Molly Peterson

Tom Graff, Water Guy

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:38:23 -0800

All this talk this week and last and for all I know the next year or so about the state's water plans. And I'm very saddened to read that Tom Graff has died.

Unless you're somehow involved in California water, you don't know him. But I first heard of him in law school, when I studied the Central Valley Project Improvement Act. His name was all over the place in accounts of it - he helped get it passed. The act, shepherded by George Miller in Congress, required that the federal Bureau of Reclamation do a better job accounting for water in the Delta, so as to protect wildlife and fisheries. It came up with an accounting system for water used there, and Tom Graff explained that to me, patiently.

Maybe you know this feeling: the one where your whole brain is opening up and you can see a whole topic, a place, a something on the horizon that you know will capture your interest for a long time. I had that feeling about California water issues in law school, and I had it again when I was a new reporter at KQED and Tom Graff (and Barry Nelson at NRDC, and Jared Huffman, then at NRDC, and Brian Gray, and Clifford Lee, and the work of Joe Sax, all Bay Area types, but hell, I was in the Bay Area) explained CALFED to me. To the extent anyone can, ever.

Schwarzenegger said, in a release: "Throughout California’s water crisis, Tom fought for conservation, market transfers, water for fish and other important issues that became a crucial part of the historic water package recently passed by the legislature. His has made invaluable contributions to our state and its environment and he will be greatly missed."

I didn't know him personally, other than to verify that he was the kind of guy who walked around with a messy stack of papers rather than a neat one, but he still knew what was in it. But I do know that he was 65, around the age my mom was when she died, and so I think instinctively: that's too soon.

No, wait, for real: South Coast MPAs almost a reality

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:33:11 -0800

I'll have more about this later, but in the meantime, I wanted to mention that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa weighed in at the last minute on this process - I guess that delay by the blue ribbon task force helped him. You can read his letter to the task force here.

They had some shoving and shouting here earlier, but considering the length of time this has been going on, and the differences in opinion, not much. I'll have more after the vote, which is imminent.

Clean water in the 'Bu

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:55:52 -0800

Public comment continues here in the Metropolitan Water District's board room, where the LA Regional Water Quality Control Board is holding its meeting because of the overwhelming interest in the topic of a septic tank moratorium in areas affecting the Malibu Creek watershed, Malibu Lagoon and Surfrider Beach.

It's very polite - a byproduct of the impressive upscale serious locale? - but the divide is clear. Since I've been here we've heard from some longtime residents who say:
1 - septic is doing fine, and only may need updating in some places
2 - lots of other sources may be causing pollution & bacteria - relatedly -
3 - the science doesn't presently support tracing the problem to septic tanks
4 - updating to a treatment plant/sewage system would cost a lot and they shouldn't pay for it, especially now that we're in a financial apocalypse.

Surfers, mostly, are on the other side, with some beachgoers and enviros mixed in. They say:
1 - I've gotten pinkeye and, in at least one case, heart problems, from dirty water around Surfrider. The descriptions of the Coxsackie virus in particular were, uh, vivid.
2 - Surfrider's historically important to California culture, beyond that.
3 - Science already tells us that septic tanks cause bad stuff; we don't need to wait.
4 - Beneficial use means protecting the ecosystem in that region.
5 - Just because you haven't switched away from septic before a financially challenging time doesn't mean you shouldn't have to now; this is long overdue.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

State Bond Spurs Surface Water Storage

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:18:16 -0800

I listened to NRDC's Barry Nelson and others on Larry Mantle's show Wednesday morning - and I almost pulled off the road when I heard Nelson say that he had been working on policy stuff, not the bond stuff, so he didn't know much about some of the bond issues - including Temperance Flat.

One reason I almost pulled off the road is that 6 years ago, when Nelson schooled me, a young reporter at KQED, patiently and in detail, in our state's water policy follies, Temperance Flat was very much a live issue. By which I mean: perchance he knows more than he thinks.

The other is Temperance Flat. I left California for a little while after I covered water issues on the San Joaquin River. When I came back I was gobsmacked to hear Temperance Flat again. How does this project turn up like a bad penny every time?

Oh, right. Because some of us want it to. Including the Governor, who said frequently and loudly he wouldn't sign a bond without surface storage in it.

