350 Bay Area

This was The BIG Event of the YEAR

Northern California People's Climate Rally
Sunday Sept. 21st, Oakland

The People's Climate March in NYC was the Largest. Climate. Rally. In. History.

In solidarity with that event, the regional event: the NorCal People's Climate Rally happened in Oakland. We were also bannering that day.

Click here for the joint Postering project with Sunflower Alliance on why Bay Area people care about the Climate

NEW: Take our Climate Opinion Survey - Let us know what you think!

More Action → Less Hot Air

We are building a grassroots climate movement, working for deep reductions in carbon pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area & beyond. We have six campaigns and five local groups. Find out what you need to know on our Campaigns, Events and Petition pages (and don't forget to take a look at our FAQs too!).

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... and that's just the start to Climate Action that makes a difference.

With your help, we have significantly changed the climate conversation in the Bay Area. Will you help us create even a larger movement for climate protection and climate justice in 2014? Please support your 350 Bay Area Climate movement with a monthly pledge of continuing support, or a one-time donation. Your donation, large or small, is greatly appreciated, as is your continued activism to save the planet.

Some Past Events

Our latest major event was the May 9–11 Climate Conference: Dirty Energy / Clean Solutions. Over 30 scientists, experts and leaders. The Friday night special event featured Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson in SF with his 100% renewables by 2050 plan. Over 300 people concerned about the climate attended. We had a full Conference schedule Saturday in the East Bay, and workshops and training Sunday.

Unanimous Vote - BAAQMD Board approves Resolution to achieve cuts to Bay Area climate pollutants from 100 to 17 million tons per year by 2050. 11/6/13

WATCH - Webcast of 11/6 Board meeting

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Mighty mighty 350 Bay Area folks after the vote - Dr. Robert Gould, Rand Wrobel, Ken Jones, Floyd Smith, Patrick Kennedy, Jed Holtzman, Caitlin Chew, Taylor Hawke, Janet Stromberg, Judy Williams, Larry Danos and Bill Pinkham

Idle No More Prayer, Teach-In & Round Dance 8/24/13

This event was sponsored by Idle No More Solidarity SF Bay Affinity Group. A prayer, teach-in and round dance at Washington Park in Richmond in solidarity with First Nations' and other Indigenous peoples' actions on this day to protest tar sands oil and fossil fuel. Snake dance to Chevron?

"A round dance is a dance of peace and friendship. Easy to do, it's a continuous side-step. Join us with the spirit of the round dance and love for Mother Earth and all of her children. We rise with peace & good hearts!"

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Photo: SaveSacred Sites' post on Facebook Event

Air District Board votes to oppose Keystone XL Pipeline 8/7/2013

Comment of the day Los Altos City Councilmember Jan Pepper calling on the Air District to RESTRICT REFINING OF TAR SANDS at BAY AREA REFINERIES. Wow!

Watch impressive comments from 350 Bay Area members and eye-opening Board Members' statements before they voted. Webcast of the meeting is posted! Click to Agenda Item 11:

http://baaqmd.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=1baf36a9-5290-1031-92de-7c92654424e8

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Citizen climate heroes speaking at the Board meeting: Robert Gould, Taylor Hawk, Jed Holtzman, David McFarlane, Joanne Orengo, Bill Pinkham, Aaron Reaven, and Floyd Smith,

Vote tally http://www.350bayarea.org/baaqmd_keystone_xl_resolution_vote_tally_8_7_13

Summer Heat Richmond Chevron Refinery Protest August 3, 2013 Nearly 3000 Demonstrators, Over 200 Peaceably Arrested

Summer Heat Richmond brought incredible energy and spirit to the gates of Chevron. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard to elevate coalition work in the Bay to new sectors and by connecting issues. And to all the participants from 3 months to 90 years.

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Photo: Eric Slomanson

See Media Coverage, Photos and Videos on the 350 Bay Area Mobilizations Page.

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Volunteer for 350 Bay Area to kick in and be a bigger part of the solution. There are opportunities for event planning, volunteer coordination, outreach, communications, website techies, legal counsel, etc.

350 Bay Area's Campaigns

Divestment – Pull money out of the fossil fuel industry in the Bay Area

Bay Climate Action Plan (BayCAP) – Plenty happening to move the Bay Area Air District to reduce emissions 80% by 2050. Check out our Slide Show

No Tar Sands – Fighting the Keystone XL pipeline - read our Tar Sands Mining and Keystone Pipeline Fact Sheet

Chevron Watch - Involved with the Richmond Community and Bike The Math Rally at the Chevron shareholders meeting

Dump The Pump – Cigarettes have warning labels, why not gas pumps?

