Motion to reconsider
U.S. groups desert precautionary principle, 53 to 6
Posted by Ken Ward (Guest Contributor) at 11:05 AM on 19 Mar 2009

Grist – http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/3/18/23559/2600

After ducking the matter for a decade, U.S. environmental organizations finally pulled together a climate policy, but the National Call to Action on Global Warming issued by 53 organizations on March 5 is a mistake and should be reconsidered.

The National Call contains key elements that have been startlingly absent from our efforts to date — an assessment of climate risk, bright-line definition of solution, and a platform — but in attempting to thread a path between fundamentally irreconcilable political worldviews, the groups have fashioned a pushmepullyou compromise that will not gain us the traction we now require and squanders moral capital won at cost.

The National Call was hurried into place when it became clear that the irredeemably flawed cap-and-trade agenda of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership would otherwise be adopted by default. Yet, instead of coming down emphatically, if belatedly, behind Jim Hansen’s precautionary analysis and focusing on the central questions facing humanity — “how bad is it?” how much time do we have left?” and “what do we have to do to avert cataclysm?” — our major organizations choose to fudge the science and aim for something much smaller then the reordering of civics, economy, and society required to avert cataclysm.

What could and should be an illuminating, spirited civic debate between two sharply defined and fundamentally contradictory worldviews is now muddied by the introduction of a confused and confusing middle road position advanced by respected climate leaders. Split into three camps, we are further than ever from sharpening our story and worse off then before the National Call was issued.

No attempt was made to hide the illogic of the National Call, which claims to stand on “climate science” yet recommends inadequate, lower-end IPCC targets based on essentially antique science which does not fully encompass the risk of abrupt climate change. A bland statement acknowledging this fact (“more recent findings since the publication of the latest IPCC assessment suggest that even more urgent action may be needed”) is included in the Call without clarification or conclusion.

This throwaway statement, however, is the nub of the matter, because all recent evidence on factors affecting the pace and scale of ice shelf break-up in Antarctica and Greenland — the climate change “world killer” — is very, very grim, and all projections of fossil fuel use and GHG emissions continue to rise steeply. It could not be clearer that we are running the last lap and there will be no opportunity for “do-overs.”

What’s going on here? None of our organizations and leaders truly disagree with the precautionary position as a matter of science, so why did 53 sign on to an statement calling for less than we know is now necessary to avert catastrophe?

Six organizations — 350.org, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), Friends of the Earth (FOE), International Rivers Network (IRN), GlobalWarmingSolution.org and, contrary to original reports, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection — did not endorse the National Call and there are indications that the decision does not sit comfortably with every group which did. People should be worried, because the National Call puts the majority of our organizations on the same slippery track that compromised the integrity of EDF and NRDC.

I have a half-formed idea that the critical factor for leadership and organizations is no longer whether one accepts the reality of abrupt climate change, as it was for the last 10 years, but whether one believes in the possibility of abrupt political change and is willing to work for it. If so, then there is no reason at this stage to support inadequate compromises that cannot avert cataclysm and will merely run out the clock. We’re playing winner take all now.

If one cannot imagine a new American revolution, or shudders at the thought, then I suppose there is appeal in cutting the best deal going and hoping that Hansen et al. are wrong, but as a matter of strategy, it’s still the bad move. Whether or not “non-linear” social change is thought likely or desirable, driving toward it improves the outcome either way.

Environmentalist power is proportional to our moral authority, not our facility at brokering, and our moral authority is diminished when we speak less then the truth. The National Call to Action on Global Warming, relying on out of date IPCC science, is knowingly built on a foundation of sand. It reduces our moral authority (and we ought to start thinking about our members, donors, and staff in this regard) and should be reconsidered.

Having won consensus for joint action — a tremendous step forward — we must assert the new power that can and should have flowed from the achievement, and the best way to do so is by endorsing Jim Hansen’s call for a 300-350 ppm bright line. If we do this, then we act as a responsible movement, coalescing behind two opposed visions of political change and measures of appropriate precautionary behavior. If we do not do this, we churn already muddy waters and are worse off then if we had done nothing.

They will ask Mr. Obama to put pressure on the Canadian government and the TransCanada and Enbridge pipeline companies to agree to a revenue-sharing deal for native people.

Friesen also provides background on seven Native American members of Obama’s transition team including several beltway veterans and a new positon for Wizipan Garriott, the first ever “First Americans public-liason officer” for an incoming administration.

