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Putting Our Financial Well Being Above Our Children’s Ability to Survive a Warming Planet

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By John Lawrence and Frank Thomas

Each year there are more extreme weather events not only in the US but all over the world. Most scientists agree that, as more carbon dioxide is pumped into the air and the gaseous composition of the atmosphere is changed, extreme weather events are more likely to happen.

As the earth warms due to greenhouse gasses (GHGs), polar and glacier ice melts and more moisture is held in the atmosphere which is deposited in torrents of precipitation. The Arctic permafrost and subsea waters contain over 1.7 trillion tons of methane which will be released as the earth warms further. This could lead to deadly injections of highly toxic methane reserves into the atmosphere in the relatively near future.

Just a 3% release over a short time, or 50 billion tons of methane, is the equivalent of 1 trillion tons of CO2 emissions … sufficient to ecologically destroy Mother Earth.   [Read more…]

The Sound of One Fin Flapping – San Diego’s SeaWorld ‘Debate’

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By Doug Porter

A couple of weeks back Assemblyman Richard Bloom introduced AB 2140, legislation that would put a stop to the practice of using orcas as performers, along with ending captive breeding programs and trafficking of the species in California.

SeaWorld, which has been in major damage control mode since release of the Blackfish documentary last fall, has seized upon this opportunity to bring its story to the media. There has been a virtual blitzkreig of coverage about the many wonderful accomplishments of this salt water-based amusement park.

Given that the San Diego City Council will most likely be declaring March to be “Sea World San Diego’s 50th Anniversary Month” later this week, we’ll take a look at some of the local reportage and commentary on this subject today.   [Read more…]

The Time to Plant is NOW

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Gardening, America’s New Front Porch

By Susan Taylor

Here in San Diego, the rains have been and gone, we’re back to Daylight savings time and can get to planting. Before anyone dashes off for seeds and/or plant starts, let’s lay a little groundwork.

By groundwork, I mean preparing the soil. Sounds like a dull task, I know, but well prepared soil makes gardening so much easier and more fun! Find your growing spots, whether they be pots, troughs, beds, or in the nearby ground. If using containers, be sure to wash them out to rid them of any lingering bugeroos. For any and all containers, try to use fresh soil, and I don’t mean your dirt from the backyard.   [Read more…]

Area Environmentalists Chartering Buses for Sacramento March 15th Fracking Protest

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Environmental groups are mobilizing statewide for a big rally on March 15th in Sacramento to urge Governor Brown for a moratorium on fracking in California.

Organizers expect the March 15th event to be the largest mobilization against fracking ever seen.More than one hundred fifty environmental organizations will be represented at “Californians Against Fracking.”

The event will include a march around the Capitol area and a rally with speakers on the capitol steps.  A new Public Policy Institute survey indicates that 51 percent of Californians oppose the increased use of fracking in the state, leading organizers to expect  several thousand people to join the rally.   [Read more…]

Must Progress Come to a Screeching Halt To Save the Planet From Global Warming?

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By John Lawrence

Ever since the Enlightenment, progress has been essential to civilization. Defined as steady improvement toward a goal, the progress of society or civilization has been synonymous with growth, inventions, growing gross domestic product.

The very US Constitution was a testament to the Enlightenment era notion of progress. Science and technology would create the conditions for the “pursuit of happiness.” Every day in every way human society would get better and better. Only now we’re at a crossroads where the very idea of progress and in particular continued progress is contributing to the destruction of the planet.

The more progress we have, the more growth of GDP, the more greenhouse gases (GHGs) are spewed into the atmosphere and the more our planetary ecology is corrupted. Progress as we’ve known it must come to a screeching halt or the planet is in jeopardy of becoming uninhabitable by the human species.   [Read more…]

Extreme Weather Watch: February 2014 – Nowhere To Hide

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By John Lawrence

USA Today did a report: Nowhere to hide from extreme weather.  As it turns out, the US is uniquely positioned for extreme weather whether it’s hurricanes in the southeast, tornadoes in the lower plains, noreasters along the eastern seaboard, wildfires in the west, earthquakes, volcanoes and possible tsunamis along the west coast.

And then there are sinkholes in Florida, avalanches in the Rockies and flash floods in the Appalachians. Hail, ice storms and lake-effect snowstorms far from the Great Lakes round out the list. No matter where you go, you will meet extreme weather. Especially now that storms are almost continent wide. Each storm in February affected about 150 million people, half the population of the US.   [Read more…]

California Needs High Speed Rail Now

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By Robbie Hunter/State Building and Construction Trades Council of California via Labor’s Edge Blog

California urgently needs high speed rail now. The nay-sayers are still searching for reasons to delay this great public works project further, but they are out of  excuses. The delays need to stop. It is time to move forward and begin building. The transportation needs, the workers and the dollars are there to get started.