New: Stop Fracking – Fight fracking in California

Local 350 Groups

350 Silicon Valley

350 San Francisco - Contact

350 Marin - Contact

350 Sonoma County - Contact

350 Santa Cruz

Announcements

Good News: CalPERS Identifies Climate Change as Risk Factor!

On Monday, September 16, the Board of Directors of the $260 billion California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest public pension fund in the United States, voted to include references to climate change in its newly adopted list of investment beliefs. Members of the 350 Bay Area divestment campaign helped to make this happen, in coalition with 350 Sacramento, SEIU 1000, and other 350.org chapters.

By adopting this language, CalPERS formally acknowledges climate change as a financial risk factor, building the framework for that reality to be incorporated into risk analysis and financial management of the pension fund.

This is an important step. But there is much more to do. We need you and your ideas and energy as we continue outreach, communications, letter writing, petitioning, and other actions for total divestment. Join us!

Gas Pump Information Labels Comes to TED Talks!

Robert Shirkey, Executive Director at OurHorizon.org in Toronto Canada just recently did a TED talk on Canada's gas pump campaign. It is a very informative and well spoken speech about the merits of implementing a consumer-oriented label at the point of purchase:

Watch: http://youtu.be/SA4e7y-4Pak

Let's make sure we beat our Canadian friends by having the first City ordinance for Gas Pump labels! (A little friendly competition to motivate our awesome team of volunteers) Join our efforts, visit our Dump the Pump page!

More details on the Divestment page

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Showing 108 reactions

commented 2014-10-30 00:13:21 -0700 · Flag

Hi Leslie,
You can find info about 350 East Bay here—
http://www.350bayarea.org/350_eb

Our next East Bay meeting will be Sat Nov 22nd, 10am-noon—location to be posted soon. Please let me know your email if you’d like to be added to the East Bay mailing list, or feel free to contact me—amyallen@alumni.stanford.edu

commented 2014-10-28 16:41:24 -0700 · Flag

No Oakland or East Bay group listed here -???
What about Sunflower Alliance -???? The website makes it quite confusing to try to join a local group.
Thanks.

commented 2014-05-19 09:11:10 -0700 · Flag

Is there some members or potential 350 members interested in organizing to promote the growth of a green electrification for the East Bay?

commented 2014-03-29 11:07:17 -0700 · Flag

Paul: it’s dangerous to think that Occupy can help get anything done, especially trying to get Senator X or Congressmember Y to champion a specific project with the potential to help move an eco-positive agenda, concerns about the true expense of solar or raptor decimation notwithstanding.

Anything with the name “Occupy” attached will ultimately fail because voters know there’s simply zero credibility in a mob – leaderless or otherwise – bent on a lynching or some other civic disruption organized basically for the sake of destroying the peace so that chaos can rule. Here in Oakland, one of the poorest cities in America – and surely the most distant from Wall Street physically and philosophically – the costs borne by our small contingent of struggling downtown merchants and already-grossly underfunded OPD were of no concern to the Occupyers who would obviously prefer that this City go up in flames so that a “point” could be made – one that no Occupier could intelligibly define.

If this is a 350-sponsored event, I think it will be more than damaging to the organization to affiliate itself with Occupy in any way, as even those businesses and civic organizations who might otherwise believe there’s something that can be done about Fukishima will step back from the line and withhold most if not all of their support.

commented 2014-03-29 00:11:24 -0700 · Flag

Solar energy is not free. The sunlight is free, but harvesting it to generate useful power makes it expensive.

commented 2014-03-29 00:07:16 -0700 · Flag

If Mark Jacobson’s vision comes to pass, the world will be overrun with rodents because all those wind turbines will have decimated the raptors that keep rodent populations from exploding.

commented 2014-03-28 20:45:29 -0700 · Flag

Solar energy is free.
Oil costs double every 5 years, especially the lung cancer, water pollution costs, and hidden tax subsidies.
The cost of electrify began actually falling for homes in Germany in 2013. By 2041 the cost to most people will be 10% of what it is now. I have a collection of energy bills from a friend who lives in Stuttgart. The cost keeps falling.
Germany will shut down all nukes in 2022. I will bet you $100. that will happen. Willing to bet me?? Japan will never re-open up any of its 54 nukes — every again.
Nuclear energy waste is killing millions of fish, birds and people today: Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.

commented 2014-03-28 20:04:14 -0700 · Flag

The world is out of time.
There is an Occupy Forum Monday on Fukushima
at Mission & 16th, 6pm.

commented 2014-03-28 19:59:41 -0700 · Flag

Solar energy is free.
In May 2014 Germany will achieve fully 50% of its total energy from wind, solar, berm & hydro for one week.
A world records.
By 2041 Germany will be 100% powered by solar & renewables.

