Month: August 2010

Today’s Greenius Connects-the-Hot-Dots For You

Categories climate change, fossil fuels, OceanLeave a Comment on Today’s Greenius Connects-the-Hot-Dots For You

I’ve been playing this new, fun, ultra exciting game on my Facebook page but it’s time to bring it here to Creative Greenius for everyone to enjoy.

In “Greenius Connects-the-Dots-For You” I’ll do the job your newspapers, TV and radio never do.  I’ll bring you news each day that connects yet another Hot Dot.  What’s a Hot Dot?  Nothing but a little old tipping point on our way to the coming climate catastrophe everyone is so looking forward to.

Today’s Hot Dot comes courtesy of our our ultra-connected pal, Joe Romm of Climate Progress:

Here’s the headline he gave it:

Geological Society: Acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century”

Continue reading ➞ Today’s Greenius Connects-the-Hot-Dots For You

Greenius on Patch.com: Eco-Minded Should Consider RUHS Alternative

Categories climate change, environment, green education, recycling, Saving Energy, Sustainability, water conservationLeave a Comment on Greenius on Patch.com: Eco-Minded Should Consider RUHS Alternative

With school starting up again it’s easy to remember what an exciting and terrifying time this is for high school freshmen making the giant leap from middle school to the intimidating and initially confusing big-time campus.

They don’t get any more big-time than Redondo Union High School‘s 56-acre campus, one of the largest in all of California.

With a history going back 105 years and an outstanding reputation in academics, robotics, journalism, band and so many other areas it is a very cool thing indeed to be a new Sea Hawk joining the other 2,294 RUHS students.

But there’s another high school in the area that Redondo Beach students are also eligible to attend that few even know about, let alone consider applying for. At first glance you might think I’m nuts to even suggest it: I don’t think any Redondo Beach resident has ever opted to attend, although kids from Lennox, Inglewood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Bellflower, Maywood, Carson and Lawndale have.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON REDONDO BEACH PATCH

Greenius on Patch.com: Biking Our Way Toward a Carbon Neutral Fiesta

Categories Bicycles, climate change, energy efficiency, environment, fossil fuelsLeave a Comment on Greenius on Patch.com: Biking Our Way Toward a Carbon Neutral Fiesta

After the overwhelming success of the inaugural bicycle valet operation at the Memorial Day Fiesta Hermosa, filling our free parking lot to capacity for all three days, those of us who worked to make it happen set our sights even higher for the upcoming Labor Day Fiesta.

Even though we took care of 800 to 1,000 bicycles per day over Memorial Day weekend, and made visiting the Fiesta a no-hassle, groovy good time for all those riders, we’re not satisfied.

We are now looking to park three times that many bikes each day over Labor Day weekend. Imagine us taking 7,000 to 9,000 cars off the roads over those three days and replacing them with bicycle riders.

How’s that for a greenhouse gas cutting vision?

READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON HERMOSA BEACH PATCH.COM

What Does Professor Tim Flannery, Top Climate Scientist, Worry About?

Categories carbon producers, climate change, environment, fossil fuels, Ocean, sea-level rise, SustainabilityLeave a Comment on What Does Professor Tim Flannery, Top Climate Scientist, Worry About?

“My great fear is that within the next few decades – it could be next year, or it could be in fifty years, we don’t know exactly when – we will trap enough heat close to the surface to our planet to precipitate a collapse, or partial collapse, of a major ice shelf…

I have friends who work on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and they say [when a collapse happens] you’ll hear it in Sydney… Sea levels would rise pretty much instantaneously, certainly over a few months. We don’t know how much it would rise. It could be ten centimeters, or a metre. We will have begun a retreat from our coasts…

Once you have started that process, we wouldn’t know when the next part of the ice sheet would collapse, we don’t know whether sea level will stabilize. There’s no point of retreat where you can safely go back to…

I doubt whether our global civilization could survive such a blow, particularly the uncertainty it would bring.”

Greenius on Patch.com: Redondo’s Most Important Vote Has Nothing to Do With Zoning

Categories carbon producers, citizen volunteer, climate change, energy efficiency, environment, environmental legislation, fossil fuels, Ocean, renewable energy, Saving EnergyLeave a Comment on Greenius on Patch.com: Redondo’s Most Important Vote Has Nothing to Do With Zoning

Although local temperatures have been unseasonably low most of this summer, much of the rest of our planet has been burning (Russia’s historic fires), melting (Greenland glacier chunk breaks off, Arctic Sea Ice Loss), overheating (record heatwaves), or experiencing the extreme weather conditions climate that scientists have been warning about for decades now.

