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Pollution: In Our Air, In Our Politics

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By Joy Williams / Environmental Health Coalition

As a kid growing up in the LA air basin during the smoggy 50s and 60s, I thought of irritated eyes and a sore chest as normal parts of life. The sky on hot summer afternoons was a brownish yellow shade, and the air sometimes made your eyes water. In my later childhood years, I came to view air pollution as a symbol of how radically alienated from nature Southern California life was; as I thought of it in apocalyptic, if poetic, terms, we had poisoned heaven. Later, in college, I learned to think in more analytical, and hopeful, ways — smog could be analyzed, understood and to a large extent, controlled. The ochre-brown color came from nitrogen oxides; the lung-damaging substance was ozone.

Particulates added a hazy quality. It wasn’t an amorphous cloud of human failure hanging over our cities, it was a specific set of pollutants with knowable causes and controls. If you increased the fuel efficiency of cars and added on catalytic converters, the air quality got better. And the photochemical smog picture of SoCal actually has improved since the 60s.   [Read more…]

Calls Intensify for Obama to Fulfill Campaign Promise on GMO Labeling

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Members of congress, farmers and businesses await response from president

By Elizabeth Kucinich / Center for Food Safety

When polled, 93 percent of the American public said they supported the labeling of genetically engineered food and ingredients. Sixty-four countries already have GMO labeling standards.

A morning press conference offered a beacon of hope for farmers and activists on Capitol Hill today as members of Congress and 200 organizations demanded Obama fulfill his 2007 campaign promises to label GMOs.   [Read more…]

Wildfires: San Diego’s Ecological Elephant in the Room

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By Lawrence A. Herzog

If the unusually hot, dry January weather in San Diego was not enough to remind us of global warming, interim Mayor Todd Gloria recently doubled down in his State of the City address when he vowed that “San Diego will be a global leader in addressing climate change.”

It’s good news that Gloria and others are advocating for policies that will make San Diego more sustainable, from zero waste, bicycle friendly streets, and building retrofits, to recycled water and alternative transit. However, there is one glaring ecological threat that hovers over our region’s policy makers: wildfires.

Consider our recent history: over the last decade or so, we’ve had two of the most frightening and environmentally devastating wildfires in the nation. The 2003 and 2007 mega-fires burned several million acres of land, destroyed thousands of homes, and caused over one half million people to be evacuated from their residences. We all remember the white soot suspended over the regions for days, even along our normally breezy shores. We recall the thick, acrid air that kept us indoors.   [Read more…]

Apple Pie and the Economy: Enough is Enough

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By Will Falk

I hope the economy doesn’t recover.

There. I said it. And it feels really good.

We are in the midst of the Earth’s sixth mass extinction and it is not being caused by volcanic eruptions or asteroids– it is being caused by human activity. And yet, it seems every time we flip-up our computer screens, read a newspaper, or turn on the television, people everywhere are bemoaning the state of the economy.

Not me. I am celebrating. So are salmon, redwoods, polar bears, Torrey pines, and tigers.   [Read more…]

The United Nations in My Closet

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By John Filthy / OB Rag

People don’t often look at where their clothes come from. We don’t often think about who made them. Our closets are full of garments made by people making less than a dollar an hour. Don’t let the price of those Nike sneakers throw you. They weren’t expensive to make. They are expensive because you will pay. The profits do not go to better working conditions. Just ask the workers who survived the Savar garment-factory collapse in Bangladesh. The factory that manufactured clothes for Walmart, among others, killed 1,129 people and injured 2,515 when it collapsed on April 24, 2013.

I’m one of those hippy-clone-activist-types. I actually care where my clothes come from and read labels. I’m also a cheapskate and like to wear clothes that look like rags to some. Blame Johnny Rotten and Kurt Cobain. I didn’t invent the fashion. I must look homeless at times because people are always trying to gift me clothes. My better half is always trying to get me to throw clothes out. She is astounded that I can remember where I got each piece of clothing and how old some of them are.   [Read more…]

Todd Gloria Lays Out Vision For San Diego

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By Andy Cohen

If this was indeed his first and final State of the City Address, iMayor Todd Gloria made it count. As politically aware San Diegans have come to expect, Gloria brought his ‘A’ game to the Balboa Theater, delivering a sweeping vision for what he views is the future of San Diego.

One thing’s for sure: This ain’t Texas.

It was a speech and a vision that is sure to rile up the arch conservative sect of the town, but much of it was surely welcomed by the growing and strengthening Democratic base.

If 2012 and 2013 saw a growing partisan divide in San Diego, if this City Council holds to what the once and future City Council President laid before a crowded house, then the ride is sure to get even more contentious and even more partisan, even if, as Gloria noted several times, that was not the intent.

