Newsom Appointee Grandstands for Free Campaign Publicity
SF Chronicle Happy to Provide It

In case you missed it, the front page of yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle read, "Smoking ban in S.F. parks proposed: Law would affect recreation areas regulated by city," along with a photo of Gavin Newsom's appointee in District 2, Michela Alioto-Pier.

Nice photo and nice timing -- less than six weeks before the election.

This is clearly a frivolous and politically motivated move on Alioto's part. Furthermore, as far as I know it's legislation in search of a problem. Alioto says:

"It's just disgusting -- our parks are covered with cigarette butts."

"Not to mention the fact that children are subject to secondhand smoke when they take a water break while playing micro-soccer."

As to the first point, what park is she talking about? I spend time in Golden Gate and Dolores Park and haven't noticed a problem with butts, let alone any park that is "covered" with them. Besides, wouldn't our litter laws address this?

As to the claim of secondhand smoke, is she kidding? I'm not a smoker, but I've never noticed a problem with secondhand smoke while hanging out in any park, nor have I noticed smokers hanging around small children playing "micro-soccer."

The law, as proposed, would ban "inhaling, exhaling, burning or carrying any lighted smoking equipment for tobacco or any other weed or plant." Hmm. What's that "any other weed or plant" language all about? Is there a perceived problem of people smoking weeds or plants other than tobacco in District 2, or any other district for that matter? I don't get it.

Why would Alioto-Pier make this proposal now, and why this particular proposal, when the city and her district have plenty of other more-pressing concerns? It's simple, according to David Pascal, who is running against Alioto-Pier in District 2:

"If she's worried about kids and the environment, how about addressing transit policy and our energy infrastructure and the kids with chronic respiratory illness in Bayveiw Hunter's point? 80% of airborne pollution is from mobile sources (cars and trucks), 20% from stationary sources (power plants). Cigarettes contribute a negligible amount.

This is everything that's wrong with American politics. No substance, just opportunistic grandstanding."

District 2 voters need to be told what Alioto has really been up to during her short term on the Board. As far as I can tell, no one in this race has really gone after her. Whoever has the courage to do so might make this a race worth watching, and a real contest, rather than a coronation for Gavin's heir apparent.

Good News for the Sunset and Pacifica?

The latest projections by the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C., suggest that in a worst-case scenario, San Francisco can expect 55 heat- wave days -- three or more consecutive days of temperatures above 79 degrees -- a year by the 2050s and up to 135 such days a year by the 2090s, compared with only 10 to 15 heat-wave days in the 1990s.

These higher temperatures will translate into more deaths among old people, infants and people with heat-sensitive medical conditions, the authors said. By this reckoning, San Francisco would wind up experiencing at least 1, 300 and up to as many as 4,500 more heat-related deaths in the decade of the 2090s -- or three to 10 times as many as occurred in the 1990s.

The scenario suggests San Francisco will be transformed into something akin to an oven inside a deep freeze whose door keeps swinging open and shut.

"You'll get a lot of temperature variation, heat waves alternating with rapid cooling," said Moser, a staff scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "That's a situation the body won't get used to."

She said this was one of many projected harmful impacts of climate change that might be avoided, or at least reduced, if steps were taken now to cut the amount of greenhouse gases polluting the atmosphere.

The best- and worst-case scenarios in the report reflect different assumptions on how much the release of such gases is cut back in coming years. One scenario assumes continued reliance on burning fossil fuels and rapid increase in heat-trapping gases all this century; the other assumes a transition to cleaner energy sources, which would allow greenhouse gas emissions to peak at mid-century, then taper back to current levels by 2100.

The report calls for "aggressive vehicle global warming standards" and was issued in advance of a key meeting of the California Air Resources Board on Sept. 23 in Los Angeles.