Effectiveness of Solutions

Dry Farming:

As a solution that conserves water resources, dry farming is a major win. Despite the purportedly smaller yields, farmers should be subsidized to engage in dry farming wherever possible so as to conserve groundwater reserves and keep creeks flowing (and subsequently, fish swimming). However, as I indicated with "wherever possible," dry farming is not feasible everywhere, especially in extremely dry regions or on high slopes from which water drains quickly. But when it is possible, it's an age-old practice that has the potential to ultimately reduce food poverty (provided you have good land management as well). I give it a yellow thumb, for moderately advantageous, but lacking comprehensive applicability.

Cap and Trade Program:

The Cap and Trade Program provides a financial incentive for keeping trees in the ground rather than cut to pieces. Essentially, forests can produce "carbon offsets" which represent greenhouse gases that are sequestered from the atmosphere and turned into oxygen. These offsets can be sold to big polluters in exchange for an allowance of emission rates. Part of the deal is that these forests must be sustained for 100 years. The previously doomed Preservation Ranch--now Buckeye Forest after being procured by the Conservation Fund--has already sold more than $2 million credits. I honestly can't think of a better way to monetize living trees and ensure their survival. Not only does it reduce the amount of greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, but every organism living in those trees gets to keep their homes. I give it a green thumb, for creating a system that works directly with our existing economic policy and makes forests more desirable than vineyards.

Mitigations:

My bias is quite strong here, as I see no more in these so called "mitigations" than cheap cop-outs designed to surpass the hurdle of bureaucracy rather than actually alleviate the environmental detriment of the project itself. They can't even be considered solutions; they're more akin to distractions that take advantage of how lenient the system is in order to succeed. I give them a red thumb, for blatant disregard of environmental consciousness.

Recycling Water and Power/Habitat Restoration:

These suggestions come from the 3rd Annual Sustainability Report. Aside from their effectiveness (they indeed seem to be easy, sustainable practices to help distribute and utilize resources to the fullest), they were the only actual examples of sustainable practices I could find in that entire report. Perhaps I didn't read carefully enough, but the rest of it appeared to be pedantic jargon intended to beef up the paragraphs and little anecdotes about supposed "small families" who have worked on their vineyards for "generations." I couldn't help but laugh at how self-serving their "report card" is. The criteria for sustainability was established by them, and they're being graded by third parties...all four of which they chose themselves. So while the report card may be as genuine as a promise from a dementia patient, the sustainable solutions I could find seemed pretty straightforward. I'm just not sure if it's the best they could do.

What isn't being done:

How do I postulate on the effectiveness of something that doesn't exist (to my knowledge)? Obviously not all policy is perfect, and I'm not sure if VESCO has been updated since 2012. There needs to be a deliberate discussion between wine growers, conservationists, and moderate citizens as to what needs to be reflected in environmental policy. Would there be ways to subsidize Environmental Impact Reports and enlist a third party to operate them? Would there be ways to regulate tree removal under VESCO? What else is desired that current policy can't produce, and how do we compromise between our collective wants? Though I can't imagine how such a discourse could occur; the media portrays this dispute as farmer vs anti-vineyard, though ironically both groups tend to want the same thing. I'll give this a TBA, because at the moment there's still a lot of work to do before we reach any major conclusions.

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