Floods, fires, prices and weather gone wild

Columnist and author Thomas Friedman predicts we can free ourselves from dependence on foreign oil while reducing global warming and create jobs in new alternative fuel industries. The Economist magazine predicts this will be the new technology boom.

"The idea of growing what you put in the tank of your car, rather than sucking it out of a hole in the ground, no longer looks like economic madness. Nor does the idea of throwing away the tank and plugging your car into an electric socket instead.” What’s more, most of the world’s oil is in foreign lands which don’t like us. While we are fretting about rising gas prices, Silicon Valley whiz kids and venture capitalists are exploring new ideas to power us and keep us moving. The Prius may become a thing of the past as plug-in-hybrids become the rage and Saudi Arabia/Venezuela oil unessential.

One U.S. Congressman is calling for a Manhattan Project (which produced an atomic weapon to help win World War II) to help cure the country’s oil addiction. U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes (Republican from Virginia) has introduced a bill to speed up production of cars with good gas mileage, increase energy efficiency, solar power, biofuels and hasten development of clean coal, nuclear-waste storage and nuclear fusion. What about Al Gore for energy czar?

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A good way to save on gasoline is to live in Portland, Ore. The city has become a mecca for trolleys, buses, light rail, pedestrians and cyclists so no need for a car to get around. A trolley circulates downtown and in the heart of downtown Portland, it is free. Light rail takes you directly to the airport from the city and surrounding areas. (no detour to San Bruno as in the BART to SFO system). Service is every 15 minutes.

I experienced Portland’s multi-transit systems on a recent visit. New neighborhoods and communities are sprouting around the rail lines. This seems to be where many people want to live. The neighborhoods include beautiful parks and affordable housing which you can’t distinguish from higher market rate apartments/condos. The trolley and light rail cars are clean and attractive. The waiting platforms are clean, attractive and comfortable. Yes, people still drive cars but we actually saw more people riding the rails than autos.

It has taken Portland 20 years to develop this system. The community supported the concept of directing development along the transit corridors and to increase heights and densities, especially in the downtown, in order to preserve outlying farmlands. Imagine how different Santa Clara County would look today if its public officials had the same foresight. There would be less sprawl and more fruit trees. Imagine if the trolley car line which ran from San Mateo County to San Francisco had been preserved. The tracks were removed because the automobile industry viewed them as a threat. We would have a convenient light rail system close to El Camino Real to complement Caltrain commuter service.

Closer to home. the city of San Mateo has developed a state-of-the-art transit corridor plan. Exciting new residences and stores are planned adjacent to the Hayward Park Station. Lawsuits, notwithstanding, the race track will be replaced with a first rate development of homes, condos and neighborhood retail stores, "within spitting distance” of the Hillsdale Caltrain station. There are still those who protest, those who prefer gas guzzling urban sprawl but they are declining in number as the floods, forest fires, high temperatures and rising gasoline prices point to a different path.

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Ten reasons you should leave your car behind or feel very guilty about contributing to global warming was the subject of Mark Simon’s presentation at the Council of Cities dinner Friday night. Mayors and councilmembers heard the Caltrain/ SamTrans spokesman describe how a new system will tell SamTrans customers how long they have to wait for the next bus and buses will move faster with traffic signal prioritization equipment (When a bus approaches a red light, just as in the Simon says game, the signal will say green and the bus will be on its way.) Meanwhile, Caltrain expects to be electrified by 2014 which will mean more service and less pollution. The future rapid rail system will include new cars and minute to minute rather than hour to hour service. A person who commutes alone and travels 20 miles a day, can reduce his or her annual CO2 emissions by 4,800 pounds per year by switching to public transportation.

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If you haven’t read U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s two books, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope, you are missing two great reads (both have been on the national best-seller list for over a year) and staying ahead of the rumor curve. Last week a letter to the Daily Journal selected some quotes out of context and some that did not exist from Obama’s books. My guess is that the letter writer never read the books himself but is quoting from some Internet garbage which is circling the Web and hopes you are too lazy or too stupid to check the source. Ironically, the full passage where a sentence was taken out of context, speaks of Obama’s quest as a young man to determine his identity. He turns to his father, whom he doesn’t really know, for inspiration but then as Obama matures he recognizes that his father no longer belongs on a pedestal. Here is one example of the accusation in contrast to the full quotes from the book:

"I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”

Full quote from "Dreams From My Father”, page 220:

"All my life I had carried a single image of my father, one that I had sometimes rebelled against but had never questioned, one that I had later tried to take as my own. The brilliant scholar, the generous friend, the upstanding leader — my father had been all those things. All those things and more, except for that one brief visit in Hawaii he had never been present to foil the image, perhaps because I hadn’t seen what perhaps most men see at some point in their lives: their father’s body shrinking, their father’s best hopes dashed, their father’s face lined with grief and regret.

"Yes, I’d seen weakness in other men — Gramps and his disappointments. Lolo and his compromise. But these men had become object lessons for me, men I might love but never emulate, white men (his grandfather was white) and brown men (his step-father was from Indonesia) whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. And if later I saw that the black men I knew — Frank or Ray or Will or Rafio — fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to respect these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them as my own — my father’s voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people’s struggle. Wake up, black man!

"Now, as I sat in the glow of a single light bulb, rocking slightly on a hard-backed chair, that image had suddenly vanished, Replaced by ... what? A bitter drunk? An abusive husband? A defeated, lonely bureaucrat? To think that all my life I had been wrestling with nothing more than a ghost!”

Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo. Her column runs every Monday. She can be reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com