Oil costs double every 5 years, especially the lung cancer, water pollution costs, and hidden tax subsidies.

Germany now has more people employed in solar than in
auto or engineering: 500,000 jobs in solar.

The cost of electrify began actually falling for homes in Germany in 2013. By 2041 the cost to most people will be 10% of what it is now.
I have a collection of energy bills from a friend who lives in Stuttgart.
The cost keeps falling.
Germany will shut down all nukes in 2022.
I will bet you $100. that will happen.
Willing to bet me??

Japan will never re-open up any of its 54 nukes — ever again.

Nuclear energy waste from Fukushima is killing millions of fish, birds and people today: Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.

commented 2014-03-28 19:16:07 -0700 · Flag

100% renewables may be achievable by the end of the century in an ideal scenario, but not by mid-century if the current trajectory of international cooperation maintains its current course, QED Kyoto and/or any other attempt at an all-nation agreement. The only thing we can really do in the meantime, to my mind, is to initiate projects we can reliably estimate will have an effect on global warming, things that we know will someday be in use anyway in the foreseeable future, just like we did years ago when JFK came to th conclusion that America should assume its leadership role in the space race.

So let’s continue moving in the direction of all-renewables, knowing full well that it almost certainly won’t be enough even if by some miracle our bitterly divided US Congress might decide to lend a hand and help make it happen here, the rest of the world notwithstanding, within Mark Jacobson’s optimistic timeframe. Beyond that as yet to be fully endorsed project, however, lies the problem of weather modification through geoengineering: Can we trust to any one of maybe a hundred different Gods or so that we’ll all be spared another Sandy or Katrina once we’re all happy beneficiaries of just renewable power only, thereafter to watch in smug satisfaction our Teslas contentedly charging away in every garage from here to Abbottabad?

In the past half century since the first launches of the very satellites without which civilization today could not function half so well, we’ve sent more tonnage of assorted metals, plastics and who knows what else into space than any bunch of shields or screens that a full-on sunshield program would likely ever need – and the odds are, of course, that we’ll most likely continue putting up even more satellites in the coming fifty years, easily matching or doubling the Hubbles, Mirs and TeleStars we’ve got in orbit right now, yes? Why some of those launches can’t be material with which to commence a weather-modification project (still partial to something named after old Benj. Franklin) is a mystery to me, but I guess there’ll always be folks around who don’t want to mess with Mother Nature when droughts, flooding and all sorts of other catastrophic stuff are – what? – our just deserts?

commented 2014-03-28 12:26:16 -0700 · Flag

Guys, reducing solar insolation is a bandaid, not fixing the cause of the problem. First, we need to stop digging the hole deeper. Its a known-science-based plan by Prof. Mark Jacobson to get to 100% renewables (solar, wind and water) by 2050 at equivalent stable prices. That’s a great investment in jobs with today’s technology, and solves energy dependence problems too, potentially giving local communities ownership of their generating infrastructure. Help us get there in 3 decades.

commented 2014-03-28 10:22:03 -0700 · Flag

Yes we could do space sunshields now, but at what cost? They would have to block at least 2% of sunlight hitting Earth to compensate for the CO2 that humans have added to the atmosphere. Last estimate I saw of the cost to block 2% was many hundreds of TRILLIONS of dollars.

commented 2014-03-26 12:45:49 -0700 · Flag

I’ll take your word for it that all the radioactivity spread from Chernobyl and Fukishima (from now until whenever the “safely abated” sign can be hung) is safer than renewables, because I do believe that recycling nuclear waste will eventually be a big business and someday in the far future even see a healthy return for us all.

But the space shields are something we can do now and, like Apollo, have a tremendous impact on the spinoff economy, #1; and #2, slow down sea rise enough to provide us with time to work on ocean acidification and maybe the hundred other smaller but necessary projects that 350 wants to see effected.

Meanwhile, it’s too much talk and too many delays, and we’re just out of time: something that politicians love because it means they don’t have to take responsibility – just contributions to their own campaigns, yes?

commented 2014-03-26 00:19:40 -0700 · Flag

Yes Steve, averaging over all the nuclear disasters, including Fukishima, nuclear would be cheaper than renewables and safer too.

