Special to Bayview Hill-Jake Sigg's Nature News

1. More on state budget, and action you can take
2. Experience the undersea world beneath the waves - Thursday 25
3. The Lawn Goodbye at SF Main Library Wednesday 24, 6-7.30 pm
4. More thoughts on restoring Hetch Hetchy
5. Yummy summer and fall classes at Tilden Park botanic garden
6. Conservation and Ecology of California's Coastal Prairie June 25 at Moss Landing
7. Frogs in elephant dung
8. A bottle of coke costs less than a bottle of water!
9. A quarter-million experimental Frankentrees to be grown in U.S.
10. Loss of wildlife from lead shot questioned
11. Feedback: Questions about renewable energy
12. This stock collapse is petty when compared to the nature crunch
13. More Americans born in 2007 than in any year in history
14. Why is Washington states so much more moderate than California?
15. President Ahmadinejad asks "Who are our enemies" and "Why do they hate us?"
16. Descent into chess
17. Bird that loves Ray Charles

1. STATE BUDGET CONFERENCE COMMITTEE TAKES ACTION ON PARK FUNDING, OIL EXTRACTION FEES


For the past several weeks, the bipartisan Budget Conference Committee has been reviewing the Governor's proposed budget, hearing testimony, and crafting its own proposals to close the estimated $24 billion budget gap. This week, the Conference Committee voted to cut billions of dollars from education, social safety net programs, and state prisons. They also acted on two key environmental issues - California's state parks and offshore oil drilling.


The Conference Committee voted to eliminate $70 million for the state parks system for the next fiscal year. However, in an effort to keep the parks open, the committee voted to adopt the State Park Access Pass Program. This program mandates a $15 tax on non-commercial vehicle license fees, giving California citizens free day-use access to state parks, and the state an estimated $400 million in revenue. The new revenue would cover the $143 million state parks budget, allocate additional funding to the parks system, create jobs, and leave $140-145 million to the general fund.


Unfortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger has said he wants the state parks budget cuts, but does not believe the Park Access Pass Program is the best way to keep the parks open. Please call the Governor and ask him to support of the State Park Access Pass Program to keep our parks open!

(Side note on language, as it appears on California State Parks Foundation website: How does the Vehicle Park Pass introduced by the Legislature defer (sic) from the State Parks Access Pass?)

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2.
Experience the Undersea World Beneath the Waves!
Guest speaker Mike Boom
7:30pm, Thursday June 25, 2009
Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way
Info: 415.554.9600 or www.randallmuseum.org

Mike Boom is an award winning underwater videographer who’s been shooting in the Monterey Bay and other bay area locations. He will share his footage and perspectives of undersea life off our shores.

Mike Boom has been scuba diving around the world since 1993, and has used his camcorder to record marine life in Hawaii, Alaska, British Columbia, Fiji, Belize, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and here in California.

FREE; donations encouraged.
More information about our speaker: www.laughingeel.com

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3. The Stegner Environmental Center and San Francisco Dept of the Environment are cosponsoring a Green Stacks program event at the Main Library, presenting
alternative uses for land dedicated to lawns and why it makes sense to replace your lawn with a garden.

The Lawn Goodbye
Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
San Francisco Public Library (Main), Latino/Hispanic Community Room
100 Larkin St. (at Grove) San Francisco, CA

Fred Bove, Permaculturist and former Director of Adult Education at the Botanical Gardens at Strybing Arboretum and Jake Sigg, wildlife habitat and
biodiversity advocate, will be at the library to discuss our plant and lawn options during this dry time in California.

"Lawns are a cultural inheritance that make increasingly little sense, and are often planted and maintained out of habit or expectation. Making alternate use of the land can bring benefits beyond saving water, labor, and other resources.

While resident and migratory birds, butterflies and solitary bees have been almost pushed out of the city, they have persisted in small fragments of the original landscape. Plantings that attract wildlife make room for creatures that have been here for tens of thousands of years.

Create color and interest for yourself and your neighbors while inviting your historical neighbors back into your garden!"

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4. Rebuttal to Steve Lawrence's feedback on Hetch Hetchy in previous newsletter:

The points you make, Steve, are all familiar arguments, and some of them have validity, and I am sympathetic to most of them. But you become a little wild in much of what you write. It would require a big chunk of my day to rebut some of the statements, so I must let them pass. I had my own struggles with some of these questions before I became convinced that reclaiming the Valley is not only desirable but imperative.

