An oil industry leader and a major California environmentalist agree on the steps the United States must take to address climate change and increase national energy independence-but they have markedly different ideas about how long it will take to reach those goals. Today's North Bay Report is a preview summary of their conversation.

Chevron and the Sierra Club both see renewable fuels as a growing part of our future. Yet as the world transitions to a low-carbon economy, they have different views on how that change should occur and who should bear the costs. Higher taxes? Voluntary conservation and efficiency? Government mandates? In their first-ever public conversation, Chevron CEO Dave O'Reilly and Carl Pope, Executive Director of the The Sierra Club, discuss balancing energy and the environment in the 21st century.  The conversation,  which was recorded live on June 10, 2009, was moderated by Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal. Hear it in full here.

  Although the climate protection legislation passed by the House of Representatives includes a cap and trade provision, to "monetize" co2 emissions, both speakers said they favor a simple carbon tax or fee instead. Dave O'Reilly (left)  offered several reasons why that would be preferable.


Pope (right)  and O'Reilly were also in agreement on the desirability of quickly reducing our national dependence on coal to generate much of the country's electricity. Pope was adamant about the need to more strictly regulate the coal industry in many respects.

While O'Reilly agreed with Pope's forecast that this country and the world will need to move toward renewable fuels for vehicles and transportation, he expects the transition will take far longer than Pope's projections.
 

Fungi are the oldest living things on land, and among their estimated two million varieties, they may hold many yet-to-be-discovered medicinal uses and other benefits.

Paul Stamets, founder and president of Fungi Perfecti , has written six books on mushroom cultivation including Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms and The Mushroom Cultivator. In this audio lip, he offers a short history of fungi:

As a dedicated mycologist for more than 30 years, Stamets has discovered or identified four new species of mushroom. Here, he talks about how it feels to make such a discovery.

Among the many fungal processes that hold great promise for addressing human needs, Stamets points to one that could herald important changes in ethanol production.

The continuing rise in cancer rates in America is proof that conventional treatment methods are ineffective, contends an advocate for alternative health methodologies who says both approaches should be integrated to achieve the best results.

Burton Goldberg (right)  has been studying alternative medical treatments and publishing books about them for 33 of his 82 years. It was a change of professional direction, he explains, that was prompted by the illness of a friend's daughter.

Since he's been working in this area, Goldberg says, the alternative treatments he has publicized have gained much wider acceptance among the American populace.

Burton Goldberg is hosting a public workshop on dealing with cancer (This illustration is an electron microscopic photograph of a single breast cancer cell) and integrative medicine at the Steele Lane Community Center, 415 Steele Lane in Santa Rosa  from 1-4 pm on Saturday, June 20. In addition to presenting a film and lecture on these new therapies, Goldberg will be joined by two additional speakers, Dr. James Forsythe, a Reno oncologist and Dr. Filberto Munoz from the Instituto Medico Biologico in San Diego and Tijuana.  Information at (707) 322-3822 or vajraproductions@gmail.com.

With 30-plus years of experience, Marin County is a leader in recycling. Which means they have done the easy things already and are now tackling some of the most challenging aspects of reducing the overall waste stream.

At the huge indoor Marin Recycling and Resource Recovery center, near the bay shoreline in San Rafael, a house-sized, Rube Goldberg-like system of interlocking machines ingests mixed recycleables (above). They are sorted and segregated mechanically as much as possible, before the final step (below), where work crews reach in to make the final decisions

Recycling organic household waste is one of the next big challenges facing companies like Marin Sanitary, but spokeswoman Devi Peri says there are compelling reasons to work toward diverting those materials from landfills.

Recycling has a long and progressive history in Marin County, which Devi Peri summarizes.