Military

Military Leaders Push For Sustainable Energy

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published May 2, 2011 at 3:00 AM PDT

This story was published more than 12 years ago.

Adm. Len Hering, former head of Navy Region Southwest, said California's utility companies are putting up barriers to generating more sustainable energy.

Hering said the military is acutely aware of the need to find alternative energy sources, since many have given their lives to defend America's supplies of oil.

He said his attempts to cover parking lots with solar panels to power the Naval base in San Diego were stymied by state regulations that protect the interests of utilities.

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"We need to look at breaking down those portions of the utility companies that have literally a strangle hold on those entrepreneurial opportunities that communities are not allowed to engage in or developers are not allowed to build into tomorrow's community."

Hering spoke at a roundtable of military veterans concerned about the slow pace of progress to combat global warming and develop more sustainable sources of energy. He said diminishing resources will be an inevitable source of military conflicts in the future.

The roundtable, held at the Center for Sustainable Energy, was sponsored by Operation Free, a privately funded coalition of veterans and national security organizations.

Ambassador Reno Harnish, director of the Center for Environmental and National Security at UCSD, said the military has incorporated sustainable energy into the Quadrennial Defense Review issued last year. He said although many of the ideas are yet to be adopted on the ground, they are already an integral part of all the military's planning for the future.

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.