Mike Kantor, Environment California, presents report findings. Other presenters (from left): Senator Fran Pavley, Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, Dr. Glen MacDonald

Environment California’s analysis of U.S. Department of Energy data show California carbon dioxide emissions up 10 percent from 1990 to 2007, placing it second nationwide for emissions. “More pollution than ever before is not a record we want to set,” said Mike Kantor, the policy group’s federal field organizer. On the positive side, the analysis showed that California ranks 45th in fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions per capita, reflecting the state’s high energy efficiency standards and programs that curb increases in energy consumption.

The state’s third year of record drought, population growth, energy use going for water treatment and transport, the rise in sea levels, the potential for salt water intrusion into freshwater supplies, and the growing number and devastation of wildfires all demonstrate the need for quick action, declared Senator Pavley, who chairs California’s Natural Resource and Water Committee. The cost of doing nothing to combat global warming is very high; she warned of declining property values, a loss of watershed, and high firefighting costs borne by local governments.

Assemblyman Krekorian said he would continue to press for the California Air Resources Board’s goal of getting 33 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources. Although upfront costs are high, “Once we establish a renewable energy infrastructure, the fuel is free.” AB 64, Krekorian’s bipartisan-supported bill with the most aggressive renewable energy standard in the world, was recently vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

Dr. MacDonald said he was glad to see the basic term pollution in Environment California’s report title. “Greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning – are serious pollution.” He stressed the usefulness of the new report for policymaking at state and federal levels, and thanked Pavley and Krekorian for their commitment to ending fossil fuel dependence and combating its adverse effects.

Upcoming posts will cover detailed findings in the report, along with background on Environment California and the Institute of the Environment.

On my way to UCLA, from 3-4 in the afternoon, they read from California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring’s expense reports. Expecting the Republican Party to oppose ballot propositions raising state taxes, they were wondering on air what justified thousands of dollars in hotel bills (including one from a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee) and other expenditures paid for by California Republican Party donations. What on earth does justify them, and what justifies state government jobs given to politicians’ relatives and family members (as reported this morning in the LA Times)?

It must be just business as usual; although one would think that the magnitude of this economic crisis would be forcing even government and its associated sister industries to tighten their belts. Those who tell out of work job-seekers to look in the government sector know what they are talking about.

John and Ken went on to salute KNBC reporter and Glendale resident Conan Nolan, who confronted Governor Schwarznegger yesterday at a Monterey Park anti-gang rally, asking him to comment on his low approval numbers and on polls showing voters turning against the tax hike ballot propositions. John and Ken contended that this portion of the news conference was actually excised from the governor’s office transcript of the rally and news conference. It doesn’t appear to be on KNBC’s website, either.

On the way back to Glendale, I tuned in to hear about a small protest in Oakland in support of the memory of the criminal who gunned down four police officers there. This blog can’t do justice to the rhetorical skill with which the KFI commentators rebutted the spokesperson’s claims that racial discrimination justified their stand.

Those of us who don’t spend a lot of time battling traffic on the freeways fighting traffic may be missing some things…

The academicians who spoke at UCLA raised important points about Armenian and other diasporas and their effect on “receiving countries” politics. They also supplied interesting historical facts.

Canadian professor Aida Boudjikanian, who conducted extensive research in France, contended that Armenian causes are well-recognized in France, both academically and politically, because a number of Armenians there became prominent scholars in the 1970s. These scholars focused academic work on Armenian political issues and the Armenian diaspora in France, bringing them to the attention of the larger public.

Buenos Aires University professor Nelida Boulghourdjian discussed Argentina’s efforts to study the tension and dynamics between Armenian settlers and its receiving society in the context of its very open immigration policy dating from the early 20th century.

Sossie Kasbarian, currently with the Graduate Institue of International and Development Studies of Geneva, quoted a U.K. Ministry of Defense think tank, the Development Concepts and Doctrines Center, on the subject of diasporas. Its Global Strategic Trends Programme says this (among other things) about diaspora communities on page 10:

Diaspora communities and their networks will be dynamic and unpredictable features of the political, demographic and economic aspects of globalization.

Physical and cultural origin will continue to be significant to identity, but will be employed increasingly selectively, based on their utility in context and in relation to personal interest.

Her main point was that in the recent past “diaspora studies” were not taken seriously, but at the present time they are being closely studied as nations observe flourishing diasporic identities “extending to every ‘de-territorialized’ group beyond the historical diasporas of Jews, Greeks, and Armenians.” Multiple allegiances, of course, are viewed with suspicion by national security elites.

City University of New York professor Anny Bakalian told the audience that while the U.S. Armenian diaspora is the largest and most affluent in the world, it is mostly invisible. She cited low numbers of Armenian-American politicians and prominent business people, and decried the lack of academic scholarship on the U.S. Armenian diaspora, which she said could (as the Canadian professor argued it did in France) raise the community’s visibility in American society. I went up and told her afterwards about Glendale’s upcoming elections and encouraged her to send scholars here.

In her historical perspective, Dr. Bakalian discussed the 1910 U.S. Census, when the U.S. government put Japanese and Chinese immigrants into a new category, “Asiatic.” Census personnel didn’t know what to do with Armenians, and considered classifying them as “Asiatic” as well, which would have prevented them from gaining U.S. citizenship. The classification was fought, and defeated (1909 in re Halladjian), at the Court of Appeals level.

Dr. Bakalian’s conclusion about the current U.S. (and Southern California) diaspora: Symbolic Armenianness is being preserved; Armenians exhibit strong ethnic identity and pride in their ancestry; they exhibit overwhelming support for the Republic of Armenia; U.S. and Turkish recognition of the Armenian genocide is a unifying issue; and the percentage of their college-bound population in the U.S. is identical to native-born American rates.

As a Glendale resident, I can’t agree with Bakalian that Armenians are nearly invisible in American society. Scholars should come to Glendale to study the eagerness and tenacity of naturalized Armenian citizens involved in the American democratic process in this city.

Khachig Tölölyan, editor of the academic journal Diaspora, moderated the Thursday panel. Seminars continue today and Saturday at UCLA. The complete schedule of events, open to the public, is here.