The California power grid wants to make sure it can keep electricity flowing as residents rely on a greater amount of wind and solar power and strict water rules force the shutdown of power plants along the coast in the next few years, the agency said.
California has the most ambitious plan of any state to [...]
The NY Times reports:
SAN FRANCISCO — On the Chinese calendar, this week ushers in the year of the dragon. But here, it feels a lot more like the year of the wolf.
Richard Cockle/The Oregonian, via Associated Press
John Stephenson, a biologist, measured the stride of the gray wolf known as OR7 in Crater Lake [...]
The East Bay Express figures out the jobs picture:
During a Republican presidential primary debate last June, Michele Bachmann lit into the Environmental Protection Agency, recommending it be renamed the “job-killing organization of America.” Her fellow contenders nodded in agreement, each explaining how shutting down the EPA, or at least instituting a moratorium on regulations, would [...]
JASON DEAREN reports for the Associated Press
Auto dealers say California’s proposed rules to require carmakers to build more electric and other less-polluting hybrid cars and trucks by 2025 will cost consumers more money and will stifle the industry’s growth.
Consumer groups say customers might pay more for the vehicles but will save in lower fuel and [...]
The release is on the front page of the San Luis Obispo Tribune: I posted my own photos on my blog.
Rascal, a rare Guadalupe fur seal yearling, and Beige, a California sea lion juvenile, headed for the sea Wednesday at Leffingwell Landing in Cambria after being treated at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.
Beige had [...]
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Federal regulators designated nearly 42,000 square miles of ocean along the West Coast as critical habitat for the Pacific leatherback turtle Friday, far less than originally proposed but still the largest protected area ever established in American waters.
The protected area is the first permanent safe haven in the waters of the [...]
Bob Cuddy reports in the SLO Tribune:
After a four-hour hearing that capped months of debate, the county’s little-known waste management board voted Wednesday evening to ban plastic shopping bags at most stores in San Luis Obispo County.
Unless blocked by litigation, which has already been threatened, or a referendum, retailers will not be permitted to distribute [...]
Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times reports:
January 9, 2012
Millions of dollars in renewable energy projects intended to provide power to facilities in California’s national parks and forests are sitting idle because of a years-long squabble with Southern California Edison.
A new $800,000 solar project at Death Valley National Park, photovoltaic panels at the state-of-the art [...]
Catherine Ryan Hyde summarizes the struggle Cambria has had with its own governing body, the Community Services District, to protect the local environment. The area is legally protected by state and federal law, but the CSD board of directors has pursued invading it to build a desalination plant. The full text of her summary includes [...]
Joe Fassler writes in The Atlantic about Edible Education 101. Joe Fassler, a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa. In 2011, his work for TheAtlantic.com was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in Journalism. He hosts The Lit Show on KRUI radio and litshow.com.
This fall [...]
Additional information about permaculture posted online:
Permaculture is a design system based on ethics and design principles which can be used to establish, design, manage and improve all efforts made by individuals, households and communities towards a sustainable future. The permaculture flower uses the evolutionary spiral path to link together the key domains required for this [...]
Chew on this
Locals are finding ways to move away from food created by corporations
BY KATHY JOHNSTON
A quiet revolution is stirring in local kitchens. All over San Luis Obispo County, people are claiming their right to decide what goes in their mouths and their power to choose where it comes from.
CRUNCHY CHOICE
Dan Melton picks out [...]
(12-26) 02:44 PST South Lake Tahoe, Calif. (AP) –
Over the objections of the U.S. Forest Service, wildlife officials in California are taking steps at the state level to protect a rare woodpecker partly because the federal agency won’t stop logging the bird’s ever-shrinking habitat in burned stands of national forests in the Sierra Nevada.
The California [...]
Kathy Johnston reports in San Luis Obispo’s New Times on a project that needs some laws to change
Using fish heads and fish carcasses to help crops grow well—an ancient practice that pre-dates the Pilgrims—is an idea that recently caught on in San Luis Obispo County.
People enthusiastically jumped on board this fall to make a fish-composting [...]
A billion-dollar project by SolarCity to stick solar panels on military housing across the country will proceed solely with private financing, after the federal government backed out in the wake of Solyndra’s bankruptcy.
SolarCity, based in San Mateo, will report today that it has reached an agreement with Bank of America Merrill Lynch to fund the [...]
Jonah Owen Lamb of the San Luis Obispo Tribune takes a look at local farms that collect federal subsidies, see below. The newspaper editorialized about the issue the following week. The report is welcome, now that we have a chance to spend time examining the Farm Bill, which had been shrouded in secrecy during SuperCommittee [...]
As reported in the San Luis Obispo Tribune:
A proposed state ballot initiative would force Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, as well as California’s other nuclear plant, to shut down, causing electricity rates to jump and possibly resulting in rolling blackouts, according to a nonpartisan analysis.
The proposed Nuclear Waste Act of 2012 would require that no [...]
David Sneed reports:
A wide variety of opinions about climate change and how the county should respond — ranging from a belief that the county is not doing nearly enough to fight global warming to fears that the plan would be a step in turning the sovereignty of our country over to the United Nations — [...]
California Watch reports:
In a push to expand across California without interference, Wal-Mart is increasingly taking advantage of the state’s initiative system to threaten elected officials with costly special elections and to avoid environmental lawsuits.
The Arkansas-based retailer has hired paid signature gatherers to circulate petitions to build new superstores or repeal local restrictions on big-box stores. [...]
HuffPo reports:
Humpback whales shocked a bikini-clad surfer and two kayakers this past week when they leapt out of the water and lunged disturbingly close to the group in the waters off Santa Cruz, California.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the humpback whales are traveling unusually close to the shore in search of food. In turn, [...]
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