A wave of major coal and oil developments within Native Lands in the US and Canada will no doubt keep the team busy. Aside from controversies in Canada, TransCanada also faces lawsuits from Native communities South of the boarder claiming that the company failed to conduct proper environmental reviews. In Arizona, Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe members are taking direct action to oppose proposed coal mines.

Obama’s team should show leadership on Indigenous rights by embracing the delegation from the North and strongly enfocing US treaty obligations. It should also move to reverse the course set by the Bush Administration by endorsing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People–already signed by 143 members of the United Nations (but not the US and Canada).

http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=431

Charging ahead with electric cars

As the electric car is business gets more and more crowded, it feels like we are approaching a breakthrough. It could come from a U.S. automaker like GM with its Volt, from a European company like Renault (and its partner Nissan) which are committed to electric cars through an alliance with Better Place, from a Japanese firm like Toyota which has led the way with hybrid cars like the Prius, from a Chinese or Indian carmaker, or from one of the many startups—Tesla, Think, Fisker, ZENN—that are hurrying to market.

I’m fascinated by electric cars, so I went to a panel on “Bringing Electric Cars to the Mass Market” at the Net Impact conference at Wharton. They had great people—Michael Granoff of Better Place who has the title, “head of oil independence policies;” Charles Gassenheimer who is CEO of Ener1, a startup company that makes lithium-ion batteries for electric cars; Vicki Northrup, an industry veteran who has worked for Think, Zen and is back at Think, and moderator Bill Moore, who runs a terrific website, EV World, and knows the business inside and out.

Of course, it’s not much of a business yet. Sure, Toyota has sold more than 1 million hybrids, but most everyone agrees that today’s hybrids (which recharge their batteries from the braking power of the car) are an interim technology, a bridge to the future. They are likely to give way, first, to plug-in electric hybrids (where the battery can be recharged by plugging in the car) and then to pure electrics. After all, it doesn’t make a lot of sense of build a car with both an internal combustion engine and an electric engine—that’s one reason the Prius and other hybrids are pricey. Besides that, the Prius battery technology will soon be surpassed by lithium-ion batteries, the kind used in laptops and cell phones, most experts think. They are more efficient, lighter weight and more powerful. Gassenheimer said a government energy lab tested a Prius with one of his company’s lithium-ion batteries and found that it delivered 77 miles per gallon, even before the software was optimized for the new battery.

Batteries are the key to the electric car business. The trouble is, lithium ion batteries that are powerful enough to provide a reasonable range—say, 60 to 100 miles on a single charge—and long-lasting enough so that they can be charged and discharged year after year are frightfully expensive. They can easily cost $15,000 to $20,000, the panelists said, accounting for as much as 50% of the cost of a plug-in electric hybrid or an all electric car.

So how do you get costs to come down? Several ways, it turns out.

First, obviously, is by improving the technology. Lots of big and small companies are working on that—Panasonic, Toyota, Sanyo, BYD, startups Ener1 and A123 and a venture-backed firm called eeStor.

Economies of scale will surely help. “Getting the battery into volume production is the best way to drive down costs,” Gassenheimer said. Ener1 has a deal to make batteries for the Think cars, which should ramp down their costs; they are building a production line now in Indianapolis.

Another approach: Radically transform the automobile business model, as Better Place wants to do. Their plan is to own the batteries and charging stations, and recharge and replace them when needed. This should assure wary buyers, if they believe in Better Place. “You subscribe to Better Place for your energy,” Granoff says. “You pay for the miles that you drive.” Better Place has struck deals to build out electric-car infrastructure in Israel, Denmark and Australia, with more to come, I’m told. You can watch this video of Shai Agassi, Better Place’s charismatic CEO, at the EV World website.

Still another approach is to lease the batteries. Think is thinking about this idea, according to Northrup, but is wary of trying to introduce a new technology and a new business model at the same time. “We’re not sure Americans will go for it,” she says.

One thing I learned from the panel: Batteries, when they are no longer powerful enough to drive a car motor, can still hold enough charge so that they could be resold to electric utilities that want to store intermittent renewable energy from the wind or the sun.

Finally, the government can and probably will play a role in driving the adoption of electric cars. The $700-billion financial rescue bill included $7,500 tax credits for the first 250,000 buyers of plug-in electrics, which could help the Chevy Volt and the Prius plug-in if they come to market, as expected, by 2010.

