This City Council Candidate Wants Your Opinion (Mixed-Use Project Thoughts)

By Michael Barnes

Candidate Michael Barnes requests a serious debate on the differing environmental philosophies behind our attitudes about the mixed-use (Whole Foods) project.

I've come across three items that are so interesting that I wanted to share them with you and solicit your opinions. However, I'd like to do it formally, as the sort of resolution that a high school or college debate club would argue about:

Resolved: The arguments surrounding the mixed-use (Whole Foods) development are not an example of environmentalism vs. development. Rather, they are an example of old-school environmentalism vs. new-school environmentalism.

Old-school environmentalists say NO to traditional development. New-school environmentalists say YES to "development that promotes compact, mixed-use commercial and residential development that is walkable and bikable and close to mass transit, jobs, schools, shopping, parks, recreation and other amenities." (quote source, item #2 below)

For the debate, I suggest three very interesting items for your review:

Item #1) A New York Times article entitled "Critics Say California Law Hurts Effort to Add Jobs." The article sites as an example San Francisco's plan to paint bicycle lanes that was delayed for four years by a CEQA lawsuit claiming that they would cause pollution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/us/to-add-jobs-many-in-california-look-to-alter-green-law.html?pagewanted=all

Here are some quotes:

Environmentalists in this greenest of places call the California Environmental Quality Act the state's most powerful environmental protection, a model for the nation credited with preserving lush wetlands and keeping condominiums off the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.

But the landmark law passed in 1970 has also been increasingly abused, opening the door to lawsuits -- sometimes brought by business competitors or for reasons unrelated to the environment -- that, regardless of their merit, can delay even green development projects for years or sometimes kill them completely.

Item #2) This is the URL for the Bay Area regional planning initiative called One Bay Area. According to the website:

http://onebayarea.org

Plan Bay Area grew out of California's 2008 Senate Bill 375 (Steinberg), which requires each of the state's 18 metropolitan areas to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cars and light trucks. This is important because the transportation sector represents about 40 percent of the GHG pollution that scientists say is causing climate change.

Under SB 375 each region must develop a Sustainable Communities Strategy (SCS) that promotes compact, mixed-use commercial and residential development that is walkable and bikable and close to mass transit, jobs, schools, shopping, parks, recreation and other amenities. If successful, Plan Bay Area will give people more transportation choices, create more livable communities and reduce the pollution that causes climate change.

Item #3) A very interesting item I found on the UC Berkeley Blog, written by Ethan Elkind, climate-change research fellow at Berkeley law school. The article asks the provocative question, "Is environmentalism bad for fighting climate change?"

http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2012/05/30/is-environmentalism-bad-for-fighting-climate-change/

Because this item is short, I've included the first three paragraphs at very end of this blog post.

To summarize, gentle readers, here is the debate topic once again:

Resolved: The arguments surrounding the mixed-use (Whole Foods) development are not an example of environmentalism vs. development. Rather, they are an example of old-school environmentalism vs. new-school environmentalism.

Old-school environmentalists say NO to traditional development. New-school environmentalists say YES to "development that promotes compact, mixed-use commercial and residential development that is walkable and bikable and close to mass transit, jobs, schools, shopping, parks, recreation and other amenities."

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

---------------------

Is environmentalism bad for fighting climate change?

Sure, it sounds like a paradox. The environmental movement has done a lot of good for the planet and for pollution. But in the face of the greatest environmental threat of our time, the movement may be fundamentally ill-suited to tackle the climate crisis.

For most of its history, environmentalism has essentially been about stopping things, or at least slowing them down. Whether it's sprawling subdivisions, industrial development on sensitive habitat lands, or factories spewing pollution, environmentalists have mobilized support to prevent these projects from happening, or at least make them more efficient and therefore more expensive (think scrubbers on smokestacks or building efficiency codes). The successes are undeniable: significantly cleaner air and water and the prevention of some environmentally destructive projects.

But when it comes to fighting climate change, a movement designed to stopping things is counter-productive. We need the opposite dynamic, because our task now is to build our way toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That means building a significant amount of new housing, services, and job centers in urbanized areas near transit; building renewable energy facilities both locally and in rural regions; building new rail and busways through developed cities and towns; and fostering a regulatory environment where innovation in clean technologies can take place without years of delay and uncertainty brought on by often well-intentioned environmental laws.