Mendocino County Today: Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021

Windy Rain | 39 Cases/Another Death | Rainfall Records | Luce Garden | To Autumn | Trash Creek | Laughing Gas | Pomo Kids | Willits Bust | Albion Wharf | Useless Supes | Ukiah 1871 | Police Reports | Appalachian Cabin | Ed Notes | Evolution | Yesterday's Catch | Election Holiday | Sarcophagus | Secretary Pete | Plumber School | It's Just | Powell/Reagan | Going Extinct | Final Painting | Was Lonely | Costume Duo | 215 Anniversary | Stooge Vacation | Climate Survival

A FRONTAL SYSTEM will generate strong and gusty southerly winds this afternoon and tonight. Rain will spread over the region tonight with snow over the Trinity mountains. Scattered showers will diminish during the day on Wednesday. Another frontal system will bring more rain and strong winds Thursday and Thursday night. A moist westerly flow across the Pacific will bring the potential for heavy rain this weekend. (NWS)

39 NEW COVID CASES and 1 death (since last Friday) reported in Mendocino County yesterday afternoon.

HELP WITH RAINFALL RECORDS

Hi AVA,

Boonville historical rain records…

I’m looking for anyone who has knowledge of the Boonville rain records. Paul Meilleur had been curating and updating before he died last Spring. The records go back through at least the 1930s. I never learned how Paul became responsible for them, but the process in recent years involved Rich Ferguson sending his daily totals from Boonville to him, to keep the old records ongoing. Rich and I were friends and neighbors, and we always compared our rain gauges before he sent his numbers to Paul. When Rich died in early 2020 I continued sending Paul my rainfall numbers from Farrer Ln. Now they’re both gone and I am carrying on without the old data to link to. Last January Paul had told me through an email that he would be getting the records put together (apparently they were in some disarray) and would send a copy of the result to me. But that wasn’t to be as he suffered a fatal accident on Clow Ridge sometime after. 

I’m hoping somebody who knew Paul better (we only communicated by email) might know a way for me to acquire the old records, and perhaps donate the originals to the AV Historical Society. 

Paul wrote in reply to my request for records last January: 

“Yeah, they go back to the 1930's. For decades they were kept by folks who worked at the Cal Trans yard, among them was Johnny Pinoli who was husband to Philo postmistress Thelma. There were several years of overlap between Ken (Montgomery) and Cal Trans and somehow we merged those numbers. Emil Rossi used to have dozens of year's hand written of the CalTrans yard numbers. It is on my to do list to dig it all out of the archives and add your stuff.”

Thanks,

Brian Wood

Boonville

PS. For what it’s worth I’m still using the old CA rain year system of July through June.

BOONVILLE 

(DATE, DAY, CUM.TOTAL)

9/10/21, .02, .02

9/19/21, .10, .12

9/28/21, .06, .18

10/18/21, .47, .65

TO AUTUMN

by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; 
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees, 
Until they think warm days will never cease, 
      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, 
   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: 
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 
   Steady thy laden head across a brook; 
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, 
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they? 
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft 
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; 
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

AN OLD FRIEND of ours was justly angry when he appeared in our office today. An outdoorsman all his days, he'd spotted a large bag of trash in Robinson Creek on the Ukiah side of the hill. Numerous items in the trash were clearly identified as belonging to Alejandra Duran, a person not known to us, and maybe not the person who tossed her household trash in the beleaguered stream. We see these roadside signs all over the county that threaten a thousand dollar fine for anybody caught illegally off-loading trash, and now and then on rare occasions someone is hauled into court and fined, not a thou but some reasonable amount. Ms. Duran should have to explain how a big bag of garbage with numerous items with her name on them got into Robinson Creek.

• 

• 

UKIAH WHIPPING WHIP-ITS

Ukiah City Council to consider ban on nitrous oxide canisters

by Justine Frederiksen

At its next meeting Wednesday, the Ukiah City Council will consider moving forward with banning the retail sale of nitrous oxide canisters, which are often used by adults and children to get high.

The dangers of nitrous oxide, which is a gas used for sedation in medical procedures but also sold over the counter in small canisters that people use to get a “short high of 20 seconds to two minutes,” was explained to the City Council last month in a presentation by the Ukiah Valley Youth Leadership Coalition.

Mina Al-Shahed, who works at Adventist Health Ukiah Valley, told the council her first experience with nitrous oxide, also called “Whip-its,” was when a patient in her 30s came in unable to walk or stand, “basically paralyzed, and we didn’t know what was going on with her.”

When a neurologist hospital staff consulted wanted to know if the patient had been using “laughing gas, we laughed. But the next day when she was in the ICU, she was yelling and requesting her ‘Whip-its,'” which she had about 20 of in the bag she brought with her.

“Since then I’ve had about six more cases, including one death,” as well as “paralysis that didn’t go away in several young men,” she said.

She said the symptoms of concern caused by inhaling nitrous oxide are difficulty breathing, dizziness and weakening of the heart muscle, but most concerning is the Vitamin B12 deficiency, which blocks nerve impulses and causes paralysis, sometimes permanently.

