Letters Letters (October 12, 2005)

For the birds

Editor,

Trips to the Baylands are adventure. Amateurs like us never know whether we will find 10 white pelicans, 100 or none at all. Will we find black-crowned night herons in the reeds; godwits in the pond?

Even amateurs, however, recognize that the treasures of the Baylands are a responsibility as well as a pleasure. Birds from the entire Western hemisphere stop here on their travels. What we do as responsible or irresponsible stewards affects bird populations everywhere in the Western world. Birds rely on undisturbed wetlands to rest and recover -- and in some cases to breed.

Putting auto dealerships in the Baylands is not responsible stewardship. Replacing the long-established Municipal Services Center with its low usage, low noise and low lights with auto lots means harming the habitat.

First there will be bulldozers. Then if we succeed in attracting successful auto dealers, there will be large, lighted signs and heavy traffic. The area available to birds will be worse and it will be smaller. Birds ignore the municipal boundaries, often nesting and resting on municipal land.

Bern Beecham claims the auto center will improve the sensitive Baylands interface and offer a major improvement over the city maintenance and construction trucks that park there now. True only if the city invests major funding to attract auto dealers and persuades them to ignore corporate requirements for lighting and traffic access.

Not likely.

Beecham warns against myths. His own myth is more dangerous: He suggests it will be easy and inexpensive to attract successful auto dealers to a sensitively designed Baylands interface.

Suppose we pursue this plan. We will spend lots of money, auto dealers will drive a hard bargain and birds will suffer. Even more than IKEA, auto dealers rely on signage to draw business. And after investing massively to attract dealers, we will no longer have leverage.

Probably we will lose money on the venture and in its course, birds and other creatures of the wetlands will suffer. Investing heavily to replace low traffic with high traffic in that area is a terrible idea.

We deserve better from our public servants.
Rega Wood, Sue Thiemann, Allen Wood and William Faustman
Greer Road and Thomas Drive
Palo Alto

Candidate clears the air

Editor,

I am writing in response to recent queries about my remarks on intelligent design, as quoted in the Oct. 5 issue of the Palo Alto Weekly.

I want to be very clear: Intelligent design is not science. I do not think that intelligent design is in any way a scientific substitute for the theory of evolution, nor should it be taught as scientific fact.

As a Stanford-trained engineer, I know the importance of rigorous scientific method and I stand by it. In addition, I stand by the Constitutional principle of separation of church and state and I would never support using public schools to preach religious views.

Nonetheless, our students are hearing about intelligent design through the media. When I discussed inclusion of the topic in our classrooms, it was because I believe there is value in analyzing what is and isn't scientific theory.

Our teachers rightly include discussion of many controversial, value-laden topics -- not to indoctrinate our students but to arm them to think critically and constructively about the social issues we all face. I consider such discussion fundamental to a free society.

But that does not mean that I think that intelligent design should be presented as a scientific alternative for evolution.

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify my position. I do not support teaching intelligent design in our classrooms, but neither would I ban all mention of it. In the end, I believe our students gain a greater appreciation for science by understanding what isn't science and why -- and they become better-informed citizens as well.
Dana Tom, PAUSD school board candidate
Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto

Conservation solution

Editor,

While I agree with Nicole Lederer (Guest Opinion, Oct. 5) that we will need to step-up our leadership and entrepreneurial efforts if we are to move America towards a new and more sustainable energy future, we can not forget the low-tech, ultra low-cost effectiveness of conservation.

At the Peninsula Conservation Center (PCC), home to nine local environmental groups (Acterra, Loma Prieta chapter of the Sierra Club, Environmental Volunteers and the Committee for Green Foothills, to name a few), we have cut our electricity use by more than two-thirds, mostly by conservation.

With the savings from these efforts, we are easily paying the very modest premium to buy green electricity from the City of Palo Alto. These conservation efforts also demonstrate that people can do things today in their own homes which are a practical solution to what is becoming one of our most pressing environmental problems of our time -- the need for sustainable energy.

Just this last April the PCC purchased renewable energy certificates also known as "green tags" to off-set our natural gas use, and we are still paying less for energy then we were in 2001. Moreover, we are now carbon neutral in our operations. Much more then being just Kyoto compliant, being carbon neutral adds no additional CO2 to the atmosphere.

So let's remember the easiest and most cost-effective solution to our energy problems: conservation.
David Coale, Building Manager for the PCC and Acterra board member
East Bayshore Road
Palo Alto

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