We had a scare earlier this week. A report from KPBS indicated that SANDAG Board Chairman Terry Sinnott was a climate change denier. When reporter asked him about climate change this is what he had to say:
"I don't get into that situation. It's a debatable issue that the board talks about. We have representatives from all 18 cities and the county of San Diego, and they bring their political thoughts in when they make decisions. My job is to facilitate and make sure we make progress and stick to the mission of our agency." Facing a backlash, Sinnott issued a statement today that "clarifies" his position on global warming: Dear Council, Yesterday I was elected to the chair position at SANDAG. It was a unanimous vote representing support from all 19 agencies. It was a vote that was made by elected officials who support climate action efforts and those who do not After the meeting, a KPBS reporter interviewed me on the goals of SANDAG for the coming year. At the end of the interview he asked me if I accepted the conclusion that climate change is occurring and that it is caused by human activity. I answered the question from the standpoint of my new role as chair of the SANDAG Board of Directors, which includes elected officials with a wide variety of perspectives on the issue. Rather than answer the question directly, I focused on my role in working with the Board to achieve our overall goals, which include the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As I see it, my role as chair is to foster discussion and the development of consensus – not to make statements that may alienate some members of the Board and make consensus more difficult to achieve. The Board as a whole sets policy, not the chair. I would also note that, regardless of what opinions individual members may have about the issue, the SANDAG Board as a whole and the agency staff are dedicated to achieving the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets as required by state law and state regulators. SANDAG also supports the efforts of individual cities to develop climate action plans. And, as you all know, I have always supported Del Mar’s climate action plan, and I will continue to represent the Council in its environmental concerns at SANDAG. I whole-heartedly support all of these efforts. Hope this clarifies what you are hearing. Thanks, Terry While I would have been happier if Sinnott has been more straightforward with a statement that climate change is a problem that we certainly have to work on, it's good to know that hi is not giving the out and out corporate line that has been developed for national politics. While the state of politics and power in Washington D.C. impossible, we can have hope that much of the heavy lifting can be done on the state and local level. We need people in San Diego, SANDAG, California, and elsewhere committed to making our climate a top priority.
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County Supervisor Ron Roberts has been tossing this idea around for a while. He wants to build gondolas in San Diego as public transportation options. Besides the bus and trolley and driving yourself, getting from here to there could entail boarding a cable sky transport, if Roberts has his way. Roberts says that he got his idea from the gondola rides at the San Diego Zoo. Most people think of gondolas as being frivolous or having very specific purposes. They're used for ski lifts or to delight tourists. Nicole Capretz of the Climate Action Plan dismisses the idea of gondolas used for public transportation as being, "kind of a fancy new bright and shiny object." But to such critics Roberts cites some of the advantages of moving people around with gondolas. The estimated cost of a gondola route is a fraction of installing a trolley. With a smaller footprint, the environmental ramifications are less and there is less use of eminent domain. And other obstacles are dealt with easier. "Wherever you've got grade, and you've got freeways and other things you've got to cross or you've got traffic, just fly over it!" says Roberts.
This idea is not entirely new. Portland (Of course it would be Portland!) has a gondola that is used by 10,000 riders a day. Thoughts? Pie in the sky? Boondoggle? Or an innovative approach to transportation and climate change? A big battery in the backcountry. Before you start getting an image of a huge AA Eveready stuck somewhere between Alpine and Dulzura, there are more than one way to make a battery. Batteries simply store energy. That energy can be stored chemically, as it is with the AA's and AAA's we have in radios and other devices, but it can also be stored physically.
The city of San Diego and the local Water Authority are considering using the San Vicente reservoir and damming another reservoir as the batteries. The plan would be to use solar energy to pump water into the reservoirs during the day, when the sun is shining and also when energy use is off-peak. Then in the evening, when electricity demand goes up, the water would drain out and drive hydro-turbines. Pretty clever. Although there is a price to pay. There would be open space that would be flooded. And, though it seems to be a shining example of green energy, reservoirs for hydropower are a major source of greenhouse gasses. This plan would nonetheless be considered green energy, which the city has as part of its Climate Action Plan. There is more information in Ry Rivard's Environmental Report at Voice of San Diego. Thoughts? Is this a good solution to lowering our greenhouse gas emissions? Or are we fooling ourselves? Please comment below. Longtime environmentalist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken has recently looked at lots of ways to solve the problem of global warming. He has compiled the results of his research in a new book: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.
The book is the result of Project Drawdown, which Hawken had founded to research solutions to climate change. The book ranks, in order of effectiveness, different methods of solving the climate conundrum. As he tells Yale Environment 360, many of the solutions were surprising and counterintuitive. For example, the most effective climate solution right now is proper management of refrigerants. Other surprising results were education for girls and access to family planning for women, which wound up being ranked as sixth and seventh. The fourth ranked solution was adopting a plant-rich diet, which, as Hawkin goes on to say, does not necessarily mean having a strict vegetarian or vegan diet. At number three was reducing food waste, which may wind up being ranked higher as Project Drawdown researches the problem further. Reducing driving, solar panels, and other strategies are important still, but having this research confirms my belief that we at South Park Climate Solutions are on the right track to make South Park a climate leader. It was only yesterday that I ran across this new term, reductarianism. This is one of those things that is so simple, you wonder why anybody had to think it up.
