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Geothermal: The Other California Renewable

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By Peg Mitchell / SanDiego350

Burning less coal, oil and gas is not only something we must do, but something we can do. Nature gives us a variety of renewable energy sources, and the technology to tap into them is getting better all the time.

Climate change makes the news often for a variety of reasons, from the multiple impacts we have been witnessing locally — drought, record-breaking temperatures, mudslides, fires — to the President’s issuance of the “Clean Power Plan” to the Pope’s encyclical. But ultimately climate change discussions must focus on economically viable solutions.

We are fortunate to live in a state that has ample natural non-fossil-fuel resources to provide electricity for our citizens. Not only do we have an abundance of sun to power solar generation, but we have a reliable steady-state resource right in our backyard: the Salton Sea Known Geothermal Resource Area in the Imperial Valley.

The geothermal fields near the Salton Sea are the hottest, most prolific resource in the U.S.   [Read more…]

Reflections on Palestine: The Madness of Occupation in Hebron

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In September 2015, Pedro Rios joined colleagues from around the country on a delegation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories to meet with farmers, business people, politicians, and activists, in order to learn about how Israeli occupation impacts daily life for Palestinians living in the occupied territories. The delegation visited the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem. This is one in a series of articles on his reflections of his visit to Palestine.

By Pedro Rios

A Palestinian child, no more than 10 years old, stood in the middle of the street near the checkpoint leading to the entrance of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. In his hands he held a flute similar to those Palestinian merchants sell to the few tourists that make their way into the deserted streets of Ghost Town.

The boy blew into it until he was almost out of breath, standing his ground, and blowing a second time with as much fervor.   [Read more…]

Turista Libre Teams Up With Tijuana Photography Festival

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Turista Libre tour of Tijuana Photo Festival captures border town’s moment of change

By George Howell

What better way to get to a photography festival than to sit in an old school bus with the artist-organizers and a handful of curious Americans, listening to booming dance music while the eastern hinterlands of Tijuana whiz past your window?

On Saturday, October 3rd, I hopped on board the bus tour co-sponsored by Turista Libre, the Tijuana-based tour operator, and the coordinating team of the modest, but highly ambitious First International Festival of Photography Tijuana (FiFT). As artist Rebecca Goldschmidt told me, “We don’t just want to take people to the sites where the festival events are taking place. We want a dialogue.”   [Read more…]

Foreign Interventions in the Middle East: More Havoc, Nuclear Weapons, Less Order

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By Frank Thomas

Middle Eastern states are breaking down in an endless escalation of civil wars where Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq are collapsing. The resulting power vacuums exploited by rebel factions and demonic jihadist Islamic state are threatening the Middle East. The ancient, ongoing Sunni-Shiite mutual hatreds are afire.

U.S. foreign regime change interventions – by military engagement, funding, training insurgency groups, supporting coups d’etats, protecting regional dictatorships – have boosted instability and mayhem in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Egypt, etc. Emerging unscathed in these interventions, the U.S. departs leaving the wreckage behind to go on to the next trouble-spot.   [Read more…]

Escondido’s Secretive Appearance Committee Decides What’s Art and What’s Not

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By Wendy Wilson /Alianza North County

“There is no Federal constitutional issue more grave than the effort by government officials to censor works of expression and to threaten the vitality of a major cultural institution, as punishment for failing to abide by government demand for orthodoxy,” said U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon in the case, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences vs. City of New York.

When the City Manager of Escondido, Clay Philips, turned a city committee called the “appearance committee” into his own personal censorship group, First Amendment advocates started to pay attention.  This committee was originally created to regulate what color downtown business owners could paint their buildings in the downtown historic district.  

Under Clay Phillips office, with the consent of Mayor Abed and council people Gallo, Morasco and Masson, this closed committee has transformed into a tool for city censorship.  This taxpayer funded city committee meets to decide city regulations with no publically elected officials and no publically posted or published meeting times.   [Read more…]

Why Free College Tuition Makes Sense for America

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By Bernie Rhinerson / FreeCollegeNow.Org

Ever since President Obama announced Americas College Promise, his plan to make community colleges tuition free, the debate and conversation about making colleges free has been building with many productive ideas coming forward.

This month, the San Diego Community College District may have become the first community college district in the country to approve an endorsement resolution supporting these efforts to make a community college education more affordable.  That is just one step of many that we need to take down the road to a future where a college education is expected, accessible and affordable for all young people in our country.

More than 100 years ago, America began to acknowledge that to be successful, our younger citizens needed more education.  During the “high school movement” from 1910 to 1940, high schools were established to expand educational opportunities for students.  In 1910, only 9% of 18-year-olds graduated from a secondary school.  By 1940, 73% of high school age Americans were enrolled in a secondary school.  That educational explosion has been credited with the success achieved by our country in the 20th century in the growth of the middle class, and scientific and technological achievements.   [Read more…]

Are Charter School Directors Bending Pension Rules?