After much delay, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation released a study that purported to find Temperance Flat feasible and a good idea. (Don't be fooled by the October 2008 date; it came out in August of 2009.) For those of you familiar with cost-benefit analyses (hello, the two of you), it's basically 1 - which means that even in the best "sell" of the project, it's barely worth it. And the report doesn't account for costs from taking away prime water for kayakers, for costs from destroying Native American archaeological sites, and for costs from changing - dramatically - habitat for at least three kinds of fish (including the trout I used to catch with my dad).

I wonder if all the pieces of the bond puzzle are awesomely news-rich targets like this. Hope so.

Building a green LA for everyone

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:01:02 -0800

When I lived in San Francisco I played softball in an architects, builders and contractors league. For a bunch of architects we were pretty good. The experience definitely demystified architects for me - they drank beer and wanted to win just like builders do - but maybe not architecture itself, a topic that few cover well, and not on public radio.

So it's with trepidation and fascination I approached these issues of green building.

Katie Swenson, one of the people I talked to for the story that aired today, actually directs the Rose Fellowship - she used to be a fellow herself. Her work was in Charlottesville. She wrote a book - Growing Urban Habitats - that describes the Urban Habitats 2005 competition, where Charlottesville designers sought plans for multifamily housing that prevent gentrification. The design - or re-design - target is housing court in the Hogwaller-Belmont part of Charlottesville.

Growing Urban Habitats puts together design ideas for urban housing emphasizing affordability, density, compactness, and sustainability. In it she and her co-authors make an argument for "design contributing more meaningfully to an equitable form of community development."

(Charlottesville, incidentally, has been the cradle of a lot of ways for thinking differently about what we build and how we build it.)

The actual story of the Sunshine Housing Court - where the actual people live, for whom the project is designed - is an ongoing one. If all goes well now, Habitat will break ground on Sunshine Court in 2011 - 6 years after the contest. Reasonable, real-world obstacles? Dunno.

When I was in New Orleans, I saw a charrette in progress in Gentilly. It was such a hopeful act, and the act itself held meaning, not only for the people who lived in Gentilly, but also for the city planners - New Urbanists Duany Plater-Zyberk - themselves. But I don't think anything ever came of it. For so many reasons: the way money flowed to the region after the storm, the way the city organized coming back, the different tastes all the different residents expressed.

In Los Angeles we've got plenty of homegrown architectural/city planning talent. I'm very interested in the distance they might see between the design of a building, and the building itself; between a neighborhood, and the neighborhood itself - especially as regards green building, affordable housing, and all the challenges for projects like the new Carver and the Abbey apartments around Skid Row.

Dia de los muertos, KPCC newsroom-style

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:00:00 -0800

Please note the Newsom Media press pass, the Daniel Schorr book, and the 4 GB Compact Flash card. I'm proudest of those.

Luchador fighting for the ocean

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:21:37 -0800

Wearing a silver mask and a neat grey suit - his tie dotted with tiny luchador heads - El Hijo del Santo stepped forward to the microphone. He's a star of Mexican Lucha Libre, a second generation wrestler: famous to fans of the sport, celebrated in Mexico, and met with some bewildered glances from older, mostly white folks at the California Science Center.

Tomorrow at the second day of the MLPA meeting in Long Beach, El Hijo del Santo will be with Wildcoast - one of the two representatives of Latino communities in the South Coast's stakeholder group. Wildcoast's Fey Crevoshay says the group is a fan of Map 3 - one of a total of three proposed maps stakeholders are considering as part of the MLPA process in southern California.

If you want to meet a real luchador, celebrated for his headscissors takedown, his suicide dive, and his ocean activism: the place to do it is at the Hilton in Long Beach on Wednesday morning.

If a Port settles a lawsuit, does it make a sound?

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:34:45 -0800

The Port of Long Beach has settled its year-long dispute with the American Trucking Association. The Journal of Commerce has the story, but it's pretty quiet out there.

I'm working to talk to Long Beach now, but this obviously heightens the strategic differences between the coalition of union and environmental interests working with the Port of Los Angeles and the more business-friendly Port of Long Beach. Long Beach seems to have essentially chucked the idea of concession agreements for trucking companies - through which both ports once hoped to tether industry to cleaner trucking practices and through which the city of Los Angeles planned to create better working conditions for contract drivers.

