No Toy for You

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a proposal to ban restaurants from giving away a toy with a meal than contains too much fat, sugar or salt. Supervisor Eric Mar, chief sponsor of the proposal, explains his goal:

“Our legislation will encourage restaurants that offer unhealthy meals marketed toward children and youth to offer healthier food options with incentive items and toys.”

A few years ago, restaurants started being accused of misleading their customers into making bad food choices and fueling the increase in obesity rates.   So lawmakers forced restaurants to disclose nutritional information and lawsuits forced restaurants to add healthier items to their menus.   However, customer buying habits remained the same and healthier new menu items have generally flopped.

Researchers from NYU and Yale found the New York City its 2008 menu disclosure law is having the opposite effect:

“While many people claimed to be paying attention to the new information in New York, the researchers found there was no change in the amount of calories consumed.  In fact, there was a slight gain.

Convinced parents are still being duped at the menu, elitist lawmakers are now targeting toy giveaways.   The underlying theory is that children are mesmerized by the offer of free toys and parents are either powerless to fight off their demands or unaware of the nutritional dangers.    Without the undue influence of free Spiderman figurines, children will now crave carrot sticks and apple slices.

Although public health concerns are often cited as the primary reason for these laws targeting restaurants, fast food restaurants are often blamed for contributing to global warming since most of their food is transported from outside local markets.  

 As I have written before, storing and cooking food consumes significantly more energy than transportation.   Restaurant kitchens use heat much more efficiently and waste less food in preparing meals than home kitchens.

Much like the fasting and food consumption rules imposed by religions, lawmakers are seeking new rules that impose secular values on society.  Menu labeling laws are included in the new healthcare reform.

Robert Paarlberg writes about the motivation of these new food rules in his book Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know:

“The goal is to find and express through the diets we adopt a solidarity with others who share our identity, our values, or our particular life circumstances.   The scientific foundation for these modern food values may be weak, but the social value can nonetheless be strong.”   

So restaurant operators in San Francisco will have the unenviable task of denying toys to children so that “proper” social values can be imposed on their customers.   Chalk it up to the cost of doing business in California.

Hot Ideas come from Cool Places

by Jeff Walker

Which is the better business plan  for a coffeehouse: old school hangout or incubator for technology start-ups?

According to a recent LA Times article, there is an emerging trend among independent coffeehouses to eliminate wifi internet access to patrons.   These coffeehouses, like restaurants, want to turn seats over quicker during their busy dayparts.  Internet users tend to stay longer and thus displace other customers.   

Like most things coffee, the trend began in Seattle.  However, Victrola Coffee & Art took out their wifi as a means to restore a gathering place culture:

“the owners noticed that friends were no longer talking and strangers were no longer meeting.”  

Some coffeehouses believe reading anything digital ruins the community meeting place vibe.  So iPads and Kindles are banned while dead tree reading material is allowed.  

Other stores have embraced the emerging demand for places for business people to meet, surf the internet and yes, network.   Seattle Coffee Works takes a wider view of their customer interaction:

Co-owner Sebastian Simsch said the Internet is far from a buzz kill. It’s a business opportunity. Wi-Fi in coffeehouses helps people make connections in the broader world. They may not make friends with someone at the next table, but they check in with friends all over through e-mail or on popular Internet sites such as Facebook.

As the Times article notes, while insurer Lloyd’s of London was once housed in a coffeehouse so were beatniks Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.   So why do coffeehouses attract both commerce and art?  They are cool places.

The title for this post came from a presentation by Doug Henton, CEO of Collaborative Economics, to the Ventura Economic Summit in June.    His theory is that cities who foster lively and vibrant urban environments produce innovative and creative businesses.    

One of the exciting ideas that came out the creative economy breakout session was the development of a 24-hour “hive” space in downtown Ventura.    This public/private partnership would be a combination of coffeehouse, business center, and start-up incubator space.    This is smart economic development and I hope the concept is further developed.