Regardless of what polling of a mostly misinformed and ignorant general public shows, the overwhelming and undeniable consensus of the world’s climate scientists, the people who specialize on the subject, says that we’ve pumped too much greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels into our atmosphere and it’s overheating global temperatures in the air and in the ocean.

Not surprisingly the fossil fuel industries have spent hundreds of millions trying to con people about what’s happening and focus blame somewhere else. They’ve been doing exactly what the tobacco industry did until the stack of dead bodies from lung cancer victims got too big to ignore.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON REDONDO BEACH PATCH.COM

Greenius on Patch.com: Lessons Learned on Carbon Neutral City Committee

Categories carbon producers, citizen volunteer, climate change, energy efficiency, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, renewable energy, Saving Energy, sea-level rise, solar power, SustainabilityLeave a Comment on Greenius on Patch.com: Lessons Learned on Carbon Neutral City Committee

After eight months of working directly with Mayor Michael DiVirgilio to introduce and launch the Carbon Neutral City initiative, I stepped aside two weeks ago to focus more on the surrounding South Bay communities and to play a different role in Hermosa.

It’s been a rewarding and exhilarating 34 weeks since I first sat down with DiVirgilio, Dency Nelson and Robert Fortunato at the Planet Earth Café to propose that Hermosa Beach become the first municipality in Southern California to go carbon neutral and rebrand itself as the “Green Idea City.”

I’ve learned a lot over that period.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON HERMOSA BEACH PATCH.COM

Greenpeace Los Angeles Kicking Ass on Chemical Risks

Categories campaign, citizen volunteer, environmental legislation, Environmental Politics, toxic chemicalsLeave a Comment on Greenpeace Los Angeles Kicking Ass on Chemical Risks

While every elected official I know in the Los Angeles area has been silent and invisible on the issue of chemical plant security over the past year, our true heroes at Greenpeace Los Angeles have been kicking ass and taking names when it comes to keeping this issue on the front burner, informing the public and calling for the necessary action.  Chemical plants using poison gases and other lethal toxic compounds surround our highest population areas here in So. Cal and put us all at risk.  They could easily switch to safer alternatives but won’t do so unless they are forced by law.

My pal, Jenny Binstock, one of L.A.’s tireless environmental champions has been relentlessly pursuing this issue and was featured in a Greenpeace video from just two weeks ago talking to regular folks at the farmers market.  All she’s trying to do is prevent a toxic nightmare right here in our own backyard… Check it out:

If that doesn’t move you to take some action of your own, listen to what this nursing student has to say about how the local medical community would be able to handle a medical emergency in the L.A. area if we had a chemical disaster:

If you’re ready to take some action – and nothing will happen unless you do – we need you to tell your Senators to prevent a toxic nightmare in your community by co-sponsoring and voting for the the Secure Water Facilities Act (S. 3598) and the Secure Chemical Facilities Act (S. 3599).

It wouldn’t hurt if our local council members and mayors in the South Bay spoke out about this issue too, but don’t hold your breath… Or maybe you better.

Greenius on Patch.com: Keep Your Hands Off Hermosa’s Recycling, Trash

Categories environmentLeave a Comment on Greenius on Patch.com: Keep Your Hands Off Hermosa’s Recycling, Trash

It’s a sad comment on our society that we have a permanent homeless population of people who live on the streets, reduced to scrounging their way through trash bins and dumpsters each day to survive.

Many of them have serious disabilities of one kind or another, or addictions, or have simply fallen through the people-sized holes in the safety net we all hope catches any of us if we slip off the high wire we balance on.

Like the man says, “there but for the grace of God go I,” and it is with no small measure of compassion that I approach the subject of whether it’s right or wrong for homeless people to take the cans and bottles from a homeowner’s or the city’s recycle bins.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON HERMOSA BEACH PATCH.COM

Greenius on Patch.com: Having Coffee with the Man of Power

Categories environmentLeave a Comment on Greenius on Patch.com: Having Coffee with the Man of Power

Eric Pendergraft and I have already been using Redondo Beach Patch.com to engage in a good conversation about the AES power plant in town after I wrote a column a few weeks back. I asked him to turn the Harbor Drive facility into a utility scale solar power plant, and he then thoughtfully replied with his own column explaining why that wasn’t possible.

I really appreciated the approach he took and the fact that he didn’t get hung up on either protocol — as the President of AES Southland he certainly could have easily ignored me — or on the fact that I had disparaging things to say about the look of the power plant and its carbon footprint.

Last week, he took me up on my offer to buy him a cup of coffee at the location of his choice, and we met for a face-to-face conversation at Catalina Coffee Company.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY ON PATCH.COM