Solutions for San Diego

Please give us a listen, then post the link below to your facebook friends or email them: http://soundcloud.com/san-diego-speaks/sdsolutionsdemo

In this Program:

• Grant Writing Specialists - Penny Goforth
• East County Magazine - Director, Leon Thomson
• Ilan Lael Foundation - Marianne Gerdes 
• San Diego Brain Tumor Foundation - Connie Reeves Campbell

This has been a San Diego Speaks production of "San Diego Solutions". This is a demonstration project for a new one-hour, weekly talk-show about Non-Profit Businesses in San Diego and the solutions created by social-entrepreneurs to deal with local issues.

If you want to find out more about San Diego Solutions, and listen to extended interviews, go to our web site SDSpeaks.com 

There you can log-in and find ways to contribute to your local community, volunteer, become a citizen journalist, or submit a your favorite charity for an interview. 

The people of San Diego face many issues, If you would like to be part of the solution, then join the conversation online, and contact us with your thoughts about how we can improve this local show and create a better tomorrow. Together, there is nothing our community can't accomplish. 

Please, support our local Charities. Lean how to find worthy non-profit businesses in your area, and achieve results in your neighborhood. 

You can support San Diego Solutions through our web-site, simply subscribe to our email newsletter and listen to the podcast. You can listen to archived shows and extended interviews with local leaders about the challenges and opportunities we all face together. 

When you join our community, you'll find you are not alone, and that what at first may seem overwhelming is manageable when we share the work. Best of all you can express yourself, tell us your ideas, and propose your solutions to the issues you care most about. 

Thanks for listening, and welcome to "San Diego Solutions". 

Support CA Prop. 37

"After two decades fighting to force U.S. food companies to tell consumers when their products are made with genetically modified organisms, activists in California have mounted what is potentially their most promising offensive to date." - Ruters, Aug. 16, 2012

Labeling Genetically Modified Food is simple and makes sense, but in California Proposition 37 is under attack from corporations like General Mills and Monsanto who are spending millions of dollars to fight CA Prop. 37. The truth is almost everything we eat is Genetically Modified (GM) but corn, soy, and canola are among the transgenic food crops patented by corporations, so that they can maximize food production by splicing in genes that produce pesticide, growth stimulis, or help the crops survive in poor soil or a changing climate.

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has put out a new report calling for a moratorium on Genetically Modified (GM) foods.

Food designed to produce toxin: GM corn and cotton are engineered to produce their own built-in pesticide in every cell. When bugs bite the plant, the poison splits open their stomach and kills them. Biotech companies claim that the pesticide, called Bt—produced from soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis—has a history of safe use, since organic farmers and others use Bt bacteria spray for natural insect control. Genetic engineers insert Bt genes into corn and cotton, so the plants do the killing. The Bt-toxin produced in GM plants, however, is thousands of times more concentrated than natural Bt spray, is designed to be more toxic,[10] has properties of an allergen, and unlike the spray, cannot be washed off the plant.

There is mounting evidence that some of the Genetic Engineering of Plant DNA can transfer to the myriad of bacteria flora in our gut.

Worst finding of all—GMOs remain inside of us:
The only published human feeding study revealed what may be the most dangerous problem from GM foods. The gene inserted into GM soy transfers into the DNA of bacteria living inside our intestines and continues to function.[26] This means that long after we stop eating GMOs, we may still have potentially harmful GM proteins produced continuously inside of us. Put more plainly, eating a corn chip produced from Bt corn might transform our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories, possibly for the rest of our lives.When evidence of gene transfer is reported at medical conferences around the US, doctors often respond by citing the huge increase of gastrointestinal problems among their patients over the last decade. GM foods might be colonizing the gut flora of North Americans. - Culture Change

Vote YES on CA Prop. 37! 

Happy Planet Index

The index uses global data on life expectancy, experienced well-being and Ecological Footprint.

Each of these components is based on a separate measure:

Experienced well-being. 
If you want to know how well someone’s life is going, your best bet is to ask them directly. In this year’s HPI, experienced well-being is assessed using a question called the ‘Ladder of Life’ from the Gallup World Poll. This asks respondents to imagine a ladder, where 0 represents the worst possible life and 10 the best possible life, and report the step of the ladder they feel they currently stand on.

Life expectancy. 
Alongside experienced well-being, the HPI includes a universally important measure of health – life expectancy. We used life expectancy data from the 2011 UNDP Human Development Report

Ecological Footprint. 
The HPI uses the Ecological Footprint promoted by the environmental charity WWF as a measure of resource consumption. It is a per capita measure of the amount of land required to sustain a country’s consumption patterns, measured in terms of global hectares (g ha) which represent a hectare of land with average productive biocapacity.

 5 things to do everyday:

1. Connections/Social-Network, 
2. Curiosity/Learning, 
3. Give/Compassion, 
4. Activity/Exercise, 
5. Notice/Aware

Check out the HPI poster

Global Weirdness

For the first time in six years, National Public Radio has aired episodes about global warming without excuse or apology. The new book "Global Weirdness", by Michael Lemonick, makes no bones about it, we are going to see rough seas ahead.

Listen to the story ... Surprisingly, even our local KPBS is on top of this story.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the past year through June 2012 has been the hottest year in the continental U.S. since modern record-keeping started in 1895.

"While it's true that the primary effect of carbon dioxide buildup is to warm the Earth and to change the climate, some of that carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans, and when water absorbs carbon dioxide, it becomes more acidic. ... That has some implications for sea life, especially organisms that form shells: In an acidic environment it's harder to form a shell, and because a lot of these organisms are at the very base of the ocean food chain, there could be some real disruptions to that part of our food supply. "

Severe Storms, Deadly Heat Waves, Relentless Drought, Rising Seas, and the Weather of the Future. published by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central

AZ State perfects cost efficient solar collectors

Gizmag report says new furnace type solar collectors can melt glass in seconds.

The DNA Barcode of Life

I love sushi, but high priced fish is often mislabeled. One of the biggest problems I run into with food is that I can't know for sure what I'm eating. There have been studies that show that most of what we eat in Sushi Restaurants is mislabeled. This is fraud, they are tricking the consumers into eating cheap or endangered species instead of the expensive premium fish they are charging you for. In Japan, using species substitution, fishermen sell illegal dolphin meat, labeled as whale, for school lunches, dosing kids with mercury, a known neurotoxin. Read more at Oceana.org ...

Now EarthSky reports that a clever team of scientists is planing to use cell phone bar-code readers to give consumers more of the information they need to make good choices for the environment.

David Schindel said: “The image that some people have in mind is being able to sit down to a restaurant meal and take out your smart phone and scan a barcode on the menu and find out more about how the dish is prepared, but also about the species. Where was it fished? What fisherman caught this? When it was caught? Was it tested? Does this fisherman have a good record of authentic labeling? And all of that could be on your smart phone while you enjoy a glass of wine and you wait for your meal to be served.”

For more information about what to eat, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's SEAFOOD WATCH list: seafoodwatch.org

The Water Energy Connection

KQED's California Report notes that about 20% of all California Energy is used to provide water to our residents.

Check out the full story at the Climate Watch Web Page.
You might call that report, entitled California’s Water-Energy Relationship, as The Great Wake-Up Call. The idea that so much power could go into this one vital activity—moving and treating and using water—is both stunning and captivating. See the illustrated guide to how water and energy are connected.