Homeless Health Program, Climate Change, Sempra Banks On Fossil Fuels

Speaker 1: 00:00 People who are homeless, we'll now have a new resource for medical care on the streets today. Father Joe's villages is announcing its first street health program that meets people without a home directly where they are. Last year, 134 homeless people died in San Diego. That's up from 53 in 2010 Dr. Jeffrey Norris Medical Director of Father Joe's villages is joining us to talk about the program. Dr. Norris welcome. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it and I'm happy to come talk about what we're doing. Absolutely. My understanding is that some of these medical teams have already been out on the streets working with the homeless. What kinds of health issues are you all seeing out there? So we see in those experiencing homelessness a lot of what you see in them, other populations, so diabetes, high blood pressure, uh, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, so serious lung problems and, but we also see those issues in a much higher and much higher rates or what we call prevalence than in other communities and with much more severity. Speaker 1: 00:58 We also see a lot higher prevalence or rates of substance use disorders, alcohol use disorders, severe mental illness, um, and a lot of skin conditions, uh, staying, staying hygienic on the streets is difficult to say the least. And so people often end up with chronic wounds, uh, and various other skin ailments that are very important to treat to keep people healthy overall. And so what kind of treatment are you providing and how much are you able to do? So we right now are focused with our street health, uh, program on providing primary care in the streets to begin with. Um, our goal really is to meet people where they are and reach those folks that aren't consistently engaging with either outpatient healthcare services or social services. Uh, so these are individuals that have a serious health issues and generally just go to the hospital for their care end up in jail and prison, which is a not the way to provide consistent longterm care that's of high quality. Speaker 1: 01:59 Um, and it's also really expensive. So what we do right now is we go out and we try to find those folks and we meet them where we are to decrease barriers to care, uh, so that they can improve their health and also get better connected to the social service system and work on homelessness. That's really the ultimate goal here, is to not just address health, but address, uh, what's going on for them socially. So for now, right now, what we're focused on is primary care. And that's because, because this is a brand new program that's been here for about a month or uh, or so, and we've reached a couple dozen people. But the longterm vision is really to provide pretty comprehensive care, uh, via the streets. And that includes behavioral health, that includes psychiatry, that includes dental services longterm. Um, but the key is we have to get some money in some funding behind, uh, this program in order to make those other services happen. Speaker 1: 02:53 And Are you guys able to provide prescriptions, um, and preventative care? Absolutely. Absolutely. So if you talk to national experts in this area, uh, which is called street medicine and other cities, those experts argue that you can provide almost any service, uh, in the streets. I mean, there's some limitations obviously. Uh, you probably don't want to be doing gynecologic exams in the streets or you know, you can't do a colonoscopy in the street. Those sorts of things. There's some obvious limits, but in general, it really, you can provide pretty comprehensive care in the streets. The goal though is, is to engage with folks and get them to trust us and build rapport so that longterm, eventually they do come to a physical clinic. Do you engage in, in traditional healthcare services and are you guys going out every day? We're going out twice a week. Speaker 1: 03:40 Right now. We're going out on Mondays and Fridays. Um, and that's, uh, mostly due to funding limitations related to this program. We want to, uh, long term make this program a daily thing Monday through Friday, every day of the week. Do you ever encounter homeless people who just refuse medical treatment? Yeah, absolutely. There are folks who simply are not in a head space to engage with us. Whether that's because of lack of trust, bad experiences in the past, severe mental illness, substance or alcohol use disorders, um, or a mix of all of those things together. Um, and sometimes in those situations, even if we can't provide a true healthcare service, the goal is really to make a connection with the individual. And if that connection allows us to say, hey, we're going to be back out next week, would you be willing to talk to us next week? And if the answer is yes, then that's a win. Speaker 1: 04:32 In those situations. Is this all part of a, a new, larger regional approach to providing healthcare services to homeless individuals