San Diego Forms Global Warming Coalition

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published October 9, 2006 at 1:59 PM PDT

This story was published more than 18 years ago.

A new coalition of San Diego agencies has formed to raise awareness of the threat global warming poses to San Diego specifically. The San Diego Foundation, the Natural History Museum, the Scripps Birc

A new coalition of San Diego agencies has formed to raise awareness of the threat global warming poses to San Diego specifically. The San Diego Foundation, the Natural History Museum, the Scripps Birch Aquarium Institution of Oceanography and San Diego Regional Energy Office have launched “Climate Smart: You Can Change the Forecast.” KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.

Climate Smart aims to bring it home to San Diegans that work has to be done locally, as well as nationally to slow the progress of global warming. Bill Kuni of the San Diego Foundations’ Environment Working Group says this county is very vulnerable.

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Kuni: Scenarios that show sea level rises of one to three feet are projected to cause devastation both down the coast line in low lying areas including CoronadoIsland and developments in Mission Valley and future development being permitted right now in Mission Valley.

Kuni says cities and businesses must learn rapidly what must be done to prevent climate change from devastating the region. Over the next decade more than $300 million of state money will be available to promote solar power in San Diego, and half of that will go to residential energy customers. Alison St John, KPBS News.

Alison St John

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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.