It is all a question of values, and you and I differ on that question, so point-by-point rebuttal will get us nowhere, as our stances are rooted in basic values. Choices depend on differing ideas of what constitutes "need". As a society, we have been making bad choices. Industrial civilization, busy creating artificial wants and clever at making us discontent with our lives so we must strive constantly to satisfy these artificial needs, must grow and grow and grow. If it swallows up priceless, irreplaceable natural assets such as Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy, well, that's the way the system works. What we have lost so far is incalculable and gone forever. Hetchy is one that is not necessarily gone forever; we can reclaim it, and we should--and we should pay the necessary price. (Actually, the price to pay is much less than detractors would have us believe--eg, we don't need to give up any water, all we need do is store it in a different place.)

And I've heard many people say that we shouldn't have dammed it in the first place, but now that it's dammed...That argument is nonsense; we made a horrendous mistake and we need to undo it. Ask yourself whether we should dam Yosemite Valley, Hetchy's twin. Further, if we had dammed it, should it be undone? Both Yosemite and Hetchy are unique (although they are often described as twins, they are not identical twins).

Rather than go on about this, read an article I am posting in next newsletter--probably going out today. (See a few lines down.)

There's political hay to be made fostering the dream. Everyone loves a dreamer.


Everyone doesn't love a dreamer, Steve; dreamers are often ridiculed and marginalized, especially when they interfere with powerful vested interests.

Here is an article that everyone should read before making up their mind:

Why Hetch Hetchy Power is Not Green, by Victoria Smith

President Obama just signed a $787 billion stimulus package, $60 billion of which will go towards clean energy, environmental projects, and scientific research. None of this money will go to large hydropower projects such as Hetch Hetchy. Once touted as clean and renewable, years of study now show the negative impacts of big hydro projects. Hydroelectricity does not get the Obama administration’s “green” stamp of approval, nor does it qualify as renewable under the standards of the California Energy Commission.

The environmental impacts of large-scale hydroelectric projects include changes in the flow, nutrient levels, salinity, temperature and water levels in rivers downstream of dams. When the natural flow of a river is blocked, oxygen levels downstream of the dam drop, which has a negative effect on river vegetation and wildlife. Dam-created reservoirs displace many animals, birds and fish, including some at-risk species. Even with fish ladders, many species are still unable to complete their migratory journey, and are being pushed towards extinction.

Then there is the effect dams have on our oceans. The two may at first seem unrelated until you hear what aquatic ecologist Irwin Haydock and oceanographer and hydrologist Michael Rozengurt have to say. They outlined the link between the decline of the earth’s oceans and dams in a letter to Bill Clinton. In it they explain, “The watersheds and their coastal zones form a single complex ecosystem; damage to one reach is eventually seen in the other. Decades of careful study and experience has shown us that oceanic decline stems primarily from the cumulative effects of dam building and subsequent freshwater diversions to serve human needs. For too long we have failed to understand the nature of this link. We have been looking in the wrong place for the cause of the ocean’s decline! It is time to focus on the critical link between watersheds and seas.”

This letter was written to President Clinton in 1998. Since then large-scale hydropower project development has continued unabated. The drive for more hydropower comes at a time when many freshwater ecosystems are already in crisis. According to the United Nations, 60% of the world’s 227 largest rivers are already severely fragmented by dams, diversions and canals, leading to the degradation of ecosystems. It is time to move away from environmentally destructive hydro projects, and focus on other truly “green” forms of energy.

Each hydropower project is unique and some are far more destructive than others. Although the Hetch Hetchy reservoir does not release methane gas there is no question it is profoundly destructive to animal and plant life in Yosemite National Park. And there is no question of the debilitating effect the O’Shaughnessy Dam has on the Tuolumne River long after it leaves the boundaries of the park. Just because energy is not carbon-producing does not automatically mean it is “green”. Nor should one believe that, since the dam was built 100 years ago the damage is already done—the damage to the ecosystem of the Tuolumne River from its watershed to the San Francisco Bay repeats itself every day the reservoir remains in existence.

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5.
Summer and Fall Classes 2009
Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden
East Bay Regional Park District

http://www.nativeplants.org/events.html

Wildflowers of Central Sierra
Bay Area Dragonflies
Semi-dormant pruning basics
Pruning native trees and shrubs into their natural habits
Composites in gardens
Botanizing northern Sonoma coast
Building ponds for wildlife
Growing ferns from spores
And much, much more

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6. Conservation and Ecology of California's Coastal Prairie
June 25th - 8:30-5:30
Half -day lecture at Moss Landing, Half-day field session, Marine Lab's Seminar Room

This one day event will feature information about the distribution and composition of coastal prairie grasslands, some of the associated rare biota, methodologies for evaluating the extent of these habitats, legal and regulatory concerns, as well as an introduction to management and restoration of this system. We will examine different types of coastal
prairies in the field with discussion of avoidance, restoration, and mitigation measures.