where they are? Absolutely. I see this as connecting to a variety of programs that are in various stages of implementation. Things like a health homes, which is a new case management program. Um, an effort to have a more streamlined approach to getting folks off the streets and into housing interventions in a variety of other programs. So this definitely fits in as part of a larger system of care. Um, rather than just an isolated siloed program by itself. And we saw vaccination foot teams out on the streets during the hepatitis a outbreak, which disproportionately affected homeless people. How is this program different from other programs that serve people on the streets? So I think the key here is we actually have clinicians who can prescribe medications, um, and do therapy for instance, or provide our goal longterm, as I stated, would be to get psychiatrists even out on the streets. Speaker 1: 05:31 Uh, that's the difference here is we're really delivering more comprehensive health care. This isn't just an outreach team going out and engaging with folks. It's true healthcare that that's what the difference here and similar programs have been used in other cities with large homeless populations for years. Why has it taken so long to implement this program here in San Diego? I think there's a variety of reasons for that. I think that certainly funding is one piece of it. Uh, there just hasn't been a consistent effort by any nonprofit agency or others to create a long term program. And then get the funding behind it to keep it going. Um, and then I think that the second piece of it is that over the last four or five years, San Diego is really, really owned homelessness as an issue. That is something we as a community have to take on. And so there's really a reflection on what services do we provide, where are the service gaps, and how can we do better? And so I think this is a part of this new wave of energy to, to own this issue and work on it more aggressively. I've been speaking with Dr. Jeffrey Norris, medical director of Father Joe's village is Dr. Norris. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. I appreciate it. Speaker 2: 06:42 [inaudible] Speaker 3: 06:47 [inaudible]. Speaker 1: 00:00 The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has surpassed 415 parts per million. The highest level ever recorded temperatures in the Arctic. We're in the mid eighties this week, this political season, Democratic presidential candidates have been joining with scientists to urge that actions to address climate change must be taken now. Bill McKibben has been sounding the alarm about human caused climate change for more than 30 years. He is founder of the seminal environmental group, three fifty.org his latest book is falter. Has the human game begun to play itself out in coverage from the KPBS climate change desk? Bill McKibben spoke to KPBS is mark Sauer by Skype. Speaker 2: 00:44 Welcome bill. Hey, it's a real pleasure to be with you. Speaker 3: 00:47 In your view, what is the drastic warming this week of the article Speaker 2: 00:50 mean? Well, this is part and parcel of what we've been seeing now for a couple of decades. They're very, very rapid, warm warming in the Arctic, the fastest warming part of the planet, and the result is the rapid loss of CIS. We're at the record low for the date already this year. As that happens, it just amps up the whole reaction. We used to have a nice white mirror at the top of the world that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back out to space. Now we have huge patches of blue water that just soak that up and that open water among other things appears to be discombobulating the climate of latitude much to the south. As you've seen in California. The jet stream has tended to get badly stuck in recent years and either you get endless periods of drought or long, long periods of rain. The best explanation we have for why that's going on is that that open water up at the Arctic is angulating the jet stream and keeping it stuck in those repetitive patterns. Speaker 3: 02:02 Well, secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, peo thinks this may be a good thing, more drilling and a shorter route from China, but uh, the other leaders from the Arctic nations aren't so keen on this whole idea. Speaker 2: 02:13 Well, Mike Pompeo is a buffoon. I mean, this is the most dangerous thing that's happening on the face of the earth, the rapid warming of the planet. And in particular the destabilization of the Arctic, which we'll pour methane and carbon into the atmosphere and his, his responses that we'll be able to ship junk from China two weeks faster. So it's a good idea. I mean, I, I'd hate to see what he thought was a bad idea. Speaker 3: 02:42 Well, can I ask you to explain the meaning behind the name of your group? Three fifty.org and the significance of the milestone we passed earlier this month regarding the keeling curve Speaker 2: 02:52 ensure a and 50 parts per million co two is what scientists tell us is the