Al-Shahed said the canisters “can be purchased through Amazon, but the really sad thing is that we can go to our local smoke shop and buy whip-its,” and said she hoped that such local sales could be stopped.

When asked how many canisters someone would have to inhale before experiencing paralysis, Al-Shahed said that could not be predicted as the amount was different for every person; a small amount for small, a large amount for others.

According to the staff report for the Oct. 20 meeting of the City Council, Assistant City Attorney Dacry Vaughn notes that “the council should carefully consider the policy objectives to be accomplished, including circumstances in which use, sale, and possession of nitrous oxide would be legitimate and legal. The Council should also consider how these objectives will be enforced, e.g., whether through an administrative process or through criminal penalties.

“While other jurisdictions, including the city of Cloverdale, have adopted ordinances prohibiting nitrous oxide canister sales, these ordinances do not actually impose broad bans on sales, but restrict and regulate sales. This is, in part, due to the fact that nitrous oxide is not a controlled substance,” Vaughn’s report continues, “(as) it does have legitimate, legal uses for medical, dental, industrial, and culinary purposes. As such, while the Penal Code does criminalize sale, illegal use and possession of nitrous oxide in certain circumstances, such as sales to minors, it also sets forth exceptions for legal sale, use, and possession of nitrous oxide.”

City staff therefore recommend that “the council direct the City Attorney’s Department to draft an ordinance that prohibits retail sales of nitrous oxide canisters at businesses operating under a tobacco retailer’s license. Staff also recommends that the enforcement mechanism be civil/administrative, with one of the enforcement methods being suspension of a non-compliant business’s tobacco retailer’s license.”

The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Oct. 20. To “attend” the meeting, register at: attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/3862698010362077965

If you prefer to call in, the number is: (562) 2478321

You can also may view the meeting (without participating) by clicking on the name of the meeting at www.cityofukiah.com/meetings.

(Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

FISH & WILDLIFE TAKES DOWN BIG WILLITS GRO

On Oct. 11, 2021, wildlife officers with the California Department of Fish & Wildlife (CDFW) served three search warrants in the First and Third Gates area of Willits in Mendocino County. The search warrants were part of an investigation into unlawful cultivation of cannabis.

Support was provided by Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force, Department of Cannabis Control, a CDFW Environmental Scientist and the State Water Board.

The properties that were subject to search warrant services were in the Sherwood Creek watershed, which is tributary to Outlet Creek, which is then a direct tributary to the Eel River. The Sherwood and Outlet Creek watersheds support numerous threatened and/or endangered fish and wildlife species, including the western pond turtle, foothill yellow-legged frog, steelhead trout and Coho salmon.

Prior to serving the search warrants, a records check was conducted on the properties to determine what steps may have been taken to secure a state license or a county permit. In these cases, no state license or county permit to cultivate commercial cannabis had been issued.

Numerous environmental violations were documented including deleterious materials located near waterways and placement of trash and refuse where it may enter waterways. These types of violations compromise the habitat and resources that native fish and wildlife species need to survive.

Over 3,800 illegal cannabis plants were eradicated and over 2,900 lbs. of illegal processed cannabis was destroyed.

Formal complaints will be filed with the Mendocino County District Attorney’s offices. No other information is available at this time.

SUPES: ALL TALK, NO ACTION

Editor,

After having been convicted of 84 counts of manslaughter in Paradise, PG&E has hired, from out of state, a crew to mark upward of 40 large old standing redwood trees in Mendocino County owned Faulkner Park for removal in the face of the Global Warming climate emergency that desperately needs all of these stately wonders of Nature for their carbon sequestering ability to help mitigate what is turning into a major crisis now on the verge of catastrophe.

In my opinion a multi-count manslaughter felon should have no right to wield a chainsaw. And there are other ways to protect and make secure PG&E’s public responsibility that would be less insulting to humanity and planet. 

Somewhere around noon on Monday Sarah Reith of KZYX met with 20 or so mostly park neighbors to hear and record some of their worry, anger and frustration. Plans are being made to take a stand for this majestic stand of trees. Stay tuned. Join in.

If our designated Mendocino County leaders were worth a pluck they would be all over this proposed public violation. But sadly they have shone their face over the past couple years by practically doing nothing about mental health, environment or preparation for the worrisome future.

On July 21, 2020 the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed Resolution No. 20-093 “Endorsing The Declaration Of A Climate Emergency.” Yet the noxious pellet plant in Calpella operated by Mendocino Redwood still spews poison. Not One peep has been made about the California Dept of Forestry logging old growth carbon-sequestering trees in Jackson Demonstration State Forest. A brand new totally unnecessary Sinclair gas station was erected in Ukiah. And dammit, a new winery was approved for Boonville just a short distance down Mountain View Road from Faulkner Park.

It is my belief that the Board of Supervisors as a unit is actually illiterate to the meaning of the word “Emergency” and the urgency it evokes for an immediate response.

David Severn

Philo

ALLEGED VICTIM REVEALED AS COVELO FIRE-BOMBER 

On Sunday, October 10, 2021 at about 10:50 PM the California Highway Patrol (CHP) requested an agency assist from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) in the area of Mile Post Marker (MPM) 49.5 on Highway 101 just north of Willits.

