Join Us for Giving Tuesday
Storage Regulations Be Dammed
A New Campaign to Fight Climate Change
Give a Distinctive Gift This Year
By Meg Gunderson
Save the date! Join us for #GivingTuesday — a global day dedicated to giving.
Occurring this year on November 29, #GivingTuesday is held annually on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and following the crazy shopping events of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
It’s a great kick-off to the holiday giving season. We hope #GivingTuesday inspires you to collaborate in the movement and give the priceless gift of a livable planet.
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you care deeply about California and you understand that Sierra Club California helps preserve and protect the land, air and water that you love so much. #GivingTuesday is a great way to help out Sierra Club California and to become a part of a larger worldwide movement that promotes generosity.
Last year, #GivingTuesday brought together over 45,000 partners in 71 countries and helped raise nearly $117 Million online in the US alone. Won’t you join us this year?
Help get out the give this November 29th by going to our Facebook page or our website. Or just click one of the links below.
To donate online, click here. And make it monthly! It’s easier for you to give generously and very helpful for us to know we can depend on your donations.
To volunteer or make a pro bono service commitment, click here.
By Kyle Jones
The California Water Commission has taken the likely next-to-final step to adopt rules that will govern how $2.7 billion in bond money for water storage will be distributed.
At its November 15 meeting, the commission moved forward rules that have weaker requirements for projects to consider climate change impacts than environmentalists urged be adopted. The proposed rules also could allow project proponents to use the funds to meet existing obligations for certain environmental objectives for which others have already committed to pay.
The bond funds were voted into law in 2014 through the Proposition 1 water bond. Proponents of several dam projects that the Club has opposed hoped the $2.7 billion would subsidize their projects.
Without bond funds, most of the projects—including Temperance Flat Dam and Sites Reservoir—would not be economically feasible.
Despite the shortcomings of the current proposed regulations, they have marked improvements over the first draft introduced nearly two years ago.
First, the current version of the regulations is free of early language that allowed public funds to be used to raise Shasta Dam. This change will protect the wild and scenic McCloud River, a popular destination for hiking, kayakers and fly fishers. Raising Shasta Dam will also inundate sacred sites of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Second, early versions of the rule made no mention of climate change. While the analysis the Commission is using for determining climate change impacts on proposed project operations isn’t perfect, it’s important to note that applicants for money will have to show how their projects will provide benefits in a warmer California with a decreased snowpack. This analysis followed numerous pushes by Sierra Club California staff, volunteers and allies.
The regulations appear to be moving on track for a final submittal to the Office of Administrative Law in December. We will continue to advocate for changes in the regulations through the final steps to try to ensure a fair playing field for storage projects that are not destructive dams.
And the fight against dams isn’t over. The regulations are just the first step. Applications for projects may begin in 2017, and we will comment every step of the way to help prevent public funds from being wasted on deadbeat dams, and instead fund projects that protect the environment and store water in a climate change-challenged future.
A New Campaign to Fight Climate Change
By Kathryn Phillips
Imagine this: You have $10 billion to build, fix and repair bridges and roads and ports and public buildings. You’ll have to use a LOT of steel and cement to build those.
Should you buy the cheapest products that have been produced in factories that are highly polluting and haven’t invested in pollution control? Or should you take into account the pollution produced and give consideration to the products that might cost a bit more, but have less pollution associated with them?
If you care about the fate of the planet, you’re likely to answer that you should give special consideration to the less polluting products.
And that’s what a coalition led by the Blue Green Alliance and Sierra Club California is proposing that state and local governments do when they spend public money on infrastructure like roads and buildings: Buy Clean. That is, incorporate greenhouse gas emissions considerations into the bid review process so that less pollution is a value that helps drive who gets contracts to build.
By “Buying Clean,” a state agency like CalTrans or the High-Speed Rail Authority can use the state’s purchasing power to influence the level of emissions produced along the supply chain for the projects they fund.
Using purchasing power this way may mean that a Chinese steel factory that is the dirtiest in that nation will be outbid by a cleaner factory. And that cleaner factory could be located in a state like California, where manufacturers are investing to meet clean air and greenhouse gas emissions control regulations.
Local, federal and state agencies around the world have begun to dip their toes into the world of procurement decision-making to reduce embodied greenhouse gas emissions. Through a Buy Clean Campaign, Sierra Club California and Blue Green Alliance and other allies plan to highlight and work to accelerate that procurement approach in California.
Over the next several months you’ll be hearing more about the Buy Clean Campaign. It’s a major initiative for Sierra Club California in 2017.
If you would like to learn more, watch for future announcements via this newsletter or our Cal Activist listserv about Buy Clean webinars. Or be directly in touch with Kyle Jones at kyle.jones@sierraclub.org.
Give a Distinctive Gift This Year - A Tour of Channel Islands National Park
By Meg Gunderson
You can’t wrap it up (and if your wrapping skills are like mine, that’s a good thing), but it will be one of the best presents you give — a tour of a unique area of our country not seen by many.
From spring through fall, you can experience the Channel Islands, including hiking and kayaking, with Sierra Club members and a park naturalist.
Enticingly within view of Ventura and Santa Barbara, one of California’s (and the country’s) most unique environments is part of Channel Islands National Park and National Marine Sanctuary. It is also one of the least visited national parks in the U.S. The Channel Islands are only accessible by boat or plane.
2017 Trip Schedule:
April 2-4
May 7-9
June 11-13
July 16-18
August 20-22
September 24-26
October 22-24
Please contact the trip leader, Joan Jones Holtz, for more information at jholtzhln@aol.com.
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Thank you for being a part of our work! Consider making it monthly. You may securely donate online or by sending a check to Sierra Club California at 909 12th Street, Suite 202, Sacramento, CA 95814.