You can learn more and register at http://www.elkhornsloughctp.org/training/
Cost: $30

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7. From Jeff Caldwell:
The current issue of HerpDigest points out a story about the discovery of frogs living in elephant dung:


http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0610-hance_elephantdung.html


Kinda makes one wonder what we lost with the mammoths ...

(No shit!)

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8. Sacrificing Health for Efficiency

A bottle of coke costs less than a bottle of water. What's wrong with this?

For filmmaker Robert Kenner, what started out as a furrowed brow turned into a six-year investigation into the American food industry, resulting in his latest documentary, Food, Inc. Collaborating with authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (Omnivore's Dilemma), Food, Inc. does more than lift the veil from consciously concealed
corporate corruption. It pieces together information about what we eat with how...
Article taken from California Literary Review - http://calitreview.com
URL to article: http://calitreview.com/3354

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9. A Quarter Million Experimental "Frankentrees" to Be Grown in U.S

The USDA is currently taking public comments on whether or not the company ArborGen should be allowed to conduct 29 field trials of genetically engineered "cold tolerant" eucalyptus trees in the U.S. This massive experiment, which is on the verge of being green-lighted, will literally be using nature as the laboratory to test more than 260,000 frankentrees. Scientists across the U.S. are voicing concerns over this proposal including:

-The USDA failed to do an Environmental Impact Statement to assess potential negative issues related to the proposed field trials.

-The spread of the these plants into the wild through seeds and plant matter is highly likely, and the impacts on native ecosystems from this invader are unknown

.-One of the experimental GE tree varieties is a known host for cryptococcus gatti, a fatal fungal pathogen whose spores cause meningitis in people and animals.

Comments are being accepted by the USDA until July 6, 2009.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27451
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NPR Reports on Controversy Surrounding Genetically Engineered Trees

Scientists are developing genetically modified trees for the forests of the future. Ann Peterman of the Global Justice Ecology Program tells "Living on the Earth's" host Bruce Gellerman that these designer trees don't measure up to what a real forest provides.

Listen Please also watch this web video: A Silent Forest - The Threat of Genetically Engineered Trees
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10. From Eli Stair (edited, and regarding lead shot in condors et al):

I was curious to hear the foundation and references of your statement that there is significant (or otherwise notable) lead-poisoning of animals documented. What I have seen is that the only (scientific) conclusion drawn regarding wild animals found dead from any cause, and found to show any lead poisoning, was that they are most likely to become poisoned from eating lead weights from cars [1] or from waters known to be poisoned (from any other source), and confirmation that humans can absorb lead through eating animals which contained lead (shot or bullets) [2].

Given the (tremendous) numbers in tonnes [1] of lead lost on highways every year from cars, vs. the unstudied volume of bullets fired "in the wild" [3], there appears to be no one who has actually done the scientific research indicating that bullets are the cause, and in fact indicating that birds are unlikely to eat lead shot directly [4]...

I'm wondering if the basis for the statement that you're basing your rendition on, is one of the oft-cited [5], but unsupported claims ... I am intensely interested in the topic, from the perspective of one who enjoys nature, wants it protected, and wishes to avoid our legislation to perpetually enact more restrictions (of any kind) without scientific basis. In the event that there is scientific (not merely biased polemic) evidence against lead bullets, then I fully believe there will be both support, even from hunters and other gun owners, for a ban AS WELL as commercial support for replacement products, and legislation requiring their use.

[1] http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1111/2006-1111.pdf
[2] http://www.ndhan.gov/media/news/view.asp?ID=509
[3] http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2001AM/finalprogram/abstract_25926.htm
[4] http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041104005801.htm
[5] http://www.celsias.com/article/lead-poisoning-rose-colored-glasses-the-california/

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11. Feedback

Regarding 8. New film shows failure of Trap, Neuter, and Release (TNR) for feral cats

Jake - This is a contentious issue. None other than (I think) EO Wilson said in his Bird book that cats were fourth or fifth on the list of predators of birds. I can't find the book right now, but first was removal of habitat -- new buildings, specifically, second was enlargement of other predators who aren't any longer being preyed upon, such as raccoons, and third may be pesticides. I don't remember the next one or two.

