Common Ground: Bank-of a-Miracle?

June 2004 | Dock of the Bay

Bank-of a-Miracle?

Last January, the SF-based Rainforest Action Network (RAN) launched a new grassroots campaign targeting the “Liquidators,” — Wall Street’s ten most environmentally destructive mega-banks and investment firms. It challenged them to meet or beat (by Earth Day) the best environmental practices of Citigroup, the world’s largest financial institution, which embraced a landmark set of green initiatives, following RAN’s four-year direct action campaign against them.

RAN’s Global Finance Campaign is as bold in scope as it is creative in strategy: it aims to stop financing of deforestation and resource extraction (mining, oil, gas, and logging) from rainforests and other endangered eco-systems and to force multi-national lenders to shift investment to clean energy and sustainable development. RAN’s tactics — citizen-action campaigns which include boycotts, rallies at shareholders meetings, adbuster-like agitprop, bank branch “lock-downs,” and celebrities cutting up their bank cards — have proved enormously effective.

All but two of the ten liquidators (SunTrust and John Hancock) responded to RAN. With the exception of Goldman Sachs, (which called RAN’s timelines and standards “box ticking” that would “impede real thinking” around environmental issues), the other seven responded positively. The most radical response came from Bank of America, which announced that, as of mid-May, it would adopt a more progressive set of environmental policies than Citigroup’s.

Bank of America will become the first bank to set targets and timelines that address climate change. These include reductions in the overall greenhouse gas emissions from their sizeable client energy/utilities portfolios. BofA has also agreed to provide transparent public reporting to all stakeholders; forbidding investments in areas where there are outstanding land claims with indigenous peoples; and ending investments in uncertified logging operations or in companies that practice resource extraction from old-growth tropical rainforests, temperate or boreal forests operations.

In the two decades since Randall Hayes founded RAN, it has demonstrated time and again that corporations may be more amenable to change than the nation states and politicians in their pockets. Public shaming is proving to be a powerful global agent for corporate change. Perhaps because they fear the impacts that a soiled brand name will have on the bottom line, Wall Street’s drones and Zurich’s gnomes are turning green with something other than envy.

For More Information: Visit the RAN website: www.ran.org — Carl Nagin

Art and Sol: Honoring César Chavez

In The Ohlone Way (Heyday Books), a classic evocation of Native American life along the San Francisco and Monterrey Bays, Berkeley author Malcolm Margolin writes that long before the European invasion, “the Ohlones rose before dawn, stood in front of their tule houses and, facing the east, shouted words of greeting and encouragement to the rising sun. They talked to the sun because they believed that the sun was listening to them, that it would heed their advice and their pleas.”

Now the city of Berkeley may help re-establish our solar connection through a monument honoring labor leader, environmental crusader, and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. The centerpiece of the memorial will be a sprawling stone plaza on the Berkeley Marina designed in the shape of a solar calendar.

The idea for the Cesar Chavez Memorial Solar Calendar first occurred to sociologist Santiago Casal during a visit to Guatemala. Standing in the ancient ruins of Uaxactón, Casal was mesmerized by the arrangement of stones that allowed observers to “align the solstices and equinoxes.” Marking Chavez’ life with a natural calendar “seemed perfect,” Casal reasoned, “Solar calendars were rooted in an agricultural way of life. Farm workers have always lived by understanding the cycle of the seasons.”

Like other solar calendars — Stonehenge in England, the Bighorn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, the Cahohia Indian Sun Circle in Illinois — Casals believes the Chavez sundial will “provide us with a link to our ancestral past.”

The city thought the idea made a perfect fit for its existing Cesar E. Chavez Park. Situated on the crest of a two-acre site of the 90-acre waterfront park, the calendar will command a 360-degree panorama of the Bay and foothills. A 90-foot-diameter Solar Calendar/Sky Observatory will be located on the southern slope, enclosed by two crescent-shaped earthen berms. The wall on the sunset side would be low enough to permit views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Mt. Tam.

