Affinity Dialogues

Thanks to Stephen Jordan of the U.S. Chamber BCLC for his recent Memorial Day post (http://tinyurl.com/24wgseo) – a fantastic reflection on the gear up of the “Arsenal of Democracy” as the U.S. entered World War II. It has always amazed me how in the time of national and global crisis the full resources of this country and those of global allies were mustered to confront a common enemy.

This message applies as much, or even more so, today. Once again, we find ourselves as a nation and a planet in need of an arsenal. Rather than an “Arsenal of Democracy” we need an “Arsenal of Sustainability.”

Once again, our nation and the world face a common enemy. That enemy does not dive in from the air with guns blazing, float up from beneath the sea in steel bubbles, or roll across the field of battle in mighty panzers. This enemy that we face today is more insidious as the enemy is us. It is us and our general acquiescence to policies and business practices that cause polluted environments, crumbling national infrastructures, and digital and financial chasms amongst global populations. A focus on short-term profit and a lack of foresight, preparation, and care for potential devastating consequences has led us to a place where thousands and thousands of gallons of petroleum are able to find themselves in the waters of my native New Orleans and world citizens lack access to clean water, sustenance, and resources.

President Obama reminded us just yesterday that this recent accident in the gulf should signal the siren’s song for carbon-based energy, highlighting the imperative for an oil independent future. And, Stephen reminds us of the power of the cross-sector citizenry to rise and forge systemic productive change for the common good.

To meet this vision of a sustainable future that American spirit must be raised and focused towards one singluar goal – to create an Arsenal of Sustainability to advance energy technology and efficiency, rebuild the power and transportation grids, and create physical environments to support sustainable development and low impact co-habitation. That is best be accomplished by rallying resources from all sectors, setting aside perceived adversarial relationships, and engaging in cooperative collaboration to meet the next great challenge to global resilience.

We did it to meet a great evil in the middle of the century past? Are we bold enough, brave enough, and strong enough to meet the challenge again at the beginning of the century present?

Unbeknownst to most of the general population of the San Francisco Bay Area, a terrorist attack against two regional ports – The Port of Oakland and the Port of Redwood City – occurred on Tuesday.  Concurrently, a tanker truck was stolen and abandoned on a busy local thoroughfare, an explosion occurred at a concrete factory in Redwood City, and other suspicious activities were reported suggesting a coordinated and multi-pronged attack across the region.  As a result of the attack, there were casualties, 30,000 residents of Richmond were either evacuated or instructed to shelter-in-place, highways were closed, ferries stopped running, and local refineries were shut down.

Oh…not really.  THIS WAS AN EXERCISE.  Don’t run out and buy your respirator masks or start taping up the windows just yet.

This scenario played out during CalEMA’s 2010 Golden Guardian exercise on May 18 & 19.  I participated in this simulation of a regional emergency incident as part of the Business and Utilities Operation Center.  There I witnessed agencies from across California State and regional governments, the private sector, and non-profit sectors work together to monitor and collaboratively respond.  Available cross-sector resources were brought to the table and communication with the community was adeptly facilitated through the integration of each sector’s capabilities.

This seems like a no-brainer, right?  In times of emergency, it would only seem to make sense that government should reach out to and collaborate with businesses and non-profit organizations to benefit clients and constituents.  Actually, this is a fairly new idea borne of the lessons learned in Katrina – a realization that the government cannot do it all and recognition of the successful supporting efforts of companies like Wal-Mart and Home Depot.  Since then, it is an idea being adopted at all levels of government incident response, from FEMA to local offices of emergency services.

Over the past five years, the integration of private sector resources in the Bay Area has been championed by Peter Ohtaki.  Formerly Executive Director of Bay Area BENS, he now leads the California Resiliency Alliance.  A first-of-its-kind effort, Ohtaki has formed this association of cross-sector representatives to leverage best practices and innovation to support disaster response in a way that has never been done before.  The result is obvious as illustrated by the presence of representatives from the California Grocers Association, the U.S. Chamber Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC), Wells Fargo Bank, and Direct Relief International at the State and regional Operations Center to learn and participate in preparation for an actual disaster response.

As a champion of using cross-sector collaboration to effectively address social issues, I am heartened when I see working models of the government, private, and non-profit sectors working together in such a coordinated fashion.  It represents a realization of the resources and skills that each sector brings as well as a new focus on the importance of the welfare of the citizen-consumer.  This kind of successful cross-sector cooperation is, I believe, a model for how we can all work together not only in times of crisis, but also in the ongoing creation of a sustainable and resilient 21^st century environment.