Deputies were advised a subject called 9-1-1 stating he had been physically assaulted and his life had been threatened.

Deputies responded and contacted the reporting party in the 28000 block of North Main Street in Willits and he was identified as being Francisco Tafolla-Rivera, 48, of Ukiah.

Deputies were told Tafolla-Rivera's vehicle had broken down near MPM 49.5 on Highway 101 and he had called a friend for assistance. While waiting for assistance some unknown individuals stopped and began physically assaulting him.

Deputies located Tafolla-Rivera's vehicle near the described MPM and noticed the vehicle appeared to be vandalized.

Tafolla-Rivera was unable to provide any further details to include a vehicle or the individual's physical descriptions. Deputies took a report to document the incident.

On Monday, October 11, 2021 at about 10:15 AM the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office received a call for service in Covelo.

The reporting party (a 24 year-old male from Covelo) advised that Tafolla-Rivera had attempted to burn his (the caller’s) residence down the previous night (10-10-2021) in the 78000 block of Mina Road in Covelo.

The reporting party said Tafolla-Rivera was seen by eye-witnesses in Covelo driving down the reporting party's driveway. Tafolla-Rivera then threw numerous “Molotov cocktails” at the reporting party's residence causing numerous fires. Tafolla-Rivera's vehicle was then seen leaving the property.

Deputies responded to the Mina Road address to conduct the investigation.

Deputies discovered evidence that there were numerous “Molotov cocktails” thrown as reported which caused numerous small fires that were extinguished a short time after the fire bombing.

The devices were thrown at the main residence which had an attached occupied dog house. Inside the residence when the fires were started were (10) ten people ranging in age from an infant to 39 years-old.

Deputies requested an arson investigator respond and they were assisted by a Battalion Chief from the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority.

Deputies learned Tafolla-Rivera had previously lived at the location but had been told to leave due to his drug use. Tafolla-Rivera had blamed a subject who no longer lived at the location for causing him to leave.

The reporting party indicated he and his brother went looking for Tafolla-Rivera after the incident and located him parked on Highway 101 in Willits.

They confronted Tafolla-Rivera about the incident in Covelo and a physical fight ensued along with the damage to Tafolla-Rivera's vehicle.

On Tuesday, October 2021 Deputies contacted Tafolla-Rivera at his residence in Ukiah.

Tafolla-Rivera was interviewed and ultimately arrested for attempted murder, arson, and animal cruelty.

During a search incident to arrest Tafolla-Rivera was found to be in possession of suspected methamphetamine, resulting in an additional charge of possession of a controlled substance.

Tafolla-Rivera was booked into the Mendocino County Jail on the listed charges where he was to be held in lieu of $250,000 bail.

---

TWEEKED WITH GUN IN COVELO

On Saturday, October 16, 2021 Mendocino County Sheriff Deputies conducted a probation search at a residence in the 25000 block of Barnes Lane in Covelo.

At the location they contacted Luiz Gonzalez, 24, of Covelo, who exhibited the objective signs of being under the influence of a controlled substance.

Gonzalez was found to be in possession of a loaded Polymer 9mm handgun without a serial number.

Gonzalez was arrested for being in possession of a loaded firearm while under the influence of a drug and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.

Gonzalez was booked into the Mendocino County Jail where he was to be held in lieu of $15,000 bail.

ED NOTES

COVID MISINFORMATION is everywhere, but I, a true believer in medical science and unimpeded speech, try to keep it outta here, the ava where, when I do, I'm called a censor. I'm also denounced as a censor by Mike Koepf, the sage of Greenwood Road, for not allowing him to call me a nazi because I think the Israelis are operating an apertheid state more cruelly efficient than the South African apartheid. Koepf says he's being censored. He claims to be a great friend of Israel, a country he couldn't find on a blank map of the world. But in his crude and uninformed mind any agitation for fair play for Palestinians is anti-Semitism (!). With friends like the Colonel… Etc.

COVID KILLS. Vaccination and masking work against it, as every reputable, medically-qualified person in the world agrees. But somehow millions of people have come to believe vaccination is somehow a violation of their freedom. I truly do not understand how this has happened, until I remember that millions of people also believe in astrology and Donald Trump.

SO I GET a flawlessly typed letter today from a guy in Jenner whose anti-vaxx stance is substantiated, in his view, by an organization called “Childrens Health Defense, California chapter.” Children, you see, are in grave danger from Covid vaccination because “covid vaccines are experimental” and the Nuremberg Code, written in reaction to the Nazi's fiendish medical experiments, says its illegal to conduct medical research “without the informed consent of all participants.” And so on.

WHICH I'M placing with Col. Von Umlaut's idiot communiques in my electronic trash bin. 

IMO, as they say on Facebook, a big prob with the covid programs has been that they weren't mandated from the git. If they had been we'd be on the other side of this plague by now. What happened to the common assumption that we all have a few basic obligations to the welfare of our fellow citizens? Immunization used to be one of them. We've come a long way backwards since the polio vaccine which, some of us will recall, was so welcomed by Americans it didn't have to be mandated, and the terrible scourge of polio was eliminated.

CATCH OF THE DAY, October 18, 2021

JEREMY AUMAN, Laytonville. Domestic battery.

