(more…)

Comments to Foundation Board of Directors and Finance Committee, May 7 2022

Seven reasons in three allotted minutes to divest Cal Poly Foundation from Fossil Fuel Investments

1.     To respond to the well-informed, respectful and impassioned student testimony at previous meetings urging you to act on this.  Clearly, today’s students and their children will be more impacted by the Climate Crisis than our generation.  Providing financial support to Fossil Fuel companies that continue to play a significant role in worsening that Crisis is neglecting the University’s commitment to the welfare of its present and future students. (more…)

“The Economy” is supposed to provide a matrix of relative rationality and predictability for the relations among human individuals and the billions of their fellows that make up civilization. It’s also supposed to govern the hundreds of specific choices each of us makes daily—shop at Costco or Whole Foods, get the conventional bananas or the organic ones, work hard in school to qualify for a good job. It provided the success narrative for my parents’ achievement of the American Dream through hard work and thrift, starting with no money as refugees from the Nazis in 1937 and ending with their substantial bequest to us upon my mother’s death in 2003.

Having grown up sheltered by their steady progress, financial security never seemed urgent for me, and having my adult values largely formed as a high-achieving student at an Ivy League university where concern for money was considered plebian, I got more gratification from giving stuff away than from acquisition. That attitude was part of what led me to attempt to live off the land in a Thoreauvian “economy” in patrician poverty.  A couple of years of mortgage anxiety and mill work brought me around to a craving for any job that could generate a steady income.  When that finally arrived in my forty fourth year with a tenured position as professor and civil servant at a state university, I again lost interest in money. When the inheritance from my parents came through, my inclination was to donate  it all to charity. But I was dissuaded by my wife.

Her attitudes about money always diverged from mine.  The daughter of a banker, she was interested in me as a good prospect when we first met—PhD candidate at Stanford with secure academic career ahead. After several decades of disappointment of that expectation, she went to law school, passed the bar, and started her own law firm dealing with business law, employment law, trusts and estates, whereby success and failure was all about economy.

Despite being able to purchase whatever we wanted—new cars, real estate, a therapeutic private school stint for our daughter,  international travel, and tithing for charity—our assets grew.  We still maintained habits of relative thrift—drinking cheap wine, sleeping in Motel 6 on the road. Jan spent a good deal of time managing the portfolio.

The expansion of our wealth made me uncomfortable, especially in light of the attrition of the middle class and the growing gulf between rich and poor, making us part of the hated one percent.  Habits of thrift seemed absurd unless the money saved was being put to meaningful use.  I looked at our investments only once a year while preparing reports for our tax accountant and calculating our tithe.

In November 2019, I discovered that in the course of one year their value had ballooned by 25%, largely due to the influence of the despised Trump administration. I hunched it would soon drop. The moral thing would be to liquidate the ill-gotten gains now and turn them over to charity and righteous political causes.  The practical thing to do would be to turn them into cash and spend as much  as possible on things with tangible value.

The latter is what we chose. We purchased a new mobile home for our daughter, bought two electric vehicles and a Powerwall, donated to the Community Foundation for City Farm SLO and left enough to cover what we expected would be a large tax liability from the profit taking.

By the end of January after our accountant filled out the returns,  it turned out that we were getting $18,000 in refunds.  Most of the securities Jan had selected to sell were losers over time and the rebates on the car and Powerwall as well as the charitable contributions made for yet more credits.

Three months later, as the Pandemic has eclipsed all other concerns, personal and public, the significance of our economic windfalls keeps shifting.  The stock market continues reeling from the assault of the plague.  The hyper economy that tied together the whole world in a feverish gold rush sickening ecosystems and climate and draining wealth from the poor and funneling it to the rich, seems to be falling apart.  The majorities living paycheck to paycheck in tight quarters can’t possibly maintain social distance or shelter at home, while we are encouraged to exercise generosity by ordering takeout meals from favorite restaurants. The government’s decision to print and hand out trillions of dollars to everyone may either start limiting the damage we’ve been causing for the last fifty years or may simply accelerate collapse.

