Climate Change: Only An Economic Hardship?

New America Media, News Report, Mary Ambrose, Posted: Mar 30, 2008

Editor's Note: Representatives from environmentally-minded organizations gathered in San Francisco for the first in a series of New America Media sponsored briefings aimed at introducing ethnic media to the real issues facing ethnic communities. Mary Ambrose is an editor for New America Media.

Addressing climate change doesn’t have to mean a complete loss of California’s prosperity, said Next 10’s founder Noel Perry to a group of the ethnic press gathered in San Francisco to hear about “Innovation Index,” the new report from the California think tank on the state’s economic future.

Next 10 analyzed economic and environmental indicators related to climate change and – dire as global warming is – learning to cope with it is giving birth to innovative thinking, an entrepreneurial spirit, and eventually, a variety of new jobs.

California is a world leader in addressing global warming. It has one of the lowest per capita greenhouse gas emissions and – as Perry reminded people – still has the highest gross domestic product in the nation.

Energy conservation has helped reduce carbon emissions but it has also meant that California taxpayers avoided having to build about 24 new power plants over the last 20 years. Financially, from 2003-2013 this will save local businesses and residents about $23 billion.

To ensure greater conservation, Next Ten has launched a website called www.coolcalifornia.com. Using this carbon calculator allows you, or your household, to track your personal energy consumption and your own carbon footprint. By the end of the summer Next Ten hopes to have the site available for business use.

Innovative approaches are necessary if we want to move from “a looter’s economy” where we “exploited resources and people as much as possible,” said Nwamaka ‘Maka’ Agbo of The Ella Baker Center, based in Oakland. Agbo works with the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign at EBC, which is focusing on creating green jobs in communities of color, traditionally hardest hit by environmental degradation. EBC has received $125 milion to launch a program to create green jobs for young people in just those neighborhoods. The initial training will concentrate on teaching 40 young people practical job skills they can use to retrofit businesses to be more energy saving.

That’s what Ritu Primlani does. Talking rapidly and thinking quickly, Primalani is a force of nature. She decided to her energy to reduce restaurants energy use. Through refrigeration, cooking, lighting and cleaning, Primlani said restaurants consume more energy than any other retail industry. And “16 percent of all solid waste in California landfill sites is from restaurants.”

She chose small-scale South Asian restaurants “because every community gathers at their local restaurant”.

It wasn’t hard to convince them, once she was through the door. She approached the owners in their language and encouraged them to return to the ways more common in the developing world and not in America. “Styrofoam is cheap and bad for the environment, whereas traditionally people have used a three-layer tiffin in which to take out food,” said Primlani.

Reducing solid waste through recycling and introducing simple ways to making their energy consumption more efficient, in five years she has helped over 100 local, ethnic restaurants saving them at least $5,000 a year.

Her organization, Thimmakka, gives a green sticker for those who participate, so diners are more informed when choosing where to eat. Hoping to create a green badge of honor, Primlani and is creating a new national standard for restaurants, which will be announced on Earth Day, April 22nd.

Not stopping there, she is planning to work with farmers so that they can use recycled cooking oil from restaurants in their farm machinery

Restaurants may be heavy users of energy, but it is slick instruments of Silicon Valley that disguise what Raj Jaydev of Silicon Valley DeBug called one of “the most dangerous industries: computers,” noting that “Silicon Valley is known for its cancer clusters and a very high incidence of breast cancer.”

A well-known youth organizer in San Jose, Jaydev told the story of Romic, a company that cleaned computers for Apple and IBM. They operated for 20 years in East Palo Alto, a poor neighborhood of people of color. Over the years Romic operated, the local rates of asthma skyrocketed. Cancer was pervasive. But no one group – like Occupational Safety Health Association (OSHA) – was able to make any traction in their effort to have Romic clean up their factory. And no one could persuade the work force, because they feared they would be quickly out of work. Finally, Jaydev said, they realized their workers were paying with their health.

As a Romic employee, Froilan Chan-Liongco suffered second and third degree burns while welding on one of the company’s tanks. Last week he was offered a $5,000 settlement. That case and other concerns, pushed workers to join with health and environmental activists and on August 30, 2007 the Department of Toxic Substances Control ordered Romic to shut down. It was a landmark victory signaling support for many of the 40 thousand low-wage workers in the computer business in Silicon Valley.

When writing about environmental stories Jaydev cautioned journalists to always make sure to look at the workers who bear the brunt of any industry – or to “look under the hood” – to understand some of the environmental impact. And he cautioned environmentalists to “integrate their work with the local movements” to ensure effectiveness.

Related Articles:

Youth Voices: Respect Mother Earth

China Must Go Green, and Soon

The Attack of the Killer Oil Spill



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