maximum safe amount of carbon in the atmosphere. We're of course way past that. This week we went passed for the first time, 415 parts per million. And I don't mean for the first time this century or the first time in human history. I mean for the first time in millions of years before there were any humans, uh, you got to go back to the Middle Miocene or so to get to an epic, a geological epic when we had CEO two in the atmosphere this high. And when you go back there, see levels were dozens of feet higher and things like that. Um, we're in completely uncharted ground now and it's truly terrifying. And what's most terrifying of course is that, uh, you know, our government is led by people who won't even begin to react to it. They, as you pointed out with Mr Palm Peo celebrated if they do anything at all. Speaker 3: 03:54 Well, you've expressed hope that politics of this are finally changing. Election season is here. What could concern voters be looking for in candidates regarding plans for meaningful action on climate change? Speaker 2: 04:06 Well, it is true that the politics do seem to be shifting a little among Democratic voters. Now the polling indicates climate change is done, number one issue. And by quite a large margin, which is very new development, candidates are responding with strong positions. Some of the strongest come from the people who are saying, we'll back the green new deal in one form or another. This is the first legislation that we've had that's on the same scale as the problem that we face and it is big changes that are required. One of the things I have to kind of stop myself from doing since I wrote the first book about climate change 30 years ago is, you know, it's not helpful or nice to say, Oh, if only you'd listened to me then you'll know, but it's true. 30 years ago there were small things we could've done that would've made a huge difference. A modest price on carbon in the late 1980s would have moved to the ocean liner. That is the global economy on enough of a different course that it would have sailed into a different ocean by now. Instead, we went full speed ahead on the old course and now we're so deep into this problem that all the changes that might have some chance to really mattering are pretty big and pretty hard, but very necessary. Speaker 3: 05:26 Now, as you pointing out in a recent article for politico, the media has been rather shameful and ignoring this critical issue. 25 debates over all in 2016 no questions on climate change. How's it going to be different this time around? Speaker 2: 05:39 Oh, I think the media will pay attention. But the problem is that people tend to let candidates off with a little hand waving about, oh, it's a horrible problem or an existential risk or or something. And without asking them the questions that really get at the root, uh, know for Democrats, the question is, are you going to achieve on with this charade of more natural gas? Uh, or are you going to actually back and aggressive and quick shift to renewable energy? California's proven that that's possible. I mean, there was a day last week when California was producing, uh, something like 80% of its power from wind, water and Sun. Um, that's a reminder of how fast we could go if we really wanted to. Speaker 3: 06:27 Well, and there was news this week, uh, in California, the Trump administration is opening 725,000 acres in the central coast to a drilling for oil and gas. So Sempra energy, huge energy, a conglomerate here in San Diego based in San Diego is just expanded their push toward natural gas. What gives you hope in the light of these dire news or reports that we're seeing over and over? Speaker 2: 06:53 Well, not that much. It gives me hope all the time and there are days when I despair, but I've been really happy to see this coalition come together in California to push first governor Brown and now governor Newsome. Very hard to end the practice of oil drilling in California cities to uh, make it much harder to put oil wells next to people's houses, your school yards and things. And I actually think that's the direction California's going to head in. I think that Californians are sick and tired of endless oil extraction and gas extraction. Uh, yes, there are some companies that still want to make some money that way, but I don't, I think California of all places can both afford and would like to tell them to shove off. Speaker 3: 07:42 And we're the biggest state where a, um, an economic powerhouse even compared to the countries around the world. We've joined with several other states, many of them in the West to be leaders on this issue. Is that enough? Or do we really need the federal government to step up? Speaker 2: 07:57 The problem is that California can't solve the problem by itself. Um, it can do everything right and if we're pouring in carbon in from the rest of the world, it'll overwhelm California just as fast or faster than, I mean, you guys get the firsthand look, you watched a city literally called Paradise, literally turn into