With the sophistication of symphonic synchronization, four alternative energy specialists came to last night’s Culver City Democratic Club meeting with a different attitude from many of their peers:
Instead of complaining about how quickly the planet irretrievably is sliding into a dumpster, they came armed with four separate, imaginative solutions for curing or neutralizing the perceived crisis.
One of the strongest recommendations of the program was that panel moderator Meghan Sahli-Wells chose a diverse cast, the better to stimulate an audience with varied tastes.
They were very different from each other, and they presented a variety of paths for a suddenly aroused activist to tread.
The Players
Michelle Weiner, who has a long background in progressive education, these days is a hometown activist, accenting global issues when they come to town, such as promoting a ban of plastic bags.
Dr. Jimmy Hara, who is Japanese, explained his activism was born in his childhood in the 1950s when he came to understand the devastation wrought by atomic bombs in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More accurately, the spark may have been lit when he was born, mid-war, in a Northern California internment camp ordered by President Roosevelt. As a nearly career-long board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, he has been crusading against nuclear proliferation all of his life.
Brian Treanor, a philosophy professor on the Loyola Marymount faculty, brought the most technical eye that he smoothly morphed into a populist response: Dive deeply into political involvement.
As the Sierra Club’s lead organizer in the L.A. Beyond Coal campaign, Evan Gillespie demonstrated how facilely ordinary persons can enter and play meaningful doles in affecting what is perceived to be an excessive dependence on fossil fuels.
Ms. Weiner
Her message is to organize, pursue collaboration.
She is the leader of Transition Culver City, an environment-oriented group that reflects her commitment to sustainable living, water conservation and disposition of trash, the 36th of 360 franchises in a 3-year-old student-founded international network. To emphasize the accessibility of membership, Ms. Weiner often referred to Transition as “grassroots.”
Because the traditional fuels that drive the world have been easily available until recent times, communities are not naturally resilient, and that is Transition’s No. 1 objective:
“To build a resilient community.
“Transition brings people together to respond to peak oil, climate change and all of the social challenges that arise from these problems.
“Transition’s goal is to build resilient communities that can respond to the shock that we probably will experience pretty shortly.”
Ms. Weiner defined “peak oil” as meaning “we already have used up a lot of the easy oil, easy energy.”
She urge her listeners to “act collectively and now,” especially if you lack expertise. That is the reason, said Ms. Weiner, for connecting with existing groups and building bridges to local governments.”
Dr. Hara
He was easily the most surprising guest panelist of the evening, movingly, powerfully shining a seldom-felt light on a Japanese-American’s perspective of the origins and conclusion of World War II.
He said that FDR famously labeled the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 as a Day That Will Live in Infamy, but he suggested two additions: The days in Augsut 1945 when the Allies bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki into submission, killing 220,000.
Dr. Hara related the story of an 11-year-old girl who died of delayed after-effects of the bombing, 9 years after she was her family’s only survivor from Hiroshima.
“I, too, want a green environment,” he said, “but I don’t know if nuclear power is the answer.”
Dr. Hara’s ultimate goal was plainly stated: “To rid the world of nuclear weapons.”
Prof. Treanor
He opened with what he described as “the good news.” According to the World Wildlife Fund, “we will be able to shift to an entirely renewable energy economy — in terms of energy used for transportation, and things like heating and electricity — by 2050.
“Why is that possible? In 2006, the entire world consumption of energy was about 16 terrawatts of energy. One terawatt is about one trillion watts. What we need to do to shift to a renewable energy economy is to generate about 11.5 terrawatts of new energy.”
Scaling this ambitious mountain, Prof. Treanor said, would be unlikely or impossible without immense help from politicians. “The only solution to this problem is political,” he said. “We must make them do it. Political activism is the cardinal environmental issue. No politician anywhere in the world is doing enough. And the current administration has failed.”
Mr. Gillespie
His Beyond Coal campaign was organized just after the century turned, and its objective remains unchanged:
To make America run coal-free by 2030. Presently, America is more coalfire power plant reliable than any other country. Six hundred plants remain here, which make him pessimistic that America ever will show the way to the rest of the globe.
Mr. Gillespie is frustrated because of the resistance he has met from putative allies.
Thirteen Democrats dominate the Los Angeles City Council. “Yet all you hear from them is that clean energy is expensive,” he said.
Still, Mr. Gillespie is smiling. While Los Angeles is farther behind than it should be, and the national plant figures are unimpressive, “we are making a lot of progress at the local level.”
The consensus of the panel: Peering into the immediate future, it doesn’t look as sunny as they would prefer it to be.