It also raises questions about which strategy is going to clean up port air fastest. Long Beach says it's got 5000 2007-model and newer trucks registered, half of what's serving the goods movement industry there right now. Long Beach's Art Wong expects that number will go up to 6-7 thousand by year's end, and with port traffic down, he says that'll be "the vast majority, maybe 95% of what's serving the port."

The environmental groups and the labor groups also run into a little problem here. On the year anniversary of the Clean Trucks Program, they crowed about how well it was going. Now their press releases are warning catastrophe. Nothing's to say they were right either time - the truth here, as with most things, is likely in between - but it's tough to counter their own spin.

As Frank Stoltze says: developing!

Seafood Watch turns 10

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:11:46 -0800

Most likely you've seen the cards: ubiquitous at Whole Foods; sometimes tucked into your check at a restaurant. Ten years ago, the Monterey Bay Aquarium started Seafood Watch program to tell people in simple and consistent terms which fish need conserving most.

This morning the Monterey Bay Aquarium's releasing a report describing the "State of Seafood" - uh, what do you think? - fisheries are mismanaged and aquaculture's booming.

They're also making a new list of fish that are good for people to eat, and good for the oceans - by which they mean, doesn't harm the oceans.

Fish on the green part of the list have low levels of contaminants, like PCBs and mercury, and have a lot of Omega-3 fatty acids, AND make the Seafood Watch "best choice" list. Farmed trout, farmed mussels and oysters, wild-caught Oregon pink shrimp, mmmm Sardines!, wild Alaska salmon, Albacore Tuna that's pole or troll-caught (no, not caught by the troll under the bridge; trolling is a fishing method that's less destructive to the ocean than longlining, which you may remember from "The Perfect Storm" or any number of reality shows that use dramatic music, jump cuts, and fancy editing to up the EXCITEMENT quotient for fishing).

So, you know, maybe some of our local catch - I'm looking at you, Palos Verdes Shelf - doesn't make the list.

I'm headed to the California Science center to hear more about this; I'll have more information this afternoon.

Stormwater runoff plans: state moves to keep water, not let it go

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:26:49 -0800

Still picking through the carcass of the end of legislation season, and finding interesting developments. Fran Pavley's SB 790 passed AND passed muster with the Governor: he signed into law the bill that encourages new stormwater runoff management - a big deal for southern California, where so many of our streets send the nasty into, say, the LA River, for one.

Pavley's law - which Andy Lipkis and TreePeople pushed too - will authorize grants for stormwater management projects. And it will encourage local agencies and cities to make stormwater management plans that include groundwater recharge, local infiltration, water flows that mimic natural systems, low impact development, and capturing water for use locally.

TreePeople has been big into this with its demo cistern (which, if the skies are any indication, will get a little more full in the next few days). The City of LA has also worked on this issue, with the partnership that yielded Oros Green Street a few years ago, and the rain barrel pilot project program I profiled yesterday (with timing so good I didn't even know it!).

Brown barrels full of water that's...grey? Not exactly

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:22:22 -0800

"Well, there we get into a gray area." "How gray?" "Charcoal."

I always understand greywater by what it is not: blackwater has sewage or bacterial contaminants in it. Potable water is drinkable. In between, it's grey. Or is it?

Over at the rain barrel story itself, a reader correctly points out that most people don't think of everything that's in between as greywater. Greywater is often understood as being from domestic processes - laundry, your kitchen sink, etc.

I was using the word in a way that's broadly accurate, but specifically misleading. I simply wasn't thinking about rainwater as potable. My reference to what rolls off the roof as grey had to do with its drinkability. Certainly the city of LA isn't treating this water as drinkable, nor are these residents. Still, in California, greywater has become an industry term - as a market evolves to help people modify their existing water systems.

Folks in Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine did drink - and make wine from - rainwater as John Rabe and I discussed earlier this year. But I grew up in an era when Kimberly's hair turned green after she washed it in a copper bowl on Diff'rent Strokes, so I don't think of rainwater that way. Especially after it hits a roof.