hell inside half an hour. There's no mystery about what's going on. The world needs California to do the right thing, but California needs the world to do the right thing. Speaker 3: 08:27 All right, well, I've been speaking with climate change expert Bill Mckibben, whose new book is falter, has the human game began to play itself out. Bill, thanks very much. Speaker 2: 08:37 What a pleasure. Thank you for your good work. Bill McKibben was speaking to mark Sauer as part of the KPBS climate change desk. Speaker 3: 08:44 [inaudible]. Speaker 1: 00:00 In the aftermath of the shooting at the Habbat of Poway synagogue. Questions have been raised about what could've been done to prevent this attack from happening KPBS report or [inaudible] or looks into what law enforcement is doing to monitor the online activities, a potentially violent extremists. Speaker 2: 00:18 On the last day of Passover celebrations, a gunman entered a synagogue in Poway, opened fire killing one 60 year old congregant and injuring three others. According to authorities, the suspect 19 year old John Ernest had no criminal record and no prior interactions with law enforcement. San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore. Speaker 3: 00:41 You're collecting digital evidence and we're aware of his manifesto, which we are in the process of, uh, reviewing the determine it's validity and authenticity. Speaker 2: 00:50 That manifesto was reportedly posted on an online message board called eight Chan. It's the same website that was allegedly used by a suspect charged with murdering 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand. In March, the site welcomes users to the quote, darkest reaches of the Internet and promotes free speech. Above all else, Speaker 3: 01:11 we're talking about individuals who are self radicalized through the Internet. Speaker 2: 01:16 Daryl Foxworth is a retired FBI special agent with 30 years of experience. Speaker 3: 01:21 And now how does, how does that occur? Uh, through a number of ways. I mean, they go on the Internet, they identify a chat room, social media sites, things of that nature, and they start, you know, ingesting this, digesting this internally, and then they find some reason to identify this, to identify with these groups and take violent actions against others. Speaker 2: 01:42 He says federal law enforcement agents will sometimes monitor chat rooms when they're involved in specific investigations Speaker 3: 01:50 and everything that they do, it's going to be done based on the law. They're not going to break the law to enforce it. So you're going to make sure that, that you have a court order or some lawful authority that's going to allow you to do that. And usually that means that you're going to have to be involved in some type of, um, intelligence collection or, or investigation Speaker 2: 02:10 because the Internet is vast. That monitoring usually happens at the federal level. And when a specific threat is identified, the agency involved in the investigation, we'll pass that information on to their regional field offices who will then work in cooperation with the local law enforcement agency. Lieutenant Sean Taki Uchi is with the San Diego Police Department Speaker 4: 02:33 in terms of Internet and monitoring the Internet. That's something very, very difficult to do because again, that credibility has to exist. And so, um, oftentimes we rely on our federal partners for that. Um, with the Internet, we don't know where that information is coming from. If the threats being made in another state and it's coming across state lines, well that's, that's going to be very, very difficult for us to investigate. Speaker 2: 02:53 He says, another challenge is identifying whether a threat on the Internet is criminal and credible or if it could be protected by freedom of speech. Speaker 4: 03:02 We have the bill of rights where we are the first amendment and freedom of speech. So in this country we have the ability to say things that we want to say, um, without fear of prosecution, without fear of government intervention. Speaker 2: 03:13 According to the California Penal Code, a criminal threat is defined as a willful threat to commit a crime that will result in death or bodily injury to another person. The threat can be made in writing verbally or by electronic communication. Today those threats have become even more difficult to track things to encryption services or private chat rooms. More Hackman is a cybersecurity professor at the University of San Diego Speaker 5: 03:40 as a new tools who developed the governments are law enforcement comes up with with countermeasures which forces the development of, of new measures and a that's never ending and I don't, I don't see that we'll ever have the last word on that. Um, is very difficult to stay up on. What's new on the latest thing that's happening. Any tool that can be used for good could also be used for evil. Speaker 2: 04:05 He says, trying to find a balance between monitoring the Internet and maintaining