FREDY FUENTES-RUIZ, Ukiah. Failure to appear.

JOSHUA HESS, Ukiah. Controlled substance, switchblade in vehicle, concealed dirk-dagger.

STEVEN LEARD JR., Ukiah. Vandalism, mandatory supervision sentencing.

JENNIFER OWENS, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery.

JACOB SELLMER, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

IZAAK SMITH, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

DANIEL WOLDT, Fort Bragg. Domestic battery, contempt of court, probation revocation.

BUMP ONE

Editor,

It seems like Election Day has become the most important day of the year with the partisan atmosphere we live in. Why not make it a federal holiday so people can vote in person, even in the great state of Texas, where you may have to drive 100 miles to vote? If the calendar is too full of federal holidays, maybe we could skip one of the others every other year. I suppose it would take an act of Congress to do so. Ha, ha.

Mike Davis

Santa Rosa

SECRETARY PETE

by James Kunstler

What America really wants to know is: after those months of “family leave,” did Pete Buttigieg get the hang of lactating? Hey, if sexuality is just a “social construct,” then the functions of sexuality must be teachable. So now Pete can move on to ovulation lessons and become the “birthing person” of his dreams. Pete’s dreams are America’s dreams, you see.

In the meantime, though, America has a little transportation problem that a Secretary of Transportation might look into if he wasn’t so busy performing a gender reeducation parable for the Woke family values crowd. Namely, that federal rules combined with California Air Resource Board regulations are destroying the trucking industry, a major link in the broken supply-chains for the gazillion products and parts that an advanced technological economy needs to keep on keeping on.

Under the rules, for example, California wants to phase-out tractor trailer rigs more than three years old, and eliminate all trucks that run on fossil fuels by 2035. Now, it happens that most of the truckers who service the ports of southern California are independents. They have to buy their own rigs, on which many make the equivalent of a mortgage payment, because a semi-rig can cost as much as a house. Of course, the rig must be allowed to operate for the duration of the loan. The new government regulations cancel that financial formula, and with it, the trucking industry. So much for the good intentions of the eco-wonks.

Secretary Pete might have paid attention to the developing trouble at the shipping container ports in late summer and started an emergency review of these untenable rules and regs, but instead, while learning the ins-and-outs of “chest-feeding,” he allowed the system to break down. The reality spinners in the “Joe Biden” news media would like you to think that the breakdown only applies to Christmas schwag for the hoi-polloi: No inflatable Frosty-the-Snowmen for you this year, you deplorable insurrectionist gorks in your sad little towns out in the Flyover gloaming! Actually, it applies to most of the things even super-hip Wokesters need every day in the normal course of things, and especially the replacement parts for all the engines and machines that American normality depends on. Plus, the situation has already moved into food supplies. And now that it’s all broken, the shortages may persist as far ahead as anyone can see.

Let us count the ways that America is committing suicide by Democratic Party policy. There is, front and center, “Joe Biden’s” vaccination mandate — with no basis in law, by the way — that is destroying most of the critical services industries in the nation: the hospitals, school systems, police forces, firefighters, ambulance squads, airlines, railroads, restaurants, you-name-it. No vaxx, no job for you — and no resuscitation for the unfortunate persons writhing on their kitchen floors in myocardial infarction. I’d say that depriving folks of their livelihoods while ensuring harm and death upon the citizenry is a bad combo for public order. One can easily imagine the righteous wrath building to the point where lamp-posts in capital cities are decorated with the dangling government officials who caused this to happen.

In the course of an average day, do you ever think about all the people from around the world who are jumping the US/Mexican border? It’s thousands of them each day, and millions piling in over the year 2021 — under the averted eyes of “Joe Biden” & Co. Some of them are criminal opportunists who — how shall we say — aim to blow shit up in this country. That’s apart from the economic burdens that the nonviolent ones will impose on the nation. Can you blame genuine US citizens from regarding this as an affront to common sense and common decency, not to mention an insult to the law and the constitution behind the law? Well, it is, you know. Since it’s the federal government’s duty to control entry across the border, and since “Joe Biden” directed the border patrol to not perform its duties, will you be surprised if the citizens develop the notion that they will have to defend the border themselves?

Do you think economic collapse will make any of this better? As winter looms, you’ll have plenty of time to mull that over, all bundled-up in your kitchen with the propane tanks empty and the last can of cold Spaghetti-Os in your gloved fist. When the time comes for that, don’t expect “Joe Biden” to be reading Thanksgiving homilies off his teleprompter. He will be gone, and the Democratic Party horse he rode in on with him. And when that time comes, we will be ready to start stitching things back together again in this land, perhaps a bit differently than the way we’d gotten used to. Be patient and brave. Our time will soon be at hand.

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

“it’s just two weeks.”

“it’s just a mask.”

“it’s just six feet.”

“it’s just non essential businesses.”

“it’s just non essential workers.”

“it’s just a bar.” 

“it’s just a restaurant.”

“it’s just to keep from overwhelming the hospitals.”

“it’s just to make the cases go down.”

“it’s just to flatten the curve.”

“it’s just a few inmates.”

“it’s just to keep others from getting scared.”

