more than pavley/LCFS will be needed to mitigate to the extent required.

it's also a indicative of a larger philosophical problem. nowhere do they mention the idea that climate change is fundamentally a problem of consumption. this is exemplified in the following quotation: "Buildings are the second largest contributor to California’s greenhouse gas emissions" (p.22). or, our inhabitation of buildings leads to their weighing in as the second largest contributor. our heating and cooling of buildings, to be correct. these building emissions don't come from nowhere!

then when they do address behavior, its only in terms of tech. choices: "The same dynamic of changing individual behavior will drive California’s pioneering effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As more people choose to drive low greenhouse gas emitting vehicles, the auto manufacturers will respond with more models and more intensive research. Regulations requiring auto manufacturers to provide these cars will complement the market demand" (p. 65). ok, so we want to reduce VMT, but our individual behavior change is limited to picking a new car?

other confusions they'll need to elaborate on:

1. using fees as well as cap and trade (p. 41). i'm pretty sure this makes no sense at all, and maybe they're talking about using fees instead of cap and trade. if that's the case, they should clarify. any fee-based reductions could come instead from lowering the cap, which acts as a de facto fee.
   
2. "Allowing offset projects from outside California to count for compliance under AB 32 could reduce the amount of reductions occurring within the state, and which would reduce the local economic, environmental and public health co-benefits from GHG emission reduction" (p. 44). right, but so does including california in a WCI cap and trade such that california's cap would only determine the initial allocation and not the actual amount of reductions achieved in the state. why apply this logic here and not there?

on the EJ side, apart from mentioning that the EJAC's input will be taken to heart in coming up with the final plan on a number of issues (e.g. LCFS), they mention the possible use of revenue to achieve AB32's EJ goals (p. 46). CARB is seeking comments on how the revenues should be used. additionally, NOx, VOC, and PM emissions should decrease statewide, contributing to improved public health. a number of other sort of public health and co-benefits questions are raised, but they only state that analyses are ongoing.

i'm not convinced that just because CARB's numbers add up that they are an accurate reflection of reality. to me the draft plan opens up a lot more questions than it answers.

EJAC conference call

So, I just listened in on the EJAC conference call. It wasn't too noteworthy, but I did take some notes and thought that I'd send them on to you to sort of solidify my thoughts. I should also note that they were going to produce a summary of the call and I imagine that'll be available sometime soon.

The purpose of the call was to discuss the public health implications of AB32. I got the sense that the folks on the call thought that the scoping plan was not going to adequately address the issue of public health. Here's where my skeptical radar kind of turned on--the default assumption should be that the public health implications of AB32 are going to be marginal, but there were a couple people on the call that seemed to have no clear idea about the ways in which the health impacts of climate change might be different from the health impacts of air pollution. One for example started going off about asthma risk, presumably under the assumption that there was some link…

I think one thing that might be going on is that the EJ community feels that they've been thrown a bone--namely the language used in AB32 to prevent disproportionate impacts and the hype and funding associated with implementing the bill--and they don't want to squander the opportunity to address the issues that they've been working on for decades in some cases. For example, one thing that was addressed was disparities in access to public health facilities (clinics, testing, etc.). I have no doubt that EJ communities do have lower access to these resources, but I have no idea what this has to do with climate change legislation, or how CARB can possibly work to address this.

This became the final of three questions/general comments they wanted to pose to CARB. The first two were reasonable:

1. Policy tools and policy scenarios (scoping plan will apparently include five scenarios: fully regulatory, fully fee-based, three trading). Which is/are best from a public health standpoint? Choose it/them or at least make sure the worst is not chosen.
2. Cumulative impacts. Recognizing that there are existing health issues in many areas, when you lay the preferred policy tools/scenarios on top of them, does the decision change?
3. Ensure that avoided health costs are valued and ensure that existing gaps in public health infrastructure are addressed.
   

