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Building Trades Allow Themselves to Be Played Like Fools

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By Erik Loomis / Lawyers, Guns & Money

Emperor Tangerine invited the building trade union leaders in for a meeting yesterday and boy were they excited.

At a meeting with the leaders of several construction and building trade unions, President Trump reiterated on Monday his interest in directing hundreds of billions of dollars to infrastructure investments, some of it from the federal government, union officials said.

“That was the impression I was taken away with,” said Sean McGarvey, the president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, an umbrella group, on a call with reporters after the meeting. “That the American citizenry and the American Treasury will be invested in building public infrastructure.”

Mr. McGarvey added that Mr. Trump clearly felt that much of the money should come from the private sector and that some of the investments could take the form of public-private partnerships, an idea the president floated as a candidate.

  [Read more…]

San Diego’s Women’s March: Part of a World-Wide Human Rights Movement

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In 1913, thousands of women took to the streets of Washington DC on the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration calling for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. More than twenty parade floats, nine bands, and four mounted brigades followed activist Inez Milholland riding on a white horse marching from the U.S. Capitol toward the Treasury Building.

Despite physical attacks by angry spectators hospitalizing more than 100 women, the parade, organized by Alice Paul and the National American Woman Suffrage Association, finished the route.   [Read more…]

The Destruction of Experience: How Ecopsychology Has Failed

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I do not remember the first time I saw my mother’s face, though I know she remembers the first time she saw mine. It was the very beginning of my life, my birth. I do not remember the first time I saw my mother’s face, but, I do remember the first time I saw my mother’s face at what would have been the end of my life after I tried to kill myself.

This is what I’m thinking about as I hold my fifteen-month-old baby nephew Thomas while he falls asleep.

A soft darkness blankets the room. The curtains are tied back on either side of the room’s only window and the night pours in. A wet snow falls with the starlight in a sprinkling of silver and gray. A few nights before full and the moon is strong. Shadows flicker on the floor below the window. A pine whispers outside where the wind brushes powder from her branches.   [Read more…]

25 Smears, Hoaxes, Grifts and Whoppers on Climate and the Environment in the Obama Era

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By Peter Dykstra / Environmental Health News

As the curtain comes down on Barack Obama’s eight years in the White House, most Americans seemed convinced of one of two things: We’re either about to Make America Great Again®, or we’re about to hurtle into an uncertain epoch that I like to call the Idiocene.

But before we turn the page on this administration let’s take a look back at the tall tales, regrettable pronouncements, farces and scams on climate and the environment during the Obama years. Anti-regulatory zealots led the pack, but President Obama contributed a few of his own – starting on his first full day in office.   [Read more…]

2016 Was Another Deadly Year at Sunset Cliffs

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Last year–2016– ended up as another deadly year at Sunset Cliffs, the beautiful yet dangerous cliffs that abut the Pacific Ocean on the west side of Ocean Beach and Point Loma.

By our calculations, four people died at the cliffs and 3 were seriously injured during 2016. In comparison with 2015, that year had 3 deaths but 8 serious injuries/ rescues.

The month of July, in particular, was the most deadly and dangerous, with 2 deaths and 3 seriously injured people.   [Read more…]

Summary of 2016 Nuke Shutdowns

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Nuclear Shutdown News December 2016

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear free world.

Here is our December 2016 report:

1. Summary of 2016 nuclear shutdowns.

This year continued the acceleration of the permanent shutdowns of US nuclear plants.

On December 8 nbcchicago.com reported that the Palisades nuke plant on Lake Michigan would be shut down in 2018, according to its owner, Entergy of New Orleans. NBC said Palisades was “too old and dangerous,” and a chronic money loser.
  [Read more…]

Standing Rock Thanksgiving Pilgrimage – A First Hand Account

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By Maria Brown / UrbDeZine

When we are little, we are taught that Thanksgiving is a commemoration of the first meal the Pilgrims and Indians shared. It is a story of strangers working together to survive that first harsh winter in a foreign place, our Native brothers and sisters helping us with their knowledge of the land.

While the origin remains disputed, the “Day of Thanksgiving” was made official in 1637 by Governor John Winthrop. The day was to celebrate white men coming back safely from conquering the Pequot people in Mystic, Connecticut where they had slaughtered upwards of 700 indigenous men, women, and children.

