Earth Day celebration
Editor: Our celebration on Sunday gathered the different aspects
of our community to honor the earth and each other. A city
proclamation was issued by our Mayor honoring the efforts we have
made as a community. It recognized the dedication of city staff and
individuals who have contributed relentlessly to protect our local
natural resources and provide safety for our community. We learned
that plants have feelings, how the universe was formed and songs
and music become food for the soul. The day was completed with
prayer circles music and the dedication of our new memorial peace
park. A place we created to remember the earth and those who work
so hard to honor her. A place of remembering.
When taking a realistic view of what environmentalism is all
about, for me it comes down to common sense. Why would we ever want
to risk polluting the water we drink or taint the air we will be
breathing? To take any action that could bring harm to a delicate
ecosystem that supports the very core of life? What would prompt us
to allow companies and organizations to endorse production
processes that bring forth contamination that in some cases may
last for generations? To allow farming practices that take all the
nutrients from the soil making it unable to continue to support
plant growth. In part it is because we are not asking the right
questions on how their products are made and what impact they have
on the environment both present and future? Everything we have came
from the earth some in natural form others engineered and
fabricated. Our physical life can only exist with interaction with
planetary resources. No air, no water, no soil, no gravity, no sun,
absence of nature — no life. We take out insurance policies for
health, car etc. to protect ourselves from what ifs, but what are
you and I and the rest of the world willing to do in order to
protect the natural resources needed to sustain a healthy life? Or
for that matter life period. Then lets add another element called
dominion. Some beliefs say that we have dominion over all things?
Does this mean we have full rights to determine what aspects of
nature can live and which are meaningless? What parts of our oceans
and seas we may honor and keep pristine and which sections we can
just turn into storage tanks for human waste? The metaphor I feel
with all of this is if someone visits our home and we offer them
our full hospitality. In return they show their gratitude by
trashing everything and everyone. Take our food use and wreck our
cars and consume as many resources we have as possible. There is no
thought about replacing them or harm to you as the host with
absolutely only thinking of their own immediate needs. How would
that make us feel? Violated? Used? Disception? Nature does not have
a voice as we do or its own government to fight for her rights or
collective bargaining. So when do we turn the concept of dominion
to one of stewardship and actions of gratitude?
Jeffrey E. Edelheit
Sebastopol
Stop destroying dipole
Editor: My hat’s off to Alan Horn, Guest Commentary, Apr. 15. If
I may, allow me to take Alan’s ‘opt out’ idea and clarify. To ‘opt
out’ implies and grants a non-existent contract. To ‘opt out’ would
mean that one is already ‘in’. This is not the case. What a Citizen
of the sovereign union state, California, now has with PG&E
(not PUC) is a Contract (by acquiescence), granting monthly
trespass onto your private property to “read” your meter. May I
suggest that rather than a letter, send a notice stating your
present terms and conditions of contract. And that, legally, any
change must be in the form of a written presentment to (a new)
contract. This new contract is an offer, asking if you choose to
contract. No one with more than one brain cell would want a plastic
corpse eration meter attached to their private property. “What if
they gave a war and nobody came?” or go to their meeting, object
immediately to any/all lies. Demand that PG&E stop destroying a
dipole upon the electric/power/energy returning to the power plant.
Mother Earth is getting scant on resources. I believe this last
sentence to be true.
Linda Cassara
Carlotta
Don’t trust PG&E
Editor: What is not being mentioned much in this matter is that
SmartMeters will put meter checkers, though hired as temporary help
to replace permanent employees, out of work. That’s smart for
PG&E management but smarts to people being out of work in this
depressed economy with record unemployment and few jobs for the
newly unemployed.
With SmartMeters, every building in every block in Sebastopol
and the unincorporated parts the West County will be putting out
electronic signals — and some buildings, if apartment houses,
multiple signals — broadcasting at unknown frequencies and unknown
amplitude (24 hours a day, seven days a week). To claim, as
PG&E does, that cumulatively SmartMeters will have zero health
effects on our own, our childrens’, our pets’ , wild and domestic
animals’ bodies and brains is craven and beyond belief.
If there is no published research on the cumulative health
effects of SmartMeters, why are our representatives, legislators
and administrators in the State of California not speaking up and
insisting on research before giving Smart Metering behind the
scenes support?
PG&E is not to be trusted with looking out for public
safety.
In 1958 PG&E planned to build the first nuclear plant in the
U.S. on Tomales Bay facing Bodega Harbor and close to, if not on,
the San Andreas Fault. PG&E said it was safe. Imagine Two Mile
Island or the Vermont Yankee right here. Citizen action is what
stopped this madcap scheme in the West County.
In words but not practice, PG&E doesn’t share the green
environmental views of Sebastopol and other communities. Right now
in Marin, PG&E is campaigning against Marin’s Clean Energy
Initiative.
In Sacramento PG&E has funded opposition to two legislative
bills that would require PG&E to use and purchase the surplus
electricity from homes, office buildings, and farms, etc. that
generate solar power. Imagine the net effect on local economies if
these bills were passed. More homeowners and building owners would
find solar power more affordable. In communities like Sebastopol
there would be more employment and start up businesses in
solar.
As a homeowner I don’t trust PG&E to not fudge the figures
using this blind-to–the consumer device. In other counties, there
are court cases on SmartMetering rate increases well beyond
previous years’ usages. Right now I have a meter that I can read
and compare its figures to those on my bill from PG&E. I often
call PG&E when there is a discrepancy and get an explanation.
With this device there will be no feedback loop for any PG&E
customer. Like computer balloting, Smart Meters encourage fraud. I
am not suggesting that PG&E would do this, but the mindset of
any company which sanctifies their bottom line and willing to
replace humans for a Smart Gadget, will, for the sake of the bottom
engage in fraudulent business practices which are the norm now for
many large businesses in the U.S.
Any company that writes and sponsors a Proposition (16) in the
upcoming California election to cement its own power and monopoly
on power in a time of dwindling energy sources, is reprehensible.
SmartMeters are part of this movement, which began when PG&E
did an end run around Governor Grey Davis and energy was
deregulated. Cost immediately went up by 1/3 service went down by
2/3, with more power outages.
Just say no to Smart Meters
Robert Leverant
Sebasopol