MORE HOMES FOR CALIFORNIANS -- DESPITE THE GREENIES

Plans to build luxury homes on a mesa overlooking the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Huntington Beach won approval Thursday from the California Coastal Commission, ending a 30-year battle that saved the salt marsh from development. Hearthside Homes will build 349 houses and a park on 105 acres overlooking the 1,100-acre Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, which is undergoing a $65-million restoration - the largest such undertaking in Southern California. The project - which has been reduced in size and scope over the years - represents what is expected to be the final skirmish over the wetlands after the fight to preserve it and its mesas.

In 1980, developers planned to build at least 5,700 homes, several marinas and hundreds of acres of commercial buildings on the site, regarded then by builders as little more than degraded mudflats that were better off being developed. Meeting here Thursday, the Coastal Commission voted 11 to 1 in favor of the project, adding more than two dozen conditions the developers must follow.

Though the vote was a landmark moment in the preservation battle, some environmentalists were disappointed by the decision to finally allow development in the Bolsa Chica area. "It's a bitter pill to have the proposed development be approved," said Flossie Horgan, a founding member of the Bolsa Chica Land Trust, which fought to preserve the upland areas of the wetlands. "While we're not excited about it, we are proud that we worked so hard with so many people to do what we've done," Horgan said. Environmentalists expect that the decision will also clear the way for the state to buy 103 acres of the mesa and preserve the land as part of the reserve.

Ed Mountford, Hearthside senior vice president, said 96% of Bolsa Chica was now in public hands and set aside as open space. "I've spent 12 years of my life on this, and I'm very gratified to have the commission finally approve a plan, one that we can live with," he said. Twice Hearthside has submitted and withdrawn plans for the mesa. In October, the company took back its proposal after commissioners raised questions about public access to trails and protecting environmentally sensitive habitat for the southern tar plant, the burrowing owl and eucalyptus trees. As a result, Hearthside dropped its proposal for a gated community to allow the public to drive and park on subdivision streets.

Plans for a private recreation center were scrapped in favor of preserving the southern tar plant. The developer also agreed to filter storm water on site rather than build retention basins that would have interfered with burrowing owl habitat. The biggest debate Thursday was over how much buffer space should be required between the planned homes and the ecological reserve. The commission staff had recommended at least 328 feet, but commissioners balked, instead settling for a range of 150 to 382 feet. "There's no point to having habitat if there's no protection of the immediate surroundings," said Dave Carlberg, a retired biologist and past president of Amigos de Bolsa Chica, the original environmental group that fought to preserve the Bolsa Chica.

As part of the plan, Hearthside's parent company - California Coastal Communities - is expected to sell the 103 acres next to the reserve for $65 million. The purchase would be funded by Proposition 50, a 2002 initiative providing $3.4 billion for environmental projects.

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SEA LEVELS SHOW BIG NATURAL FLUCTUATIONS (LONG BEFORE SUVs!)

A new reconstruction of past changes shows that the level of the oceans varied more dramatically during between ice ages than was previously thought, implying that the global climate during these intervals was not as stable as most scientists think.

One of the best ways to document the rising and falling of the oceans over time is by coral dating. Coral thrives in shallow waters with plenty of sunlight; as sea level rises, however, coral grows in stacks from the murky sea floor, forming terraces to reach the rays nearer the surface. The age of the coral in a terrace is determined by monitoring the rate of decay of radioactive uranium, which is present in the corals, into the element thorium. But coral readily exchanges uranium with seawater, thereby complicating the dating process. To correct for this, William Thompson and Steven Goldstein, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, developed a new method for determining the age of coral to generate a record of past sea levels, which they report in this week's issue of Science..... Using their new dating system, Thompson and Goldstein reassessed past measurements of uranium decay, and reconstructed sea-level changes from between 70,000 and 240,000 years ago. And what they found was very surprising, explains Thompson. "This record shows high-frequency changes that are very consistent and persistent."

"It is the first time that such variability has been accurately dated with so many corals," says Mark Siddall, an oceanographer at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

Large variations in sea level of up to 100 metres are caused by the growth and melting of global ice sheets. These changes are commonly thought to occur on a maximum 100,000-year timescale based on variations in Earth's orbit. Thompson and Goldstein, however, uncovered sea-level changes of as much as 30 metres that occurred at intervals of 3,000-9,000 years - relatively rapid oscillations. "The real punchline is that sea level changes more frequently than has been previously thought," says Thompson. What's more, sea-level change can help to explain the overall climate system. This means that global climate is more variable than has been thought, he adds.

In addition, the time period from 240,000 to 70,000 years ago was an interglacial, or period between ice ages, similar to the one we are currently in. Experts had previously thought that sea level remains constant during such intervals. "This raises the question as to the future stability of sea level during our own interglacial," explains Siddall.

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California: Mormons vs. environmentalists in mountains: "Mormons in the tiny Southern California mountain town of Running Springs have been trying for seven years to build a new church, but environmentalists keep putting up roadblocks. The 12,000-square-foot church would be located in a remote area of the San Bernardino Mountains right near Lake Arrowhead. Environmentalists worry it will ruin the scenic views of the area and encourage future growth, possibly threatening the natural habitat of endangered species such as the California spotted owl and the southern rubber boa."

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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