Governor Brown has made the sensible suggestion to use cap-and-trade dollars for some of the funding. That makes sense because the very purpose of cap-and-trade is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels–one of the greatest benefits high-speed mass transit rail will bring to California. Without question, providing electrified mass transit for the people of California will reduce our use of fossil fuels.

That’s in addition to the other obvious benefits of a cleaner and healthier environment, the easing of congestion on our highways and at our airports, the more efficient movement between our state’s population centers, and the immediate economic jolt of  thousands of good construction jobs.   [Read more…]

When is a Smart Growth Project Really a Trojan Horse? – La Mesa’s Park Station as a Case Study.

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By Bill Adams / UrbDeZine

In the wake of California’s now defunct redevelopment program and the 2008 real estate collapse, examples abound of demolished or shuttered buildings, where property owners received entitlements to build projects for which they had not secured funding.  

Sometimes, project funding was unlikely in the first place.  In cases in which a project requires significant variances or zoning amendments, wariness is warranted that the project is a “trojan horse” – far different than what will actually result.  

This article is a case study of an active proposal, which has many of the symptoms of a trojan horse project.   [Read more…]

Cyclist Seriously Injured On Pershing Drive

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Broken leg results from collision between car and bicycle

By John P. Anderson

Yesterday afternoon a cyclist was hit on the north-bound Interstate 5 onramp from Pershing Drive, on the south side of Balboa Park near Downtown.  The San Diego Police Commander’s Log offers the following details (inside).

My wife is a regular bicycle commuter from North Park to Downtown and was heading the opposite direction on Pershing Drive at about 4:45 PM yesterday. Riding in the bicycle lane she was nearly hit by a vehicle that attempted to make a right turn around her while she was crossing the intersection.

Continuing up Pershing to the intersection with 28th Street she was nearly hit a second time when crossing the intersection adjacent to a vehicle and a turning vehicle came around the vehicle she was beside. Upon her return home, thankfully safe and sound, she was very agitated and upset. Not only had she nearly been hit, twice, but in the first incident the driver had also angrily pointed, yelled, and given her an angry glare – clearly communicating that the cyclist was the one at fault and to blame for the near collision.   [Read more…]

Human and Natural-Caused Climate Change

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By Frank Thomas

Within three decades scientists warn, warming will be irreversible. The world’s top scientists have just formally embraced an upper limit on greenhouse gases for the first time … establishing a target level at which humanity must stop spewing them into the atmosphere or face catastrophic climate changes. Scientists warned the target was likely to be exceeded in a matter of decades unless steps were taken soon to reduce emissions. The experts cited a litany of changes already under way, warned that they were likely to accelerate and expressed virtual certainty that human activity was the main cause.

This was reported last September in the International Herald Tribune and was taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2012.   [Read more…]

Photo Gallery: A Love for San Diego’s Wetlands

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On the northern edge of Mission Bay sits the Kendall-Frost Mission Bay Marsh Reserve, a 16-acre wetlands habitat overseen by the University of California at San Diego, that is home to a wide range of wildlife. A recent repopulation program has been initiated in an effort to increase the number of endangered Light-footed Clapper Rails living in the marsh, and those who frequent the area say 28 of the rare birds have been sighted over the past few months.

Saturday, Feb. 15, marks the beginning of the Clapper Rail nesting season, which will be kicked off by the ever popular Love Your Wetlands Day event.   [Read more…]

Rate Hikes for Solar Panel ‘Freeriders’ and Small Users Proposed, Courtesy of SDG&E, ALEC and the Koch Brothers

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By Doug Porter

The business section of UT-San Diego leads today with an article informing us that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is considering a proposal advanced by SDG&E to shift the costs of producing electricity to “lower tier” users. The kilowatt-hours charges on the base allotment of electricity would jump by 24% come July 1st.

What that effectively means is a raise in rates for homeowners, small businesses and buildings equipped with solar panels. Current billing practices shift a higher percentage of costs to heavy users. Should the proposal before the CPUC gain approval, the paper says, “the largest home-electricity users would avoid a major bill hike, and could see some reductions.”

This raise in rates fits in rather neatly with a national strategy articulated by carbon-based energy corporations. Since California’s rates are not directly set by the legislature, utility companies are making proposals directly to the CPUC. In many states, like Arizona, these concepts are making their way through the legislature. The similarity of the substance of these schemes is hardly a coincidence.   [Read more…]

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