Fletch understands that grey has many shades. It's especially easy to confuse them in a radio story, it seems.

And now, Harold Faltermeyer, play us out.

A veto pen stabbing the lobster fishery

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:32:19 -0800

Assemblywoman Lori Saldana had proposed AB571 to establish a Lobster Management Enhancement Supplement fee - 300 bones - that commercial lobster fishermen and women would be required to pay for lobster management activities. It would have lasted only until 2015.

Governor Schwarzenegger veteoed the bill, saying: "In addition to increasing by almost 90 percent the cost of a commercial lobster permit, thereby potentially driving some permitees out of the fishery, the bill would also impose new mandates and obligations upon the Department that still would not be adequately funded."

Except, it seems the industry supports it. It's not a big fishery: 140 people. Going after these guys:

Here's a signed letter to the editor on the topic, from July, from the San Diego U-T:

Contrary to the implications of your editorial [opposing the legislation], Assembly Bill 571, by Assembly member Lori Saldaña, is a bill that is aimed at sustaining a viable lobster-fishing industry and the jobs and economic benefits associated with it.

Because there are 140 lobster fishermen in California contributing millions of dollars to the state’s economy, this legislation will have considerable economic impact locally. A healthy and sustainable lobster fishing industry helps generate money and jobs for regional wholesale, retail, food service and fishing support and supply industries.

As president and members of the California Lobster and Trap Fishermen’s Association, or CLTFA, we feel that is why our industry sponsored and supports AB 571, and that is why we feel its support by the Legislature in these tough economic times is something that should be commended rather than condemned.

JOHN GUTH
CHRIS OLDSTONE
DAN BASSET
TALEEB WAHAB
San Diego

CHRIS MILLER
Santa Barbara

The Environmental Defense Fund supported the bill as well. The legislations tated as its goal the creation of a sustainable lobster fishery and pursuing Marine Stewardship Council certification for it.

That's a challenging goal. And since California doesn't have the money it seems the fishery got together with environmentalists or conservationists or whatever you want to call EDF to try to kick-start things.

It's a strategy that's worked in other places where the stakes were multimillion dollar revenues even higher than this fishery yields.

I don't know whether the governor was right to veto this bill. But his veto message doesn't seem to address the issues this fishery is concerned about. National and international efforts increasingly concentrate around cooperative local management for sustainability. Is California doing enough to promote this in its nearshore waters?

(A California Spiny Lobster. Photo above courtesy Magnus Kjærgaard via Wikimedia Commons.)

Schwarzenegger goes HIS way on RPS

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:17:38 -0800

More on new laws - and Schwarzenegger's vetos - as I wade through announcements. But, little surprise, the Governator rejected Assemblyman Paul Krekorian's AB21.

Schwarzenegger says, "As a world leader in climate change and renewable energy development, California needs a regional approach that provides streamlined regulatory processes and compliance flexibility that facilitate the timely construction of in-state resources. This legislative package does the opposite – adds new regulatory hurdles to permitting renewable resources in the state, at the same time limiting the importation of cost-effective renewable energy from other states in the West."

Last month, state lawmakers passed a mandate for California utilities: 33 percent of their power must come from renewables. Schwarzenegger ignored this; he signed an executive order with a similar mandate that's more generous with credits for out of state offsetting.

Keep in mind, too, we've got Republican gubernatorial candidates threatening to roll back Schwarzenegger's executive order if they get into office.

How exactly the governor's RPS will play out isn't yet clear: rules will get written at the California Air Resources Board. It's not surprising the governor did this, necessarily. Environmentalists I talked to at the Climate Summit in the Century City Hyatt said they were hopeful they could lobby the Governor to support the legislation. Guess that didn't work.

UPDATE: Well, looky here, he vetoed Simitian's bill, too.

No Erin Brockovich, but plenty of drama in Carson

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:56:55 -0800

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board held a meeting tonight about an investigation it's opened at the former Kast property site in Carson, CA.

Public officials are raising concerns about whether hazardous and sometimes cancer-causing chemicals have contaminated soil and groundwater in an area about 50 acres big between East 244th Street, Lomita Boulevard, Marbella Avenue and Panama Avenue.

