WOMEN IN THE HALLS OF POWER
by Peggy Lauer

When the dust settled after the 2010 elections, fewer women stood in the nation’s halls of power than the previous year. In fact, 2010 brought about the first decline in the number of Congresswomen in 30 years.  

What happened?  Were there fewer women running?  Did more women incumbents get turned out or did they decide not to run again?  Were there fewer open seats?   Did they have difficulty raising money?  The most important question going forward is:  What needs to change so that women represent half of Congress and the majority of governors and state legislators? Women are putting these and other questions under the political microscope, looking for a cure.  

I learned from a few advocates who support women candidates that voters believe – incorrectly, of course – that the number of men and women in Congress is roughly equal. Most people have heard the statistic that women make up a majority of the U.S. population, but have no idea that the actual percentage of women in Congress is only 17%­ of the total members, the same level it has been for the past several years. 

According to research by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University, the women on Capitol Hill seem to be serving their constituents well.  Congressional women bring home more resources for their districts than their male counterparts, and introduce more legislation. So what’s really at issue here?

To get some ideas, I joined in a discussion with over 50 women this past March at an event co-hosted by California List. The organization is seeking input from women all over the state to develop winning strategies for Democrats in the 2012 elections.   Current local and state legislators, political activists, academics, and concerned citizens met in the home of Barbara Bry, founder of Run Women Run, a San Diego-based nonprofit encouraging more pro-choice women to run.   Our discussion was facilitated by California List Executive Director Bettina Duval, who founded the state version of EMILY’s List (a national fundraising organization for Democratic, pro-choice women candidates), which she also helped create.

Bettina drew out several reasons for why men and women are not electing more women, including:

1. Women are not perceived as mainstream politicians;
2.  Family obligations are thought to make women less effective politically;
3.  It’s more difficult for female candidates to raise re-election funds because their women supporters tend to have less money to contribute; and,
4. Latina politicians and other women of color feel pressure to ‘take turns’ running for office instead of increasing their numbers. 

 Turning the tide will take time, but these and other groups are re-doubling their efforts to find and train candidates in the wake of this setback, and to take advantage of results of the 2010 US Census.  

The non-partisan Rachel's Network, a national nonprofit network of women conservation philanthropists, has partnered with The 2012 Project, a campaign of CAWP, to identify talented women leaders aged 45 and over to run for political office in 2012.  The goal is to inspire already accomplished women from underrepresented fields–including the environment–and connect them to campaign training programs and resources that will help them win elections. 

The 2012 Project started by Mary Hughes of Staton Hughes and housed at CAWP, is focused on the redrawing of all state and federal legislative districts in accordance with the 2010 Census, inevitably creating new, open seats.  Redistricting benefits women candidates of all political parties by creating opportunity—historically,women have had more success winning open seats.

Emerge California provides training for Democratic women in the Bay Area, and the umbrella organization they started a couple of years ago, Emerge America, covers the needs of nine state-based training programs. As Rachel’s Network and CAWP are looking to those who have lots of experience in different fields,  some Emerge program veterans are focusing on training and mentoring young women in high school and college through a new program called “Ignite.” The idea of course is to deepen the bench over time.

WELL is interested in making government more cooperative and holistic for men and women alike, and we believe a critical mass of women electeds can help make the shift happen.

PROFILE
WELL NETWORK CO-CHAIR MARY CROWLEY
FINDING SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF OCEAN PLASTICS

Plastic trash is killing the world’s oceans.  It’s a problem that WELL Network’s co-chair Mary Crowley, a life-long sailor, has seen grow steadily worse in her years at sea.

Mary reckons she has logged more than 80,000 miles of ocean travel.  She arranges yacht charters to destinations world wide, and is founder of the nonprofit Ocean Voyages Institute, dedicated to maritime education and the environment. 

In 2008 she began Project Kaisei, named for her 151-foot, square-rigged tall ship, The Kaisei, which she has twice sailed to the North Pacific Gyre, 1,500 miles off the coast of California, where swirling ocean currents have carried plastic trash from around the Pacific Rim. 

Often described as an “island” of garbage, the plastic trash is actually more like an “archipelago”— fields of plastic trash scattered across the mid-Pacific from California to Asia. 