Native Americans mourn this day not only for the repeated massacres and injustices taken against their people since colonization, but also as the loss of their sovereignty.

With the No Dakota Access Pipeline water protectors in the news and images of peaceful Native Americans contending with police brutality, including the use of dogs and water cannons, thousands of us pilgrims could not sit idly by.

We took to the roads departing from a hot and sunny San Diego with the back of our camper proudly displaying a fist clutching flowers with NO DAPL painted underneath. The entire driver’s side stated, STAND WITH STANDING ROCK in tall red and black letters. We were headed to North Dakota.   [Read more…]

The Real Cause of Climate Change: Deforestation!

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By Chuck Burr / The Feed Magazine

It occurred to me what the biggest contributor to climate change was while teaching a unit in our Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course. The greatest driver of climate change or global warming is not fossil fuel greenhouse gases!

I was teaching a permaculture course unit called, “Trees and Their Energy Systems” AKA “We love trees!”. Our PDC course is held late July in southern Oregon where summer temperatures average the mid 90s˚F (35˚C). We teach under two large willow trees to avoid the direct heat of the sun. Its cool and comfortable in the shade under the old trees. If you step out into the direct sun, temperatures jump 12–15˚F .

Then it dawned on me. All 20 students could smoke cigarettes, run their cars and have a camp fire and temperatures would not change. But step into the direct sun from under the shade of mature trees and the temperature rises immediately and significantly. It feels warmer, the soil is warmer and drier with less biology.(1)   [Read more…]

The Benefits of Community Choice Energy and How California Utilities Aim to Block Them

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By Tyson Siegele / SD350.org

In California, the fight is on between renewable energy advocates and the old guard electric utilities. All across California, cities and counties have been moving to implement Community Choice programs because they provide cheaper, cleaner, locally generated electricity. In fact these programs are so good, the utilities hope you never hear about them.

Before we get to the conflict and intrigue, let’s look at the basics of this new approach to buying electricity. Community Choice Energy (CCE), also known as Community Choice Aggregation, is a way for cities, counties or regions in California to look out for their own energy interests, a hybrid between regulated and deregulated electricity supply. The local utility still provides all of the billing services and infrastructure to supply electricity to the point of use, but they are no longer responsible for selecting the electricity supplier. Instead, the community chooses its energy supplier. Possibly the best part of a Community Choice Energy program is that it allows us choice.   [Read more…]

Navigating Between Worlds: The Peaceful Warriors of Standing Rock

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By Ariana Krieger

When you see the somber brown hills of the Dakota Borderlands for the first time, they don’t look like the setting for a historic victory by a people armed only with the power of prayer and reverence for the land. Yet among these hills of Standing Rock has sprouted a camp, a human crossroads whose unique character has made the seemingly impossible happen.

Seven tribes lead this movement and among the tribal elders are men like Wanasa, a Lakota elder who greets everyone warmly during meal times in the main kitchen.

“The most important thing you can do is pray,” he tells us, “What is happening on the front lines is secondary; the main purpose of this camp is to pray.”   [Read more…]

Trump’s Cabinet Picks: A Basket of Deplorables

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A Secy of Labor Who Doesn’t Believe in the Minimum Wage

By John Lawrence

Trump has chosen fast food executive Andrew Puzder as Secretary of Labor. Puzder is chief executive of CKE Restaurants, the corporation that owns Hardee’s and Carls Jr fast food chains. The corporation has 3300 locations in 42 states and 28 countries. Puzder has advocated replacing human beings with machines in fast food restaurants.

Puzder also is against the minimum wage altogether, let alone raising it to $15 an hour. He sees his job as executive of CKE as driving down the cost of labor and this means lowering the minimum wage and replacing workers with automated machines.   [Read more…]

Barrio Logan’s Marine Terminal Expansion Moves Toward Sustainability

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[Editor’s Note: Yesterday, more than 40 community members from Barrio Logan, Logan Heights and Sherman Heights attended a hearing to urge Port of San Diego commissioners to reduce pollution and incorporate community benefits into the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal Expansion plan.

According to the California Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice screening tool, CalEnviroScreen, Barrio Logan remains among the worst five percent of neighborhoods suffering from the cumulative impacts of pollution in California.

SDFP Editor Brent Beltrán was one of the speakers. Here is what he said.]   [Read more…]

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