Our 'get-green' zeal has limits

Interesting development from the city's recent gathering that asked Tracy residents to prioritize the best of 85 ideas to help the city get greener.

The most popular, according to this Press report, was for the city of Tracy to give financial incentives for residents to install solar panels to power their homes and reduce electricity bills.

This, even though Tracy's biggest greenhouse gas emissions problem — by far — comes from its road-bound traffic.

An estimated 63 percent of Tracy's greenhouse gas emissions come from traffic. No surprise, given that the vast majority of our town's adults must travel elsewhere to find gainful employment.

That would logically suggest that the best way for the city to meet the state goal of reducing GGE to 1990 levels by 2020 would be to curtail the pollution spewed out the tailpipes of local drivers. But that's not what the drivers said at the "think green" meeting. Again, no surprise.

We (and yes, I'm including myself in this) generally don't want to change our own lives if it's an inconvenience, even if that change is better for the world and our community. Especially when it comes to our cars, such a road-loving culture we have become.

Compare changing driving habits to having someone help you pay for a valuable home improvement that lowers your bills, and it's a no-brainer which suggestion is going to win.

Which means asking for the "get-green" priorities of residents is great as a tool to figure out what kind of change folks would actually get behind, but not necessarily so stellar at figuring out what reforms would best solve the problem at hand.

The puck stops here

The Stockton Thunder minor league hockey team has a new owner. Thankfully, it has the same old place to call home.

According to an interview in the Stockton Record, new owner Brad Rowbotham said the team is "definitely not moving" -- to which this sometimes hockey fan breathes a sigh of relief.

Even if you're not a puckhead, there are few better ways to spend a winter evening in San Joaquin County than at the Stockton Arena ice rink watching the Thunder. It's cheap (if you don't buy beer) and entertaining as heck. If you've only watched hockey on TV and written it off, give it a go in person. You'd be amazed at what powerful, agile athletes these guys are.

Besides, where else can you see grown men brawl on pink ice?

A little more to puff on

Today's column (it should be the top story on this page) talks about the likelihood of a medical marijuana dispensary opening in Tracy.

It probably won't happen anytime soon, but if it was a more realistic possibility, I'd say "Why not?" — especially if it's a business that goes through the trouble of trying to get the proper permit and trying to operate on the up-and-up.

Then again, I say "why not?" when it comes to across-the-board legalization, too. So maybe I'm not the guy to ask.

Frankly, much of the concern about marijuana use is as overblown now as it was back in the day. In fact, when compared with legal (not to mention big-business) drugs like alcohol, it's hard to tell exactly what the danger is.

OK, so we don't want children to get their hands on it and, as the colloquialism goes, "smoke themselves stoopid." Of course, we don't want minors getting cigarettes or alcohol and rotting their lungs and pickling their livers, either. So there are not-insignificant penalties for providing such goodies to kiddies.

Still, admittedly, Marlboro Reds and fifths of Jaeger find their way into plenty of young hands. News flash: so does pot. In 2009, it got into the hands of 32 percent of 12th graders and nearly 12 percent of 8th graders.

Doesn't it seem like those billions of dollars to wage war on the herb have been very effective, does it?

Ironically, regulating marijuana's cultivation, harvest and sale could actually generate significant tax revenue for our currently cash-strapped government. Not to mention the resources it could silmultaneously free up — imgaine, police free of the burden of marijuana enforcement, prison and court rolls eased, a couple fewer sports stars forced to make meaningless apologies.

This is not to say that, should marijuana be legalized, a life devoted to reefer should be condoned. Alcoholism is a serious problem for society, families and individuals. So is cigarette use. In truth, overuse of anything can do serious harm. There should be limits on weed, even if it's legalized — I know I don't want super-stoned motorists getting anywhere near my '66 Rustbucket.

Which is why, legalization or no, there will always be a place for programs like DARE and laws enforcing sensible limits of use.

But thinking that everyone is going to Just Say No when it comes to pot — or even that it's the sensible thing to ask in the first place — is simply unrealistic.

Healthy *cough* living in *hack* San Joaquin

It's a bad blow to our county's public health that San Joaquin General Hospital is bleeding money and might lose personnel, be sold or even close.

SJ General serves a population that usually goes without medical care otherwise and helps make manageable a patient load that would otherwise swamp area hospitals. (For more on that, click here.)

The importance of SJ General's role in our local continuum of care is even more apparent after the release of a University of Wisconsin report detailing the health of the nation's counties. While ranking 53rd of 56 California counties in Health Behaviors and 50th in Social and Economic Factors, San Joaquin County ranks 39th in the Clinical Care category.

San Joaquin's spot at No. 51 of 56 in overall Health Factors and No. 38 of 56 in terms of Health Outcomes aren't good, but I'd anticipate we'd sink even lower without good ol' SJ General.

Water watchers, you're not going to believe this...

Thank you, Los Angeles Times. Your editorial board is, by my estimation, the first of any major publication to understand what's going on when it comes to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the pumping projects that are draining it of life.

Your board seems to get that the Western Central Valley was never a sustainable farm operation in the first place, and that Sen. Dianne Feinstein's attempt to deliver water in a custom package to these farmers amounts to a big middle finger to everyone else who relies on or lives in the Delta.

Alert readers, check out the startlingly sane editorial here. (And, if you must, contrast it to the usual rhetoric-laden exhortations, which cite the Endangered Species Act as the favored bogeyman despite an arm's-length list of culprits for the Western Central Valley's water "crisis".)

Stock rising for Peaker Plant expansion

According to the Central Valley Business Times, the expansion of the Tracy Peaker Plant cleared another hurdle recently.

GWF wants to turn the 169-megawatt peaker facility — which powers up and down according to energy demand on the grid — into a full-time facility pumping out up to 314 megawatts. (More on that from the Press' editorial board here.)

Mythbusting — San Joaquin Delta style

Restore the Delta has unleashed this myth vs. fact sheet in an effort to counter the massive amounts of bad information regarding water pumping and water use in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

You won't find this information in most news reports, so widespread is the misinformation about Delta water use, especially when it comes to what water is pumped out to Places Previously Unwatered.

Please, read it. Be more educated than your senator.