In 2009 and 2010, students, marine biologists, oceanographers, sailors and engineers aboard The Kaisei documented an assortment of plastics thousands of miles from land. Here the crew observed drifting “ghost nets,” some weighing tons, ensnaring garbage along with sea life, and collected an array of discarded plastics--water bottles, laundry detergent containers, toys, car parts, toothbrushes, hardhats, and packaging materials. “The kind of stuff we all use everyday,” says Mary.

Complicating the already complex problem are “micro plastics,” tiny remnants of trash broken down by years of sun and wave action that float like confetti on the surface of the water.  These, along with bottle caps and Bic lighters have been found in the stomachs of dead whales, sea turtles, and colonies of Albatross—large sea birds that mistake the floating plastic bits for the fish eggs they feed to their chicks. “Every water sample we took contained micro plastics,” says Mary. “There’s no doubt it’s in the food web, and ultimately eaten by us.”

Some say cleaning up the garbage in the gyre is impossible, but Mary is convinced we have to try. She’s working with scientists and maritime professionals to design equipment that can collect and recycle the trash at sea, and envisions hiring fisherman—many now sidelined because of declines in fish stocks—to harvest plastics instead.  

But keeping plastic out of the oceans in the first place is the real goal.  An estimated 300 tons of plastics are produced every year, much of it for one-time use. Only 5 percent is ever recycled.

“We need integrated policies that encourage individuals, industry, and governments to use as few plastics as possible and recycle what we do use,“ says Mary. “We’ll all part of the problem. It’s up to all of us to work together to solve it.”

LEARN MORE:
NPR: http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00031&segmentID=2
Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0510/A-passion-to-clean-up-the-Pacific-Ocean-s-great-garbage-patch

"...I strongly believe there needs to be a systematic way to address these types of concerns where California's scientists can work together with experts from throughout the world to evaluate the health effects of chemicals, assess the risks they pose, and ensure that the safety of possible alternatives receives the same consideration." Peggy Lauer Executive Director, WELL Network

SAN DIEGO READY TO LEAD GREEN ECONOMY
This op ed by WELL Network Executive Director Peggy Lauer was published in the North County Times, serving San Diego and Riverside counties.

WELL Network and  a broad coalition including Communities Against the Dirty Energy Prop, green businesses, venture capitalists, George Shultz, James Cameron, and regional networks of businesses and nonprofits, joined together to defeat Proposition 23 to keep California’s landmark climate law, AB 32 on track. There were media blitzes and editorials in the state’s dailies, including one by WELL Network Executive Director Peggy Lauer.  In her recent op ed in the North County Times, Peggy wrote: "We can't afford to be arguing about jobs vs. environment any longer.  We need to be figuring out how California can become a global leader in green technology, clean up our air, and develop a comprehensive vision for the future.”  
Read more.



REPORT CALLS ON CALIFORNIA TO PLAN FOR SUSTAINABILITY

In 2009 WELL Network and our partners brought together more than forty leaders from business, government, nonprofit organizations, and foundations for the Fort Baker Leadership Summits, held in Sausalito, California. Participants developed a vision and set of guiding principles, as the basis for its report, “Re-Imagining California, A Sustainable Future for the Golden State,” which makes recommendations to state policymakers for addressing California's sustainability. For printed copies of the report, contact Plauer@WellNetwork.org.

WELL NETWORK'S SYLVIA MCLAUGHLIN FEATURED IN PBS DOCUMENTARY

In 1961, WELL Network Honorary Board Member Sylvia McLaughlin, and two colleagues, Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick founded the “Save  San Francisco Bay Association,” now known simply as Save The Bay. They wanted to stop a plan to fill in the Bay shoreline, and began to drum up support by collecting $1 membership dues from friends and neighbors. They convinced thousands of people to support their cause, and eventually won. Their fight, the first grassroots environmental movement in the Bay Area, convinced many people to look at the Bay in a new way. Sylvia, tells her story in the new documentary "Saving the Bay," that recently premiered on KQED, the Bay Area's public television station. Narrated by Robert Redford, the four-part series focuses on the geological, cultural, and developmental history of the Bay and the larger northern California watershed, from the Sierra Nevada mountains to the Farallon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. http://www.kqed.org/SavingTheBay


Photo: Sylvia McLaughlin, a founder of Save San Francisco Bay Association, was honored at a screening of “Saving the Bay,” a 4-part public television documentary about the history of the Bay and efforts to protect it.


