by Sing Tao Daily - New America Media

June 29, 2009

OAKLAND -

The City of Oakland first green job training commencement was held at Laney College on Monday. The Sing Tao Daily reports 38 graduates from different ethnic groups said, We are ready to the millions of green job opportunities that President Obama had promised.

All the graduates had been previously laid off. They learned how to install solar panels; fix wind power electricity generators; produce bio-fuel and took other classes on recyclable energy resources in the 12-week training program.

According to the American Solar Energy Society, there will be 16-37 million green jobs available to people being laid off by 2030.

by Sing Tao Daily - New America Media

June 29, 2009

OAKLAND -

The City of Oakland first green job training commencement was held at Laney College on Monday. The Sing Tao Daily reports 38 graduates from different ethnic groups said, We are ready to the millions of green job opportunities that President Obama had promised.

All the graduates had been previously laid off. They learned how to install solar panels; fix wind power electricity generators; produce bio-fuel and took other classes on recyclable energy resources in the 12-week training program.

According to the American Solar Energy Society, there will be 16-37 million green jobs available to people being laid off by 2030.

Related:

AsianConnections.com is a proud member of NewAmericaMedia.org the nation's largest consortium of ethnic media...

Among California's Asian Americans, 83 percent describe themselves as environmentalists, compared to just 52 percent of all California voters, according to a first-ever poll on the environmental attitudes of Asian-American voters. NAM environmental editor Ngoc Nguyen reports on the surprising findings.

New America Media, news report, Ngoc Nguyen

Editor's Note: Among California's Asian Americans, 83 percent describe themselves as “environmentalists,” compared to just 52 percent of all California voters, according to a first-ever poll on the environmental attitudes of Asian-American voters. NAM environmental editor Ngoc Nguyen reports on the surprising findings.

Asian-American voters in California care about the environment and could swing votes on environmental measures, a new poll has found, bucking conventional wisdom.

The groundbreaking multilingual poll surveyed 1,002 Asian-American voters on their views about environmental issues and compared results to a poll of 564 state voters. Interviews were conducted with Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese and Asian Indian voters.

“Asian Americans should be paid attention to,” said James Lau, executive director of the California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, which commissioned the poll. “They are supportive of a lot of environmental issues.”

Asian Americans made up about 10 percent of California voters in the 2008 elections. If tapped by environmental activists, this fast-growing voting...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Last December, Gov. Schwarzenegger tasked a 14-member commission to come up with new sources of revenue for the state that could put an end to the feast or famine revenue cycles seen in Sacramento. The Commission on the 21st Century Economy met on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley last week to hear testimony on one revenue option: a carbon tax.

New America Media, News Report, Ngoc Nguyen

March 23, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO -- Last December, Gov. Schwarzenegger tasked a 14-member commission to come up with new sources of revenue for the state that could put an end to the feast or famine revenue cycles seen in Sacramento. The Commission on the 21st Century Economy met on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley last week to hear testimony on one revenue option: a carbon tax.

The idea behind a carbon tax is to tax the use of fossil fuels and use the money to invest in the development of clean energy.

The simplest way to tax carbon-based fuels is through a gas tax, said Fred Silva, senior fiscal policy advisor for California Forward, a bipartisan organization that focuses on governance reform. The state already has a gas tax, so all it would have to do is simply increase it, said Silva, who attended Tuesdays meeting.

According to California Forward, even as it is, the state has the highest combined gas taxes in the country. California levies an 18 cent/gallon motor fuel tax paid by distributors, and a sales and use tax paid by...

People who live in neighborhoods with dirtier air and water - usually low-income and ethnic minorities -- will bear the brunt of climate change, according to a report released today.

Climate change will increase pollution, harm public health, raise the costs of food, energy and water, and result in job losses, with the greatest burden falling on communities of color and the poor, the study found.

The Climate Gap -- Poor, Minorities Hardest Hit by Climate Change

New America Media, News Report, Ngoc Nguyen

People who live in neighborhoods with dirtier air and water - usually low-income and ethnic minorities -- will bear the brunt of climate change, according to a report released today.

Climate change will increase pollution, harm public health, raise the costs of food, energy and water, and result in job losses, with the greatest burden falling on communities of color and the poor, the study found.

Climate change is real. So is the climate gap. Its not something fictitious, made up by communities who feel underrepresented, said Dr. Manuel Pastor, one of the reports authors and a professor at the University of Southern California.

Pastor, who directs the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at USCs Center for Sustainable Cities, says that as environmentalists and policymakers come up with policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they also need to address the disproportionate impact that climate change will have on the neediest populations. The levees that would...

January 17, 2012

by  Suzanne Joe Kai

1998 isn't really that long ago, but for the Internet, it feels more like a century. 

Back then, when a 14 year old kid created AsianConnections.com, an online magazine in search of his Asian American identity, we jumped on board.  As mainstream journalists from TV, radio and print, we had been fretting for the zillionth time about the poor and stereotypical coverage of Asian Americans in the media, any American media. (A problem, by the way, that persists even today.) 

Scouting for stories, we rejoiced in the fact that Jerry Yang had co-founded Yahoo!, then the biggest star in the constellation of online ventures. 

Today, it was announced that Jerry Yang has left Yahoo! What a ride that was for Jerry. Born on February 6, 1966, Jerry Yang has a lifetime ahead of him and we wish him well and hope he continues to innovate.

Digging into our archives here is a commentary by contributing writer Tom Chin, and a photo of Jerry and his Yahoo! co-founder David Filo. We will go back into our archives again and also post Jerry's exclusive interview with AsianConnections.com.

By the way, in honor of the upcoming Year of the Dragon, there is a new beginning - the site is soon to finish a brand new back end system. There will be a lot more images and videos. Our site used to be hosted on the servers of movie review site RottenTomatoes.com thanks to its founders, while I helped the start-up as one of their first national...