I. Introduction

This comment expresses the views of Central Coast Grown(CCG), the non-profit organization selected by the SLO City Council to manage City Farm San Luis Obispo under the terms of 1) a 20-year nominal-fee lease and 2) of the 2011 Master Plan for the Calle Joaquin Agricultural Reserve (www.slocity.org/home/showdocument?id=1916). City Farm SLO is a 20-acre parcel zoned Agricultural Open Space and owned by the City, adjacent to San Luis Ranch

CCG has a strong interest in the development plans for the Agricultural Land belonging to San Luis Ranch for several reasons. As an immediate neighbor, City Farm’s operations are directly impacted by the treatment of soil and water resources on the adjoining property, in particular by any grading activities affecting land contours and soil conditions.  As custodian of City Farm and a continuous onsite presence, CCG has a responsibility to uphold the intentions and terms of the Calle Joaquin Agricultural Reserve under which it operates and to which the agricultural land of San Luis Ranch will be subject, if and when it is annexed into the City. (more…)

Introduction

My talk today follows in the tracks of fellow sangha members who’ve given us presentations on the convergence of scientific inquiry and the insights of traditional Buddhist precepts in the area of neurobiology and brain science. I want to explore the ways the theory of evolution that has provided a framework for all biological research during the last 150 years illuminates and is illuminated by my experience of meditation and my rudimentary understanding of Buddhist doctrine. (more…)

Note: See earlier posting for backstory

Testimony at Architectural Review Commission at hearing October 5 2015

My name is Steven Marx. I live in San Luis Obispo and am a retired Cal Poly Professor. I testify today as the President of the Board of the Non-profit, Central Coast Grown, which holds a 20-year lease with the City of San Luis Obispo for the City Farm Property to implement the General Plan requirement to preserve “the signature agricultural landscape at the southern entrance to the City.” By the terms of that lease we are tasked with assuring that its nineteen acres are used for organic production of locally marketed crops by small local farmers and with creating educational programs about sustainable agriculture for schools and the general public. In our first year and half of operation, we have done that, staffed by one paid employee and volunteers and funded by small produce sales, grants, and contributions.

Unfortunately the matter at hand today has proceeded beyond the preliminary stages without our input, as a result of a failure of notification. It is surprising that nobody at the City who received notification long ago forwarded it to CCG or to its other neighbor, San Luis Ranch, and it’s also surprising that none of the earlier staff reports to the ARC gave adequate consideration to the larger issues stated in your Community Design Guidelines: “Scenic views and natural features around the site, and a site’s location should be considered early in project design.” (more…)

An address at “SLO Faith Communities Respond to the Pope’s Message,” sponsored by People of Faith for Justice, October 1 2015

About a month ago, I went to the annual potluck picnic of the White Heron Sangha”a Buddhist meditation fellowship I’ve been attending for several years. It took place at a beautiful home and retreat center in Squire Canyon, and during the meal I was asked by a couple of people if I would be willing to substitute for one of the Sangha’s leaders in representing the Buddhist community at tonight’s program. He couldn’t be here because he was heading off to a retreat in India.

Being only a marginal Buddhist myself and a burnt-out former climate activist, I was reluctant to agree, but I found myself saying “yes” as I recalled recently hearing about Pope Francis’ wholehearted willingness to take on the issue. (more…)

Introduction

The signatories of this letter, consisting of all of the Board Members of the licensed non-profit, Central Coast Grown (http://centralcoastgrown.org) urge the San Luis Obispo Architectural Review Commission not to grant a Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Calle Joaquin Hotel Development at its meeting of October 5, 2015.

This Declaration was recommended by the contract planner hired by the City of San Luis Obispo in an “Initial Study” dated July 31 2015, but we oppose it for the reasons detailed below.

We also request that 1)the project be either rejected or thoroughly scaled back and redesigned and 2)the project be required to submit for public review and comment a full EIR with sufficient time for consideration and response. (more…)

There’s alot for an environmentalist to feel hopeless about these days, from calls for the militarization of the Arctic Ocean as a response to the melting polar icecap to the prospect of our local chapter of the Sierra Club running out of money. So I decided to take a little trip to Nipomo to express a treasurer’s appreciation to a donor whose generosity has allowed us to keep going for one more year, and also to get my spirits raised.