We are responsible for the the first three -- the first deliberately and the other in self interest (bears and large cats, and then pesticides). And south east of the piers is where all those huge towers have sprung up. But the point is that domestic cats are fourth or fifth and humans have a much bigger role. We just don't acknowledge that.

OK, Louise, but what does that have to do with the failure of TNR?

I don't know if it has to do with TNR in San Francisco, or what. The one in Santa Cruz is working well.


Ruth Gravanis:

The May 18th issue of Nature News included a recommendation from Kay Loughman to visit www.bugguide.net to get help with identifying insects. I tried it out and it's quite wonderful. My submissions can be found here:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/288832/438669/438669/438251/438251
and
http://bugguide.net/node/view/278659

I couldn't quite figure how this works, but it's not necessary as I'm sure my astute readers know how to get around the internet. Ruth said to just click on "home" or "ID Request" or whatever's in the bar at the top of the page.

Ian Wilson:

Hi everyone, Sorry to bother you with yet another petition, but this one is important. If we send Congress enough emails (there's a form that only takes a few moments to fill out) there's a chance we can push this country a little further along the path to permanent freedom from fossil fuels. And if you agree with the sentiments of Environment California's message, please send it to everyone you think may be interested, put it on Facebook, etc.

Ian: You have lobbed this grenade into my bunker just as I am about to succumb to permanent depression about this energy thing and where it's taking us. When your email arrived I was in the midst of visions of solar panels stretched across our deserts, of windmills atop every windy ridge in the country, of turbines lining our shores, capturing the energy of the tides, and, and, and...

Be careful of this renewable energy thing; it's dynamite. And no thought will be given the consequences down the road. Consequences? Perish the thought. It's not our way of doing business.

Hello Jake, Yes, I know what you mean. Did you see the article by David Mackay called "Let's get real about alternative energy"?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/13/mackay.energy/index.html

David MacKay is a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge. His book, "Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air," is published by UIT Cambridge and is also available in electronic form for free from http://www.withouthotair.com/.
David MacKay says people engage in wishful thinking about energy because they don't look at the math.

In total, the European lifestyle uses 125 kWh per day per person for transport, heating, manufacturing, and electricity. That's equivalent to every person having 125 light bulbs switched on all the time. The average American uses 250 kWh per day: 250 light bulbs.

As a thought-experiment, let's imagine that technology switches and lifestyle changes manage to halve American energy consumption to 125 kWh per day per person. How big would the solar, wind and nuclear facilities need to be to supply this halved consumption? For simplicity, let's imagine getting one-third of the energy supply from each.

To supply 42 kWh per day per person from solar power requires roughly 80 square meters per person of solar panels.

To deliver 42 kWh per day per person from wind for everyone in the United States would require wind farms with a total area roughly equal to the area of California, a 200-fold increase in United States wind power.

To get 42 kWh per day per person from nuclear power would require 525 one-gigawatt nuclear power stations, a roughly five-fold increase over today's levels.

Some possible technological solutions are discussed in a book called Prescription for the Planet by Tom Blees -- however a friend who works in the field of alternative energy expressed some skepticism about integral fast reactors (which are supposedly extremely efficient and basically run on depleted uranium, i.e. nuclear waste.) His comment was "my understanding is the technology is not there yet and some nuclear specialists I know seem pretty skeptical about its viability".

http://www.amazon.com/Prescription-Planet-Painless-Remedy-Environmental/dp/1419655825/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242486554&sr=1-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor

Anyway, to end on a positive note -- the Peruvian Congress has revoked the land laws that caused the clash a couple of weeks ago:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/in_depth/8108388.stm

There's a nice video too -- these "native amazonians" know exactly what's at stake.


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12. This stock collapse is petty when compared to the nature crunch

The financial crisis at least affords us an opportunity to now rethink our catastrophic ecological trajectory
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/14/climatechange-marketturmoil

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13.
Data Points
The New Boomers

More Americans were born in 2007 than in any other year in history. According to preliminary data from the National Center for Health Statistics, births topped the previous record of 1957, at the height of the baby boom. Birth rates have been inching up in recent years, for reasons that are not entirely clear. Women living in the U.S. in 2007 will have an average 2.1 children over their lifetimes, a number that demographers consider the bare minimum to sustain population levels without immigration. In addition, U.S. women are having far fewer babies than in the 1950s--before the birth-control pill became available--when the average was nearly four children per woman. But the population is almost twice as large now, which is the main reason behind the record-breaking number of births.