The restaurant business is all about developing niches.  Coffeehouses could be a analog haven away from a world where everyone from McDonald’s to Sam’s Club is offering free wifi.   However I doubt many cities other than Seattle or San Francisco have enough latte drinkers that want to read poetry from a paper book and meet new people in a coffeehouse.  

Unfortunately the downfall to most these businesses is that demand for 5 buck coffees is based on disposable income which is in short supply these days.   The demand for cool places to meet, collaborate and hangout is recession proof.

Will Wildlife Corridors Become the Next Wetlands?

by Jeff Walker

Today the Ventura County Board of Supervisors is considering changes to the County’s Initial Study Assessment Guidelines.  These guidelines determine the scope of environmental impacts that must be considered in approving new building permits.  

The most controversial element of the proposed guidelines is the Biological Resources section which establishes “wildlife corridors” in county.   New construction projects within these areas must consider the impact to wildlife movement within these corridors.

wild corr

 Most are the guidelines for wildlife corridors were based on report prepared by South Coast Wildlands entitled South Coast Missing Linkages: A Wildland Network for the South Coast Ecoregion.  In order to protect biodiversity in the region, the report recommends establishing an interconnected regional wildland network. 

This network would consist of open spaces and improved connectivity across man-made barriers such as highways, agriculture and urban development.   According to the study, the wildlife corridor is critical to quality of life in the region:

 This strategy represents the best hope for maintaining what remains of southern California’s wildlife legacy, while ensuring quality of life for our citizens via clean air, clean water, and recreational opportunities.

Without a wildland network, the region risks open spaces becoming “pathetic remnants that sustain few species and provide little ecological value.”   

The study covered most of southern California and its proposed network would extend from Ventura County down to Mexico.   Most of its findings recommend the construction or renovation of bridges, culverts and tunnels that cross man-made barriers in region.   However, razing buildings in these corridors such as the Tejon Ranch Headquarters in Kern County is also part of the strategy:

we recommend removal of several buildings of the Tejon Ranch Headquarters (two administrative buildings, about a dozen homes, and an old school), and the associated mile of Lebec Road. The area vacated by these buildings should be restored to native vegetation.

 The report suggests that strong protection of open space in these corridors is essential otherwise the significant investment in constructing wildlife crossings will be “meaningless”.

 The resolution has the support of many environmental groups in the region including Friends of the Santa Clara River, Environmental Defense Center and Endangered Habitats League.   Ventura County Chapter of the Citizens Alliance for Property Rights opposes the resolution.   The CAPR specifically is concerned on the effect of the changes to farms and ranches in the county. 

As a result, when farms and ranches in the County seek discretionary authorizations from the County for any of a number of typical activities associated with Agricultural Operations, such as brush clearing, erosion control, barn construction, grading, fire control, road construction and planting of new crops, those Agricultural Operations and agricultural lands will be subject to these new, low thresholds of significance.

The debate over the environmental significance and protections neccessary for wildlife corridors is similar to that of wetlands many years ago.    If this resolution is approved,  many Ventura County property owners will have the equivalent of a protected marsh on their land.

Thinking Outside the Books

The debate over the future of public libraries has made area news with the cities of Camarillo and Santa Clarita electing to withdraw from their respective county library systems.  Financial efficiency is the motive behind these moves as these cities believe they can provide better service with resident’s tax money.

Camarillo and Santa Clarita have a track record of providing excellent service to their residents.  While their county was cutting library service and closing branches, these cities built new libraries and maintained healthy balance sheets.  

Both cities are considering maximizing library efficiency by outsourcing operations to a private library management company.  Replacing unionized public employee jobs with private sector employment rarely occurs quietly.  In Santa Clarita, the issue was demogogued with claims of “putting a price literacy”, “emphasizing profits over readers”, “privatizing public assets” and other various “evils” of profit making companies.  

Of course, city contracts with private firms to provide services are nothing new.  Santa Clarita’s public transit system is operated by a private firm.  The city still owns the busses and other assets of the system.  