“People will be able to come by any time of the day and experience the sun/moon/earth system,” Casal says. “It will be a naked-eye observatory, so you will be in the same shoes as your ancestors.” — Gar Smith

Strike Out

In a world governed by common sense, the idea that someone could be sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing a bottle of Tylenol would be fodder for late-night comedians or a post-modern Kafka. But in California, such dubious scenarios have been the order of the day for a decade thanks to the state’s version of “Three Strikes and You’re Out!”

California’s Three Strikes law was born from the grief and indignation that followed the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993 by a convicted sex offender. The law doubles the maximum sentence for a second conviction for a “serious and violent felony” and mandates 25-years-to-life for a third felony conviction, whether the crime be murder or a misdemeanor like shoplifting. Seventy percent of voters approved the measure. It has been a political and judicial hot potato ever since.

Consider this: According to a recent Justice Policy Institute report, it costs California taxpayers more than $8 billion to house nearly 30,000 men and women convicted under Three Strikes. One of them is Leandro Andrade: his third-strike offense came after stealing $153 worth of videos, a sentence that will likely keep him in jail until his death.

But in mid-April, the Ninth Circuit U.S. District Court overturned a similar three strikes conviction against Isaac Ramirez for stealing a $199 VCR. The court ruled that his sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Yet in the same month, a state appellate court upheld a 27-years-to-life sentence given to a third-striker who failed to register as a sex offender upon release from prison.

The ever-widening reach of the third-strike net concerns Polly’s grandfather, Joe Klaas. In 1996, he organized Citizens Against Violent Crime to amend the law so that the third-strike sentences only applied to violent felonies.

Last April, CAVC turned in 700,000 petition signatures to the Secretary of State (the drive was supported by a $900,000 check from Sacramento business Jerry Keenan) and, in May, the measure was certified for November’s ballot.

What You Can Do: Contact Citizens Against Violent Crimes at www.amend3strikes.org or call them at 714-547-9842. —Tricia Cambron

Toxic Love Boats

In a good year, 200,000 cruise ship passengers will dump $50 million into San Francisco’s tourist economy. But that’s not all they’ll dump.

“Cruise ships are floating cities that produce enormous volumes of waste,” says Russell Long, Executive Director of the San Francisco-based Bluewater Network (BWN). According to Long, a typical one-week cruise can generate “more than 50 tons of garbage, one million gallons of graywater (waste water from sinks, showers, galleys, and laundries), 210,000 gallons of sewage, and 35,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water.”

SF’s Pier 35 anticipates 90 visits by 28 ships from 14 competing cruise lines this year. Anticipate more dumping as the cruise ship fleet doubles by 2010 and a new generation of 5,000-passenger mega-ships hits the seas.

The International Council of Cruise Lines admits that only 27% of the 113 ships operated by its 15 members are equipped with state-of-the-art water treatment systems. But some ships don’t even use the systems they have. Cruise ships have been caught bypassing their treatment equipment, dumping oil, sewage, and toxic wastes overboard and lying to cover it up. Carnival Cruise Lines has had to dredge up $200,000 for illegally dumping ballast water.

Current laws allow cruise ships to dump untreated sewage a mere three miles offshore. Graywater (the largest component of a ship’s waste stream) can be as polluted as untreated sewage. Unlike other industries, the cruise biz is not covered by the Clean Water Act so ship owners don’t need permits and are not required to report what they toss into our waters.

BWN thinks its time for the industry to clean up its wake. The Bluewater crew helped craft the Clean Cruise Ship Act (CCSA) of 2004 that was introduced in Congress on April 1. The bill would ban discharges of sewage, graywater, and bilge wastes within 12 miles of shore; require monitoring, sampling, and inspections; and promote improved pollution technology. Finally, the CCSA would guarantee tough enforcement to ensure compliance and empower citizens to mount civil actions against violators.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), Representatives Sam Farr (D-CA) and Christopher Shays (R-CT) and California Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are both onboard. The Dock says: All hands deserve a bow for taking such stern measures. — GS

Green Tower

In less than two years, the deep hole at the corner of 7th and Mission Streets in San Francisco will be the site of greenest federal building in the United States. The 605,000 sq. ft., 18-story San Francisco Federal Building will set precedents with its focus on community space and its intelligent use of natural light and heat, as well as such eco-friendly products as wood sustainably harvested from local forests and carpets containing recycled content. The tower will even be built with “green” cement.

