'Day to remember' in Santa Rosa

March 24, 2005 -- It was a day where 500 of Santa Rosa's environmental leaders met to discuss a 20 percent reduction in energy use and air pollution, and a day when Gov. Schwarzenegger's cabinet secretary on the environment whisked into town an hour late for his 2 PM keynote address "Let's make this a day to remember!"

ZAP's hometown of Santa Rosa received a rousing visit from Gov. Schwarzenegger's cabinet secretary Terry Tamminen. Tamminen, recently head of the California Environmental Protection Agency, exhorted the workshop "Climate Protection: Everybody profits!" in an oration of campaign proportions.

The event was sponsored in part by ZAP, along the City and County as well as local businesses and community organizations. ZAP was on-hand displaying its latest alternative fuel vehicles, including its new electric and fuel-efficient gasoline cars. ZAP also displayed its latest battery technology as well as its new scooters and off-road vehicles.

Tamminen entertained the workshop with a quote-filled speech that held to a theme of some of the important days in his life, including an experience he had while diving as a child off the coast of Southern California, seeing for the first time a colorful undersea world of kelp forests teeming with sea life. He had another day to remember when he returned ten years later, shocked to see that the undersea world of his youth was gone--only an empty sea bottom remained.

Tamminen talked about a misconception that people must choose between an environmental and an economic solution; that the two are inextricably bound to eachother. In the case above, he noted that California has failed to preserve the wealth of natural resources it possessed just 100 years ago. He added that the Salmon industry has changed dramatically in the past century, once employing more than 100,000 people, when a "poor man's steak" of salmon went for 10 cents a pound. He said that today the salmon industry is a mere five percent of that capacity and that the wetlands, streams and rivers that salmon once used for their breeding grounds have been lost forever.

He went on to say that a number of factors are converging that could turn the virtually invisible environmental problems of today, largely ignored by most of the population, into a "perfect storm" of an economic problem. Everything appears to be on track for Californians to see $5 per gallon gasoline over the next 10-20 years, which could have a disastrous effect on the economy and the environment.

What can we do? The workshop laid out a goal that reducing fuel consumption by 20 percent can reverse the current trends. Tamminen said that the Governor's plan involved three things:

1. - He said there are a number of ways to conserve and people can get ideas by visiting California's "Flex Your Power" website at http://www.fypower.org
2. Energy Efficiency - Tamminen talked about utilizing more energy efficient automobiles and stated that he thinks that battery-electric vehicles may make a comeback in the State.
3. Evolving to something better - An example he said that experts are predicting that gasoline will run out in about 40 years and pointed at California's plan to create a hydrogen highway of 200 hydrogen fueling stations that could power zero-emission vehicles in the state by 2010.

In closing, Tamminen talked about other days that he remembered, including the day he met an elder of the Hopi tribe. Of the Hopis, he said that here is an example of a civilization that has survived for more than 10,000 years in one of the harshest climates in the world, a society that thrived in a delicate balance between the environment and the economy. He talked about a meal he had with them and the blessing that was given before eating, roughly translated as "We have eaten," meaning that not only have the people that are gathered eating, but the animals, plants and their ancestors have eaten as well in order for the meal to be possible, a concept the shows the Hopi philosophy that all living things are connected.

He juxtaposed the Hopi balance between Environment and Economy with the mystery of Easter Island. For many years, archaeologists mused about the origins of the giant "tiki"-like statues left behind by a civilization that vanished by the time explorers discovered the island. Recently research uncovered a once thriving civilization of thousands. Archaeological evidence suggests that this civilization stripped the entire island completely of its native trees, an example of a society that ignored its environment in favor of a runaway economy. When explorers from the West arrived at the island in the 1800s, the once grand civilization of Easter Island was reduced to less than two hundred souls that subsisted on cannibalism.

Which course will our civilization take, Tamminen asked, the way of the Hopi or the way of the Easter Islanders? He asked the audience to make this day a "Day to Remember" in which we all commit ourselves to doing something to make a difference.

The morning speaker at the "Climate Protection: Everybody profits" workshop was Margaret Bruce of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group http://www.svlg.net/. SVLG is organized as a cooperative effort with local, regional, state and federal government officials to address major public policy issues affecting the economic health and quality of life in Silicon Valley. The Group addresses five core issues: affordable housing, comprehensive transportation, reliable energy, quality education and a sustainable environment. Bruce talked about many of the issues that Santa Rosa and Sonoma County are facing to control growth while incorporating sustainable business practices.