The one-year anniversary of Berkeley’s momentous step toward reducing its greenhouse gas emissions has come and gone without much fanfare. But inside small city offices, tucked away in remote university laboratories, and even in the living rooms of community activists, ground-breaking actions are being taken —but not everyone is at ease with them.
If it seems that “redevelopment” has been on the tip of the tongue of many of San Francisco’s political, community, and policy leaders for ages now, it’s because it has. In 1969, the Redevelopment Agency was brought in to help the city reinvigorate a portion of it’s struggling Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, and nearly 40 years later is still engaged in an arduous process with city officials and community members to bring the vision to fruition.
By Majo Calderon and Kiran Goldman
RODEO BEACH – Concerned residents of Mill Valley gathered at Rodeo Beach today to watch as workers rescued birds and scooped and bagged sand contaminated from Wednesday morning’s oil spill. A number of onlookers sadly looked through binoculars and said they were frustrated that they were not allowed to walk onto the beach to help.
“I thought I might come down and see if they needed any help picking up birds or rescuing some sea lions, but it looks like you can’t even go down on the beach,” said Jay McGill, a longtime surfer from Mill Valley, who had to travel to north of Point Reyes today to find a beach to surf that had not been touched by the oil spill. Continue reading
By Jenny Chu and Kiran Goldman
Last Saturday, a new 7.5-mile section of the Ridge Trail was opened to the public. The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EMBUD), the property owners, and the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council, a non-profit founded in 1987 to promote the completion of the 550-mile trail, joined for the trail dedication. The path now links the Pinole Watershed to the Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve, permitting ten miles of continuous hiking. Continue reading
BERKELEY–The wildfires currently raging across Southern California may conjure up images for East Bay residents of the October 1991 fire that burned through the Oakland Hills and caused 25 deaths and massive property damage. But local fire departments say the East Bay’s recent rains and relatively cool temperatures have brought the area’s high-risk fire season to a close.
“The difference is we don’t have the hot temperatures, we don’t have the high winds, and we don’t have the same fuel moisture as they do,” said Lt. Justin McNulty of the Piedmont Fire Department. Continue reading
Industry trucks may have to meet reduction levels by 2013. Continue reading
Scientists and government officials met to discuss how to better protect and improve the Bay-Delta Estuary. Continue reading
OAKLAND–A quiet spring of funds are being diverted to Oakland and other California cities thanks to the energy crises of 2000 and 2001. Few will forget the lawsuits brought by the state of California against several energy companies. But it pays to remember that in the settlement, $2.3 million was allocated to Oakland to be spent on energy efficiency projects. This summer $250,000 was granted to the Green Jobs Corp, an off-shoot of the Ella Baker Center.
Green Jobs Corp would like to see this money go to green collar job-training as part of a “pathways out of poverty” program. For Van Jones, President of the Ella Baker Center, this program offers a relief from the frustrations of working towards social justice via the typical youth and police-centric programs. Green Jobs along with Apollo Alliance, a labor union of electricians and plumbers, engages private industry leaders in a process that could directly impact the economic disparities experienced by at-risk communities.
With echoes of New Deal rhetoric, the focus on developing a green-collar work force in economically depressed areas of the city strives to link energy efficiency with social equality.
The Green Guide rated Oakland one of the top 10 US green cities, beating out Berkeley and San Francisco this year. California has already long been considered “…a consumer trend-setter. For everything from organic foods, the Prius and AB32,” says banker, Peter Liv, at a recent conference of green-industry leaders hosted by Business Times. But Oakland is emerging as a model-city for the state and the rest of the nation, retrofitting old infrastructure with environmentally-conscious values.
Both solar and bio-fuels are industries that have bloomed by 20% in just the past year and according to Daniel Kammen, energy professor at UC Berkeley, these industries create 3-5 times more jobs per dollar invested than fossil fuels.
Some of these jobs take a relatively low skill-level and can be mastered quickly with on-the-job training. “Yep, I got my degree from google.com,” says Ralph MacIntyre, co-owner of biodiesel processor Blue Sky. After years of working in construction, MacIntyre and his brother Patrick MacIntyre, began a 7-year journey into biofuel processing and design, eventually opening the doors to their current venture at Blue Sky. Throughout the east bay the Blue Sky pump trucks are busily collecting restaurant grease and turning it into a renewable energy source. Their goal is to eventually produce 15 million gallons of biodiesel a year.
At that level they expect to employ 50 people with 6-8 of them working as facility operators mixing batches of biodiesel. Blue Sky is already in the midst of a pilot program that supplies biodiesel fuel to AB Trucking’s fleet at the Port of Oakland.
Federal dollars are also filtering into the green economy in the form of workers’ training in community and vocational colleges focusing on energy-efficient building and construction, renewable electric power, energy-efficient vehicles, biofuels development and other green industries. The Green Jobs Act of 2007, authorized the Department of Labor to use up to $125 million to support these programs.
In a letter to the community Chancellor Elihu M. Harris outlined a program to make the Peralta Community College system, “THE place to go for green job training.” He makes use of a three-pronged approach called the Three E’s of sustainable management – Ecology, Equity and Economy. A historian might hear some similarity to Roosevelt’s Three R’s – Relief, Recovery and Reform.
As of now faculty are comparing independent initiatives and fleshing out a more fully integrated program. The Chamber of Commerce has sponsored the Green Business Council to assess the labor needs of 157 types of businesses. And the California Clean Energy Fund has put together investment packages aimed to attract more venture capital into this restorative industry.
Lyra Frederick
frederick@berkeley.edu