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Californians Vote Up or Down on Saving the Climate

Watch this Al Jazeera report to understand who's behind Proposition 23, a direct assault on the state's cutting edge Global Warming Solutions Act.

By Dan McKinney, 2 Nov 2010, TheTyee.ca

Video by Dan McKinney, documentary filmmaker and UBC journalism instructor.

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[Editor's note: Vancouver-based documentary film maker Dan McKinney recently completed, with Joe Rubin, an in-depth report on California's anti-climate change policies initiative, Proposition 23. Their report, which aired on Al Jazeera English, lays out the huge stakes when voters go to the polls today. We asked McKinney for a reporter's notebook to accompany his video report, and it follows here.]

It has all the makings of a blockbuster movie -- Arnold Schwarzenegger battles alien powers while planet Earth's future hangs in the balance. But what sounds like Hollywood boilerplate is actually the story reaching its climax today in California.

And how people vote in that state will be felt soon enough here in British Columbia. Because the success or failure of Proposition 23 is going to have a major effect on whether the climate policies set in motion by Premier Gordon Campbell will gain momentum or lose a key regional partner.

Arnold's fight

I moved to Vancouver two years ago from California's Bay Area where I watched the movie star muscleman become Governator in '03 and then go on to re-election in 2006. Ever since he signed the Global Warming Solution Act in 2006, Schwarzenegger has become a phenomenon on the issue of climate change. He's an unorthodox Republican who's found an unusual niche in this unorthodox state and commands this issue like few others on either side of the isle.

What he's fighting is Proposition 23. Prop 23 is a proposal on California's ballot that would suspend what many are calling the nation's most progressive climate legislation until California's unemployment drops below 5.5 per cent for four consecutive quarters. Since California has only hit those numbers three times in the last 40 years, it would effectively put the environmental legislation on ice with little hope of revival.

And this would have big implications for B.C.'s climate policy. With California's cap-and-trade system on hold, the province would be nearly going it alone, as one of the only remaining participants in the Western Climate Initiative. It would leave the climate treaty Gordon Campbell's signed with Schwarzenegger all but deactivated.

And the twist that makes this political drama even more startling is the out-of-state millions that have come pouring in from Texas oil companies to bankroll the Prop 23 campaign. In this political equation, the billions of dollars to be made refining Alberta oil sands are a big factor, as The Tyee has reported.

Two visions duking it out

As a relative newcomer to the issue -- I only got the assignment to cover the ballot initiative know as Proposition 23 a few weeks ago -- I assumed I would be knee deep in wonky, regulatory legislation, struggling to peel back the layers of inscrutable stats, Byzantine state politics and fuzzy economic projections. But, as it turns out, few battles in this November election are as colorful, or stark, as this one. High-tech companies want to kick-start a green revolution that would create millions of jobs. And at Tea Party rallies, participants complain that the economy is hemorrhaging jobs as a result of government's regulatory stranglehold.

Probably the most revealing interview we did while preparing our report was with an older Latina woman in Fresno who had three sons out of work for the first time in their lives. If you wonder why people would buy big oil's message about climate reform hurting the economy, her support of Prop 23 provides a lot of insight. The message that climate reform will hurt California's already struggling economy is easy to digest. So people are believing it. We explained to her that oil money was pouring in from out of state to back the initiative and that they had much to gain. She told us that was all news to her, but it didn't change her mind about the issue. She was still worried about her boys finding work and, in her view, elite liberal causes like climate reform weren't going to help them get jobs any sooner.

Two versions of the future seem to be facing off here. On the one side you have the new money pioneers, the Googles and Teslas of the world, embracing the emerging opportunity of an energy revolution that could transform the economic landscape. On the other are more conservative players representing the old money interests of oil.

So today's vote is shaping up to not only be a referendum on Obama's first two years. In California, it's taking measure of just how ready Americans might be to re-imagine their future even in stark economic times. [Tyee]

Documentary filmmaker Dan McKinney grew up in Northern California's Silicon Valley and now teaches at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism.

6 Comments:

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  • mopled

    1 year ago

    Ah, that explains it.

    "As a relative newcomer to the issue -- I only got the assignment to cover the ballot initiative know as Proposition 23 a few weeks ago".

    So the film was made without examining the basics. The director assumed he had been told the truth about the need to ration and tax CO2 production.

    I'm sure Silicone Valley is champing at the bit, but it makes no sense to do a high tech fix for something that is not only not a problem, but actually benefits an agricultural state like California.

    Yet another attempt to demonize the Koch brothers and oil. Of course they have the right to fund anything they want, but they are being outspent anyway. How come greenies never question oil company funding of the climate scam....BP and Shell gave the start up money for the Climategate crew who fiddled and destroyed data.
    The Tip of the Climategate Iceberg
    The global-warming scandal is bigger than one email leak.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704342404574576683216723794.html

    Look who funds the Center for Investigative Journalism. As if the whole web of foundation supported mindbleep wasn't part of a globalist propaganda campaign .
    Carnegie Corporation of New York
    Educational Foundation of America
    Hellman Family Foundation
    William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
    James Irvine Foundation
    Reva and David Logan Foundation
    The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
    McCormick Tribune Foundation
    Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
    Nichols Foundation
    Open Society Institute

    Look who the Center For Investigative Jounalism is partnered with...the whole gang of the MSM. ABC, Washington Post, CNN etc....surely you jest Mr. McKinney.

    Who funded you, by the way?