“it’s just for a few more weeks.”

“it’s just church, you could still pray.”

“it’s just a bracelet.”

“it’s just an app.”

“it’s just for tracing.”

“it’s just to let others know you’re safe to be around.”

“it’s just to let others know who you’ve been in contact with.”

“it’s just a few more months.”

“it’s just large gatherings.”

“it’s just a rare side-effect.”

“it’s just a vaccine.”

“it’s just for the vulnerable.”

“it’s just to protect children.”

“it’s just a little microchip.”

“it’s just a blood test.”

“it’s just a scan.”

“it’s just for medical information.”

“it’s just a vaccination certificate.”

“it’s just like a credit card.”

“it’s just a few places that don’t take cash.”

“it’s just so you can travel.”

“it’s just so you can get your driver’s license.”

“it’s just so you can vote.”

“it’s just a few more years.”

it’s just the new world order.

to flatten the curve we were to lock down for 10 days

that was 18 months ago

FRED GARDNER WRITES:

For Brad Wiley,

On the off-chance he hasn’t seen it: nybooks.com/articles/2021/10/07/james-rebanks-where-sheep-may-safely-graze

========================

 MAN WE WAS LONELY

Man, we was lonely,
Yes, we was lonely,
And we was hard pressed to find a smile.
Man, we was lonely,
Yes, we was lonely,
But now we're fine all the while.

I used to ride on my fast city line,
Singing songs that I thought were mine alone, alone.
Now, let me lie with my love for the time
I am home, home, home.

Man, we was lonely,
Yes, we was lonely,
And we was hard pressed to find a smile.
Man, we was lonely,
Yes, we was lonely,
But now we're fine all the while.

Now, let me lie with my love for the time
I am home, home, home.

Man, we was lonely,
Yes, we was lonely,
And we was hard pressed to find a smile.
Man, we was lonely,
Yes, we was lonely,
But now we're fine all the while,
But now we're fine all the while,
But now we're fine all the while.

— Paul McCartney

========================

25TH ANNIVERSARY OF PROP 215 ON NOV. 5 IN SAN FRANCISCO

A "25th Anniversary of Prop. 215 conference and celebration hosted by California NORML will commemorate the passage of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996—Proposition 215—the nation’s first law to re-legalize the personal use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes, lighting the fire for a movement that is now legalizing adult recreational cannabis use and sales nationally and internationally.

The day-long event will be held 25 years to the day after California voters approved Prop. 215, on Friday, November 5th at the elegant General’s Residence at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Read more and get tickets <https://www.canorml.org/25th215/>.

Speakers will include original sponsors, organizers, medical patients, doctors, caregivers, attorneys, and advocates of the Prop. 215 campaign, with memorials to those who have since passed away, and to those who have been arrested, harassed, or imprisoned in the decades-long fight for the right to medical marijuana.

CA Senator Scott Wiener—who sponsored legislation for the compassionate distribution of cannabis to needy patients in California—will kick off the day at 10 AM, along with a recorded greeting from CA Attorney General Rob Bonta. The late Dennis Peron, who spearheaded San Francisco’s breakthrough medical marijuana campaign, will be present via recording, with appearances by his family and former associates from the San Francisco Buyer’s Club.

Sponsors of the Prop. 215 campaign with participate on a panel moderated by Cal NORML director and Prop. 215 sponsor/co-author Dale Gieringer, including Drug Policy Alliance founder Ethan Nadelmann, Men’s Wearhouse founder George Zimmer (author of the new book “I Guarantee It”), initiative proponent Anna Boyce, and Bill Zimmerman, Director of Californians for Medical Rights.

Former San Francisco supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Tom Ammiano will also appear, along with pioneering medical marijuana patients Valerie Corral of the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (now WAMM Phytotherapies) and Elvy Musikka, the first woman to receive legal cannabis from the federal government to treat her glaucoma.

Amy Povah of the Can-Do Foundation will cover the ongoing plight of marijuana prisoners, and a display of current and past medical marijuana prisoners by activists Chris Conrad & Mikki Norris will be on view. Displays, slide shows and videos of historical materials related to the campaign will be presented. The day will wrap up with a forward-looking panel addressing local and compassionate access for veterans & others, consumption spaces, employment rights <https://www.canorml.org/employment-rights-for-marijuana-users-a-priority-for-cal-norml/>, and more.

A commemorative poster with artwork by Ruth Frase <https://www.canorml.org/25th215/>—who created much of the iconic imagery for the 215 campaign—will be available at the event, and the poster’s original art, along with campaign memorabilia, will be auctioned off to benefit further reform efforts. Sponsors for the event include the 7 Stars Holistic Healing Center, BASA, Eaze, Glass House, PAX, The Parent Company, Jim Gonzalez and Associates, The Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, Omar Figueroa, SPARC, Greenbridge Corporate Counsel, Ed Rosenthal, Marsha Rosenbaum, High Rise Law, A Therapeutic Alternative, Farmacy, Element 7, and The Brownie Mary Democratic Club (San Francisco, Alameda County and California chapters).

