Power the economy and grid with local solar [Infographic]
October 30, 2011 by admin
Filed under For A Cleaner Planet
by John Farrell.
Related Links:
Don’t let Solyndra fool you: Solar PV is on fire
Why ‘market-based’ is poor criteria for solar policy
What can trick-or-treaters tell you about the health of your neighborhood?
Grist.org – the latest from Grist
San Diego residents push for new urban agriculture rules
October 29, 2011 by admin
Filed under For A Cleaner Planet
by Jill Richardson.
San Diego resident Adam
Hiner is hoping to get his chickens back. Adam and his sister were keeping hens
too close to their house (breaking the city’s law that requires owners to keep them a full 50 feet from any
residence) when a
neighbor complained, and he had to give the birds to friends and family.
Another resident, Kaya de
Barbaro, had to move her chickens around the city after a neighbor complained, eventually hiding them near a canyon, where
one of them made a meal for a coyote. Some San Diegans have even tried to
exploit loopholes in the municipal code that allow chickens in schools or
museums, claiming to the city that their homes are actually schools. (No, it
didn’t work.)
While enforcement of the 50-feet law is spotty when neighbors don’t mind, a newly proposed set of urban agriculture rules might just allow residents like Hiner and
de Barbaro to keep their animals without breaking the law in the first place. That’s right; San Diego is
getting an urban agriculture makeover.
In July, Mayor Jerry Sanders
signed an ordinance dramatically streamlining the city’s community garden
regulations. In its wake, the city began work on a revision of the
city’s commercial and backyard garden laws. If the proposed changes go through,
San Diego will begin to allow retail farms
(which can sell produce grown in the city), farm stands, and bees. The rules
regarding chickens would be revised and the city might even allow miniature
goats, among other things.
The ordinance, which will be voted on in January,
would also bring San Diego in line with San
Francisco, Chicago, Oakland, Seattle, and other U.S. cities that have already made similar changes. And
while some aspects of urban agriculture appear to be an easy win for the city, the
proposed rules about farm animals are turning out to be both complex and
controversial.
It started with community gardens
The impetus for the
proposed changes stems from the creation of the New Roots Community Garden, a 2.3-acre, multicultural community garden for
refugees from around the world, by the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
Now a few years old, the garden has garnered national media coverage (and a visit from First Lady Michelle
Obama). After seeing how difficult it
was to clear regulatory hurdles for urban farming—it took an astounding $ 40,000 and nine months—the IRC joined forces with others
looking to establish new community gardens in San Diego, such as the People’s Produce Project, and began working to change the laws.
An advocacy group formed calling itself the 1
in 10 Coalition, in reference
to their hope that—once the rules changed—one in 10 people in San
Diego would be able to get at least some of their food locally. One of the group’s leaders was
Parke Troutman, who had written a PhD dissertation on land-use politics in the
city and county of San Diego. “[It] was a land-use issue, and only a few of us
had experience with that,” he recalls.
Changing the community
garden laws was a long, hard slog that took two years, even with several city council members’
support. Toward the end, the effort got a boost from a $ 16 million obesity-prevention grant from
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that included a school and
community garden program led by San Diego County. The money went to fund the
creation of five regional gardening education centers throughout the county. The grant also paid for work on policy changes; it paid for Troutman to consult
as a “Land Use and Planning Consultant,” allowing him to devote more time to bringing San Diego’s urban agriculture laws into the 21st century.
The community garden
effort brought to light a number of other urban agriculture-related issues—such as the need to revisit chicken ownership, farm stands, and beekeeping. So, once the community garden issue
was wrapped up in June, San Diego City Council wasted no time; by July, they had brought urban
agriculture before the council’s Land Use and Housing Committee.
Home gardeners unite
San Diego City Council Member Todd Gloria has been another key advocate of better, more expansive urban agriculture laws in San Diego. Gloria
heard about the IRC’s difficulty in establishing New Roots Community Farm even
before he was sworn in to the city council. Then, while holding one of his
monthly “Coffee with Your Councilman” events, a young couple approached him,
explaining that they had received a code compliance violation for owning
chickens. “That drove it home for me,” Gloria said.
But even for an “agvocate”
like Gloria, bees were not an easy sell. “I’m afraid of bees,” Gloria
admits, but adds: “The beekeepers have helped me
understand the issue better.” One argument San Diego beekeepers have made is that
they will actually help keep the city’s bees docile, by eliminating aggressive,
Africanized traits in their hives.
As of October, a draft
ordinance has been written. If it
passes, single family homes will be allowed to keep a few chickens 15 feet from their home (and more with a 50-foot
setback). The initial draft allowed one bee hive per home, but beekeepers
successfully argued that the city should to raise the number to two, arguing it
allows for better maintenance of the hives.
The goat problem
The draft ordinance also initially included an allowance for two miniature
goats per home, but San Diego County’s Departments of Environmental Health and
Public Health Services have requested that this rule be removed from the
ordinance because they fear it could lead to an increase in raw milk
consumption.
One of the strongest
advocates for backyard goats in San Diego is Laura Hershey, resident and former
goat owner. A few years ago, she adopted
Hester and Strawberry, two Nigerian dwarf goats, but she lost them once the
city found out she had them.
As miniature goats, mature
female Nigerian dwarfs weigh 30 to 50 pounds (around half the size of full size
goats). Hershey’s goats each provided her with up to a quart and a half of milk
a day, which she easily pasteurizes at home using nothing more than a pot, a
kitchen timer, and a thermometer. “A third grader could do it,” she said before
the city council recently.