privacy is an ongoing debate. Speaker 5: 04:12 We're right on the park boundary between privacy and security and perfect privacy and perfect security are I think both impossible. Speaker 2: 04:20 Federal authorities have charged the suspect in the Poway shootings with 109 counts of hate crimes. That includes setting fire to a mosque in Escondido. He also faces state charges of murder and attempted murder. Joining me now is KPBS reporter Prius or ether and prio. Welcome. Thanks for having me. I think we have a perception that law enforcement, especially federal law enforcement, is monitoring all sections of the web for terrorist threats, but apparently not. Yeah, Maureen, you know, I mean I think that's a little bit unrealistic. Obviously the Internet is vast and there's always new chat rooms and websites popping up that they simply don't have the time or resources or money to constantly be monitoring everything. So as you heard in the story, oftentimes they need to have credible evidence or a credible threat before they go into a website and start monitoring it. I'm a fourth amendment search is a governmental intrusion into a, a, a reasonable expectation of privacy. Speaker 2: 05:22 And that's another thing that we heard, uh, in the story is that, you know, there is an expectation that if you're on the Internet that nobody is monitoring your activities unless you're potentially making a threat that is credible and could potentially turn into violence. Allegedly the suspected Poway shooter posted a manifesto on the website, eight Chan. Now you accessed that site, what does it like? Yeah, I was kind of fascinated to go on there and read a little bit because we also had heard that the alleged suspect in the New Zealand shootings of the two mosques there were people were murdered was also on this exact same website. So I was really curious to learn a little bit more about it. And you know, right on the website when you log onto it, it says it reaches the darkest corners of the Internet. Um, and basically they believe in freedom of speech above all else and it's all about user privacy. Speaker 2: 06:15 And I was able to create a screen name and go into some of the message boards, have read what was going on and post my own comments without any sort of invitation. So really it's accessible to anybody. And if law enforcement is not involved in a specific investigation, they are not allowed to monitor sites like eight Chan, is that right? That's correct. So there is something called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. And so police can access some of your internet data with just a subpoena and they can get a subpoena without a judge's approval. But a subpoena will only give law enforcement access to things like Ip addresses that you've accessed or certain websites. The next level above a subpoena is an electronic communications privacy act, court order. And that'll give, um, police information about your online activities, but they still won't be able to necessarily look at your browser histories, emails, or files for that. Speaker 2: 07:10 They're going to need a warrant. And that's when it goes back to what we were talking about in the story about having a credible threat. And so they're going to need sort of specific language, uh, where there's a threat against a person and perhaps, you know, a date when that threat is going to be carried out. And in those situations, that's when they can get a warrant. But oftentimes people don't post that kind of specific information until moments before an attack. You mentioned that Australia and New Zealand block the message board, h Chan temporarily after the attack on the mosque in Christ church, would that be allowed to happen here? Right, so we live in the United States of America and that would essentially fall under the category of government censorship. So what can happen in a country like ours is a specific websites like Facebook or Twitter or even eight Chan can choose to delete a message board or take down a video, but they're private companies making their own private policies to have government intervention to take something down is highly, highly unusual. Speaker 2: 08:10 In the United States, the cyber security expert you spoke with described a kind of race between terrorists and law enforcement. Law enforcement cracks their encryption and secrecy and then terrorists develop a new ways to hide. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah, I mean just think about it. In the past 10 or 15 years, how much technology has advanced. I mean, we started with flip phones and now we have flip phones that actually have data and access to the Internet and these apps like whatsapp and there's another app called line that's very popular in Asia that's also a highly encrypted app. And so technology is constantly evolving and it's again, that really delicate balance between privacy and security. A lot of people want to be able to communicate with whoever they want and they don't have any sort of malicious intent. They're just simply wanting their conversations to be private. Speaker 2: 08:59 So, uh, you know, government and law enforcement is constantly trying to find ways, uh, to up their technology in order to monitor these kinds of encrypted services. But again, the second they figure out how to do something like that, uh, the potential adversaries are also learning new technology to get around those, those new avenues that they've found. Now, did you get the sense that the investigation into the Poway shooting is ongoing? And by that I mean that law enforcement is checking for links with other people or other groups that may have inspired the shooting. So one thing that I found particularly interesting about this incident, and unfortunately I've covered several incidents like this in the past 10 years, but authorities were very quick to say that the suspect in this situation was a lone wolf and that he wasn't tied to any sort of terrorist group. Speaker 2: 09:51 And that's something that we're seeing a lot of talk about on the Internet. That how could this guy not be considered a terrorist or B, you know, investigated in that kind of way be just because he's not tied to a specific group like the way that we might have historically viewed it, like the KKK or isis. And so I think that that's what's fascinating about these chat rooms that just because the group might not have a name, they might not physically meet in a meeting place, they might not have a sets, uh, you know, a set standard of rules that they still could be considered a defacto group. So it's difficult to say. I think a lot more is going to be coming out in, in the coming weeks and months. I'm about this investigation and the evidence that the authorities have on this suspect, but as of right now, they're saying that he's not tied to a group. So I don't really see any other suspects being linked with this specific incident. And I've been speaking with KPBS reported Prius there. Thank you so much. Thank you. Speaker 6: 10:48 [inaudible]. Speaker 1: 00:00 As San Diego moves towards its goal of 100% renewable energy. San Diego based Sempra energy just launched a worldwide fossil fuel expansion. SEMPRA's knew Cameron liquid natural gas facility in Louisiana opened this week with an endorsement from president Trump Speaker 2: 00:17 and now instead of relying on foreign oil and foreign energy, we are now relying on American energy and American workers like never before. The energy we produce here in our country is better, cheaper and cleaner than our foreign competitors and it's not even close. You people know that better than anybody that's your business. Speaker 1: 00:40 Sandra says it's liquid, natural gas or LNG will be exported around the world and is much less polluting than the coal and oil presently being used. Environmentalist say that LNG still causes greenhouse gas emissions and contributes to climate change. Sempra and its partners expect the Cameron plant to be highly lucrative. Just one of the anticipated three level operation is expected to generate up to $450 million a year. Joining me is San Diego Union Tribune Energy Reporter Rob Nicola Pesky Rob, welcome to the program to be back. Now, this is this Sempra's first entry into the global energy market. Speaker 3: 01:19 Well, for the most part, at least to the LNG market is had been talked about for a long time. And this Cameron Facility, uh, the export, uh, uh, end of this has been in construction for a number of years now and on Tuesday they debuted it. So it's the first time that separate as jumped into the LNG export market, which has really been booming in the United States in the last couple of years. Speaker 1: 01:41 What about the Sempra plant, the LNG plant in Ensanata? What is that? Speaker 3: 01:46 That is an import facility because they give you an idea of how quickly things can change in the energy industry. A number of years ago, I'd say 10, 15 years ago, the thought was the United States needed to import liquefied natural gas. So they built an import facility down in Ensanata and also the Cameron facility. Interestingly enough, was originally an import facility. If you go to the, the Cameron site, which is gigantic, it's that the entire real estate takes up two miles, two miles long, half a mile wide. And there's three very large storage tankers, about 200 feet. Um, the, the, the rise about 200 feet in the air. Those storage tanks were originally for import a but now they're going to be used for export because now the United States is producing so much natural gas Speaker 1: 02:34 and is, are there plans to expand it that way in Ensonata to make it an export for sales? Speaker 3: 02:40 Yeah, that's, there are some plans for that. A separate hasn't actually made the final investment decision on doing that, but they've lined up a lot of the permits. I think they've got pretty much all the permits they need, not just from the u s but also from Mexico. They may be one more permit they might need to get from Mexico, but uh, if they go through with