Gassenheimer says: “The only way to encourage penetration at this early stage ,when the prices are higher than consumers are willing to pay, is government intervention.”

I’ve come to believe that plug-in hybrids and then all-electric cars will reach the mass market in the next three to five years, although I can’t tell you how we will get from here to there. The fundamental reason is that electric car engines are more efficient than gasoline engines, although there’s debate about how big the efficiency advantage turns out to be. Besides that, electric cars are cleaner, they will help wean us from imported oil and they are quieter than gas-powered cars.

As Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan and Renault, said last month, when Nissan and France’s biggest utility announced plans to roll out an electric-car network in France:

“We have decided to introduce zero-emission vehicles as quickly as possible in order to ensure individual mobility against the background of high oil prices and better environmental protection.”

Our answer – nothing, not without conditions that reduce our dependence on oil. Our money should be offered on our terms. No automaker deserves federal funds or loan guarantees unless it commits to producing and selling at least 30,000 plug-in electric vehicles by the end of 2011 – and after those three years have passed and they’ve met the terms of the bailout, then let’s talk about more support for more plug-ins. Taxpayers’ dollars should be used to stabilize the industry and the jobs that depend on it by producing vehicles that end the downward spiral of our dependence on oil. Electric vehicles recharged by a green grid means green jobs, less greenhouse gas pollution, a more competitive domestic auto industry, not to mention saying no to tar sands development and good bye to wars for oil.

President-elect Obama has pledged to put one million plug-ins on the road by 2015 and grow five million green jobs. Sounds great – let’s get started with GM.

Up until now the EPA has gone out of it’s way to avoid, duck, shirk and otherwise weasel it’s way out of treating C02 as a pollutant and regulating it as such, but this ruling decrees that every argument it has used so far to avoid doing so is legally insufficient. The decision is binding for all EPA-issued air quality permits, so best case scenario – this could affect every single air quality permit for a new coal plant in the country.

Which means……that we may see the stalling of all coal-fired power plant permits under consideration for a year or so while the EPA figures out what ‘Best Available Control Technology’ means in this context. I repeat: no more new coal-plants. Then, the sound of scurrying feet as the coal industry scrambles to fast-track the ever-mythical Carbon Capture and Sequestration technology and finally the gradual movement of all the energy that has been built up around stopping NEW coal plants towards dealing with the 500 existing plants.

This has been a week of emails and blogs about how we can’t rest on our laurels just because Obama got elected. The same holds true for this EAB ruling — it may really stop new coal-fired power plants, and for that we can all be enormously relieved.

We won’t be moving in the wrong direction any more. Now the challenge is to start moving in the right one – towards no coal whatsoever.

UPDATE: The ruling will also cover oil refineries and other major sources of CO2 pollution. Score one for the climate!!

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is proposing to strike a joint climate-change pact with president-elect Barack Obama, an initiative that would seek to protect Alberta’s oil sands projects from potentially tough new U.S. climate-change rules by offering a secure North American energy supply.

This will be *the* tell-tale on Obama’s ability to push new energy solutions past the considerable influence of the oil majors. Cheap oil is out. What’s left is much more energy intensive to produce. Industry distracts policymakers with the promise of Carbon Capture and Storage.  But even if CCS comes to pass (not bloody likely, but let’s say they make it in 2-3 decades from now, best case) and even if its implementation brings the carbon intensity of heavy crudes into line with conventional stuff, we’re only back to square one on the real problem–breaking free of a fossil-fueled economy. In fact, we’re two steps back because we’ve stranded our investments in an energy infrastructure that won’t outlast global warming.

One early sign of  how Obama will respond will be his selection for the top spot on Climate in the new Administration.  No doubt Canada’s oil lobby are rooting against reports that Mary Nichols is on the short list.  As head honcho at the California Air Resources Board, she’s overseen development of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Recently released drafts seek to reduce the carbon footprint of California’s transportation sector by imposing penalties on refineries that choose to process dirty crudes like those from Canada’s tar sands.  It’s a bold move, and target #1 for Canada’s oil lobby in the US.

That’s a lot of talking heads and coordinating with this motley can be a challenge in any situation. For a small community like Ft. Chip already overtaxed by endless legal and regulatory fights, it can be nearly impossible.

This morning, all 18 of us met to begin streamlining communication with Ft. Chip and other native communities represented at the conference and settled on some good positions that we hope to formalize in a proposal by the end of the conference:

1. To develop a set of consensus principals to guide relationships and build accountability between NGOs and First Nation communities.
2. To commit resources to enhance community capacity to engage effectively with NGOs.

