Serving OB, the Peninsula and San Diego Beaches
OBceans Are Being Asked to Call Zapf’s Office – 236-6622 to Complain
The City of San Diego has determined that at least two of the 80 year old Torrey Pines on Saratoga Avenue in Ocean Beach must be cut down. And the city wheeled out Atlas Tree Service and they have been cutting the trees down bit by bit, limb by limb.
The Torrey Pines, a protected species, are at least 75 feet in height.
A virtual tsunami of opposition has met the move on the California Coastal Commission to oust the head of its staff, Charles Lester. The move – called “a coup” by environmentalists – is an attempt by the pro-development clique of commissioners to remove Lester who is the Executive Director.
And the move is in the middle of a key decision by the Commission on the fate of a huge development project near Newport Beach of million dollar mansions.
By Jim Miller
In a recent interview, Naomi Klein discussed the reality facing anyone interested in promoting meaningful climate action.
The “structural problem” we face, according to Klein, is that people can “simultaneously understand the medium to long term risks of climate change” and still believe it is in their “short term economic [or political] interest” to continue business as usual.
This is precisely the situation concerned San Diegans face when dealing with the San Diego Association of Governments’ (SANDAG) limited vision when it comes to taking the actions needed to address the pressing threat of climate change at the local level.
Will SANDAG’s proposed sales tax increase serve your community’s needs?
By Monique López / Environmental Health Coalition
We all need to move. How we get from place to place is deeply connected to our quality of life.
Unfortunately, not all communities have the same access to healthy, safe, reliable and affordable transportation options, such as public transit and biking and walking paths.
By Jill Richardson / Common Dreams
Mark Winne, an author and anti-hunger activist, often says that the most important word in “community garden” isn’t “garden.” I saw this firsthand not long ago.
Standing in the sun between several small garden plots all morning, it may not have looked like much was going on. A few people stood in a circle, chatting. Occasionally, one would leave, or another would arrive. Several others were nearby, working in their garden plots.
Some of the people were black. Some were white. And two — a mother and child — appeared Southeast Asian.
Cattle watering station near Cave Valley, NV (Photo: Max Wilbert)By Will Falk/ San Diego Free Press
Public lands ranching is destroying the Western United States. It has pushed native plant species to the brink of extinction. It causes soil to erode so quickly the land cannot keep up. Livestock are poisoning and depleting water supplies, killing perennial stream flows, and are making it increasingly difficult for surface water to accumulate.
Stockmen and the animals they raise have devastated populations of iconic American animals like bison, elk, pronghorn, and sage-grouse.
By Nicola Peill-Moelter, Ph.D. / SanDiego 350.org
The massive leak at the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility is a stark example of why natural gas is a significant health and safety risk and not a bridge fuel to our clean energy future. The facility, the second largest in the U.S., stores vast amounts of natural gas at high pressure in underground wells once used for oil extraction more than fifty years ago.
On or about October 23rd a rupture in a 60-year old injection well pipe a thousand feet underground initiated the leak. At its peak the leak had an estimated rate of one-hundred twenty-five thousand pounds of methane per hour. To date, the cumulative emissions from this single source is equivalent to 25% of the state’s annual methane emissions from major sources like agriculture and landfills, equivalent to the annual climate pollution of almost half a million cars.
Photo by quinntheislander (Pixabay)
By Susan Duerksen
“Living in poverty” is one of those shorthand terms that rolls easily off the tongues of news anchors and politicians before they turn to the next topic. We all tend to glaze over the full meaning of the phrase, the grinding day-to-day misery of hunger, worry, discomfort, exhaustion, and despair.
In the city of San Diego, the proportion and number of people living in poverty edged up in 2013. It should have gone down. Instead, 7,000 more people in the city live in poverty now, in addition to the 202,000 who remain in that dire situation from the previous year.
By Matthew Wood
It’s Thursday afternoon, which means Gina Smith is at her normal post by the beach … waiting to talk.
The licensed therapist has made the grassy area at Veteran’s Plaza her office hours of sorts, bringing two chairs and a sign that says the “Listener Is In.”
“It’s a play on the Lucy, Peanuts thing,” she said. “I thought it was cool and fitting.”
Listening is exactly what Smith, 66, wants to do. She moved to OB in September of 2014 after coming to visit her son and newborn grandchild.
“I came to OB and was like, ‘Wait, did I step in a time warp?’” she said. “I love the community and the people.”
By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press
Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the US nuclear power industry, and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those who are working to create a nuclear free future.
San Onofre May Be Contaminated
On the last day of last year San Diego’s NBC 7 TV ran a story “Portions of San Onofre May Be Contaminated.”
The San Onofre nuclear plant unexpectedly and permanently shut down in 2013. Southern California Edison is the major owner, with San Diego Gas and Electric its minority partner.
“Why didn’t you ask the neighbors and the community what they might think?”
By Jay Powell / San Diego Free Press
This past week San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced as one of the key highlights of his State of the City that he is bringing forward “the first comprehensive vision for San Diego’s parks in more than 60 years” and promised that “ground would be broken on 50 new or upgraded parks during the next five years. “
Actual budgets are always a reality check on visionary pronouncements. By April we should know if and how this vision will be reflected in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2017 budget. There is a need for yet another kind of reality check.
A large crack has appeared along a bluff at Sunset Cliffs and poses a huge danger to people on the top of the Cliffs as well as those on the beach, rocks and or in the surf below.
The fracture – described by CBS8 as 5 feet wide and 250 feet long – is located at the south western boundary of Sunset Cliffs Natural Park. The crack in the bluff is right above a beach often visited by Point Loma Nazarene University students, surfers and park visitors.
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