On March 31 the Sonoma County Coast MAC (Municipal Advisory Council) met with approximately 80 people from Bodega Bay, Jenner, Occidental and Timber Cove at the Bodega Bay Grange. The meeting was to inform residents about the coastal marathon to be held Sept. 29. Originally, Highway 1 was to be closed from Fort Ross to Bodega Bay.
Because of public outcry, it was decided that the race would be a half marathon which would close one lane of Highway One and begin at Jenner and end in Bodega Bay. At the meeting many people spoke vociferously against the race. Concerns raised included environmental impacts, traffic, business shutdowns and a possibly slower emergency response times. Residents asked the race officials why the community wasn’t contacted first about this planned event. Efren Carrillo, the former 5th district supervisor, and Tina Wallis, the attorney for this event, were supposed to attend this meeting but failed to show up.
For now the race is canceled due to lack of necessary permits. However, if this race is permitted next year, a precedent would be set for years to come.
Occidental
Misplaced
Priorities
World Vision staff say about 14 million children in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, and Somalia are struggling to get enough to eat. Meanwhile,
$1 billion pours in from around the world to fix a church in France.
Occidental
How’s That Working Out?
Since the ’80s, politicians have told us that a “pure capitalism” economy will solve every problem we have economically. An unregulated free market became more important than democracy to many politicians. Bill McKibben, former New York Times science writer and founder of the climate change organization 350.org, recently said that it “was unfortunate that political point of view developed” just when we needed a response to climate change.
Unfortunate or deliberate, how is that working out for us? Fossil fuel companies are the obvious companies that—had they been mildly regulated or taxed for their carbon footprint—we would be far better off today. This is really true of most, if not all big businesses. The more we consume what they produce, the more carbon is released into the atmosphere. Our worldwide ecosystem is breaking down, and now we are faced with needing to take drastic measures to prevent going over 2 degrees Celsius. So far the interpretation that “a completely free market solves everything” is still our religious type of belief and appears to be elevated even above the ideal of democracy.
Monday was Earth Day, and this year’s theme was extinction. Species are going extinct at a rapid rate—plants, animals, birds, insects, coral reefs, ocean life.
How’s that theory of unregulated growth of production resulting in more and more consumption working out for us?
Boulder Creek
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