Why are you so enamored of space sunshields? They might stop global warming, but would cost trillions and do nothing to stop ocean acidification by atmospheric CO2.

commented 2014-03-25 23:00:55 -0700 · Flag

Hmmmmm…

Has the cost of fixing the as-yet-to-be-fixed Fukishima plant been factored into the overall cost of electricity, or do we leave “Acts of God” out of the equation? He or She (or more likely It?) isn’t paying a lot of bills to my knowledge, so it’s difficult to look at the bottom line here and get all fuzzy about which system is decidedly better than the other.

Meanwhile, the entrepreneurs making moola off one system or the other will likely keep their plants humming along in the friendly spirit of competition, no matter who gets hurt or how many fish, fowl or humans get radiation poisoning:

But, as Franklin said, who’s going to do something about the weather? I contend that we can influence weather patterns from space by using giant cooling shields to nerf a nascent hurricane a mile or two in one direction and keep it from wiping out major urban areas – maybe even dissipating the thing altogether.

Look up and tell me that in a hundred years something of that nature (plus maybe as many as we have of satellites today) won’t be floating around in orbit and controlled by somebody’s hyper-pad here on Earth at Kennedy Spacecenter or Obama Urban Cloud Headquarters…

commented 2014-03-25 22:38:50 -0700 · Flag

Who do you think ends up paying the FiT to solar power producers? Why, everybody on the grid, of course, through their electric bills. The FiT policy in Germany has practically doubled the cost of electricity in that country. That’s how expensive solar power is. Based on simple economics, I predict Germany and Japan will soon turn their nuclear plants back on because nuclear provides much cheaper carbon-free energy than renewables.

Nuclear is also safer than renewables in terms of lives lost per Terawatt-year of energy produced, and is more wildlife-friendly because its much smaller land requirements displace fewer animals and plants from their natural habitats.

commented 2014-03-24 14:38:06 -0700 · Flag

My problem with all this obviously well-intentioned and sometimes even quite effective work that 350 is doing – and wants to do more of! – is that we’re out of time.

Waiting on the legislature to write up some compromise that lets Capital Coal Company ship a bunch of volatile puke over to China while giving us in the meantime maybe another couple of inspectors for all of Northern California to ensure none of that stuff will explode here is too little, too late; especially when no one at all in the rest of the world gives a good godamn about the atmosphere anyway.

They’re all waiting on America to clean it all up in what they otherwise see as a race to the bottom. So our job is to manage the world (hoping that a few allies will emerge to help out) pretty much the way we (kinda) did during WWII with a massive, single-minded organization dedicated solely to winning that war.

The process will be imperfect, to be sure, and we’ll have to run through several generals, wing commanders, field marshals and other egomaniacal types before we can manage to pull this particular rabbit out of the hat, but we have to do it: first by identifying three or four major projects and then making sure they can get implemented before it’s just too late do stablilize a planet that right now is gasping for air.

I’m happy that BAAQM is helping out, but its leadership role with the JPC is politely waiting for that bunch of folks to come up with something that all too cautiously will only just begin to address the seriousness of the problems the Bay Area is facing: just getting a Cold Ironing system installed down at the Port of Oakland took over five years, and as meritorious an effort as that was, it wouldn’t have happened at all without first a two year court battle with the Port (brought by the community, not any regional agency) and lots of high fees paid to a legal system vested in slowing down everything so that “justice” will finally be done – no matter how many kids had to choke on filthy air in the meantime.

So, 350 needs to step up to the plate here with a designated slugger for possibly the last three or four pitches in the ballgame, or we’ve simply just lost the war while winning one or two smaller battles here in the Blessed Bay Area, literally an island floating on a sea of troubles.

As to geo-engineering not even having proved its worth, can it be that is enough reason to stall another decade or two before even beginning to contemplate how the world will have to look someday if we dare to assume again the same kind of decisionmaking process we’ve utilized so often in the past with giant projects like the Apollo program? Or try it the other way: imagine two hundred years from now that there might NOT be shields in orbit around the planet (assuming there’s still a planet with flourishing civilizations to interact with one another) to help manipulate weather patterns and shade certain areas or heat up others? The question is, especially given all the dollars saved that will otherwise have to be spent on erecting coastal dams and barriers, when do we get started?

commented 2014-03-24 14:19:22 -0700 · Flag

The People of Japan are installing millions of solar panels every month, because all their nukes are shut down, and they want to shift their whole economy from nukes to solar, so they can keep all the nukes shut down.
This is a great strategy, too bad activists in California do not know about the solar feed in tariff payment policy ( FiT ) that requires Utilities ( PG&E ) to pay homes $0.53 kwh, to become active for such a policy change.

