top
Central Valley
Central Valley
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

Valley's green vision marred by ignorance?

by Christine Kroll
Fresno is the fifth largest city, with 1/2 million people and 112 sq miles, yet it is governed so that the people's voices are rarely heard. The entrenched politics keeps most people who are employed separated from those they provide services for, and afraid of speaking out; as a result you do what everyone else does, which is always drive, rarely walk anywhere, including your children. This mindset has become so prevalent it's also become multigenerational, so it's an extremely difficult to bring up.
joe_moore_kvpr_valley_edition_b.jpg
You can't, go beyond the obvious,
You say, I'm missing the point.
---quote from "If this is the future" by Fiona Joyce, singer-songwriter in Sacred Space album

The people in the San Joaquin Valley are praying hard for rain, at least those from back in the days of the Dust Bowl era when as climate refugees, they still had some sense about the weather.

Nowadays many of the descendants of the mythic Joad family (in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath) are ensconced in the California middle class. If they are white, they can prove it too.

They live in Clovis and North Fresno, and rarely travel south of Shaw except on business or to earn a living. Every day, they travel from their status-signifying digs in fancy automobiles uncognizant of the fact that they will pollute the air with an additional two million pounds of carbon dioxide.

Like the Beverly Hill Billies, smart Fresnans rarely envision themselves walking or bicycling, unless, of course, everyone else is doing it.

Evolution in thought

A century ago, walks between Fresno's Downtown and Fresno City College generated healthy pedestrian traffic. You can still see indications of this in the historic quarters which include grandiose churches, mansions renovated for room-renting, and remnants of a theatre district.

In 2014, the only people walking are official homeless people (no papers, no shopping cart), disabled people in Zippy wheelchairs, and a few elderly stoics.

Nobody walks unless they are disabled, derelicts, or dirt poor, all the pariahs of society who deserve the harassment they get from police, from the officially employed, and even tourists.

In fact, the sheriffs and police drive by in better outfitted cars than the community they represent. Thanks to the Black Budget and Homeland Security, there is more money to install multiple security cameras on public transit buses than there is for green transportation TV commercials.

Not that the Valley is completely disconnected from the reality of the need for greening its transportation. It's just that it only exists on paper in the hefty planning studies and elaborate engineering designs by Caltrans engineers, who also mostly avoid public transportation.

Like many post-9/11 cities, Fresno has barely managed to keep its head over the water in debt, so its green transportation plans are doomed to sit on the backburners for a few more decades, even when the costs to green neighborhoods and add a few more bicycle lanes are modest pre-9/11.

Decades old pollution in the sky

When this reporter took transportation planning courses in the 80s, it was hard to imagine that it would take planners several decades to mull over the options. Seattle with its picturesque hills and shoreline is much more of a challenge when it comes to radical green rapid transit. But while planners decided on overhead trams, sky-trains, or tunnels, the region's infamous traffic jams ensured that 10,000-plus tons of carbon dioxide and other noxious gases were emitted every day.

According to Donald Brown, former program manager for U.N. Organizations at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), speaking at "A Global Climate Treaty: Why the U.S. Must Lead" on September 20th in New York City, climate change is a moral and ethical issue:

"Going back to what 350.org activists say, we've got to move quickly. We're running out of time to prevent catastrophic warming...There are two degrees to separate where we not only have hard devastating impacts, but we start to create a potentially rapid, nonlinear climate response."

Thankfully, while Puget Sound (Seattle) has finally reduced its miles-long traffic stalls by investing in new rapid transit, for how many decades will the Valley endure its deadly smog?

Fresno with its wide flat land, generous lanes widths, and year-round sunny weather has proven ideal grounds for cross-country cyclists training for Le Tour de France, at least in the past, before all the fires, and the droughts, and the pollution, exacerbated by stubborn local motorists.

The voices of grassroots air quality advocates go largely unheeded by the Fresno Bee newspaper in contrast with the Fresno Community Alliance newspaper, which devotes at least one page each month. Generally, it is as if trying to connect the dots between air pollution, climate change, drought, fires, and automobiles emissions makes nary a dent in the local conscience.

Some ignorant opponents even support the chicken-and-egg debate, stating that since all the potentially healthy air is lost in the past, it is unsafe for their children to ride bikes to school. Even when the smog culprit gets so bad that children cannot play outside for days, and older people suddenly develop asthma, and ordinary adults tire more easily, Valley residents continue to drive about everywhere as if the climate crisis must wait upon them.

Need for green vision

Arguably the inertia is reflected in the perspective of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (SJVAPCD). According to Seyed Sadredin interviewed by KVPR Valley Edition on December 2nd, new rules by EPA on air quality are too stringent, and don't take into account adequately outside factors in pollution. He repeatedly cited the Bay Area, and China.

The Valley is undoubtedly a smog trap as evident by its geography. It is presently in extreme non-attainment with regard to 24-hour ozone standards of the Clean Air Act. But this is precisely why there needs to be aggressive promotion of clean, non-motorist options.

Tom Frantz of Fresno Community Alliance (August 2014) stated, "California is clearly failing to reduce global warming emissions and be the climate leader the rest of the world imitates...By the end of 2014, the state will likely be back to 2008 greenhouse gas emission levels if not higher."

The situation is dire, according to climate activists and experts. Donald Brown stated, "Last November Climate Watch said the whole world has 271 gigatons--for the entire world--that must be fixed by that time."

271 gigatons till the Earth warms irreversibly, regardless of who is to blame.

Other cities are waking up to their moral responsibility by greening their transportation systems, and encouraging bottom-up cooperation.

Can Valley ranchers and residents possess the will power to take the bull by the horns, rather than be content with last place imitative efforts with regard to greening the urban landscape?

Must Central Valley residents continue to suffer pollution-related health problems due to denial of the most significant self-controlling factor in the Valley smog, their fuel-consumption habit?

Quite possibly, everything depends on what the descendants of the Joad family (today's Jones and Smiths) decide to do with respect to climate change and, most importantly, when.

(Original Article from http://www.examiner.com/green-technologies-in-washington-dc/christine-kroll
Christine Kroll was born and raised in Fresno and works as an independent journalist.)
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network