As you may or may not know, Friday September 25, 2009 was a day where the city of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas in the basin suffered from some of the worst air quality due to a refinery explosion in Wilmington, CA. Communities around Wilmington, San Pedro, Gardena, Del Amo and many others literally became ghost towns due to the toxic levels in the air, schools were mandated to keep their students and staff inside to prevent ingestion of the chemicals that have been spread around. However in San Diego, the only concern to those who live there is whether or not gas prices can stay the same. In the September 26, 2009 Los Angeles Times business article, the only concern to people’s health is the pit of their pockets.

As of Friday afternoon, the severity of the fire was still being assessed and the refinery was operating at reduced levels, Tesoro officials said.

“Before this fire, the price was about to drop like a rock,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service in New Jersey. Kloza said the Wilmington incident and a smaller fire at a Chevron refinery in Richmond in the Bay Area were particularly ill-timed for California consumers.

“Instead of falling sharply, the price will go back up,” Kloza said.

Another price expert, Bob van der Valk, said retail costs in California would jump by an average of a nickel a gallon in the short term, and perhaps more. But he also predicted a collapse in retail prices by the Thanksgiving holiday that he said would be brought on by low demand and increasing supplies.

“The national average will be around $1.75, and even California gasoline will be under $2 a gallon,” said Van der Valk, who tracks fuel prices for 4Refuel, which helps companies buy fuel more economically for their fleets.

Concerns over the magnitude of the fire damage also kicked oil higher during the trading day, but much of that earlier gain was lost. Crude oil futures for November delivery closed up 13 cents at $66.02 a barrel.

I hate to sound shallow but, the cost of a barrel of oil or gas could mean less right now, many others such as myself suffer from periodic symptoms of allergies and in Los Angeles you can experience an allergy attack 4-5 times each year. So at the end of the day you will not suffer the most from paying a few more dollars for gas, you will suffer due to dirty and polluted air as I did this past weekend.

I was sitting in a cafe in Oxford, UK today when I noticed an article in the Oxford Journal, which encouraged readers to formally speak out against two potential county council-backed incinerators that would both be placed within Sutton Courtenay.

The campaign group called Sutton Courtenay Against the Incinerator has facilitated the formal opposition by gathering over 12,000 signatures for a petition, protesting, and showing people how to register their complaints and where to send letters.

Here are their listed reasons for opposing the incinerators, most of which deal with environmental degredation and a distaste for large polluting industry. Learning from Chester, PA, I’d say there are also several social risks related to health and labor. Like Chester and many cities in LA, Sutton Courtenay already has a high concentration of polluting industries, and these incinerators would aggravate any current environmental injustices.

I’m unsure of whether or not the installment of these incinerators is as blatantly racist or classist as toxic industry placement in Chester and in LA, but I’m still glad to see local community forces, regardless of their race or socioeconomic status, getting the attention they deserve for supporting EJ causes and increasing individual agency!

Let us take action
Let us take a stand
As we march and clap our hands
let our voices be heard

We can all wonder
and sit and ponder

We can all say what if and whose who,
but what I know is environmental justice is true

Transit racism, pollution
all things we fight against

Opression and Depression
And now we are in a recession

Who’s to say, who’s to blame
When we are all playing the game

So now everyone asks what can we do
let us join in rallies, and protest
I know I will how about you.

I have been interning with Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), an Environmental Justice Organization in Huntington Park, since June. I drive through South LA and Vernon to get there, and once I get into Vernon, the traffic pattern changes immediately. I suddenly have to compete with enormous trucks for road space. Because the behemoths drive in the left lane of two lane streets, cars desperately try to pass them, speeding up and changing lines, usually with little notice, making for dangerous driving conditions. Vernon wreaks from the excess diesel and factory pollution. I can tell that I’ve entered Vernon by the smells and by the absence of single family homes, which are normally a staple in Southern California.

The city boasts on its website that the Los Angeles Economic Development Company named it the most business friendly in 2008. No company could have awarded the city a more apt prize – the city has over 1,200 businesses and only 90 residents. Their website explains that their “city services are tailored to the industrial needs of the community.” I’m not sure how they have chosen to define ‘community’, but I’m guessing it differs from how CBE and other EJ organizations understand it.

CBE has been campaigning against the construction of the Vernon Power Plant since 2006, which they’re researchers have determined will emit at least 1.7 million pounds of pollution annually, adding to the poor air quality and disproportionate asthma and cancer rates in surrounding neighborhoods. They have seen some success, but recent legislation SB 696 could make it easier for the plant to win the battle.

Big Business, Corporate America, Dirty industry – they all have a disproportionate amount of say in our city infrastructure and our health. Please take the time to support EJ organizations throughout LA and the US that try to make these polluters more accountable to the public. CBE, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, The Labor and Community Strategy Center and the Bus Rider’s Union, The Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, are a few examples in LA. Check them out!

Check out these campaign posters courtesy of the CBE office:

[Show as slideshow]

There is this place

that does not consist of race.

Where we care about our sea

that is not full of debris.

Where there is understanding

in everything being demanding.

Where we are not concern

but eager to learn.

Where we are the changers

and not the strangers.

Where buses do not pollute

and cars are at a mute.

This is a place for me

where we all ought to be.

On Saturday, August 1st I held a workshop that dealt with the Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Community Rights Campaign. The workshop discussed in great detail the campaign itself, the demands on LAUSD, and how we want to change pre-prison conditions in high schools. I was able to present to the group the background and tools needed to recruit other folks around the work we are doing to stop the pre-prisoning of our youth. It is imperative that we stand against the racial profiling, excessive police force and ticketing of our youth. Because of these conditions, students are discouraged to go to school. This isn’t so shocking with LAUSD’s 50% graduation rate and California’s spending on education being 47th out of 50 states and 1st in prison/police spending out of 50 states. When students are discouraged to go to school the lack the skills to be successful citizens and therefore resort to committing crimes of poverty to survive. When in prison, 80% of prisoners do not have a high school diploma. This is not surprising when students are differed from school because of  the constant police harassment in their high schools and neighborhoods. There is an imparitive need for students to have adequate resources in high school to assist with their needs and police do not help to solve the root cause of any situation.

With this Campaign’s demands, we hope to gradate more students!!!

Graduating more students is important to the neighborhoods and communities because that means we have politically conscious young people that are fighting for changes within their communities that not only affect them but will also affect the next generation. It is important to train leaders and organizers that will take the initiative to create a self-sustaining community. The environmental aspects of these young people having leadership and organizing skills means that our community is on its way to improvement.

Cinderella's Castle at Disneyland

This is my second post on  the book called Fantasy City (first post here).

With the exception of a few large metropolitan centers like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, there was little attraction by tourists or suburban day trippers to come to the city . In the ten years between 1948 and 1958 there was a large decline in the level of dollar sales in one in four major business districts, with Los Angeles being especially hard receiving a nineteen percent drop off. There are a few reasons people believe people are leaving the city.  There are disamenity avoidance theories meaning people and/ or businesses leave the city for the suburbs so as to avoid negative factors such as high crime rates and energy costs tax avoidance theories, taxes are lower in the suburbs.  There are also positive upgrading theories meaning the suburbs provide a better standard of living and a wider range of amenities.  Another reason are economic evolution theories meaning suburbanization is a natural stage in the evolution of the city, combining activities and their locations.  Government policies influence investment, housing and economic activity and favor suburbs over central cities. The final theories are demographic trend theories which means that population growth or migration trends have a negative impact on central cities.

During the baby boom there was a a suburban building spree offering new, large houses at affordable prices. This was spurred by low-cost mortgages, tax breaks, and government subsidies.  During this time suburban growth outpaced that of the city tenfold. It was due to these factors that suburban growth was so great. This growth in the suburbs changed people’s lifestyles. One aspect that was changed was that of leisure. Recreation in a working-class suburb was mostly private and was located in ones home and yard. Contradictory to this Americans were taking to the outdoors like never before. After driving and walking, swimming was the third most popular outdoor recreational activity in the country. This trend was obviously caused by more than merely the baby boom and the shift of people to the suburbs. It was caused by a larger trend in which employers had shorter working hours, longer weekends, and paid vacations. Due to this there were less people going to the movies because there were other forms of leisure that were taking hold including surprisingly gardening and planting.Also due to a court case there was trouble building suburban movie theaters so a new form of movie theaters was formed, the drive-in. By the early 1960’s there were approximately 6,000 drive-ins This was not only an American phenomenon; it happened in Canada and Australia as well. Downtown entertainment districts faced competition not only from drive-ins and later movie theaters in suburban malls but also with the building of Disneyland, theme parks. Many, in fact all of the Disney clone parks had failed up until the building of Six Flags over Texas in 1961. Theme parks began to become popular after this.

First time on the subway in Los Angeles

The first time I took the subway in LA was with greenRELAY’s youth training program this summer. After living in New York City for two years my expectations where high, and to my surprise, the LA subway blew me out of the water. I was genuinely impressed. It was clean and spacious with fabulous art pieces; the trains came on time (and had scheduled times in the first place!); each station has an escalator, and it was cheap! The fare in NY is twice as expensive, the service is awful (I’m not sure that a schedule exists), the stations reek of urine and body odor, are crowded, dingy, dark and filthy. Few stations have an escalator or elevator to make traveling easier or transit more accessible for the handicapped. A friend and I even have a ‘How many rats’ game to pass the time while waiting for the trains. Despite that, nobody that I know, except for people who can afford cabs or monthly parking, hesitates to take the subway. Its a staple, and even though its pretty gross, it works.

I take the subway everywhere in NY. I would never drive there; it would be suicide. However, when I’m in LA my mindset totally flips. I never take public transportation, which is a major glitch in my relatively environmentally friendly lifestyle. So I’m making my transition to mass transit easier by going on random adventures with friends on the LA Subway. It has forced us to leave our Westside routine and explore many underrated parts of LA. My best friend and I decided to take the Purple line to the Red line to Hollywood last week. Because it would have taken too long to take a bus to the purple line on Wilshire, we drove 20 min to St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, greenRELAY’s home base, and parked, walked 10 minutes to the subway stop at Wilshire and Normandie and transferred to the red line. It took us about an hour total, but would have been much quicker if the different systems were more efficiently connected.

The whole time I was thinking about how perfect it would be if LA had decided to spend more money on subways than on freeways. This already decent system would be so much more expansive and maybe actually reach its potential. As of now it isn’t that useful because it is only accessible from so few places in LA. I personally would like to see more subways put in. Hopefully this would be done equitably, which, apparently, is asking a lot of the MTA or the DOT. Increased mobility would do wonders for minorities and people dependent on public transit. More subways would make Jobs more accessible, could potentially relieve some of the effects of ghettoization, such as highly concentrated poverty and environmental abuse, and will reduce car ridership. I realize that buses are cheaper to install, operate and maintain, but I admit that I am partial to subways because they’re faster, they are more predictable in terms of scheduling because they don’t have to compete with cars for road space or stop at street lights, and admission is prepaid. A better hybrid system that increases completely grade-separated rail, improves bus efficiency with innovations like Bus Only Lanes, decreases freeway construction and expands bike paths would be an important first step in minimizing environmental injustices in LA because it would reduce the vulnerability of minorities.

As we walked to the Walk of Fame, we overheard someone say, in reference to Hollywood Blvd, ‘this is like the Manhattan of LA’. While I could list a host of reasons why he was very wrong, I think his point was that public transportation was easily accessible and there was a high density of walkers, both of which are common in NY and foreign to a lot of Angelinos. I would definitely like to see LA become more pedestrian and cyclist friendly, particularly in minority communities because it would combat the higher levels of diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure. Better transit would reduce LA’s crippling  dependency on cars, and make it a healthier, cleaner and safer place to live.

In 1996, the first ever electric car made by General Motors made its debut. The Ev1 was the newer generation electric powered automobile. It was very popular among many cities in the Pacific and Southwest regions of the United States. It was a success for 3 years, until in 1999 Gm decided to pull the plug on in its leasing program, due to the fact that it was not making enough money. The EV program however, would soon make its comeback.

You may know the story of how the controversial automobile started and met an untimely end from watching the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car. The film told the story of how the oil industry and the Bush Administration basically took down the the electric car idea. In 2003, many automobile manufacturers began making more hybrid-electric/gasoline cars due to the California Air Resources Board requirement for car makers to produce a 10% emission free fleet. This policy would soon create newer fuel efficient automobiles such as the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic hybrid and now “fuel efficient” SUV’s such as the Hummer Hybrid (which has yet to come out). But the problem with these newer generation Hybrids are that they still take on gasoline fuel cells, which is alright due to the fact that they still use electricity but the negative of it as well is the fact that it still uses gasoline which plagues the atmosphere. The EV’s however use only lead battery and electricity.

Today however marks a rebirth of a past concept.  Nissan has unveiled a new prototype which has used ideas from the past to make into a reality for the future. It is the new EV-11 which is planned for a 2010 release, and from what Nissan is saying it is sure to be a huge solution to the global warming and climate crisis the world is facing,

“Tennessee will be a launch market,” said Mr. Perry, additionally mentioning Oregon and Sonoma County, Calif.

The car will seat five and be in the size range of a Sentra or Versa, he told the Chattanooga Engineers Club.

“It will have 100 miles of pure battery range,” Mr. Perry said. He said Toyota’s 2010 Prius hybrid electric gets about 10 miles range on pure battery, while the planned Chevy Volt will get 40.

Mr. Perry said the Nissan, running on a lithium ion battery pack, won’t be a test model.

“We’re ready to go mass production and mass sales,” he said.

Who knows, this could be the jump start the world needs in this surviving economy and this could be the answer to reduce the world’s green house gases. Lets just hope that this EV doesn’t doesn’t meet the same fate as its predecessor.

Higher prices for gas

that’s causing the pain in our a**.

Higher cuts toward our in-home health care

that’s causing old people to fear.

HEY ARNOLD !

Transit racism still proceeding

as the minorities keep bleeding.

They keep failing

and the President keeps bailing.

HEY ARNOLD !

I wish some companies would see the pollution in the sky

cause we as people do not want to die.

When will they finally see

that they are polluting our sea.

HEY ARNOLD !