Reductarianism is simply reducing the amount of meat and dairy in one's diet "regardless of degree or motivation." It is the concept of Brian Kateman, who has founded an organization and edited a book around the dietary concept. Admitting that veganism and vegetarianism are dietary guidelines that are not meant for everyone, Kateman offers this less stringent idea. OK, now that there is a word for it, I might describe myself as reductarian, eating a vegetarian diet for my home meals and eating meat sometimes when dining out. This can be a good idea as we work on bringing down our carbon footprint. A lot of folks, including me, think that going vegetarian, despite its health and environmental benefits, can be difficult and sometimes undesirable. Out to dinner, sometimes the rack of lamb is impossible to turn down. This concept also dovetails perfectly with Meatless Monday, which South Park Climate Solutions has committed to promoting. You don't have to eat tofu and beans every day, just a day or two a week. What do you think? Is this a move in the right direction? is it not going far enough? It's easy to leave a comment if you like. I was just in a conversation this week with someone, and the topic turned to transportation issues in San Diego in relation to climate change. Part of the city's Climate Action Plan is getting more people to walk and bike instead of getting around by car.
That's a really great idea, and my hope is that we all can run errands, visit friends and family, and get to work on our bikes. It is, however, discouraging to run across the news that ridership for DecoBike, our bike-sharing system since 2015, has been flagging and actually has never really gotten off the ground very well. Despite having one of the largest bike-sharing systems, with 95 stations, ridership in San Diego is a fraction of what it is or other cities. DecoBike did not establish sufficient density for their stations, as they did elsewhere. But it is also difficult, and actually a bit dangerous, to cycle in San Diego. The city has not done much to establish cycling infrastructure. And, as an avid cyclist, I can tell you some parts of the city are pretty hilly. This is a real shame. If there is a city that can really support cycling, it is San Diego. We can hit the road with our bikes year-round. What to do? What could be done in the short-term? Long term? Do you know of a particularly difficult or dangerous road or intersection? Leave your comments below. Yesterday I posted about Kitchens For Good, folks here in San Diego who are fighting hunger and food waste--and fighting climate change as well.
While I've got the topic of saving things from going into the landfill on my mind, I thought that I would mention some other folks here in San Diego County who are keeping downed trees from going into our landfills. Dan Herbst and Jessica Van Arsdale are the couple at the helm of San Diego Urban Timber. These folks harvest trees that are cut down in folks' yards, in city parks, and along the roadway and turn them into beautiful furniture, one of a kind works of art. I wrote about them a few months back for Edible San Diego. The link to the profile is here. Apparently, when they published the piece on the web, they cut off the beginning of the text; so the beginning is below. San Diego Urban Timber is yet another example of folks increasing our abundance and fighting climate change. Here is the beginning of the profile: There are logs. Lots of them. Grey from being out in the weather, they stretch from one end of the parking lot to the other. Some are as big around as oil drums. Dan Herbst stands by some recently cut planks, his feet planted in plenty of sawdust. “This would all be going to the landfill,” he says. Also standing in sawdust is Jessica Van Arsdale, who together with Herbst helms San Diego Urban Timber, their company that creates high quality furniture and other household items from locally sourced trees. Instead of the landfill, these large, weathered logs will be crafted into chairs, benches, tables, and other household items. In east San Diego Kitchens For Good is making the world a better place one plate at a time. By breaking the cycle of food waste, they are helping to solve problems of poverty and hunger. They are also reducing carbon emissions in a good way.
The food waste that they harvest comes from surplus and cosmetically imperfect foods that wholesalers and famers send to landfill instead of to grocery stores and restaurants. They support culinary training and perform catering. As their website reminds us, almost half of the food we produce in this country is wasted. I've written about the wasted energy and subsequent needless CO2 gong up in the air. These folks also point out that the wasted food in landfills produces 25 percent of U.S.emissions of methane, which has a far greater warming effect on the earth than CO2. I have to admit that, until today, I was unfamiliar with this great organization. It is such a wonderful thing when you can find an organization that improves people's lives and betters the environment. Writing in the Atlantic today, Shane Cashman gives us a brief history of air-conditioning and gives us an idea of the ecological and environmental costs that this modern-day comfort brings.
Besides being the main driver of summer brownouts and blackouts, Cashman says that, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, "[R]esidential and commercial buildings used more than 500 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity for air-conditioning in 2015 alone. That's almost 20 percent of the total electricity used in buildings, amounting to $60 billion in electricity costs annually." Cashman may well have added that air-conditioning has changed history and changed our geography as well. Decades ago, air-conditioning was inefficient and expensive. With the development of affordable cooling, places that were inhospitable for long stretches of the year became air-conditioned oases. In Phoenix, Las Vegas, and other areas of the Southwest where only a few hardy individuals did their best to endure the simmering summers, houses now sprang up, all of them with their central air units attached to their sides. When these more efficient technologies were introduced, many environmentalists embraced them as ways to reduce energy consumption and pollution. They have, ironically, exacerbated our problem. Writer David Owen gives a spot-on analysis and explainer of this in his concise book The Conundrum. I believe that many of us working on climate change should take a look at what he has to say. Back in 2015 mayor Kevin Faulconer announced the city's plan to put solar installations on municipal buildings. For various reasons—bankruptcies, cancelled contracts, etc.—these installations have been delayed.
Today, however, construction began on two of the planned 25 rooftop projects, with ten more starting this month. Follow the link for more information. |
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorPaul Hormick is the founder of South Park Climate Solutions. He sees climate change as one of our central concerns, for ecologies as well as societies. He holds a master's degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins University |