As you can see, the third is a little vague. This was admitted on the call. As I said, I don't see how AB32 is the appropriate tool with which to address the third. At any rate, this was the meat of the conversation. A final point was to set up an additional committee--public health oversight committee or something similar--to ensure that these issues are addressed in the scoping plan. They envisioned a two-tiered scheme where the first would include a couple EJAC members, someone from CalEPA and CARB combined with a second tied composed of public health professionals that would actually carry out analysis in support of the first tier's goals (or something).

Doesn't seem like a bad idea in principle, but I think (and you do as well?) that the interesting EJ concerns should be economics-related and not public health related when it comes to climate change. I'd guess that an "economic health" committee would be far more valuable in this context.

o canada

today, stephane dion (canadian leader of the official opposition) unveiled plans for a revenue-neutral carbon tax. i shit you not--it's here--go look!

the great thing is not just that it's an obviously sensible policy (that energy policy wonks have known about for decades and decades, but we won't worry about that now), not that the liberals actually have a chance to implement it. no, neither of those things. the best part is that the comments on the cbc news site are overwhelmingly positive. people understand that the tax would reward those who innovate in terms of energy efficiency and conservation. it's so much easier to understand than a cap and trade system. i _love_ that canadians can propose this but that any mention of tax in the US throws everyone into a shit-fit.

ah, a great day to be canadian. this may actually convince me to vote liberal (i usually go NDP) in the next general.

[edit: so, it seems that the highest rated comments are positive, but there are still a ton of haperite cranks that are up in arms over the plan. still, given recent experiences with carbon taxation in quebec and bc, this would appear to be a positive development. i think the concept of a revenue-neutral shift should be elucidated more clearly.]

just one more from mike davis

i can't resist:

The city is our ark in which we might survive the environmental turmoil of the next century. Genuinely urban cities are the most environmentally efficient form of existing with nature that we possess because they can substitute public luxury for private or household consumption. They can square the circle between environmental sustainability and a decent standard of living. I mean, however big your library is or vast your swimming pool, it'll never be the same as the New York Public Library or a great public pool. No mansion, no San Simeon, will ever be the equivalent of Central Park or Broadway.

i suppose the difference is that you have to share the public pool and the library. the extent to which individuals are willing to turn more towards shared spaces and amenities will largely dictate how the circle is squared.

los angeles/new blog

wowow. i was just pointed to bldg blog (h/t: jason). seems like there’s a lot of great writing about los angeles, and even a mike davis interview. stoked!

davis is right on about pretty much everything. redefining the issue of overpopulation as one of consumption:

If you look at a city like Los Angeles, and its extreme dependence on regional infrastructure, the question of whether certain cities become monstrously over-sized has less to do with the number of people living there, than with how they consume, whether they reuse and recycle resources, whether they share public space. So I wouldn’t say that a city like Khartoum is an impossible city; that has much more to do with the nature of private consumption.

and then:

People talk about environmental footprints, but the environmental footprints of different groups who make up a population tend to differ dramatically. In California, for instance, within the right-wing of the Sierra Club, and amongst anti-immigrant groups, there’s this belief that a huge tide of immigration from Mexico is destroying the environment, and that all these immigrants are actually responsible for the congestion and the pollution – but that's absurd. Nobody has a smaller environmental footprint, or tends to use public space more intensely, than Latin American immigrants. The real problem is white guys in golf carts out on the hundred and ten golf courses in the Coachella Valley. In other words, one retired white guy my age may be using up a resource base ten, twenty, thirty times the size of a young chicana trying to raise her family in a small apartment in the city.

i'm reminded of an anti-immigrant professor at sdsu who apparently takes his classes down to the canyons in san diego where migrant workers live to show them the "environmental degradation" they cause. which exhibits, as davis points out, a profound ignorance of where "environmental" impacts actually originate.

this all ties back to jenny price's piece thirteen ways of seeing nature in LA that discusses how cities like boulder, co are able to exist (propped up by material flows from industrial areas like los angeles). these writers are truly great for trying to actually get to the root causes of modern problems.