Wish us well, we’ll need all we can get to keep this boat sailing!

I’m joining Richard and colleague Mike Johnson for “tactical communications” workshops all week. The session covers everything from basic equipment and techniques to advanced “field problems” where we’ll use what we’ve learned to role-play non-violent direct action and mass mobilization scenarios.

In front of me is a scaffolding the size of a three story building. Ingrid Gordon and her team of climb trainers built the structure yesterday, outfitting it with ropes and guy wires to simulate an action canvass (Coal-fired power plant? Oil Refinery? State Capitol?). The workshop starts with an extensive safety training then moves to basic knots, equipment and techniques. Like the other workshops, they’ll end the week by conducting a simulated action scenario developed by participants at the camp.

This afternoon, Celia Alario hosts a media skills workshop featuring message development, release writing and on-camera interviews. After dinner, it’s an open schedule–time for hikes, skill-shares and after sunset, a healthy dose of stories around campfire.

Oil Change International will be watching this hearing very closely and we invite you to join us in the conversation! You can submit questions and comments below while we share with you commentary and facts about the hearing and its attendees.

Watch it live online RIGHT NOW and join the conversation with our friends at OilChange International.

Drop by http://www.Justin.tv/ryse to catch the action all day and join us live in the chatroom.

UPDATE: I’ve gone ahead and embedded the live feed below, so you can watch it here (—Admin Stan):

Watch live video from ryse on Justin.tv

UPDATE 2: From the press release:

Activists Show up Automakers by Converting Traditional Hybrid to 100-mpg Plug-in Electric Hybrid at LA Auto Show

For Immediate Release:

November 15, 2007

Rapid conversion proves that auto industry need not delay on increasing fuel efficiency and reducing vehicle pollution

LOS ANGELES – Environmental activists will convert a traditional gasoline-electric hybrid to a 100-mpg plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) outside the L.A. Convention Center today. Sponsored by the Freedom From Oil Campaign and performed by the engineers of CalCars.org, the conversion will show that the auto industry could easily meet and surpass standards set by California’s Clean Cars Law, which mandates a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2016.

more …

After the Sequoia was introduced Wednesday, an environmental activist with a video camera approached Toyota’s general manager for U.S. sales, Bob Carter, and asked why the company won’t withdraw from a lawsuit against California, which has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish tougher fuel economy rules.

Carter refused to answer and knocked the camera out of Brent Olson’s hands. Olson, of San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network, was eventually led away by two policemen.

Thanks Bob.

Here in LA, we’re slicing through the hype and keeping our eye on the prize. The automotive CEOs might be back at the podium making promises about sustainability, but on the streets of LA and throughout the country, hardly anything has changed in the past year:

• Fuel economy of the cars available to American drivers remains at the bottom of the barrel.
• Automakers are still fighting tooth and nail again fuel economy and tailpipe global warming laws.
• I still can’t walk into a show-room and buy a plug-in hybrid.

To kick off the week, we’re juxtaposing Ford, Toyota, and GM’s eco-promises with their continued participation in the lawsuit against California’s groundbreaking tailpipe global warming law. At this morning’s keynote speech to kick off the LA Auto Show, we put Ford CEO Allan Mulally in the hotseat by confronting him one-on-one and demanding he respond to a clever Freedom From Oil-produced USA Today front page wrap targeting Ford’s greenwashing.

Eco-cars (like the Cadillac Escalade hybrid, um what?) cannot just be an effort to deflect building criticism on the auto industries’ continued and stubborn reliance on gas guzzling, high global warming emissions vehicles. As I read the news this week and see extreme drought and wildfires in California, oil spills fouling the shores of San Francisco and the Black Sea, and oil prices approaching $100 a barrel, I’m more offended that usual (and that’s saying a lot) by the business as usual shenanigans of the automakers. It is high time for the automakers to stop saying what they can’t do and start giving American drivers the oil-free, zero-emissions vehicles we want and deserve.

Our showcase action of the week is going to do what non-violent direct action does best, “show not tell” the automakers what we want from them. On Thursday, while the automakers are inside the convention center making excuses and promoting concepts, we’ll be carrying out a high-speed one day conversion of a Prius hybrid to a plug-in hybrid (we’ll post more details on Thursday). With our action and our messaging, we’ll be asking the automakers what is taking them so long to get the cars America deserves on the road—if grassroots engineers can make a plug-in in a day, what’s holding back the auto industry?