Remember…its only an exercise…until it is real.  And efforts like those I witnessed at Golden Guardian 2010 make me much more confident of the collaborative response that we can expect.

In a panel discussion about the competitive landscape of the energy sector in the U.S. at the U.S. Chamber International Conference on Corporate Investment, what was clear is the great deal of uncertainty about the best solutions to the never-ending struggle of energy demand vs. environmental concerns. Even so, Nathan Loftice of FedEx office provided the point upon which all of the panelists seemed to agree when it comes to our energy future, “Economy and environment must co-exist.”

Jeff Moseley, CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, led the panel providing a vision of the challenge we confront as co-habitants of this planet comparing the situation to that of the Apollo 13 astronauts – with a need to measure every molecule of energy in our batteries before we run out of the precious resource.  But, as Omri Stern of Zerofootprint points out, we lack the benchmarks and standard to effectively measure CO2 emissions and the CO2 footprint of companies and households.

Other challenges to our energy future were described by the panelists, including energy security, limited oil reserves, environmental concerns, and policy issues.  One of the most notable challenges discussed was the continued obstacles to new energy projects, partially due to the NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) problem.  Whether it is the opposition to building nuclear energy plants and wind farms or the bottom-line profit concerns of natural gas, oil, and coal producers, it seems that somebody has to be willing to take the hit when it comes to implementing new energy projects.  Not to be neglected as a NIMBY issue is the question of the energy transmission infrastructure.  Even if giant wind farms or solar arrays are built in the middle of unpopulated areas, like California’s Mojave Solar Park, the electricity still has to get from place to place, meaning an improved electricity transmission infrastructure and power lines that have to be placed someplace in somebody’s backyard.

In the end, the future of U.S. energy policy was left unclear, even through the eyes of the cross-sector experts that made up this panel.  What was clear is that there is a need to systemically re-think how and where energy will be produced and provided.  Across the board, there was a consensus that a multi-pronged strategy will be best as regional economic and environmental concerns necessitate.  It is also clear that some government policy for mitigating CO2 is coming down the pike, ready or not, but the question of a carbon tax, a system for CO2 cap-and-trade, or a mixture of the two remains unanswered.

Late last night, John Kerry posted on Huffington Post about the Energy bill that is being introduced in the Senate. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Lieberman (I) and Kerry (D) with contributions from Senator Lindsey Graham (R) who recntly pulled away from the legislation in a somewhat confusing huff over the rising immigration debate.

In his posting, Kerry highlights three “big details” about the legislation:

• A Cap-and-Trade component with a goal to limit CO2 emissions to 17% below 2005 levels in ten years and 80% below 2005 levels in forty years,
• A tariff (aka WTO-consitent border adjustment”) to level the playing field and U.S. retain production jobs,
• Tighter regulations on offshore drilling, and
• “Major new investments” in clean energy research and production

I, for one, am looking forward to reading the details of the legislation and watching what happens to the bill as it winds its way through the watering down process of both houses.

The real question is whether it is enough.  Is enough emphasis being placed on both developing non-carbon based energy sources AND rebuilding the power delivery infrastructure of the country so new clean energy sources can actually be accessed.

In late April as the controversy over Arizona’s recent immigration legislation began to stir, a very good friend of mine, the Diversity Guy – Gregg Ward, wrote a blog entitled, “Driving While Brown” where he compared the recent law to Jim Crow practices where every person of Latino descent would be pulled over for the sole reason of being brown.

There are many problems with the Arizona law.  There are also many problems with the manner in which the Federal government, which has purview in this particular area, has dealt with the issue so far.  This has been the case for years through both Bushes and Clinton and even into Reagan.  It has been, in fact, the War on Drugs initiated by the Reagans that has exacerbated the immigration and border security issues.  But, that is a topic for another time.

What is needed is some calm around this issue and an attempt to gain some understanding of the political / cultural landscape in which something like this can occur.  I recently heard a great interview with Howard Fischer of Capital Media on NPR’s Fresh Air.  Definitely worth 20 minutes to gain some perspective.

Obviously, the state of Arizona will be adversely affected for decades for this less than strategic play.  Although, if attention is drawn to the issue of comprehensive immigration reform, border security, and enforcement of labor laws and the Federal government manages to do something of some substance, then Arizona has unintentionally done the country a favor and taken one for the team.