The iMayor began the address by doing something that would have been fairly unthinkable three years ago: He thanked and applauded the city’s thousands of workers, acknowledging the value of the services they provide to San Diego. It was a refreshing gesture in an era where the public workforce is more often than not vilified as moochers and a waste of taxpayer money.   [Read more…]

HSR Is An Entirely Appropriate Use of Cap-and-Trade Revenues

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By Robert Cruickshank/California High Speed Rail Blog

Governor Jerry Brown’s proposal to use $250 million out of $1.3 billion in cap-and-trade revenues (that’s 19%) for high speed rail is generating controversy. Very depressing controversy. That’s because some environmentalists are recklessly attacking the proposal because it doesn’t go toward meeting the 2020 greenhouse gas reduction goal. This is unusually bad politics and messaging for environmentalists, as they are now arguing against investments in long-term carbon emission reductions. The right and the climate deniers are going to have a field day with this.

One of the keys to this odd argument is the claim that cap-and-trade revenues are supposed to be used only to meet the 2020 goals. Problem is, that claim is entirely without evidence and is contrary to the truth – that they’re to be used to get to the 2020 goals as part of a plan for long-term reductions that go to at least 2050.

That claim first appeared in 2012 from the Legislative Analysts Office, an office with a notorious record of presenting deeply flawed information designed to undermine the HSR project.   [Read more…]

A Panty Bribe? Really? City Attorney Blames Sexual Assault Victim in Civil Action

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By Doug Porter

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith’s office has, once again, taken actions guaranteed to make San Diego a national embarrassment.  A sexual assault victim suing the city because her assailant was a police officer is now being portrayed in court documents as having committed a criminal act.

According to an article in today’s UT-San Diego, our city’s chief legal advocate has chosen to adopt a strategy of blaming the victim as a defense in a civil suit filed in the wake of the 2011 conviction of former SDPD officer Anthony Arevalos on charges of sexual battery, bribery and related charges.

Our tax dollars paid for a legal document filed by Goldsmith’s office alleging that “Jane Doe” offered her underwear as a bribe to escape arrest on a drunk-driving charge on March 8, 2011.

UPDATE, 5PM WEDS: The City Attorney’s office has now decided this accusation wasn’t such a good idea, after all.   [Read more…]

Toll of U.S. Sailors Devastated by Fukushima Radiation Continues to Climb

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By Harvey Wasserman / Common Dreams

The roll call of U.S. sailors who say their health was devastated when they were irradiated while delivering humanitarian help near the stricken Fukushima nuke is continuing to soar.

So many have come forward that the progress of their federal class action lawsuit has been delayed.

Bay area lawyer Charles Bonner says a re-filing will wait until early February to accommodate a constant influx of sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other American ships.   [Read more…]

California Legislators Call for Fracking Moratorium

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By Dan Bacher

Nine California Legislators on January 7 sent a letter to Governor Jerry Brown asking that he issue an executive order to prohibit the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) within the Department of Conservation from allowing fracking in the state until health and environmental concerns are addressed.

Legislators signing the letter include Marc Levine, Assemblymember, 10th Assembly District; Das Williams, Assemblymember, 37th Assembly District; Adrin Nazarian, Assemblymember, 46th Assembly District; Richard Bloom, Assemblymember, 50th Assembly District; Loni Hancock, State Senator, 9th Senate District; Bonnie Lowenthall, Assemblymember, 70th Assembly District; Noreen Evans, State Senator, 2nd Senate District; Phil Ting, Assemblymember, 19th Assembly District; and Lois Wolk, State Senator, 3rd Senate District.   [Read more…]

To Hell with Pio Pico – It’s Time for a La Jolla Power Plant

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By Doug Porter 

The pattern of dirty development has become undeniable in the San Diego area. Attempts to abate or oppose polluting projects in neighborhoods with higher percentages of non-whites are cast by proponents of those projects as critical to the regional economy.

A simple nine block buffer zone protecting Barrio Logan from pollution associated with the maritime industry gets attacked as threatening the entire industry. And now a proposed power plant in Otay Mesa has been reborn in the wake of last year’s closure of the San Onfre nuclear facility.

Meanwhile, a “controversy” caused by the odor of sea lion poop in La Jolla gets major media coverage. Oh. My. Goodness.

Maybe we can work out a trade. On second thought, forget that idea. Let’s just get a power plant built upwind of La Jolla. Then they won’t be bothered by the sea beasties so much.   [Read more…]

L.A. Becomes Largest City to Ban Plastic Bags

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Shoppers in the city will have to bring their own reusable grocery bags or pay ten cents per paper bag.

Alex Kane / Alternet

The city of Los Angeles is starting the new year out with a ban–a ban on plastic bags.

On January 1, a new law kicks in that prohibits large grocery stores from packing up items into plastic bags, as the Los Angeles Times notes. The law makes LA the largest city to have such a ban.   [Read more…]

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