Category: Environment

Greenpeace claims to have shut down offshore drilling by a British oil company at a controversial site in the Arctic after four climbers began an occupation of the rig just after dawn.

The environment campaigners said the four protesters evaded a small flotilla of armed Danish navy and police boats which have been guarding the rigs in Baffin Bay off Greenland since the Greenpeace protest ship Esperanza arrived last week.

It was the busiest lot in all Ocean Beach this morning – August 21st – at 7:30 on the 4700 block of Santa Monica Avenue – across from OB Elementary. Church volunteers, homeless people, and community activists were gathering for an early morning breakfast and scheduled alley clean-up. Patty and I arrived at that moment, half asleep but ready with our work clothes.

A while later and by time breakfast was served – a regular thing every Saturday morning at this site – a hundred people had gathered. Some guys were singing and playing a guitar, med students from UCSD were taking blood pressures, and houseless people were collecting food, soaps, and other personal hygiene items handed to them by a half dozen good-natured souls who had arrived early and stood behind tables.

Originally posted August 6, 2010
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ALLEY CLEAN-UP ORGANIZED – August 21

The folks that organized the first Community Forum on homelessness in Ocean Beach have come out with their report on that open forum which was held on July 6th, and have called for a second forum for August 24th. It will be held at the First Baptist Church of Ocean Beach, located at 4790 Santa Monica Avenue at 7pm

by Michael Steinberg / IndyBay.org / Aug 21st, 2010

SUMMARY: Five people were arrested Friday for locking down in an entrance and exit to an Arco/BP gas station at the corner of Fell and Divisadero in San Francisco. The protesters called their action a “bike spill.” They chained themselves to bicycles and laid in the car entrance and exit ways, effectively shutting down the gas station.

Originally posted on Aug. 20, 2010.

by Annie Lane / August 20, 2010

Meet Jacob Magness, a native San Diegan who’s spent the last 13 years saving lives in Ocean Beach.
As one of OB’s permanent lifeguards, Magness, 32, is no stranger to the ocean or making rescues. In fact, he’s been in or near the water for the last 24 years.

Don’t believe what you’ve never been told. The water has never, ever been this cold. (Future rant coming here soon…….

Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming – A book review

Having escaped high school by my junior year, passing the California High School Equivalency exam, continuing on to the community college system and gaining enough technical education to get a decent job, I never got much of an education in history or government.

I worked for a company that was owned by a fairly progressive thinking family, manufacturing goods used mainly by environmental agencies and educational institutions. It was gratifying work and allowed me to care for my family in a simple fashion, we didn’t want for much, but we didn’t want much either. I went about my daily life pretty isolated from the issues that affect so many, I had a job, we had health insurance and until that company closed I didn’t really understand how good we had it.

Editor: David Helvarg, a former OBcean and original OB Rag staffer, now lives in San Francisco and runs the Blue Frontier Campaign to save our seas, which he founded in 2003. David is also the author “Blue Frontier – Dispatches from America’s Ocean Wilderness,” as well as a couple of books. Go check out his site.

by David Helvarg/ Blue Frontier Notes / Originally posted August 11, 2010

They’ve finally cemented up BP’s runaway well (from above with a second relief well plug still to seal it from below). Unfortunately this comes after 220 million gallons of oil slimed the Gulf of Mexico. So what’s the effect of a spill 20 times the size of the Exxon Valdez? Apparently not much if you believe the government’s estimates.

by Judith Curry / August 11, 2010

I am writing this, not as a “Letter to the Editor”, but as an article with the purpose of aiding other Californians.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I remember the talk of earthquakes for as long as my memory was formed. I remember seeing pictures of the devastation of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. I remember feeling the 1987 Whittier earthquake primarily because I lived only a few miles from the epicenter. I remember the Landers earthquake of 1992; the Northridge earthquake of 1994, etc.

As a teacher, I frequently was required to have “drop drills” for my students on a monthly basis.

by George J. Janczyn / Groksurf ‘s San Diego / August 11, 2010

As noted in yesterday’s water rates story, (08/10/10) the main supplier for most of San Diego County’s water is the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and it holds great power when it comes to the cost and reliability of our water supply. So when MWD announced a stakeholder forum to examine the 2010 Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) Update there were naturally going to be many local water professionals in attendance. The IRP makes major changes to MWD’s strategy for water reliability through the year 2035, including a bold plan to create a large storage “buffer” to serve as a backup supply against virtually any scenario.

by George Janczyn / Groksurf’s San Diego / August 9, 2010

Many large reservoirs in California need to store and release water in a way that balances flood control needs against water supply needs (San Diego’s reservoirs have limited flood control capability but were mainly designed for storage). Those state reservoir levels need to be lowered in late summer and fall in order to have enough capacity to capture and hold floodwaters that will come during the wet season, but they also need to retain enough to supply needed water in the dry months.

A massive ice island has formed in northern Greenland – it had been part of the Petermann Glacier, but last week it broke free. 92 square miles of ice – four times the size of Manhattan – now floating in the Arctic Sea. It could threaten shipping lanes, oil rigs, and float into the area where the Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912 and sank.

Already, the giant has assumed biblical proportions, becoming part of the slate of environmental evidence of global warming – as the planet heats up, with oil spills, raging fires, devastating heat, and deadly flooding scoring the season as a record-breaker. July 2010, for example, is the hottest July on record. Nothing else that has happened this summer symbolizes climate change as much as the creation of this new Arctic Sea island – the largest ice island in over half a century.