UPDATE 1: Check out the photos on RAN’s Flickr site!

UPDATE 2: The AP wrote a great article about RAN confronting Toyota today!

Nick (Global Exchange) and I got to the dealership about an hour before the rally to set-up the balloon banner. We used the largest helium tank ever—291 cubic feet! It took the whole helium tank to fill up the balloon. Shortly after, our key organizers arrived—Linda Nichols Linda Nichols from Plug in America and Wendell Covalt Wendell Covalt , RAN LA coordinator. I heard a lot about these two and how supportive they have been of RAN, but it was really nice to finally take action with them.

After some time, we finally deployed the balloon banner “Toyota: Driving Global Warming One Lawsuit at a time”, right in front of the Toyota dealership. Once the banner was up, we looked around and their was about thirty people participating in the action. After trying to meet at RAN’s REVEL event, it was good to finally see Linda in action. She drove up to the dealership in the electric Toyota RAV4 and immediately became one of the key voices in the rally. While Linda was coordinating, Wendell picked up the bullhorn (his first time ever using it) and blasted Toyota for fooling America with building Priuses as they build more gas guzzling trucks and SUV’s. I looked at Nick and thought to myself, “I love it” when folks get organized and take action. This was surely an intergenerational event and everyone was skilled organizers. It wasn’t just a bunch of youngsters at this rally.

Momentarily, Mike Sandler who currently works with Interfaith Power & Light in LA and I chatted for awhile. I’ve known Mike ever since I’ve been at RAN (almost three years). He’s a good friend of Toben, RAN’s communication coordinator. We have emailed, chatted on the phone several times but never met face to face. Then out of the corner of my eye, appeared Hollywood actress and star in “Who Killed the Electric Car”, Alexandra Paul. She looked like she was in some kind of disguise with her California shades but she was so ready to take on Toyota.

Before the end of the rally, we had each corner of the intersection plastered with banners and signs while we passed out fliers. Cars of all sizes cruised by honking us on. By the end of the rally, we gave a huge round of applause for everyone’s participation and took a group photo. After the action was over, we went to deflate the large balloon and Wendell told me “this is one of the best actions I been too”. I guess we all did a great job.

While we were deflating the balloon, Linda and our new friend from LA Progressive Democratic Party member and actor Ricco Ross, went inside and had a candid conversation with the dealer owner. Ricco and Linda are two savvy negotiators and after a brief conversation they were in the dealership hammering it out with the manager. Sympathetic of our concerns of California emission standards, the dealer recommended that we take our concerns to Toyota’s corporate headquarters. This is such a familiar tactic used by dealerships management. Disappointed with the dealer response, Ricco recommended that we contact him for the next action. He said he could get as many as 300 people out to a rally. Talk about clout. Next steps in dealing with Toyota is to draft a letter with Plug In America and Global Exchange and send it to the dealership and corporate headquarters. Then we are going take action against our next mega dealer, Penske Automotive Group by targeting Longo Toyota, the world’s largest dealership in the world.

Big shout out to RAN LA, Global Exchange, Plug in America, Interfaith Power and Light, and everyone else for participating in the action. Stay tune for more RAN LA action next month!

The arrests are still being tallied, the YouTube videos posted, and cars returned from impound lots – all residuals of Monday’s No War, No Warming mobilization that sent ripples from Washington D.C. to Santa Monica. Peace and climate activists banded together on October 22 to engage in an historical act of nonviolent civil disobedience and creative demonstration against congressional and corporate inaction on the dual crises of war and global warming.

In D.C., approximately sixty people were arrested, a large number of them still cloaked in polar bear masks and furry jumpsuits. The protesters successfully blockaded four streets surrounding the Capitol despite a pre-emptive raid of the convergence center by police the night before in which a few were targeted as key organizers and arrested, and cars impounded to hassle mobilizers.

The following is a first-hand description of the day, written by Ted Glick of the Climate Crisis Coalition:

From 8 a.m. until 9:30 or 10, with action after action, we accomplished our objectives, which were to disrupt business as usual on Capitol Hill and send a message out nationally (and internationally) via the mass media that people are outraged that the U.S. Congress, almost one year after a (supposedly) new one was elected, has done nothing to end the war, pass strong global warming legislation or address the myriad of justice and survival issues facing the country that are worsening because of the war and the climate crisis.

