I voted absentee this morning, and this is how I voted on clean air issues and leadership, and I include spiritual clean air, too.
Obama.
Obama is by far our best presidential choice, though I disagree with some of his clean energy ideas. You can read what and why here.
Yes on 1A for a safe, reliable high-speed passenger train bond act.
No on 4 which would change Calif. constitution prohibiting abortion for minors until parent notification.
I personally know of a teenager who killed herself because of her strict catholic upbringing rather than tell her family and face consequences.
Yes on 7, which will require government owned utilities to generate 20% of their electricity from renewable energy by 2010, and raises requirement for all utilities to 40% safe renewables by 2020, and 50% by 2025.
I took this photo of Los Angeles air from plane in Aug. 2007. Almost 17% of California's electricity comes from climate change producing coal from Utah and other western states. That may not sound like a lot to you but consider California powers homes and buildings for almost 37 million people!
And we 37 million need to plug our electric cars and trucks into renewable energy sources so we don't have black unfit-to-breathe air.
The No on 7 backers talk about taking decisions for renewables away from local communities, and how the bill is poorly written.
Our dirty air/climate change problems are incredibly bigger than any one community or flawly written plan.
I don't know how flawly written the plan is but I do know that all plans put into action go through tweaking and changing, and the bottom-line is we need big safe renewable projects put into motion fast now.
Some environmentalists argue that there won't be enough environmental due diligence when constructing new solar or wind plants. This we won't know, but then we never do.
We'll need competent people in place at the energy commission, that's for sure. We do whether they work fast or slow. When I was a student I frequently finished a test first in the class because I tend to be a fast worker and I got an A, which makes me think when the right people are in place, working toward a worthy goal, all will be sky blue sooner rather than later.
We must do the right thing now for the sake of clean air, climate change and protecting the planet, which is why I voted Yes on 7.
No on 10. This alternative fuel vehicles and renewable energy initiative would take billions from California's General Fund to help mostly rich people like T. Boone Pickens materialize his natural gas fuel vehicles and highway plan.
What makes much better sense is to create a reliable high-speed passenger train (Yes on Prop 1A) and get our renewable energy up and running, (Yes Prop 7) and create plug-in electric cars so we can all drive clean along a blue sky horizon very soon.
No on 8. How insane to suggest changing the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. If gay people can find a worthy partner, and by-pass singledom with love and commitment, great.
More importantly, in America there is separation of church and state, and it is not my business or I believe yours how our neighbor lives and interprets his or her religion, as long as they don't hurt anyone.
I saw on 60 Minutes last night that even Spain has legalized same-sex marriages.
I'm from San Francisco where gay rights have been largely accepted. And my brother and I didn't turn out gay because we were raised in a tolerant environment. If you look at the present San Francisco mayor and his beautiful wife, he didn't turn out gay coming up in S.F. either.
There's a silly commercial running about a little girl who comes home from school and says she wants to marry a princess when she grows up.Ridiculous.
In America we practice tolerance for people of different faith, color, and orientation.
Equal rights.
And there you have it. How I voted today.
If you live in California, there's still time to register to vote. Today is the last day to do so. Go to library or DMV to find registration forms.
And tomorrow PBS airs an informative Frontline show on climate change called Heat, check out more details here.
If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to the Chasing Clean Air RSS Feed!