“There isn’t anything quite like it,” said Tim Christ, Project Manager at the design architect firm Morphosis. The “green” cement, Christ explains, contains a 50% mix of granulated blast furnace slag — a steelmaking by-product that usually winds up in a landfill. In addition to making the new cement stronger, the mix cuts the need for cement in half. “The manufacture of Portland cement worldwide contributes approximately 8% of total greenhouse gas emissions,” Christ notes. A ton of Portland cement produces a ton of CO2.

The new building will be heated and cooled with natural systems, eliminating the waste and expense of artificial light and heat. Most workstations will have direct access to sunlight, cutting the use of energy for lighting by 26%. Computer-operated windows and a sophisticated automatic vent system will provide cooling to 70% of the building, reducing annual air-conditioning costs by 86%. The improved ventilation is expected to drastically reduce the “sick building syndrome” that plagues traditional office buildings. Breaking down traditional office hierarchies, corner offices will be eliminated to provide city views for 90% of the workers. Subsidized public transportation for employees will reduce traffic on busy city streets. In fact, despite its 1,800 employees, the tower’s garage will offer only 47 parking spaces. In an effort to reach out to the community, the new building will include a fitness center, conference center, daycare center, sky gardens, and a large open-air cafeteria — all open to the public.

This project promises to draw San Francisco into the growing sustainable buildings movement that has already taken root in Europe. San Francisco architect Craig Henritzy calls it “a major coup for the green movement in office buildings.” — Jennifer Liss

No to Frankenfood

California grows more than 350 different crops and, with the exception of some cotton grown in the Central Valley, the state remains one of the world’s largest “genetic-engineering-free zones.” Monsanto, DuPont, Dow and their biotech brethren would like to change that. Genetically engineered (GE) cotton is their “root in the door.”

So imagine Monsanto’s chagrin, when the March elections saw Mendocino County’s upstart Measure H voted in as the law of the land. Measure H bans the “propagation, cultivation, raising and growing of genetically modified organisms.” Despite an unprecedented spending binge by Monsanto and other genome-tweaking heavy-hitters, the measure romped to a decisive win, making Mendocino the first county in the US to erect legal roadblocks to GE crops and animals.

“We beat the biotech bullies,” says Measure H’s Laura Hamburg.

Mendocino faced a formidable juggernaut. CropLife America, an agri-biz lobby, carpet-bombed residents with a $600,000-plus onslaught of radio, print, and TV ads opposing the initiative as a “badly written law” that would put local farmers at a global disadvantage. Backers countered that the worldwide revolt against “Frankenfood” would actually make Mendocino’s organic crops more attractive to consumers.

Nine other California counties are now contemplating similar moves. On April 5, a group of Marin County activists began petitioning to get 12,000 signatures by June 16 to qualify a “GMO-free Marin” initiative on the November ballot. The measure is backed by Fairfax Mayor Frank Egger, Fairfax council member Larry Bragman, Good Earth Natural Foods president Mark Squire, Straus Creamery head Albert Straus, and Fresh Run Farms operator Peter Martinelli.

Monsanto may be getting the message. On May 11, Big Mo’ announced it was pulling the plug on plans to market GE wheat designed to survive spraying with Monsanto’s patented herbicides. Factors influencing the decision: US farmers have been losing money on GE corn, soy, and canola; consumers continue to reject GE ingredients; and the North American Millers’ Association complained that Monsanto’s GE Franken-wheat had too many allergens, a poor “nutritional profile” and lacked “milling quality.”

For more GMO campaign information, go to the following: www.gmofreemarin.org or call (415) 454 9898 — GS

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