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Greening Your Wardrobe

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What typically comes to mind when contemplating our personal environmental footprint is the energy efficiency of the car we drive, how religiously we recycle, and maybe whether or not we have a water thirsty lawn. However, everything we do and own has impacts on the environment, and that includes the choices we make in dressing ourselves.

This point was driven home in a smart little book published in 1997 titled, “Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things,” which describes the planetary impacts of everyday material goods. One chapter details what goes into producing a wardrobe basic, the cotton/polyester blend T-shirt.

A few highlights include the overseas extraction of the crude oil from which polyester is synthesized, the energy and pesticide intensive process of growing and harvesting cotton, and transporting milled fabrics abroad and back again so they can be sewn into T-shirts by cheap foreign labor.   [Read more…]

Nuclear Shutdown News – September 2016

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By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

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

On September 19 the San Diego Union-Tribune ran this story: “Protests filed over the details of proposed Diablo Canyon Shutdown.”

Its shutdown date is set for 2025. The Union-Tribune story appeared just after the deadline for filing protests to PG&E’s shutdown proposal had passed.   [Read more…]

Will San Diego Reduce Pedestrian Injuries, Deaths by Cars?

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Vision Zero Symposium to reduce pedestrian fatalities Thursday September 29

By Kathleen Ferrier / Circulate San Diego

The City Auditor released a report outlining 18 recommendations the City can take to improve pedestrian safety and help save lives.

The report comes on the heels of four pedestrian injuries and deaths in the last five weeks due to hit and runs and exposes a deadly trend. Between 2001 and 2015, 270 people were killed by cars while walking and more than 8,000 were injured. Numbers were especially high in 2013-2015 with almost 2,000 involved in crashes and 66 left dead.   [Read more…]

Progressives Should Just Say NO WAY to Measure A

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Something isn’t better than nothing if that something keeps us on a steady course down the suicide path.

San Diego does not have a history of visionary regional planning, but the woefully inadequate Measure A would take our city to a new low by ensuring decades more of inadequate efforts to address both our infrastructure needs and climate change.

Sadly, Measure A is not up to the transportation and climate justice challenges of the present and would guarantee a future for our city that would leave us with no solutions for climate change or traffic congestion while increasing pollution, poisoning our children, and turning a deaf ear to the needs of beleaguered communities of color.
  [Read more…]

From Coal to Climate: the Evolution of an Activist

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By Mark Hughes / SanDiego350

So, here is a question: what’s about as likely as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly jointly admitting they’ve been wrong and dedicating their lives and fortunes to fighting sexism, racism, white supremacy, homophobia, and misogyny?

Answer: that a guy like me would end up volunteering for a grassroots, climate action group.

I grew up in Kansas, famous for Dorothy, sunflowers, and reliably voting against your best interest. I remember my father vehemently wishing he could vote against Ted Kennedy. My mother railing against the Equal Rights Amendment, saying she liked having men open doors for her. Umm, I guess chivalry was banned in the bill’s text somewhere? Both of them mourning angrily after Carter was elected that the country was ruined. Ruined!   [Read more…]

Dr. Bronner’s Announces Resignation from the Organic Trade Association

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Continues Focus on Minimum Wage, Cannabis Reform and Animal Welfare Ballot Measures

Dr. Bronner’s, North America’s leading natural brand of soap and organic body care products, has resigned from the Organic Trade Association (OTA), citing the association’s betrayal of the consumer-led GMO labeling movement, and general drift away from the core principles that drive the organic movement.

Following the resignation, [ Vista, California based] Dr. Bronner’s has pledged to instead use its organizational resources to help power consumer, farmer and industry organizations that more authentically and courageously represent the vision of regenerative organic agriculture, versus the disaster of soil destroying industrial agriculture.   [Read more…]

Measure B – Ballot Box Planning at its Worst

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Lilac Hills Ranch Developer Goes for an End Run Around Community Groups

If you’re buying the arguments proponents of Measure B are peddling, I have a bridge to sell you.

Measure B is a clear cut case of a developer doing an end-run around years of community input into planning. Voters in El Cajon and Chula Vista are being asked to decide on a North County project they only know of through ads with fallacious arguments. (Ask the people in Barrio Logan how they feel about that concept.)

For starters, there is no low-income housing in this plan. Unless a starting purchase price of $300,000 is considered low-income friendly. And the greenest thing about this development is the cash being passed around to support it.   [Read more…]

Does SANDAG’s ‘Measure A’ Amount to Bold Action on Climate Change?

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Of all the local measures on the ballot, none has split local Democrats, labor, and environmental groups more than Measure A. It proposes to fund transportation and open space projects throughout San Diego County over the next 40 years via a half-cent sales tax increase. Questions about its environmental and social consequences have been raised.

The plan, crafted by the staff of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), will raise $18 billion over its lifetime, with $4.3 billion doled out to local communities for upgrades and repairs.

Just about everybody agrees that work on local and regional infrastructure needs to continue. It’s how we get there that’s causing disagreement.   [Read more…]

Keeping San Diego Seafood Local

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Sustainable Seafood / Slow Food Urban San Diego

The Port of San Diego envisions redeveloping the “Central Embarcadero” an area that includes Tuna Harbor, where the majority of San Diego’s active commercial fishermen dock their boats. “Tuna Harbor is central to San Diego’s cultural history as a fishing community,” says Pete Halmay, San Diego sea urchin fisherman. “It was the hub of San Diego fishing for a 100 years and is central to our local industry today.”

Today, San Diegans have little access to locally-caught seafood, even though we are a waterfront city. The U.S. imports over 90% of its seafood and San Diego fishermen are hard pressed to sell their catch locally. The redevelopment represents an opportunity to invest in our local fisheries and reconnect with our local seafood system. It’s up to the San Diego to commit to this.   [Read more…]

The Big Difference at Standing Rock Is Native Leadership All Around

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By Sarah van Gelder / Yes! Magazine

This year’s massive buildup of resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline follows closely on the heels of the victory over Keystone XL pipeline, something often credited to feverish organizing by 350.org. But years before 350’s involvement, there was the Indigenous Environmental Network, which launched that movement and its “Keep It In the Ground” messaging. This time, with nearly 200 tribes unified behind the Standing Rock tribe’s opposition to the pipeline and more than 3,000 people gathered at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, Native Americans are clearly leading the movement.   [Read more…]

Art Auction To Raise Funds For 400-Acre Purchase of Local Wildlife Habitat

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Open space campaign aims to protect wildlife corridor

By Adrienne Fuller / Hell Hole Canyon

The Friends of Hellhole Canyon have announced the launch of their capital campaign, raising funds to purchase roughly 400 acres of wildlife habitat next to the Hellhole Canyon Open Space Preserve.

Their goal? Make sure wildlife has the room to roam and reproduce.

The whole preserve, a nearly 2,000-acre park located on the east side of Valley Center, is a pristine chaparral ecosystem home to many endangered and threatened species. The park is owned and managed by San Diego County Parks and Recreation, and welcomes hikers and equestrians to enjoy its trails.   [Read more…]

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