I almost didn't go because of the rain. Then there was a break in it, and I thought "why not?" When I left home it was drizzling again, but it stopped soon after. I got there at about the same time as this "busycle", the nearest thing to a large pedal powered machine I've ever seen.

  

Not long after that the Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto of Palo Alto greeted us. She explained that the day serves two purposes, a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Mitchell Park, and Step It Up 2007.

     

The crowd wasn't as big as it would have been on a sunny day, but it was still a good scene.

  

The electric scooter dealer was giving people rides around the parking lot after the weather cleared up a bit. There was also an electric bike dealer.

  

     

The prepared Step It Up event was kicked off by this Ohlone Elder, who thanked mother earth for being there, and for the rain because we need it. She also thanked all of us for coming to the event. The woman that introduced her worked the crowd with a bundle of smoldering aromatic sage, offering all who wanted it a whiff of the smoke. The net effect of it all was to make us feel much more connected.

The next speaker was this Stanford Professor Terry Root, who has been studying the effects of global warming on the ecosystem for years. She explained that the easiest place for gardeners to see the impact is in their daffodils, which bloom noticeably earlier than they used to. As a scientist she has seen lots of verifiable evidence that global warming is good for some species and bad for others. She explained that even if we stop using fossil fuels RIGHT NOW, there is still going to be at least one more degree of warming. She urged all of us to do what we can to cut further fossil fuel energy consumption.

This guy was working with cool cities to get city governments on the peninsula to buy into doing something about their energy consumption. Click here for more information.

     

Assembly Member Ira Ruskin made a few gracious comments before telling us about five of the bills he has before the State Assembly. One is a revenue neutral bill that would add a tax to gas guzzling cars and use the money to give people incentives to buy fuel efficient vehicles, "so the marketplace will send the right kind of signal." Another is a bill to make Cal EPA collect the statistics for California companies the Bush Administration is stopping the EPA in Washington from collecting nationally. People gave him a good hand when he thanked us for our attention.

Debbie Mytels said that Acterra is starting a green@home program to help the rest of the community be part of the solution. Green teams would visit peoples homes to do energy audits, and make small changes that could improve energy consumption. Things like installing three compact florescent light bulbs, a programmable thermostat, and flow restrictors in faucets and shower heads if people want them. The program would start after the rally with precinct walking in midtown Palo Alto to get the word out on it. She finished her speech by asking us all to help out. Click here for more information.

  

        

Bruce Karney told me that the Mountain View Solar Buyers Club has now gotten enough members that they are qualified for the highest discount that the solar panel dealers offer. Click here for more info.



The last people to take the stage were the Raging Grannies, who lead us in song. Click their picture to see the songs we sang.

  

These water bottles were on the Acterra table. They were there there to show in a relative way how much energy is used to get these bottles to a point of sale counter in Palo Alto. The Calistoga water uses the least energy because it comes the shortest distance, from somewhere else in California. The waters from New Zealand and France use much more because of the shipping. The Trinity water from Idaho contained the most energy expense because it was trucked from Idaho, which uses much more energy than ocean shipping.

 

As the last of the crowd trickled away, I helped pedal the busycle back to it's parking place in the driveway of the owner. Along the way Carol talked about the buttons on her hat. The green alien was from a Russian event she had gone to more than a decade before. It had been so inspiring that she had started her Bio-intensive for Russia thing after that. Click here for more info.