The Ventura County Public Health Division recently coordinated a seminar titled Global Warming, Our Health in the Balance: What Can We Do? Speakers, including Dr. Robert Levin of the Public Health Division, who moderated the event, drew lots of applause when the panel made the transition from analysis of climate change impacts to exhortations for individual and group action to address environmental problems.

The presentation at the County Government Center drew hundreds of people, including many county employees who filtered in and out of the room during lunch breaks.

Of the speakers at the event, perhaps county Supervisor Steve Bennett drew the most applause with two of his responses to questions from the audience.

When asked to speak about challenges in fighting climate change, the following was Bennett's response (as paraphrased, based on my notes):

n Changing habits: Even people with the best of intentions may have a hard time changing unsustainable patterns of the past.

For example, the plastic water bottles provided to panelists at this workshop require bottle manufacturing facilities and cause water to be trucked many miles, while water is easily available from drinking fountains right down the hall.

n Working democratically: If you want something to happen in a dictatorship, you have to convince only one guy.

Here, we recognize the benefits of democracy, and to work within it, we have to convince a lot of people. Unless we make a great case and present options at the right time, people will vote out politicians addressing long-term goals at the expense of short-term needs.

For example, perhaps a gas tax could have been passed when fuel prices were going down, with resulting revenues used for building an alternative energy infrastructure, but passing a gas tax today would be much harder.

n Overcoming special interests: Wealthy donors with special interests have lots of influence in our system because they can be in the right place at the right time, with access to the most influential people.

For example, they talk to committee chairmen or chairwomen when the details of legislation are being finalized, and details can make a big difference.

n Accounting for economic realities: When Sen. George Mitchell negotiated the Good Friday Accord that brought peace to Northern Ireland after centuries of fighting, he emphasized that solutions have to address underlying economic issues. Parents want to feed their kids.

On the issue of climate change, people may not want to make economic sacrifices for the benefit of others suffering from coastal inundation, tropical diseases, wildfires or floods.

That is why it is important to use pricing signals to connect actions to consequences.

Accepting true market forces in this case requires accurate pricing of environmental resources. People take advantage of things that are free.

When it was free to pollute air and water, pollution was common.

When it is free to increase carbon in the atmosphere, despite costs imposed on others, we get climate change.

When asked to address the role of local government in climate change, Bennett outlined a long list of county actions and then drew applause with the following commentary (again, paraphrased from my notes):

Because state and federal restrictions prevent many things we might want to do on the local level, response to climate change is not always a local government issue, but government in general definitely has a role.

We create government to solve problems as a group that we can't solve better as individuals.

On the television show "Nova" in the 1980s, I remember it addressing climate change and saying we should act now because by 2010 it will be far more difficult to address.

Unfortunately, when things go wrong and resources are short, people take care of themselves first and tend to devote less to public needs. Leaders have to come up with good policies that people will support.

On the Net:

http://www.climatechange.ca.gov

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange

— David Goldstein is an environmental resource analyst for the county of Ventura. Representatives of government or nonprofit agencies that want to submit articles on environmental topics for this column should contact Goldstein at 658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.