I'll have a full story soon. But I'm including a picture I took in the Carson Community Center for a couple of reasons.

1. Boy, that's a fancy community center!
2. It's full of hundreds of people who aren't happy with either Shell or regional water officials.

TV cameras came for a while: these meetings tend not to lend themselves to local news, because terribly impenetrable acronyms pepper the PowerPoints like billboards on Sunset. But dozens of residents have lawyered up, working with Erin Brockovich and the law firm Girardi & Keese. There was a rumor either Mr. Girardi or Ms. Brockovich would provide some fireworks at the meeting.

Neither one did - they weren't there, near as I could tell. But the meeting was plenty dramatic. Video and more on the way.

Getting to 350

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:40:57 -0800

550, 450, 350. The number represents how much carbon dioxide or equivalent greenhouse gas is in the atmosphere, in parts per million, and that, in turn, represents information about how global temperatures will climb, and how fast. The number we settle on should, in theory, be the level at which we're safe. It's a little like sailing toward a point on the horizon: depending on the currents, the wind, and the waves, by the time you set a course, you're blown off it, and aiming for something else.

The number's getting lower; this idea of getting to 350 is pretty new. It pushed some buttons last November, when NASA's James Hansen as part of a team of climate scientists pointed out we're around 385 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the current atmosphere, rising 2 parts per million a year. Letting that rise to 450 parts per million, they argued, would risk an ice-free planet.

Hansen's been in this game for a while; as they say on The Wire, his name rings out on the street. Twenty years ago, he presented evidence that the planet was warming. The demarcation line to avoid peril we talked about then was 550. Moving to 450 was something of a political coup. The newly-minted Obama Administration said in January the U.S. position is we want to get to 450. Around that time energy specialist, climate science advocate and blogger Joe Romm was asking whether 450 was politically possible pretty much immediately as the new president took office.

And now, this year, Hansen's saying, uh, dude, not far enough. Bill McKibben's on the 350 bandwagon too.

But a groundswell of support isn't a quorum - as Jefferson Smith or Frank Stoltze will tell you. Copenhagen's around the corner, and international negotiators have not, of late, expressed optimism that we're all going to get along there.

One more thing: we don't often get to report on the details of climate change studies. We've got plenty of reasons for that locally: one is that there's an ongoing discussion in our newsroom about what, exactly, we can assume people know about climate. How much explanation does it take to say that 350 parts per million is a difficult standard to imagine meeting as the population of the planet explodes? I wonder if we do tell this story right in southern California, and I wonder how we'd know.

Which standards for California's Renewable Standard?

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:28:26 -0800

Climate change meetings with laminated name tags in ballrooms are often filled with highfalutin' aspirational dreamweaverin' mumbo-jumbo. Also, in LA, a celebrity or two.

The Governor's Global Climate Summit last week did bring together a lot of local folks, though, and some had comments on Issues Of The Day in California.

What Arnold Schwarzenegger will do about the state lawmakers' bills on the Renewable Portfolio Standard remains both fascinating and a bit of a mystery. You may remember a couple of weeks ago when Schwarzenegger used an executive order to raise the renewable portfolio standard in California to 33% for all utilities. Since then, he has not, however, vetoed SB 14 or AB 64 two renewable portfolio bills pushed by state legislators.

Activists continue to lobby the Governor, with the hope of heading off vetos for those bills. I talked to Faramarz Nabavi of the California Wind Energy Association. Here's his view:

Nahai out at LADWP

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:47:49 -0800

More on this later - Frank Stoltze will be spotting this midday - but this is a big deal. In David Nahai's time, the DWP has moved dramatically toward renewable energy: the mayor and Nahai had sort of a standing patter they'd do where the mayor would vow to hold the DWP accountable, and Nahai would vow to be held accountable, at just about every press conference. Then as Villaraigosa started his second term, he vowed to make Los Angeles coal-free - entirely - within 11 years. Huge promise.

Nahai's taken a lot of political flak lately. David Zahniser of the LA Times did a sweeping story on the DWP getting politically outmaneuvered by someone close to the mayor. When Measure B went down in May, he took the blame for it. And when people slam Villaraigosa for big green promises that haven't ripened yet, Nahai's the guy they point at.