Once the
city heard opposition from the county Health Department over raw milk fears,
goats were briefly pushed off the short-list of priorities. Goats are now back
in the proposed law changes, but whether they make it all the way to the
mayor’s desk remains to be seen. This resistance to goats is
unfortunate for a few reasons. The San Diego draft ordinance is based on a
similar law in Seattle and, so far, Seattle has had no foodborne illness as a
result of milk from backyard goats, raw or otherwise. Additionally, it is
unprecedented to ban ownership of dairy animals for the sole reason of limiting
raw milk consumption. In fact, even in parts of the United States where selling raw milk is illegal, farmers and
their families may still consume it themselves. Last,
consumers are trusted to buy raw meat—even when we know a high percent of it is
contaminated—on the
assumption that they will cook it thoroughly at home. A family with two
Nigerian dwarf goats—the only dairy breed the draft ordinance allows—would produce just enough milk for the family, but not enough to sell.
San Diegans are getting excited as the urban agriculture ordinance
works its way through the city’s long and winding government system; a recent meeting drew 150
attendees out in support of the proposed changes. Adam Hiner says he is definitely getting
more chickens, and his sister, Rachel, has put her name on a waiting list to
buy miniature goats. And there’s a rumor going around that one city council members might even get some chickens.
Related Links:
Peebottle Farms: Have eggs, will barter
Peebottle Farms: Chicken expertology
Grist.org – the latest from Grist
The life of a seaweed gatherer [VIDEO]
October 28, 2011 by admin
Filed under For A Cleaner Planet
by Daniel Klein.
Most of the seaweed we get these days is farmed. But way up in northern Maine, Larch Hanson is still harvesting it wild in its many varieties on the rugged coast. This video isn’t about the details of that process, however. It’s about the essence of life for Larch, who rises at dawn to cut seaweed and then writes Zen poems about it. Learn more about Larch on his website.
Related Links:
Communal farming in Vermont [VIDEO]
What happens when a whale dies?
God’s country: Farming for spiritual reasons [VIDEO]
Grist.org – the latest from Grist
Romney attacks green jobs, ignoring the 64,000 created in his state
October 26, 2011 by admin
Filed under For A Cleaner Planet
by Stephen Lacey.
Cross-posted from Climate Progress.
Former Massachusetts governor and presidential front-runner Mitt Romney— once a candidate who stood up to coal and supported clean energy—is now calling green jobs fake.
In an op-ed in the Orange County Register published Monday, Romney regurgitates GOP talking points on loan
guarantees to Solyndra and Fisker Automotive, two stories that have
turned leading conservative politicians and media pundits into a pack
of scandalmongers—even while many of those politicians supported the same government investments for companies in their own districts.
Romney has officially joined the herd, calling green jobs “illusory.”
First, the good news: President Barack Obama has finally
created some “green jobs.” Now for the bad news: They are not in the
United States, but in Finland.
The creation of environmentally friendly jobs has been at the top
of Barack Obama’s policy agenda since coming into office. With the
first of his now many jobs plans, the president set out to fulfill his
campaign promise of spending $ 150 billion to create 10 million green
jobs. Alas, things didn’t quite work out as planned.
… So far, approximately 100 workers are employed by Fisker in
Wilmington, Del., while an additional 500 are actually assembling the
cars in Finland.
… Even these few jobs may be illusory: Studies of Europe’s green job
experiments have found that each new green job destroys several other
jobs elsewhere in the economy.
There are numerous gaping holes in Romney’s piece. But here’s the biggest one: There are now 64,000 green jobs in his home state of Massachusetts alone, according to a report released earlier this month [PDF] by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC). Hard to call that “illusory.”
Due to making green jobs a “clear economic development priority,
supported by the passage of various legislative and policy initiatives,”
on the state and federal level, MassCEC reports that the
state’s green jobs workforce grew by 6.7 percent from July 2010 to July
2011—smashing the average 1 percent growth of other industries in
Massachusetts. Employers surveyed expect to see upwards of 15 percent growth in the next year alone. From the report:
Not only is it is clear that clean energy is one of our
Commonwealth’s marquee industries, but this report affirms that this
sector has played a key role in helping the Commonwealth fare the
recession better than many other states.
The Massachusetts experience reflects growth in the clean energy
sector broadly, which saw 8.3 percent growth nationally between 2009 and 2010.
According to the Brookings Institution, the sector is creating jobs
with median wages that are more than $ 7,700 above jobs in the broader economy.
Apparently, Romney didn’t get the memo.
But that’s not surprising, considering he’s citing a green jobs study from 2009 that has been so thoroughly vetted and debunked, it’s a wonder anyone outside of Fox News refers to it anymore.
And that Fisker Automotive story he refers to? That’s actually a
rehashed story from 2009, too. For anyone not up on the latest
“scandal,” ABC claims it has conducted an “investigation” showing that a
loan guarantee for plug-in electric vehicle manufacturer Fisker
Automotive is creating jobs in Finland, rather than the U.S.
In fact, when Fisker first closed the loan guarantee in 2009,
officials publicly explained that the company would be doing final
assembly of its first model in Finland while it ramped up a factory in
Delaware. According to Fisker, none of the DOE funds have been used to
support jobs in Finland—all the money has been used for building new
facilities in the U.S. to develop its next EV model. The company only
began hiring workers for U.S. operations in June.
Unsurprisingly, Fox News and other outlets are running with the story and inaccurately claiming that the company is using federal money to
create jobs in Finland. And now the Romney campaign is spreading the
disinformation too.
It appears that Romney’s version of the “facts” are the only illusory item in his op-ed.
Related Links:
Jay Inslee, candidate for WA governor, chats with Grist about clean energy and coal ports
Solyndra, schmolyndra: The Obama administration’s hit rate is better than the private market’s
Solyndra and Keystone XL: A case study of skewed coverage at Politico