The public is invited to attend, and tickets are available <https://checkout.square.site/buy/HBB4RTZ5ONGSN3MWZ5DT6U37>. To ensure the safety of our attendees, we will be following San Francisco Health Department Guidelines for COVID-19 <https://www.sfdph.org/dph/alerts/files/C19-07-Safer-Return-Together-Health-Order.pdf>, including vaccination and indoor-masking requirements.

Founded in 1972, California NORML <http://www.canorml.org/>—the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws—is a nonprofit membership organization advocating for the rights of medical and recreational cannabis consumers.

See: Conference Event Page <https://www.canorml.org/25th215/>. Facebook Event Page <https://www.facebook.com/events/549135402779572>. The hashtag for the event is #25th215

25TH ANNIVERSARY OF PROP. 215 CONFERENCE AGENDA:

9 AM DOORS OPEN

10 AM — PROGRAM OPENS

• Welcome from A.G. Bonta (recorded) and Senator Scott Wiener

10:15 AM — 11:30 AM — THE NEED ARISES: THE LEAD-UP TO PROP. 215

• Cal NORML director Dale Gieringer — Moderator
• Recorded statement by Dennis Peron, proponent Prop 215; recognition of SF
• Cannabis Buyers Club with Jeff and Bryan Peron
• Anna Boyce, RN — former head of the CA Senior Legislature and Prop. 215 proponent
• Valerie Corral — founder of the Women’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, now WAMM Phytotherapies
• Ross Mirkarimi — SF Board of Supervisors
• Tom Ammiano — former SF Supervisor and CA Assemblymember 
• Rand Martin — Sen. John Vasconcellos staff

11:30 — 12:45 TAKING IT TO THE STREETS: THE PROP. 215 CAMPAIGN

• Ethan Nadelmann, former director of the Drug Policy Alliance, podcaster at Psychoactive.
• Bill Zimmerman, Californians for Medical Rights
• George Zimmer, Men’s Wearhouse — Donor
• Dave Fratello, CMR campaign spokesman
• Jim Gonzalez, CMR
• Chris Conrad & Mikki Norris, volunteer petitioner coordinators

12:45 — 1:30 LUNCH BREAK

1:30 — 2:45 MEDICAL MARIJUANA PIONEERS: PATIENTS, DOCTORS, AND CAREGIVERS

• Fred Gardner — medical journalist; Society of Cannabis Clinicians; Moderator
• Dr. Jeff Hergenrather — President, SCC
• Dr. Donald Abrams — Researcher
• Dr. Frank Lucido, MD
• Elvy Musikka — federal MMJ patient
• Joe Airone — Sweetleaf Collective
• Lynnette Shaw — Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana
• Paul Scott — Inglewood Patients Group; LA Black Gay Pride President

3:00 — 4:20 THE LEGAL STRUGGLE: ATTORNEYS, PLAINTIFFS, AND PRISONERS

• Bill Panzer — Attorney and Prop 215 co-author; Moderator
• Dan Abrahamson, DPA —attorney, Conant lawsuit affirming doctors’ right to recommend cannabis
• Jeff Jones — Oakland Cannabis Buyers Club — Supreme Court Case
• Pebbles Trippet — plaintiff, People v. Trippet affirming transportation rights
• Amy Povah — Prisoners of the Drug War
• Dale Schafer — Attorney & former federal prisoner
• Ed Rosenthal — Federal defendant & cultivation guru

(4:20 Break)

4:45 — 5:45 LOOKING FORWARD: PROTECTING ACCESS, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND EQUITY

• Ellen Komp — Cal NORML Deputy Director — Moderator
• Ian Rassman — LA NORML; Compassion program
• Kandice Hawes-Lopez — OC NORML; FACES program
• Bram Goodwin — SF Brownie Mary Democratic Club
• Sean Kiernan — Weed for Warriors

OTHERS TBA

6:00 — Sunset on the Lawn

Ellen Komp

Deputy Director

California NORML

www.CaNORML.org 

HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD (From a Climate Armageddon)

by Michael Klare

This summer we witnessed, with brutal clarity, the Beginning of the End: the end of Earth as we know it — a world of lush forests, bountiful croplands, livable cities, and survivable coastlines. In its place, we saw the early manifestations of a climate-damaged planet, with scorched forests, parched fields, scalding cities, and storm-wracked coastlines. In a desperate bid to prevent far worse, leaders from around the world will soon gather in Glasgow, Scotland, for a U.N. Climate Summit. You can count on one thing, though: all their plans will fall far short of what’s needed unless backed by the only strategy that can save the planet: a U.S.-China Climate Survival Alliance.

Of course, politicians, scientific groups, and environmental organizations will offer plans of every sort in Glasgow to reduce global carbon emissions and slow the process of planetary incineration. President Biden’s representatives will tout his promise to promote renewable energy and install electric-car-charging stations nationwide, while President Macron of France will offer his own ambitious proposals, as will many other leaders. However, no combination of these, even if carried out, would prove sufficient to prevent global disaster — not as long as China and the U.S. continue to prioritize trade competition and war preparations over planetary survival.

In the end, it’s not complicated. If the planet’s two “great” powers refuse to cooperate in a meaningful way in tackling the climate threat, we’re done for.