Still, I've been covering Nahai since 2007, and one of the most memorable things I've seen him do in that time was go out to Yucca Valley to talk to people about Green Path north. Nahai stood at a podium in the local high school, wearing one of those cool outdoors gear kinda white shirts you know just breathes. His teeth gleamed as white as they do when set against the high beam of the French cuffs under his bespoke suit. And he listened to people shout at him and plead with him and argue with him for hours. At the time, that went some way in repairing fragile relations between the DWP and the surrounding areas Los Angeles and its utility built an empire on in the last century. It was a classy move.

I'm at the Governor's Global Climate Summit again - wrapping up - and was wondering this week why the DWP hasn't been maintaining too large of a presence. Perhaps this is related?

Copenhagen's Laboratories: Olav Kjorven says local policies influence global climate talks

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:16:07 -0800

Arnold Schwarzenegger talks plenty about how important California is as a laboratory for national climate policy. (and that's pronounced with an emphasis on the second syllable, if you want to sound like an evil genius, which is always worth it) So does Antonio Villaraigosa, and so do other city leaders. This week we're actually hearing that's true from people working at the national level that these guys may be right. (Of course, they refer to local and state governments as "sub-national" which reminds me of submarines, which reminds me of Tom Clancy, which reminds me of...wow, it really does all come back to Harrison Ford.)

Anyway, me and Patt Morrison, we both talked to Olav Kjorven: he's the policy director for the United Nations Environment Programme, and assistant Secretary-General. Check it out:

Teambuilding Exercises, Harrison Ford & Protests

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:23:16 -0800

Harrison Ford just told the audience in here that we're all members of Team Earth. "We're members of the team. The only question is whether we'll get off our butts and get in the game." I'm not sure the protesters agree that there is no I in team. They definitely don't think Arnold Schwarzenegger is on their side.

Already it seems we've got more clusters of opponents here at the Governor's Global Climate Summit 2. We started this morning with fishermen who want Schwarzenegger to know they're not really interested in Marine Protected Areas in the South Coast Region. I've been covering that process, and hearing plenty along the way from environmental groups, conservation groups, scientists, fishermen inside and outside their industry lobbies, spearfishermen, surfers. Including the California Fisheries Coalition, which has worked in and around the process actively. It's rare, though, to see people still, at this point, asking for no marine protected areas at all. For a couple of reasons: first, we're well underway with the implementation of the Marine Life Protection Act in other parts of the state, notably the Central Coast. And second, because this process has been remarkably collaborative, relative to other regional management efforts.

Unions showed up too. Hundreds of union protesters upset at the governor raised their voices outside the Hyatt Regency.

Inside the hotel, Sierra Club of California and other environmental groups are still mad about the Governor's veto of Renewable Portfolio Standards. Legislators passed a bill in early September, setting guidelines for rules that would require all utilities in California to make renewables a third of their energy mix by 2020. The governor vetoed it, instead choosing to direct the California Air Resources Board to take action under the auspices of AB 32. Some groups remain ticked off: Sierra Club, California Wind Energy Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others. They're worried an executive ordered RPS will offer less market security than a law will, since technically a future governor could revoke it. On top of that, the governor's guidelines and what the legislature passed may differ significantly, in the end, in how renewables from out of state count towards portfolio goals, if not what counts as a renewable.

No sign of recognition of this issue inside this conference. Everyone's looking ahead to Copenhagen. But the diversity of protestors' issues and their presence seems remarkable this year, compared to last year. More evidence both of the event's profile, and of California's economic problems.

Schwarzenegger's Climate 2: Electric Boogaloo

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:49:56 -0800

Today I'm catching up with what's going down internationally, nationally, and locally in climate change news - at the swank Hyatt Regency Century Plaza. Don't yet know if it's an upgrade from last year, but so far what's fancier are the programs (spiral bound, 4 color) and delegate swag (eco friendly tote and water bottle, at a minimum).

I'm traditionally skeptical about these events. When I was in law school I worked at my fair share of events with large badges where people wore suits, one of them an environment and ecotrade conference in Beijing. But even if this is as much about private business opportunity as it is about public policy, it's something I've got to keep track of. More coming in the next three days.