By Daniel Coffey

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has publicly vowed to veto Assembly Bill 64 and Senate Bill 14 (the RPS bills), both fundamentally intended to place into law the requirement that 33 percent of the energy used in California be derived from renewable sources. Voiced reservations of many thoughtful people concerning this legislation previously convinced me the veto was the right decision.That said, recent efforts to clarify the more controversial provisions suggest it’s now preferable to move forward, create legal certainty in the market, and advance renewable energy. We need the legal force of these modified bills in order to rapidly meet the challenges of global warming within California.

Nothing about global warming will be easy. The governor, by signing the RPS bills, can support the voices of reason and hope, provide a better path forward, and embrace pragmatic compromise.

Ultimately the governor and all of us must decide which voices to trust, and whose judgment will prevail in the debate over environmental policy. Those choices vary wildly. Shall we trust the voices of doom, extremism, angst, stasis or paralysis? Or will optimistic, hopeful voices triumph?

When it comes to global warming, shouldn’t we support the optimistic voice of hope, epitomized by those who, inter alia, are building and deploying the next generation of tools for renewable energy production?

Consider: the Kumeyaay Tribe has spoken loudly through their recent decision to build another 165 megawatts (MW) of wind power, increasing their current 50 MW to a total of 215 MW. Their actions constitute both environmental progress and a continuation of a tradition of sustaining the whole community.

Actions speak louder than words. In Mexico, Sempra is moving to build at least 1200 MW of wind power. They are expanding a 10 MW solar power generating plant in Nevada by 48 MW, and phased construction of Mesquite Solar, a 400 MW solar power project in Arizona.

Conveying a dramatic message, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) withdrew from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the issue of global warming because of the Chamber’s “extreme” position. PG&E’s CEO, Peter Darbee, wrote “PG&E considers climate change to be among the most serious issues ever for our company, our country and the world.”

On the apocalyptic, darker side, Oct. 1, the University of San Diego School of Leadership and Educational Science (SOLES), San Diego Coastkeeper, Food and Water Watch, and San Diego Sustainable Food Project sponsored Derrick Jensen as a speaker.

I’d never heard of Jensen. His ad seemed inviting and the price right — free! A crowd of approximately 80 gathered to listen in a USD auditorium, including at least one 15 year old.

Jensen, author of 15 books, is a poetic quasi-advocate for preparing for the end of civilization, violent population reduction, blowing up dams, and recreating a new ultra-primitive civilization based on his kooky literary premises. It appears he avoids direct demands for destruction to skirt law enforcement. Frankly, why is Jensen’s brand of advocacy supported by San Diego Coastkeeper, an organization identified with their executive director, Bruce Resnick?

Over three hours, the audience glimpsed inside some of the darker thoughts and places in the environmental community: avocation for the violent end of civilization, a goodly desensitizing dollop of serious swearing, some humor, and snippets of seductive writing sonorously presented to smooth over an underlying angst and rationalize antisocial horrors of biblical proportions.

Jensen views his fight as against vast and violent environmental destruction, thereby justifying vast violence in response. Fancy words, hopeless fatalism and evil innuendo do not make a better world.

Jensen’s 2000 book, “A Language Older Than Words,” reveals the author’s tortured, incestuously raped and oppressed upbringing filled with violence, an education in physics at the Colorado School of Mines, and a host of metaphors and provocative thoughts about the environment and our relationship with it.

Jensen writes: “My father, in order to rationalize his behavior, had to live in a world of make-believe. He had to make us believe that the beatings and rapes made sense, that all was as it should, and must, be.”

Ironically, the victim of repellant violence and alleged rape by his father has become an apologist for grand and immediate violence in order to reduce the current population of the civilized industrial world. Jensen rationalizes his positions by stressing that we are currently at a late stage of environmental collapse and must accelerate it in order to leave more for post-apocalyptic animal life and those few survivors to enjoy.
Has the son become the father writ large?

Finally, Jensen rejects hope in a better future.

That said, it is precisely when things appear most dire that wise leaders exercise their power to envision a better future and to leave a lasting positive legacy. Gov. Schwarzenegger, please embrace that better future.

Coffey is an attorney based in San Diego. He can be reached at daniel.coffey@sddt.com.
Copyright San Diego Source | San Diego Daily Transcript 1994-2009

Posted on October 6th, 2009 by hunwut
Filed under: Environment