this, uh, export facility in Ensanata, it, it will be very crucial for them. Because if you've got something at an LNG export facility right on the Pacific Ocean Ocean, which is where in Sonata is, then you, if you're exporting LNG instead of taking it from the Gulf coast for Cameron and a lot of these other facilities from other companies are those, those ones on the Gulf coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, they have to go through the Panama Canal. But if you're right on the Pacific Ocean, you can go to Asian markets, which are growing exponentially. You can go straight to the Asian market right from the Pacific Ocean. You can skip the Panama Canal, you can get there and half the time and you don't have to pay the toll from the Panama Canal. Speaker 1: 03:40 Now, this huge new plan to add this Cameron plant in Louisiana. Let's talk about the environmental aspects of this energy market. Sempra says, this is quote a major step forward to bringing cleaner, affordable energy to global markets. In what way is this cleaner energy? Speaker 3: 03:56 Well, the argument that, uh, natural gas reporters make is that if you're going to Asia, China for example, also Indonesia, India, there's uh, that that's a possible l and g a destination as well, that those developing countries use a lot of coal. The thinking is if you're able to send natural gas supply, natural gas to these developing countries, since natural gas burns twice as cleanly as cold does, that you're, it's a, it's a cleaner burning fuel, but the environmentalist come right back and say it's still a fossil fuel. Speaker 1: 04:31 It's still a fossil fuel in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and it LNG might be a big problem because of methane leaks in the pipelines to, is that right? Okay. Speaker 3: 04:40 Yeah. All the dia also methane flaring because the natural gas when it's produced in the United States, if you [inaudible] that methane is flared from the, uh, from the plants that produced the natural gas from the LNG standpoint, it's transported by pipeline to the LNG station of the LNG terminal. And then from there they, they do do, I believe they do some flaring at the, uh, at the site, but not nearly as much as they do at the natural gas facilities that produced the natural gas originally Speaker 1: 05:11 with this major move into LNG export, it gives the appearance at San Diego based Sempra is not really on board with California's effort to cut greenhouse gases and move toward cleaner energy and move away from fossil fuels. Really. Do you expect this new global business might hurt Sempra and its subsidiary Sdg and e when they say they support green energy? Speaker 3: 05:35 I'm not sure. I mean on the, you could argue that for the very reasons that you made, but that imagine Sempra would come back and say if these countries like China, India, places developing countries are going to use coal, if you give them natural gas as a bridge fuel that is going to be cleaner. Also meet Sempra is a holding company. So they're subsidiaries are natural gas companies. I mean, so in many ways it's not surprising that they're supported LNG and supporting the growth of natural gas. I've been speaking with rob, Nikola USCA. He is a San Diego Union Tribune energy reporter. Rob. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 4: 06:15 Hmm. Speaker 1: 00:00 This weekend. The San Diego Women's chorus presents quiet no more. A coral celebration of stonewall KPBS arts reporter Beth huck Amando speaks with artistic director Kathleen Hansen about this newly commissioned work. Speaker 2: 00:13 Kathleen, tell me what the San Diego Women's chorus is all about. The a women's chorus is a lesbian feminist identified chorus. It's been around for over 30 years and our mission in part is to inspire social action. And so who are the members of this right now? We've got about a hundred members. We'll have about 85 on stage singing, and that's grown from a small group of about a dozen women seeing around a piano in our founders living room to a large chorus that we are today. And what are you going to be performing this weekend? This weekend we're going to be performing quiet no more, which is a coral celebration of the stonewall uprising from New York, which happened in 1969 so we're celebrating its 50th anniversary now. For people who may not remember what stonewall was all about. Give us a brief reminder of what happens, what was a kind of underground club or the Lgbtq plus population used to be able to go to dance. Speaker 2: 01:12 At that time it was illegal to show any sort of same sex affection or to cross dress or to congregate and so there was this underground club. It was actually run by the mafia, but the police would raid it once in awhile and arrest people and kind of rough people up and disburse them. One night in 1969 the crowd decided to fight back. I said, we're not going anywhere, and there was a riot that sometimes we call it an uprising now because it kind of led to what's currently the gay rights and