The Future of Libraries

Ventura County’s library system has suffered from steep budget cuts which forced the unpopular closure of Ventura’s Wright Library.  In response to the diminished service in his city, Ventura city manager Rick Cole is rethinking the role of the public library.  In a recent blog post, he concludes:

As we navigate the current crisis in funding our existing Library system, it makes sense to keep one eye on the kind of libraries we want for the future.

In his post, Cole refers to a column written by Neil Pierce which presents examples of how libraries are serving larger swathes of their community by providing non-traditional library services.  This transition aligns with the DaVinci Institute’s vision outlined in a 2007 paper entitled “The Future of Libraries: Beginning the Great Transformation”.  The paper predicts “libraries will transition from a center of information to a center of culture”:

A culture-based library is one that taps into the spirit of the community, assessing priorities and providing resources to support the things deemed most important. Modern day cultural centers include museums, theaters, parks, and educational institutions. The library of the future could include all of these, but individual communities will be charged with developing an overall strategy that reflects the identity and personality of its own constituency.

Libraries adopting this cultural approach maintain collections of seeds and garden tools, host local groups in meeting rooms, show films, exhibit local artists and provide podcast and video recording studios for their patrons.

In a previous post, I wrote about how coffeehouses can become business “hives” which are collaborative combinations of coffeehouse, business center, and start-up incubator space.   Some academic libraries have adopted a similar model.   Anthony Townsend writes about the success of NYU in revamping its library:

These spaces are buzzing around the clock, bringing together the three catalysts of creative, collaborative knowledge work – snacks and coffee, computers and networks, and deeply motivated men and women.

Since the majority of the country’s public libraries are operated by municipalities, local control of libraries is not a new concept.  What is new is the rethinking of how these facilities should be operated to better serve their communities.   County library systems burdened with large overhead costs are forced to provide a traditional “one size fits all” approach to service.  

Cities like Camarillo and Santa Clarita are leading the way in rethinking how libraries are built and operated and the services they provide to their communities.

Top 5 Threats to Green Jobs

Opponents of Proposition 23 tout the California carbon emission law’s ability to generate green energy jobs in the future while admitting it will cost jobs in the process.
 
Some of California’s labor unions have joined the concern about the loss of these traditional energy sector jobs.  They do not see the loss of their members’ jobs as being offset by the long term gains from the clean energy industry that may emerge. Union rep James Kellog explains:

While the new “green” industries that opponents tout might headquarter in California to take advantage of AB32′s subsidies and artificially created markets, they’ll mostly build their plants and create their manufacturing jobs in places where labor is cheaper, taxes are lower and environmental regulations more realistic.

Most Californians share the desire to leave the state a cleaner place for our children.  How we reach that cleaner place is subject to debate.  When assessing the potential effect of laws like AB 32, one must consider the business climate in California that green energy will operate within.

While it is easy to believe that clean energy projects will just blossom all over the state, the reality is that that they will be subject to the same environmental scrutiny that a new oil refinery would endure.  

These are the top 5 “Green Tape” threats to clean energy:   

5. Birds – Wind energy technology is a promising way to harvest energy from abundant wind sources.  
Problem: Unfortunately, birds like to fly around the same blustery areas.  Since it was discovered that about a bird an hour dies in the Altamont Pass wind farm in northern California, new wind projects must not kill birds. Instead, the financial feasibility of these projects are killed.

4. Safety Regulations – The Nissan Leaf is an all-electric car which requires 24 hours to recharge on a typical residential voltage.  In order to reduce the charging period to 8 hours, owners must install a high voltage charging system which most city building codes do not allow in residential neighborhoods.
Problem: City officials around the country must now be convinced that all that high voltage around homes is not that dangerous. The bigger problem for Nissan is projecting sales for the car. As one car writer describes the gamble:

If he wins, Renault-Nissan wins huge. If he loses, Mr. Ghosn will go down in history as the biggest CEO goat since Tony Hayward

3. Wireless transmissions – The “Smart Grid” is the future in micro managing reductions in energy usage.  An essential part of the grid are the smart meters which constantly transmit data to power companies.
Problem: Unfounded fears of health issues related to the devices have slowed their rollout in California.  One problem region is around environmentally conscious San Francisco. 4,169 people complained about smart meters in the Bay Area versus 78 in the greater San Diego area during the same period. 