NEW REPORT CITES BENEFITS OF GREEN PLANNING TO CALIFORNIA BUSINESSES

For Immediate Release: October 14, 2008 For more information, contact: Peggy Lauer, Executive Director, WELL Network 415-299-0791, Plauer@wellnetwork.org Sarah Gardner, Public Relations Director, Dominican University of California, 415-485-3239, sarah.gardner@dominican.edu

A new report, "A California Green Plan: Making the Case for Business," finds that overlapping environmental regulations and agencies are hampering the state's business climate.

The 50-page report, produced by Dominican University of California’s School of Business and Leadership with funding from the Fred Gellert Family Foundation, credits green planning—a comprehensive and integrated management approach to environmental sustainability—for strengthening the economies of the European Union and other nations. A California green plan, the report suggests, would help the state by consolidating functions, leveraging technologies, and creating clear authority and accountability. The report will be presented at the Green Plans in Action conference on Thursday, October 16 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael. The conference, sponsored by the Resource Renewal Institute, comes as California begins to implement the pioneering Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32. More than 100 government, business, academic, and environmental leaders will join international experts in green planning, to focus on how government and business can work together to create a green planning framework for managing the causes of climate change.

“A comprehensive, large-scale, and committed approach to solving environmental, health, and economic issues is the way to make progress,” said Sarah Diefendorf, executive director of the Environmental Finance Center for Environmental Protection Agency Region 9, an advisor on the 'Case for Business" report. The costs of inaction on environmental issues and the resulting crises should outweigh the temptation to do nothing.” "The foundation commissioned the report because we want to offer practical and proven ideas to policymakers, businesses, and environmental grant makers to solve the environmental crisis," said Annette Gellert, co-chair of the Fred Gellert Family Foundation, which funded the report. "Other nations have successfully used green planning for more than twenty years. We believe that if California were to learn from and adopt these principles, it would become a model for the U.S. and other nations," she added. The report states that, like many companies, California has gone through mergers and acquisitions, leadership changes, rightsizing, unprecedented growth and budget constraints. As a result, California’s government has evolved into "silos." This lack of integration limits the effectiveness of the state’s environmental leadership efforts.

For example:

• Four state entities address reducing solid waste in landfills, inhibiting the state’s ability to create a comprehensive waste management program.
  
  
• Pollution prevention is split among three separate programs. There is a lack of emphasis on pollution prevention due to single-issue programs. For example, recycling for bottles and cans is housed at the Department of Conservation while recycling for oil, tires, and e-waste resides at the Waste Management Board.
  
  
• Two agencies—the Revolving Fund at the California State Water Resources Control Board and the Drinking Water Fund at the Department of Health Sciences—operating separately, seek federal water funding, resulting in federal funding below the national average, despite California’s size.
  
  
• California's permitting and licensing processes continue to be a major area of frustration due to complexities, inconsistencies, and long lead times. For example, to open a gas station requires registration, permits, and licenses from nine state departments. A person wanting to open a beauty salon must register or obtain permits and licenses from eight different state entities.
  
  
• California does not have a comprehensive regulatory framework for the regulation of chemicals in consumer products and packaging. As a result, interest groups and policy makers have been attempting to take these safety issues one by one.

When determining the way ahead for the state, business should be part of the solution, said John Stayton, executive director of Dominican’s MBA in Sustainable Enterprise (the GreenMBA). “Businesses bring an understanding of their unique circumstances and familiarity with their stakeholders, and must be at the green planning table from the get-go,” said Stayton. “California’s reputation as a magnet for human resources and ingenuity must be preserved,” said Stayton. “With a proactive approach to green planning, California will become an even more desirable place to live and work, thus attracting the most talented work force.” Lauralee Barbaria, and Nancy Roberts, both students in Dominican’s GreenMBA program, co-authored the report. Dominican's Master of Business Administration in Sustainable Enterprise (GreenMBA) is a graduate business program focused on corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and social justice in a corporate and business context.

The Environmental Finance Center, based at Dominican University, is supported in part by the EPA, and coordinates the development of Green Business Programs for California, Hawaii, Arizona, and Nevada. The Fred Gellert Family Foundation, established in 1958 by Fred Gellert, a prominent San Francisco Bay area developer, homebuilder and philanthropist, funds innovative programs that encourage a sustainable quality of life for present and future generations.
View and download the report: http://www.wellnetwork.org/reports.html