“Bill’s Farm” looked no worse for the wear since the last time I stopped by three years ago. I noticed an ancient carriage almost hidden by the gaggle of bicycles kept here for the use of his hostel visitors from all over the world and the array of solar panels on the roof setting off the “No Diablo” sign by the corner of the house.

I was welcomed by a high ringing voice, and once inside surrounded by walls and tables completely covered with pictures and clippings. On the counter was a half-empty quart bottle of beer next to another one full of milk.

“Just did the goats,” giggled the man with flowing white hair, cascading beard, cabled arms and frighteningly tough legs revealed by his short-shorts.

“I love goat’s milk,” I said, “reminds me of my days on an old homestead in British Columbia.”

“Take it,” he answered, “and that dozen eggs from my chickens.”

“Bill, I came to say thanks,” I replied, “and here you keep giving me more.”

The phone rang and he spoke briefly to someone about the Santa Maria Times article on the table that reported his $500 environmental award to the graduating High School Senior who’d volunteered in the Nipomo Native Garden and was now heading for UCSB.

“These young people inspire me,” he said. They’re our only hope. I’m 86 and starting to lose it, but they carry the torch. Here’s another one of my heros,” he declared, pointing to a picture of Jordan Hasay: “While I was doing a triathlon a couple of years ago and just ready to throw in the towel, she came up behind me. ˜You can make it,’ she said, ˜just keep going.’ And she was right.

Then here’s Virginia Souza, she’s the President of the Natural History Museum in Santa Maria. It’s tiny, but she just hosted an event there for the Chamber of Commerce which brought out forty people. In Santa Maria! She was a biology student of mine way back when. I introduced her to the idea of ecology. Here’s an award for the 40th anniversary of Earth Day she gave me last year.”

“And this is my woman’s wall. Next to the fridge, pictures and articles about Barbara Boxer, Lois Capps, Hilda Zacarias, Lisa Jackson, Dixie Chicks, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Coleman, Marion Jones, Steph Brown, Kathy Goddard Jones. “I remember your Dad, Henry,” Bill chuckled. “He used to tell me how the dunes were ˜so sensual.'”

That must have been 20 years ago, when my father was just about Bill’s age now. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Sixty nine,” I answered, “just retired.”

“My sixties were my best decade,” said Bill. “Learning how to appreciate things because the end was in sight, but still capable.”

He brought over a stack of postcards and said, “here, take a few.” The top one was a photo of a sand dune gracefully curved against the sky. Running up it was a black lab next to a perfectly formed naked young woman. “I’ve worked to save those Dunes and Point Sal for 50 years–from a Nuclear Power Plant, from a Coal Fired power plant, from a housing development, from developers. And now they’re safe in perpetuity, since the SLO Land Conservancy just purchased the last developable property. Lets go out back.”

We passed his desktop computer surrounded by magazines and books, where Bill composes his “Nipomo Free Press,” an email newsletter that includes commentaries on the latest news and on long term issues as well as responses from his readers”precursor of the blog. We talked of another hero, writer and 350.org organizer Bill McKibben, who was sitting in a Washington jail after leading a protest against Obama’s approval of the XL Pipeline. We passed the chickens scratching in the sand, the empty pigpen”the pig was in the freezer”and the goat corral. He climbed nimbly over a high gate into an overgrown orchard of apple and tangello trees heavy with fruit that I sampled and picked. “I just cant keep these up any more,” he said with a twinkle. Don’t get old.”

On my way back to the car weighted down with eggs, milk and fruit, I felt lightened. Instead of dreading yet another meeting to discuss grant applications, budgets, and liability insurance, I was eager to share Eldr Bill’s harvest with the volunteers at the potluck that night.

the prequel:  Traitor Joe’s

from SLO New Times

It may be of interest to readers who shop at Trader Joe’s that the company has agreed to shift all its seafood purchases to sustainable sources by December 12, 2012. This decision came after a campaign called “Traitor Joe’s,” mounted by Greenpeace, pressured the company to abide by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “red list” of species to avoid.

Trader Joe’s had refused to do that and didn’t reply to e-mails from customers back in February, but I just discovered an update on their website stating the intention to “address customer concerns including the issues of over fishing, destructive catch or production methods, and the importance of marine reserves.” Hooray for Greenpeace, for Trader Joe’s, and for its customers.