U.S. in 1957: U.S. in 2007
Population 171 million Population 301 million
Births 4.308,000 Births 4,317,119
Births per 1,000 women 122 Births per 1,000 69
ages 15-44

Scientific American July 2009

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14.
Primaries in Washington state
The centrist north-west


What explains the remarkably moderate politics of one state?


WE IN Washington state “get our business done”, says Lisa Brown, a Democrat who leads the state’s Senate and may be a future candidate for governor. In contrast to California, say, Washington passes its budgets on time. Districts are drawn in a neutral process. Party machines are weak, heresy condoned. Ms Brown’s own Senate caucus recently grew by two Republican defections.


Rob McKenna, the state’s boyish attorney-general and a likely Republican candidate for governor, also declares himself proudly centrist. Like everybody he knows, he never votes a straight ticket: “I always voted for a state auditor who is a Democrat, because he’s good,” he says.


And so it goes. Stuart Elway, a leading pollster, says that moderation runs deep in a state that voted twice for Ronald Reagan and then for Michael Dukakis. Washington leans left to the west of the Cascade mountains, right to their east, but very few of its political outcomes are extreme.


In polarised and dysfunctional states such as California, the search is on to find the reason for this moderation in order to import it. There are several factors, but one stands out. It is, says Sam Reed, Washington’s secretary of state, the state’s long tradition of holding non-partisan primary elections. Because independents, Democrats and Republicans vote on the same ballot, “you do tend to get people who fit the centre of the electorate,” he says. It is a tradition, however, that Washington state has been forced to refine in recent years.


(Omitted: US Supreme Court throws out Washington’s blanket primaries.)


…Mr Reed then had the idea of changing the primaries so that they ceased being a “nominating process” and became instead a simple mechanism to find the top two vote-getters. In such a system, a Republican and a Democrat might face off in the general election, or two Republicans or two Democrats. And Washingtonians could again avoid declaring an affiliation.


Party bosses fought that idea bitterly. In 2004, for the first time since the 1930s, Washingtonians could vote in only one party’s primary, and they hated it. But Mr Reed, increasingly popular, kept fighting all the way back to the Supreme Court and eventually won. At last, in 2008, Washingtonians had their non-partisan primaries back. As advertised, the winners were moderates, and some races indeed ended with two Republicans or two Democrats in the run-off.


Daniel Evans, a three-term governor of Washington in the 1960s and 1970s and the epitome of moderation admits that it is too early, after just one cycle, to say that “top-two” primaries always lead to centrism. In places with gerrymandered districts, the outcome could even be more polarisation. But so far the system looks promising, and California is right to consider it. Maybe the country should, too.


Slightly condensed from The Economist 06.06.09
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15.
Earlier this year Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking to his country's parliament, posed two questions: “Who are our enemies?” and “Why do they hate us?” He described an axis of evil, with Iran's enemies being “all the wicked men of the world, whether abroad or at home”. The root cause of their hatred was religious--a loathing of “whomsoever should serve the glory of God”. Having described George Bush's atrocities, he told the cheering MPs, “Truly, your great enemy is the American--through that enmity that is in him against all that is of God in you.” Fortunately, Iran would not fight alone: it had the support of Muslims around the world. Be bold, he advised, and “you will find that you act for a very great many people that are God's own.”

For Mr Ahmadinejad read Oliver Cromwell; for Iran, England; and for America, Catholic Spain. The quotes above come from a speech made by Cromwell to the English Parliament in 1656. Parliament then passed an oath of loyalty in which English Catholics were asked to disown the pope and most of the canons of Catholic belief, or face losing two-thirds of their worldly goods. Shortly afterwards Cromwell invaded Ireland.

“Faith is a source of conflict,” reads a sign at St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace in the City of London--adding that it can also be “a resource to transform conflict”. Appropriately, the centre was built in a church blown up in 1993 by Irish terrorists, brought up, no doubt, with tales of Cromwell's atrocities.

Excerpt from The Economist 3 Nov 07

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16. Descent into Chess

"A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this? It may be asked. We answer, chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. Chess has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises--not this sort of mental gladiatorship."

Scientific American, July 1859

(Take that, Boris Spassky and Bobby Fisher.)

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17. Bird that loves Ray Charles: http://www.maniacworld.com/bird-loves-ray-charles.html