Just protesting against the tar sands will not shift our economy from oil to solar. Instead, we too must pass a FiT policy in each city. Like Japan as done. Like Germany has done. We need 5 activists in each city to petition for a FiT in each city.

We must block against Shell Oil and ALEC.

commented 2014-03-24 14:09:09 -0700 · Flag

Japan’s Ministry of Economy (METI) reports that the nation installed 94 MW of residential and 493 MW of “non-residential” PV solar photovoltaics (PV) during December 2013 under its feed-in tariff. The FiT pays $0.53 kwh to anyone feeding solar onto the grid.

This is roughly the same amount installed in November 2013, and brings Japan to 5.17 GW of PV installed in the first nine months of the nation’s fiscal year 2013. This translates to roughly 7 GW annually, in line with the estimates of market analysts.

Since the introduction of its feed-in tariff in July 2012, Japan has installed 6.84 GW of PV, most of which is in the “non-residential” category, including commercial, government, industrial and utility-scale PV. Japan had roughly 5.6 GW of PV when the feed-in tariff was implemented, bringing the nation to a cumulative installed PV capacity of 12.4 GW.

ROI of 8-12% even under feed-in tariff cuts

Japan became the world’s second-largest PV market in 2013, with an estimated 6.9 GW of PV installed. Even under proposed feed-in tariff cuts to JPY 32 (USD 0.31) per kWh for PV plants larger than 10 kW, TrendForce (Taipei) estimates the nation will offer an internal rate of return of 12% for larger PV plants.

Solar One – 100% solar California.

commented 2014-03-24 11:21:43 -0700 · Flag

Responding to Mr. Lowe: First, 350 Bay Area is a regional advocacy group. Go to 350.org for the global organization. We are focused on advocating reductions of GHG emissions – changing people’s minds about fossil fuels and the importance of renewables. You are correct, we are not about geo-engineering fixes. We are focused on not making the problem worse.
Regionally, we have several campaigns with clearcut agenda’s that ARE making a difference. Because of our BayCAP campaign’s work, the regional Air District has committed to reducing GHG emissions by 80% by 2050. Given that the Bay Area has a larger economy than many countries, that’s significant. Because the Bay Area is viewed as an environmental leader, its all the more important that we show the world how its done.
We know that with existing solar, wind and water energy tech we can get to 100% renewables (see the work of Prof. Mark Jacobson). IMHO, Let’s do the low-risk “solve the problem” work first, before performing planetary surgery that we haven’t done before.

commented 2014-03-23 18:46:27 -0700 · Flag

This blog is useful if it communicates useful information. I just can’t tell whether anybody ever reads the useful information I have provided. See my comment below, from 2 months ago. If you want more information about how molten salt nuclear reactors can provide (1) much safer nuclear electricity and (2) lots of process heat that can be used to remove CO2 from the air and sequester it (as carbonate minerals, for example), look up the Thorium Energy Alliance. Here is one of their best 10-minute videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vzotsvvkw&feature=share

commented 2014-03-22 12:10:23 -0700 · Flag

I don’t know whether I should discontinue this blog or not, as most of what I see here is about solidarity and building networks but no specific plan for making sure our governments – there have to be a few folks in the Great White North not mired in tar sands who care about planetary survival, too – are engaged on a Manhattan project for
this decade to deliver some measure of global cooling to help slow ocean rise.

What 350 seems to be all about is a giant group hug and meetings here and there to try and block various programs and policies that certainly need to be addressed but with too little emphasis on specific geo-engineeriing projects like space reflectors that can buy us time to list, prioritize and finally manage all the other problems we’re concerned about – sorta like first applying the brakes on your car when just about every instrument on your dashboard is telling you there’s not a single thing that’s functioning correctly.