That harsh reality was made clear in September. The United Nations then issued a report on the likely impact of pledges already made by the nations that signed the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement (from which President Trump withdrew in 2017 and which the U.S. has only recently rejoined). According to the U.N.’s analysis, even if all 200 signatories were to abide by their pledges — and almost none have — global temperatures are likely to rise by 2.7 degrees Celsius (nearly 5 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by century’s end. And that, in turn, most scientists agree, is a recipe for catastrophically irreversible changes to the planetary ecosphere, including the kind of sea level rise that will inundate most American coastal cities (and many others around the world) and the sort of heat, fire, and drought that will turn the American West into an uninhabitable wasteland.

Scientists generally agree that, to avert such catastrophic outcomes, global warming must not exceed, at worst, 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels — and preferably, no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Mind you, the planet has already warmed 1 degree Celsius and we’ve only recently seen just how much damage even that amount of added heat can produce. To limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, by 2030, scientists believe, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions would have to be reduced by 25% from 2018 levels; to limit it to 1.5 degrees, by 55%. Yet those emissions — driven by strong economic growth in China, India, and other rapidly industrializing nations — have actually been on an upward trajectory, rising on average by 1.8% per year between 2009 and 2019.

Several European countries, including Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands, have launched heroic efforts to lower their emissions to reach that 1.5 degree target, setting an example for nations with far bigger economies. But however admirable, in the grand scheme of things, they just won’t matter enough to save the planet. Only the United States and China, by far the world’s top two carbon emitters, are in a position to do so.

It all boils down to this: to save human civilization, the U.S. and China must dramatically reduce their CO2 emissions, while working together to persuade other major carbon-emitting nations, beginning with fast-rising India, to follow suit. That would, of course, mean setting aside their current antagonisms, however important they may seem to U.S. and Chinese leaders today, and instead making climate survival their number one priority and policy objective. Otherwise, put simply, all is lost.

The U.S.-China Carbon Juggernaut

To fully grasp just how central China and the United States (the largest carbon polluter in history) are to the global climate-change equation, you have to grasp their present roles in both carbon consumption and CO2 emissions.

In 2020, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2021 (a widely respected source), China was the world’s top user of coal, the most carbon-intense of the three fossil fuels. That country was responsible for a staggering 54.3% of total world consumption; India came in second at 11.6%; and the U.S. third at 6.1%. When it came to petroleum consumption, the U.S. took first place with 19.9% of world usage and China came in second with 15.7%. The U.S. was also number one when it came to consumption of natural gas, followed by Russia and China.

Combine all three kinds and China and the U.S. were jointly responsible for 42% of total global fossil-fuel consumption in 2020. No other countries came even remotely close. Rising fast in the energy realm, India accounted for 6.2% of global fossil-fuel consumption and the European Union for 8.5%, which should give you some idea of the way the two countries dominate the global energy equation.

Not surprisingly, since they’re responsible for such a large share of fossil-fuel consumption every year and the combustion of those fuels is responsible for the overwhelming majority of global carbon emissions, China and the U.S. also account for a comparably large share of those discharges. According to BP, China was the world’s leading source of CO2 emissions in 2020, responsible for 30.7% of the global total, while the United States came in second with 13.8%. No other country even reached double digits and the European Union as a whole accounted for only 7.9%.

Put simply, the heating of this planet can’t be slowed down and eventually stopped if the U.S. and China don’t slash their carbon emissions drastically in the coming decades and invest massively — on a scale comparable to preparing for a world war — in alternative energy systems. We’re talking about trillions of dollars of future expenses. But there’s really no choice, not if we want to save our civilization.

The Mastodon in the Room

Any strategy to substantially reduce global CO2 emissions and keep global warming from exceeding 2 degrees (let alone 1.5 degrees) Celsius above pre-industrial levels must confront the largest obstacle to success around: China’s continuing reliance on coal to provide the lion’s share of its energy supply. According to BP, in 2020, China obtained 57% of its primary energy needs from coal. No other country comes close to that. If China was responsible for 26% of total world energy consumption that year, then its coal combustion alone constituted 15% of global energy usage — a greater share than Europe’s from all energy sources combined.

If China phases out its coal plants in this decade and other countries followed through on their Paris commitments, meeting that target of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius and avoiding a climate Armageddon would at least be possible. But that’s not the way China’s headed. Not faintly. According to some reports, that country is actually expected to boost (yes, boost!) its coal consumption in this decade by adding 88 gigawatts of coal-fired power capacity. (A large, modern coal-fired plant can generate about 1 gigawatt of electricity at a time.) Worse yet, its officials are mulling over plans to sooner or later build another 159 gigawatts worth. Because coal is the most carbon-intensive of the fossil fuels, to construct and operate so many new coal-powered plants will add monstrously to China’s CO2 emissions, making a sharp reduction in global emissions impossible.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has indeed spoken of building an “ecological civilization” and has also promised to halt the rise in China’s carbon emissions by 2030. For a time, it appeared that he was even prepared to take stern measures to halt the growth of China’s coal consumption. He did, in fact, pledge that his country would reach peak oil consumption by 2025 and halt the financing of the construction of coal plants abroad as part of its globalizing “Belt and Road Initiative,” a major shift in policy. But it seems that his government has otherwise turned a blind eye to efforts by provincial governments and powerful state-owned energy firms to rush the construction of new coal plants at home.