the Lgbtq rights movement. It led to the first pride parade a year later. And what do you feel it's important to remember that and to remember that through song. He was such a pivotal, pivotal moment for the community and 50 years ago really wasn't that long ago. We have a lot of people who were there who have friends who are there, but I feel like it's so easy to forget how far we've come and it's so easy, especially those of us who live in a safe bubble, it's easy for us to forget how much discrimination still exists. Speaker 2: 02:18 There are still laws in different states that allow people to be discriminated against and fired for being part of the Lgbtq Q community. And is it also easy for people to sometimes take for granted how far we've come and how things can go backwards? Absolutely. It's a matter of fact in this move, in this choral piece that we're going to saying it's an eight movement work and it goes in a loop in a linear fashion. So it starts leading up to going into this club and then it covers the police raid and then it talks about what happens afterwards and how we really aren't done yet. In the very final movement says start at home, change what you can never again be silent. And it's so important that everyone who is interested in equal rights stands up and speaks about this. And it's passionate about this and realizes how close we are to taking steps back. Speaker 2: 03:13 In some places, many steps are being taken back and it's, it's frightening and it's real and it's affecting people's lives. And putting this to music, I think is a great way to reach people. It touches people's souls, put anything to music and it makes it a little bit more exhilarating or more meaningful. Let's hear a little bit from part of the show. So what are we going to hear? This first piece is called courage to be who we are. And it was written in memory of a transgender woman who unfortunately was violently killed. This reminds us that standing up and being who we are and being visible is important. Speaker 3: 03:49 Whoo. Woo. Speaker 4: 03:58 Woo. Speaker 3: 04:04 Oh to bet. Good. Show me. Woo. [inaudible] we are standing in the mammary. Oh. [inaudible] [inaudible] Speaker 4: 04:29 oh, sorry. Speaker 3: 04:31 Bob and me. [inaudible] oh, [inaudible] to be [inaudible] we, we have Dainian I'm mammary, Huh? No, it was too high ball and oh, zoo have fallen. Speaker 4: 05:00 Oh. Speaker 3: 05:01 Oh Man. We are singing in the memory. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Speaker 2: 05:20 and discuss the role that music can play in that sense of activism and revolution or rebellion or whatever you want to call it. If you look back at all of the important social movements, they were surrounded by music, you look at civil rights and you think of we shall overcome. Um, one of the pieces that we'll be singing is Beatles revolution. I think that it allows people to express things that they don't otherwise have a way to express. Sometimes we get angry and yell and yelling doesn't always serve the right purpose, but if we can inspire people, if we can open people's hearts, if we can touch their souls through music, I think it's a way to humanize each other and really be able to understand a bit more of where other people are coming from. Speaker 3: 06:05 [inaudible] Speaker 5: 06:08 Ah, Speaker 3: 06:10 good to [inaudible]. Speaker 2: 06:16 What can people expect in terms of the music? Is anything original music composed for this? Is it a songs that have been selected from other sources? Yes, so the first half of our show is preexisting music. Some of them are fairly new pieces. There's a song book called the Justice Choir Songbook, and that was put together really with the idea of bringing people together in song to specifically discuss social movements. We've got a great piece in the first half by a woman named Kay weaver who lives in southern California. The second half of our concert will be the debut in San Diego of quiet no more, which is an eight movement work, and that was commissioned by the New York City gay men's chorus, the gay men's chorus of Los Angeles, and then we are a co commissioning chorus. There are 17 courses who have all been collaborating to put this work together. Speaker 2: 07:06 What do you hope people will take away from this show? I hope that people will be appreciative of the history of Stonewall, appreciative of those who have stood up in the past. Some have put their lives on the line. Some people have put their lives on the line to bring about revolution, to bring about acceptance. I also hope that people will feel that they should stand up for each other. I hope that people will feel the need to take action that people will reach across, meet new people, understand other people, vote all of those things. Speaker 1: 07:45 Yeah. And the wind, that was San Diego Women's course, artistic director, Kathleen Hanton speaking with Beth Ahca, Mondo quiet, no more will be performed this Saturday and Sunday at Lincoln High School Center for Performing Arts.