In that sense, logging in here every so often seems like a waste of time because there’s no clearcut agenda to manage: let’s meet here and demonstrate that we don’t want one thing or another, but let’s not prioritize any lists of programs that might be seen as imperatives because we’re not into advocacy for any one thing other than stopping a pipeline here or a coal train there. All well and good if that’s what climate change means for you, but without major projects in the works to modify Earth’s temperature – other than praying to God, Hephaestus or some other deity for another massive volcanic explosion and consequent global freeze – 350 is more than a few degrees off course.

commented 2014-03-03 22:54:11 -0800 · Flag

Elizbath Martin, what’s at the link you provided to explain what you have in your home? Every link carries a computer infection risk, so I’m not about to click on yours. Can’t you summarize in plain English what you have in your home?

commented 2014-03-02 23:35:34 -0800 · Flag

As the world is changing quiet rapidly. With every passing day we have more new technological invocations with us. But their is something which we are destroying by our careless behaviors. Hunger in the world is constant on rise. New diseases hitting the nations but we are saying that Human race is progressing . I am not the critic on the technological innovations. but i am concerned with the effects of it. We developed the things but not creates a mechanism for the proper disposal. Like I have http://goo.gl/v6brg6 in my home but not know how can i dispose of it. Fossil Fuels can be easily directed to the profitable usage but most of the time Manufacturers get rid their self bu putting their waste material lines into the drainage. Its good to see that at least on the small level people are putting efforts to make sure that Environment of Earth will keep remain same.

commented 2014-01-25 12:46:59 -0800 · Flag

Hot air is action too, if it educates, provokes discussion, disillusions the deluded, and keeps people from wasting time and resources on hopeless causes.

posted about this on Facebook 2014-01-24 16:54:17 -0800

350 Bay Area More action --> Less hot air

commented 2014-01-22 01:27:21 -0800 · Flag

Hey, Steve Lowe! Telescope maker Roger Angel once estimated the cost of putting reflectors in space to stop global warming at 5 or 6 trillion dollars. If that solved the problem it might be worth the cost, but reflectors in space will do nothing to slow down ocean acidification, which will continue even if all the carbon pollution ended tomorrow, because CO2 already in the atmosphere will continue dissolving in the ocean, wiping out much of the food chain.
A much more sensible “Manhattan Project” would scale up molten salt nuclear reactors (of the kind demonstrated at Oak Ridge National Labs in the 1960s) to commercial size and mass produce them to (1) replace fossil fuel power plants with nuclear plants, (2) synthesize fuels for transportation from water and atmospheric CO2, and (3) synthesize carbonate rocks from atmospheric CO2 to bring CO2 levels below 350 ppm. Only molten salt reactors produce the high-temperature heat needed for (2) and (3), and they’d be much cheaper, safer, and more efficient than today’s light water reactors. The R&D cost to get MSRs “market ready” has been estimated at $1 billion, and that’s how much China has already committed for this purpose. If we don’t do likewise, we’ll have to buy our nuclear reactors from China to save the planet.

commented 2014-01-21 12:49:25 -0800 · Flag

Yadda yadda yadda: this all sounds too much like another Kyoto-based group hug where being politically correct is what it’s all about, as opposed to understanding the methodology necessary to begin another Manhattan project, or if you prefer, Apollo program funded and peopled by the only country that can generate the resolve and leadership to do so.

This means geo-engineering, of course, as the essential problem of worldwide cooperation is unresolvable in our time – especially with so little of that time even left for this out of control planet. With clowns like Kim Jong Un out there and total dorks like Mugabe, is there anyone yet living here in the Bay Area who really believes some sort of hands-across-America approach will work in getting everyone hooked on solar and buying Priuses en mass?

Man-made reflectors floating in space like clouds but able to be continually repositioned from Houston or somewhere can diminish the amount of sunlight bombarding our atmosphere and also be used to influence weather patterns. If we can go from the Wright brothers to the Mars explorer in less than a century, we can certainly begin geo-engineering on a massive scale, enough to get us started on a global cooling program that in a hundred years from now will be seen as a baby step – maybe called the Franklin project after that old wiseguy who thought all we could do was complain about the weather.

commented 2014-01-17 22:47:09 -0800 · Flag

If the utilities were forced to pay solar energy providers $0.49 or $0.99 per kwh, they would have to raise electric rates on everybody, including people with solar panels on their houses at night when their meters are running forward. That’s a prescription for ratepayer revolt and political backlash against solar power lobbyists. If we simply put a price on carbon emissions, the utilities would switch to whatever carbon-free energy sources minimize their costs. Why should they pay $0.49 per kwh for solar, when they can pay $0.15 per kwh or less for nuclear?

commented 2014-01-17 09:31:02 -0800 · Flag

Lancaster, Ca., is now selling homes that are 100% solar powered. All electric homes that charge your electric car, Tesla, Ford or the Cherry from China. The Cherry sells for $22,000. FOB. Now LA has a Feed in tariff. By 2030, LA could achieve 70% of its total energy from solar.

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