2. Fragile Desert Habitats – California’s large uninhabited desert expanses are prime locations for solar farms.
Problem: Many of the best solar project sites are home to delicate ecosystems that will be impacted by the construction of solar panels. Environmental groups forced Washington lawmakers to designate only limited portions of Federal desert for solar development. The recently approved Beacon Solar project won environmentalist support because it was located on private property next to existing electrical infrastructure and will use municipal water supplies, qualities most desert solar projects do not possess.

1. NIMBYs – New infrastructure must be constructed to connect remote renewable energy sources to city users.
Problem: Many Californians are supporters of clean energy until the infrastructure is built in their backyard. The state is littered with clean energy projects stalled or killed due to objections from local residents. Some have objected to the installation of unsightly solar panels in residential neighborhoods.  A related threat comes from BANANA’s (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).

Mr. Kellog frames the issue and his union’s support of Prop 23 in closing:

We need to do something about global warming. But we don’t need to kick California workers while they’re down to do it. With more than 2.2 million Californians out of work, we can’t afford AB32′s excessive costs, at least not now.

Part of those excessive costs is green energy’s questionable ability to generate enough long-term job growth in California to cover losses.

In Search of a Green Middle Ground

The author of the book “The Skeptical Environmentalist” made headlines recently when he declared global warming “one of the chief concerns facing the world today.”   Bjorn Lomborg is often viewed as a global warming “denier” so his statement was considered a reversal of his position by some. 

Lomborg gained notoriety for his innovative approach to analyzing the costs and benefits of various investments in solving world problems.   His analysis showed that one dollar spent on fighting malnutrition yields $20 in benefits.  Every dollar spent cutting carbon produces much less than a dollar of reduction in global warming damage.   As a result, cutting carbon was near the bottom of the list of investments. 

Seeking alternatives, in 2009 he convened a group to analyze potential solutions to climate change beyond reducing carbon emissions.   The group found that R&D expenditures in green energy technologies and geo-engineering were the most economically feasible in reducing climate change damage. 

Lomborg explains the difficulty of this rational approach:

The fact that I’ve always asserted the reality of man-made climate change never seemed to make an impression on my critics. What mattered was that I had the temerity to question two key tenets of the received wisdom about global warming: …the idea that we were facing the apocalypse, and …that the only solution was to mandate drastic cuts in carbon emissions.

That’s the way it is with heresy—there is no middle ground. Either you believe global warming is the worst problem mankind has ever faced and that cutting carbon is the only solution, or you are an antiscientific ignoramus who probably thinks the Earth is flat. 

His advice to those seeking a middle ground on climate change: “make green energy so cheap everyone wants it.”

 

Fuel cell installation at the 100% energy self-sufficient Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico.

 

One person who would agree is T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. and chairman of SunPower Corp. in San Jose.  Using a combination of solar panels and fuel cells, his company is saving $75,000 a year in energy bills with the goal to be 100% energy self-sufficient by 2015.   Rodgers’ motivation is return on investment:

“I’m not into green for its own sake,” he explains. “I’m an engineer looking for solutions, and looking to do what’s best for shareholders. As an investor, I’m also an early adopter.”

 As an investor in green energy projects, Rodgers welcomes Federal subsidies but only for start up costs:

 “They allow alternative energy enterprises to ramp up. But they have to go away. These companies have to be economically independent.” 

The problem with Uncle Sam’s take on venture capitalism is its unwillingness to cut funding of flawed energy business models.  (Think ethanol subsidies.)  It is much easier to laud successful green investments than to unwind poor ones.   This investment inefficiency drives up the cost of green energy.

Supporters of Proposition 23 who believe a carbon tax is an inefficient means to transition to clean energy are often treated like Bjorn Lomborg.   Passing 23 will allow California to adopt his goal to lower clean energy costs through disciplined R&D investments and a streamlined project approval process.

Hopefully California will lead the way by finding the green middle ground in the global warming debate.