    "The New York Times reported on October 11th that:

    As of Monday, the No on 23 forces had raised $16.3 million to the Yes campaign’s $8.9 million, according to California Secretary of State records. Over the last two weeks, nearly $7 million has flowed into No campaign coffers while contributions to the Yes effort had fallen off strikingly.

    A lot of that money has come from the Hollywood elite, with Titanic Chicken of the Sea director James Cameron donating a million dollars to the anti Prop 23 campaign."
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/01/a-few-thoughts-on-californias-proposition-23/

    Yours is just another propaganda film, but save it in case you ever decide to do a real expose' of the sinister powers that want us to pretend out breath can change climate.

  • RickW

    1 year ago

    Yet another attempt to demonize the Koch brothers and oil?

    No need to further demonize demons now, is there?

  • the real ODB

    1 year ago

    Since you're new to this

    Since you're new to this Dan, first lesson: the only green in regards to Campbell is the money he swims in. He's a total hypocrite. And mopled: crawl back into your cave. There's no scam, no conspiracy by capitalist hating pinko commies. Only the largest "peer" reviewed scientific paper in history indicating climate change. On one side, scientists. On the other side, non-scientists. And when the subject is science, the non-scientists don't get a vote. Period.

  • mopled

    1 year ago

    What ""peer"reviewed scientific paper"is that?

    Surely, you don't mean that travesty put out in 2007 by the IPCC?

    Last time I looked Al Gore had no science degree and Pachauri,the IPCC head is a railroad engineer who headed India's State Oil company for a while. Maurice Strong, who started it all is a high school drop out. All are engaged in the carbon trading business.
    “The carbon trading system being pushed here has spawned crime and fraud across the pond. Cap-and-trade is not about saving the planet. It’s about money and power, and absolute power corrupting absolutely.”
    http://www.thecypresstimes.com/article/Columnists/A_Time_For_Choosing/MORE_ON_OBAMA_AL_GORE_CRIME_INC_EUROPES_CARBON_MAFIA_AND_OURS/29981
    The high priest of "ocean acidification" is a physicist from Livermore Labs with no credentials in oceanography who wants to do geo-engineering.

    The skeptics on the other hand have real credentials.
    U. S. Senate Minority Report: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims - Scientists Continue to Debunk “Consensus” in 2008 - Released: December 11, 2008 - http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb

    And that was 2 years ago...before Climate Gate.

    It looks like California will continue participating in the climate scam, and that also means BC will continue to implement a cap and trade program on top of the carbon tax.

    Besides paying more for everything we will continue to be bombarded by the real pollution generated by geo-engineering.

    "Stratospheric Aerosol Geo-engineering' - or SAG for short. SAG is what scientists claim needs to be done to 'save' the planet. It involves changing the climate by spraying chemicals, metals and other substances into the high atmosphere over population areas".

    Read all about it:
    Relationships of people involved in covert aerosol geoengineering- CONNECTED DOTS!
    http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/documents/connectdots!!!.pdf

    Smearing the sky
    Secret US/UN Geoengineering Experiment Revealed Still Exists Over Cairo, Egypt
    http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/smearing-sky-chemtrails-over-egypt

    Ongoing Aerosol Geoengineering-
    Tanker Enemy has captured the technology of the program Geoengineers deny is real.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqq6AiGFMe0

    Messing With Disaster
    Venezuelian Journalist Reveals Global Aerosol Crimes Are Ongoing, Scientists Deny
    http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=89841

    G. Edward Griffin Talks Candidly About Aerosol Geoengineering/SAG
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsWpSPBwA-w

    http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/

    I'd take CO2 over barium and aluminum in the atmosphere anytime. CO2 makes plants grow. Barium and aluminum salts are toxic to them....and us.

    "Those who believe in absurdities commit atrocities" was never truer than today.

  • anarcho

    1 year ago

    Too basd climate change deniers!

    Prop 23 got voted down, as it should have. Reality prevailed over paranoid fantasy.

  • mopled

    1 year ago

    Big money beat Proposition 23

    Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, said big money defeated Proposition 23, which would have put the brakes on Assembly Bill 32, the state's clean-air act.

    "We were outspent three-to-one," Logue said in a phone interview Tuesday night.

    Logue spearheaded the Proposition 23 campaign.

    AB32 was passed and signed by the governor in 2006. It provides that between 2012 and 2020 greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced to 1990 levels."

    "Proposition 23 would have postponed implementing major parts of AB32 until the state's unemployment rate stood at 5.5 percent for a year. Now the jobless rate is around 12 percent.
    Logue said Proposition 23 would have done much better if so much money hadn't been spent to defeat it.

    The Rockefellers, Getty Oil and Bill Gates led the opposition, he said. "It was a perfect example of the ruling class crushing the working class."
    http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_16518946

    "The non-partisan group MAPLight.org, which is tracking campaign funding on both sides of the issue, reports that Prop 23 opponents have spent $30 million to defeat the initiative, while supporters have spent only $9 million. Liberal activist Thomas Steyer has alone spent $5 million to defeat Prop 23, the National Wildlife Foundation has spent $3 million, and the Sierra Club has spent another $1.2 million. These three alone have spent more money than all of the Prop 23 supporters combined.

    Throw in such vested-interest contributors as the Green Tech Action Fund, the ClimateWorks Foundation, and the League of Conservation Voters, and it is not too difficult to see who is really playing the role of David and who is playing the role of Goliath in the battle for Big Money influence."
    http://www.heartland.org/full/28628/Vested_Interests_Pour_Big_Money_into_Defeating_California_Prop_23.html

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