It began with the 10-person polar bear contingent arriving like clockwork right on time at 8 a.m. at the New Jersey and Independence Avenue intersection where the mass media, following our outreach, were arriving, lots of TV cameras and still cameras and reporters. The polar bears moved to one of the main entrances to the Cannon House of Representatives office building and blockaded it. When forced to move by the police, they continued their demonstrative action, amplified by a portable sound system and creative raps and music.

Within minutes the Iraq vets group arrived to take the place of the polar bears blockading the same entrance. They refused to leave, and after 10-15 minutes arrests began.

While these actions were taking place, on the opposite side of the Cannon building, 25 people part of a “Separate Oil and State” action were blocking another main entrance and, in turn, being arrested for it.

Soon after the Iraq vets group were taken away, up came the Students for a Democratic Society contingent in their yellow Campus Climate Challenge t-shirts who immediately moved into the middle of Independence Avenue, a major through street on Capitol Hill, completely blocking traffic for what became 45 minutes. Chanting, “Resistance is Forming, No War, No Warming,” these 25 young people were a joy and an inspiration. The 100-150 or so people who were clustered along either side of the street began to chant, as the police moved in to start making arrests, “Arrest Bush, Not the Kids.”

After “the kids” were moved off of Independence and were slowly processed and loaded onto a waiting bus, and as traffic began to move again on Independence, all of a sudden a second wave of activists took over the street and again blocked traffic. I was part of this group, with six young people. We were all arrested within what seemed like no more than 10 minutes…

…And talk about inter-generational! A majority of those arrested were young people under 25, maybe under 22, while the grey head generation was respectably represented with other ages in between.

It was a joy to be part of this action, especially with the young people. In the words of Ella Baker, “Young people come first, they have the courage where we fail, and if we can just shed some light while they carry us through the gale, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.”

DETROIT, MI

In Detroit, RAN and the Freedom from Oil team, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), students from Wayne State University and the Detroit Green Party teamed up to hold our own No War, No Warming action at a Penske-owned Toyota dealership. A 15-foot banner with the message, “Toyota: Driving War and Warming,” was dropped by Freedom from Oil’s very own Brandon Knight (Michigan-based Global Exchange organizer) and Aaron Petcoff (Detroit SDS) from the roof of the dealership. Down below, Oil Enforcement Agents ticketed gas-guzzlers such as the Toyota Tundra, “impounded” high-emitting vehicles, and performed drill routines.

Check out more pictures here!

The action culminated in yet another Oil Enforcement Agency mission accomplished, an act of solidarity with those arrested in Washington, D.C., a warning to mega-dealer, Penske Automotive Group, and a bold message to Toyota Motor Company that expanding into the truck market and suing states for regulating greenhouse gas emissions are not the actions of an environmental leader.

The gift-bearers reached this conclusion after learning of the AAM’s efforts on the previous day to prevent the State of California from regulating global warming pollution caused by tailpipe emissions. The automakers were the lone dissenters to the proposed law, arguing before the California Environmental Protection Agency last Wednesday. There to show support for the regulations, Mike Brune of RAN was joined by a myriad of interest groups and concerned Californians, ranging from physicians to engineers and scientists.

The basket delivery was preceded by a boisterous rally on the lawn across from the AAM’s office building where the American Lung Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Plug In America, and Freedom from Oil teamed up to tell the automakers what they think of the lobbyists’ attempt to destroy the health and habitat of our beautiful state. A large balloon banner, which read “Auto Alliance: Driving Global Warming One Lawsuit at a Time” served as the backdrop for the speakers – a hard message to miss if one were to peer out of the AAM’s top story office window to check out the racket below.

And what was their response? To our great surprise, they had heard of global warming. But they sluffed off our concerns. Apparently the largest car market in the U.S. shouldn’t worry too much about the kinds of vehicles on its roads…until they’re underwater, that is.

But, while she brought many a microphone, she didn’t stop by to interview us but to give us the basics on podcasting. What equipment we needed, how much it would cost, how often we should produce one, etc. She also suggested—a suggestion I’m taking right now—that we ask our supporters what they’d like to hear. We’ve come up with all kinds of ideas, from short and funny behind-the-scenes looks at the often chaotic office here at RAN to in-depth and lavishly told stories about people impacted by the issues we work on to everything in between.

What would you like? What issues should we cover? How long should it be? Do you even listen to podcasts? You all support us with your time and money, so we want it to be something valuable to you.