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By Rick Mercurio / Alianza North County

Teachers and administrators in California’s public schools earn pensions based on several factors. For some, like Dennis Snyder, the founder of three charter schools in Escondido CA, it adds up to a healthy lifetime benefit, even though his final employer was not a public school district, and even though he found an apparent loophole in the regulations.

Snyder’s situation

Dennis Snyder worked as a teacher and football coach at Escondido High School starting in about 1965. In 1986 the principal fired Snyder as coach, citing the reason that he was not cooperative with the parent booster organization. Snyder appealed the firing to both the superintendent and the school board, and he lost both appeals.

Although he was let go as head football coach, he retained his teaching position. However, in the early ‘90s Snyder switched jobs, becoming executive director of the Escondido Charter High School, which he founded. Heritage K-8 Charter School and Heritage Digital Academy were later founded by Snyder as well.

Snyder’s salary as executive director eventually rose to almost $111,000.   [Read more…]

Does the Pope Smoke Dope?

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By the Ol’ OB Hippie

Does the Pope smoke dope? Does Pope Francis imbibe in the inhalation of medicinal cannabis?

No, really – I wanted to know if the Pope smoked dope. I have heard rumors to that effect – for years actually. And I wanted to find out.

I knew he was coming to the U.S., so I had to figure out a way to meet up with him.   [Read more…]

Nuclear Shutdown News for September 2015 – the Costs of San Onofre

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Disaster Capitalism and the Shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Plant

By Michael Steinberg /Black Rain Press

This story starts with a clandestine dinner in Warsaw, Poland. Present are Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utility Commission, and Stephen Pickett, a high ranking official with Southern California Edison, a major electrical utility.

It is March 2013, the same month SCE announced the unexpected permanent shutdown of its San Onofre Nuclear Power Station.

No nukers were elated. But their joy later turns to disappointment and then outrage when the CPUC subsequently hands down a decision that leaves us on the hook for billions of dollars in costs supposedly related to the shutdown of San Onofre.

How did this happen, and so relatively quickly?   [Read more…]

The Movement for a Balanced Transportation Future In the San Diego Region

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By Monique López, policy advocate at Environmental Health Coalition

We all need to move, and how we move influences our quality of life. The time of our commute, the safety of our sidewalks, the quality of our air and the type of transportation options we have determine how well we live our lives. On October 9, 2015, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) will decide how to invest $204 billion into our region’s transportation infrastructure.

This decision is critical to our livelihood. That much investment will have a tremendous impact on the lives of everyone in our region, particularly the lives of those in San Diego’s urban core where freeways intersect neighborhoods and transit, biking and walking infrastructure is scarce.

How these funds are invested will determine whether our region takes a step toward becoming a forward-thinking, sustainable place or whether we remain driving in circles, stuck in the incessant traffic jam that is our car-first mentality.   [Read more…]

California’s Renewables Progress Commendable But Emission Of Global CO2 Still Exponential

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By Frank Thomas

California continues its remarkable legislative breakthroughs in going green under the SB 350 Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015. Legislation just passed sets two goals for 2030: 50% of state utility power from renewables and a 50% increase in energy efficiency of buildings. The provision for a 50% reduction in petroleum use for cars and trucks failed to pass as did the SB 32 bill that sets GHG emission targets for 2030 and 2050.

Still, the sweeping new mandates passed call for DOUBLING energy efficiency and using renewables for HALF of California’s electricity generation by 2030. It is uncertain how fast and to what extent transportation electrification will proceed California’s aim to step up its commitment to clean energy acknowledges the scientific reality we humans don’t have the luxury of lots of time to transition FAST to renewable energy and much improved energy efficiency.   [Read more…]

End of 50-Year Lease Allows Expansion Opportunity for San Diego Wetlands

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By Roy Little

There is a unique opportunity to expand the wetlands in the north-east corner of Mission Bay due to the ending of the 50-year lease for Campland and the legal agreement to have De Anza Cove vacated.

The San Diego Audubon Society is leading a planning and study effort to investigate the options of a wetlands-oriented expansion of the marsh. The existing wetland is shown in dark green at the right side, Campland and Rose Creek in the lower center and De Anza Cove to the left.

Until roughly a hundred years ago Rose Creek flowed through the marsh but was re-routed to make development easier. From a wetlands and water quality perspective the original flow of the Rose Creek is important in order to help purify storm water before it reaches the bay and provide nutrients to make the marsh more healthy.   [Read more…]

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