Progress on Earth guardianship campaign

Randa Solick, Earth Democracy Issue Committee

The Santa Cruz Earth Democracy Team is making progress on Guardianship of Future Generations and the Precautionary Principle.  We would like to know what other branches and members are working on for Earth Democracy. …

Guardianship of Future Generations got a boost when, after a presentation by Mathilde Rand and Randa Solick, the Santa Cruz Desal Alternatives group adopted the following a statement based on the Precautionary Principle, both framing principles of Earth Democracy, as a guide in their decision-making and evaluation of water supply alternatives:

         “Where there is reliable scientific evidence that a product or practice may cause serious harm to either humans or the environment, the product or practice should not be used unless or until there is proof of its safety.

         “Those who advocate adopting the product or practice bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that it is safe before it is put on the market or otherwise put into use.

          “The Precautionary Principle also requires democratic public participation as well as full transparency on the part of governing agencies regarding scientific evidence that informs a policy decision.” For more information contact Randa at rsolick@gmail.com

The Human Right to Water. Santa Cruz’s Earth Democracy team is represented in the local organization Desal Alternatives' efforts to find alternatives to the energy-intensive and expensive desalination plant proposed by the City of Santa Cruz. 

Now the struggle has expanded to protest plans to use recycled water for irrigation and eventually for potable use.  One of the members gathered extensive research on the nanoparticles, endocrine disrupters, medical byproducts and other chemicals that we don't yet have the technology to remove, even with reverse osmosis and UV treatment.  Thus using recycled wastewater could contaminate our drinking water and our aquifers through irrigation and injection wells, with long-term disastrous results. 

One alternative Santa Cruz ED and Desal Alternatives is proposing is culling more water from the winter flow of the main river in Santa Cruz, storing the extra gallons which can be legally taken out every day flows exceed a certain amount. Even in a dry year like this one, that would give us much more water than the desal plant - almost half a million gallons this year alone –  for much less money (just needed to build and maintain appropriate pipes)  --  and still leave the required water for the fish and habitat, and for the city uses.

The water could be stored in our aquifers and transferred back when needed in times of drought, meanwhile fighting salt water intrusion and replenishing aquifers that have been drastically lowered over the last 30 years.  The water can also be stored in our local reservoir to be released when needed in dry months. That this system can work even in such a dry year as 2015 is strong evidence that this would be a good alternative to provide the city needed water.
 
Earth Democracy and The Caring Economy: I’d like to report that I’ve already met with the convener for the United Way environmental goal, talked to her about “guardianship,” water storage and other issues.  Caring Economy team, loosely linked through the United Way to the ED committee, formed after our Riane Eisler fundraiser a year ago.  Eisler broke new ground in her book The Real Wealth of Nations, Towards a Caring Economy, and has shown, through her Caring Economy Campaign, that valuing and paying for care leads to prosperity. Our Caring Economy Team is putting our efforts into trying to influence the 2020 goals that the United Way’s Community Assessment Project (CAP) will be setting during 2015.

We plan to meet with the conveners of the environmental goal, the economy goal and the social environment goal to point out the importance of the Caring Economy Campaign’s findings and to influence them to apply Social Wealth Economic Indicators (SWEIs) in their assessments of Santa Cruz County’s environmental, economic and social health.  In communicating with those responsible for setting the United Way’s Community Assessment Project goals for 2020, we will ask them to include such indices as unpaid work and its contributions to our economy, as well as to assess whether workers are being made aware of and are taking advantage of the CA parental leave act.

New Soil Not Oil Campaign:
Earth Democracy signed on to a public letter to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization to endorse the 2015 the International Year of Soils

The Biosafety Alliance has launched a new “Soil Not Oil” Campaign and is organizing an international conference in Richmond, CA for Sept. 4-5 and a mass march in San Francisco on Sept. 6 to demand urgent, large-scale action addressing climate chaos and dangerous agricultural practices that threaten our soil, air, water, and way of life.  This new campaign complements our Global Warming/Sustainable Energy subcommittee work

Read Vandana Shiva’s new book - Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis.