By Bernadette Del Chiaro
Clean Energy Advocate, Environment California

The California Independent System Operator (ISO) is forecasting a potential electricity shortage this afternoon of 290 megawatts (MW) due to heavy use of air conditioners throughout the state. This shortfall – the difference between the amount of peak electricity resources the state has on hand and the predicted demand - is roughly the equivalent to the amount of solar power California has installed throughout the state. This narrow but critical gap between supply and demand highlights how even a relative small amount of solar power can play a huge role in keeping the lights, and doing so without air pollution.

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By Rosanne Haggerty
President, Common Ground Community

Maryann and Gerry were fixtures at the Times Square subway entrance, well known to local office workers, to the police and the courts.  With a dog as one prop, and Gerry’s drums as another, they had supported themselves and their heroin habits by panhandling, sometimes aggressively, to tourists and the regular business crowd.  Their belongings a makeshift tent, sleeping bags and clothes - were tucked into two carts, which sidewalk food vendors and the security staff at the office building above the station would watch for as they shifted to more lucrative posts over the course of the day or went to buy heroin or tend to their growing array of health problems.   By night, they bedded down at the subway entrance beneath the office plaza. Read more »

By Zach Church and Holly Kaufman

The tools to develop a sustainable energy system are available to us in San Francisco today, and the City is already implementing many of them. San Francisco has abundant ocean, wind and solar energy potential, compact development that presents opportunities for efficient transportation, and citizens possessing an entrepreneurial spirit, technological know-how, and a commitment to environmental progress. San Francisco can continue to promote sustainable energy solutions that will help achieve Mayor Newsom’s 20 percent greenhouse gas reduction target, save money, create jobs, strengthen the local economy and increase the quality of life in our City.  Each of the suggestions below should be part of the City’s comprehensive, integrated climate change and energy plan.  Read more »

By Sandra Hernandez, MD and Steve Heilig, MPH

The American health care system is ailing. It is inefficient, expensive, and worst of all, often inhumane. These long-recognized faults are once again receiving serious and widespread attention at the national, state, and local levels. At this point, however, the practical results of current efforts at “healthcare reform” on a broad scale remain to be seen.

San Francisco does not have to wait for broader action to improve healthcare access and quality on the local level. Local efforts have already embodied at least one aspect of true “San Francisco values” - that, as the famous Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics proclaimed exactly 40 years ago – “Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.” Read more »