Media

Tools & Resources for the media

Supporting AB 32
The California Business Alliance for a Green Economy is reaching out to businesses across the state to build support for a clean energy future in California. Please click here for more information on the economic case for support of AB32.

Get the Facts
AB 32 will help small businesses save on energy costs, create jobs, clean the air, and protect California’s economy from the dangers of climate change. Consider:

• Over the last 35 years, energy efficiency measures have led to $56 billion in household energy savings, spurring about 1.5 million full-time jobs with a total payroll of $45 billion.
• The state’s climate plan is expected to save Californians $2.2 billion in health costs in 2020 as a result of cleaner air.
• If left unchecked, climate change could cost California as much as $47 billion every year in direct damages and put at risk trillions of dollars of real estate, infrastructure, and other assets.

Visit www.ca-greenbizalliance.com for more information.

California Forward and California State Government Reform
If you're interested in learning about California government reform, visit the California Forward website to read the 2010 California Foward Reform Principles.

Economic Profile System, Headwaters Economics
Developed by Headwaters Economics, the Economic Profile System - Human Dimensions Toolkit (EPS-HDT) allows users easily to produce free, detailed socioeconomic profiles at a variety of geographic scales. With the help of the Forest Service and continued support from the Bureau of Land Management, Headwater Economics is significantly upgrading EPS-HDT. County reports remain available in PDF and new tools coming in late Summer 2010 will include detailed information on specific areas such as Mining and Energy, Agriculture, the Service Sector, and Demographics. All of these tools will be available in both Excel 2003 and Excel 2007. Click here to access.

Land Use Planning Tools and Reports
Read Local Land Use Planning and Climate Change Policy: Summary report from focus groups and interviews with local officials in the Intermountain West, a policy paper by David Metz and Curtis Below courtesy of the Lincoln Institute of Land Use Policy. 

Also, read the most recent policy paper from the UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy & the Environment and the UCLA Environmental Law Center: Remove Roadblocks, How to make sustainable development happen now.

Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition
Representatives of business and conservation groups from California and other western states have been working in Washington D.C. to support economic stimulus policy recommendations that include ways to create green jobs for rural communities, which currently suffer the highest unemployment rates in the state — and the nation. Click here to read the 2010 position papers on the following: Private Lands, Rural Green Jobs, Stewardship Contracting, Stimuls Green Economy, Thermal Biomass, and Climate Change.

Blogs we like:
Sierra Business Council's Planning, Forestry & Carbon, and Energy Efficiency Blog
Dot Earth by Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times
Sierra Summit by Tom Knudson of the Sacramento Bee
The Basin: Community Blog for Lake Tahoe Region
Saving the Sierra Blog
Rural Climate Change Policy - A web resource on climate change policy for rural communities and landscapes in the Western U.S.
The Hive by John Holland from the Modesto Bee

Please contact SBC's Community Network Director, Michael Penwarden, at mpenwarden@sbcouncil.org for more information current projects and interview requests with Sierra Business Council staff and board.