Western analysts believe that Chinese leaders are desperate to propel economic expansion in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Offering cheap energy from coal is one obvious way of facilitating investment in new infrastructure projects, a standard tactic for boosting growth. Some analysts also suspect that Beijing has allowed coal production to increase in response to U.S. trade sanctions and other expressions of Washington’s hostility. “The recent U.S.-China trade war has further heightened Chinese concerns about energy security, given that the country imports roughly 70% of its oil needs and 40% of its gas requirements,” Daniel Gardner of Princeton’s High Meadow Environmental Group pointed out in the Los Angeles Times, adding, “Coal — abundant and relatively inexpensive — seems to many a reliable, tried-and-true energy source.”

Why a U.S.-China Climate Survival Alliance is Essential

Recently, during a meeting with top officials in Tianjin, President Biden’s global climate envoy, former Secretary of State John Kerry, chided the Chinese for their addiction to coal. “Adding some 200-plus gigawatts of coal over the last five years, and now another 200 or so coming online in the planning stage, if it went to fruition would actually undo the ability of the rest of the world to achieve a limit of 1.5 degrees [Celsius],” he reportedly said to them during their interchange.

There was, however, no way Chinese leaders were going to respond positively to his entreaties, given the growing hostility between the U.S. and China. Even more than during the final Trump years, Washington under President Biden has voiced support for Taiwan — considered a renegade province by Beijing — while seeking to encircle China with an ever-more-militarized network of anti-Chinese alliances. These include the newly formed “AUKUS” (Australia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.) pact that also involved the ominous promise to sell American nuclear-powered submarines to the Australians. Chinese leaders have responded angrily that any progress on climate change must await improvement in what they consider more critical aspects of their relationship with America.

“China-U.S. cooperation on climate change cannot be divorced from the overall situation of China-U.S. relations,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Kerry during his September visit to China. “The U.S. side wants the climate change cooperation to be an ‘oasis’ of China-U.S. relations. However, if the oasis is all surrounded by deserts, then sooner or later, the ‘oasis’ will be desertified.”

In theory, the two countries could pursue the goal of radical decarbonization on their own — each independently spending the necessary trillions of dollars on domestic energy transformation. It is, however, essentially impossible to imagine such an outcome in today’s world of intensifying military and economic competition. In March, for instance, China announced a 6.8% increase in military spending for 2021, raising the official budget of the People’s Liberation Army to $209 billion. (Many analysts believe the actual figure is much higher.) Similarly, on Sept. 23rd, the U.S. House of Representatives authorized defense spending of $740 billion for Fiscal Year 2022, $24 billion more than the staggering sum requested by the Biden administration. Both countries are also moving to “decouple” their critical supply lines, while investing vast amounts in the race to dominate technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and microelectronics assumed to be essential to future success, whether in trade wars or actual ones. Neither is planning to invest anything faintly comparable in efforts to slow the pace of global warming and so save the planet.

Only when China and the United States elevate the threat of climate change above their geopolitical rivalry will it be possible to envision action on a sufficient scale to avert the future incineration of this planet and the collapse of human civilization. This should hardly be an impossible political or intellectual stretch. On January 27th, in an Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis, President Biden did, in fact, decree that “climate considerations shall be an essential element of United States foreign policy and national security.” That same day, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a companion statement, saying that his “Department will immediately take appropriate policy actions to prioritize climate change considerations in our activities and risk assessments, to mitigate this driver of insecurity.” (At the moment, however, the thought that Republicans in Congress would support such positions, no less fund them, is beyond imagining.)

In any case, such comments have already been overshadowed by the Biden administration’s fixation on dominating China globally, as have any comparable impulses on the part of the Chinese leadership. Still, the understanding is there: climate change poses an overwhelming existential threat to both American and Chinese “security,” a reality that will only grow fiercer as greenhouse gases continue to pour into our atmosphere. To defend their respective homelands not against each other but against nature, both sides will increasingly be compelled to devote ever more funds and resources to flood protection, disaster relief, fire-fighting, seawall construction, infrastructure replacement, population resettlement, and other staggeringly expensive, climate-related undertakings. At some point, such costs will far exceed the amounts needed to fight a war between us.

Once this reckoning sinks in, perhaps U.S. and Chinese officials will begin forging an alliance aimed at defending their own countries and the world against the coming ravages of climate change. If John Kerry were to return to China and tell its leadership, “We are phasing out all our coal plants, working to eliminate our reliance on petroleum, and are prepared to negotiate a mutual reduction in Pacific naval and missile forces,” then he could also say to his Chinese counterparts, “You need to start phasing out your coal use now — and here’s how we think you can do it.”

Once such an agreement was achieved, Presidents Biden and Xi could turn to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and say, “You must follow in our footsteps and eliminate your dependence on fossil fuels.” And then, the three together could tell the leaders of every other nation: “Do as we’re doing, and we’ll support you. Oppose us, and you’ll be cut off from the world economy and perish.”

That’s how to save this planet from a climate Armageddon. There really is no other way.

(tomdispatch.com)