The Greenius with his friend and fellow volunteer, Charles, getting ready to dig and plant.
Man, I can’t believe it’s been over a month now since I wrote in this space about the vandals who destroyed the trees and native plants at Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park over Thanksgiving. But time has afterburners when the holidays roll around especially when your friendly neighborhood Greenius is in such demand locally. It’s a blessing to be sure, but things fall through the cracks, as witness my update on, as Paul Harvey used to intone, “the rest of the story…”
The good new is, it’s actually good news for a change. Very good news indeed.
The story in a nutshell read, “Forget the financial loss. Vandals crushed a lot more than that this week when they ripped out fledgling oak trees and smashed other plants being cultivated by dozens of young people from across the South Bay in Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park.“
It steamed my chaps and I wasn’t about to let it go. I work with a lot of great young people in my environmental efforts and to find out that low class creeps, whoever they are, think they can destroy the best efforts of kids giving their free weekend time to try an improve one of our local parks was just something I am not willing to put up with. And you shouldn’t either. That’s why I’m asking you to join me next Saturday, December 10, at 9am at Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park, to work with Martin Byhower, who heads up the park’s volunteer restoration efforts, and the young volunteers, to repair the damage and help them with their restoration efforts. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the spirit of the season.
If you don’t know how damaging plastics are to our environment here are two free showings on Earth Day 2011 – Friday, April 22 – of the movie BAG IT that will enlighten you and make you angry. Angry is good when it comes to more petroleum based products that we have shoved down our throats until they choke our landfills and oceans. The Greenius says, Ban Plastic Bags! Then force the manufacturers of those bags to clean up the mess they’ve made all over the planet.
How’d you like to enjoy 7-and-a-half miles of L.A. streets free of motorized vehicles and open only to bicyclists and pedestrians? Stroll, play, talk, celebrate -do whatever you want on the public street without sucking up gas fumes or fearing for your life from drunk drivers, texting drivers, drivers eating or putting on makeup or just plain dangerous behind the wheel lunatics.
That’s exactly the scene you’re going to get this Sunday, April 10 from 10am to 3pm at the second ever L.A. CicLaVia where public streets from Boyle Heights to Downtown, MacArthur Park to East Hollywood will be shut down to traffic and open to you and me emission free.
Sunday’s bike parade is part of that campaign and designed to call more attention to it. Not only will those Rolling AGainst Coal have a traveling good time together as we bike parade throughout the event, but we’ll be busting out the Creative Greenius with the decoration of our bicycles and the visual aides and props we also sport to raise awareness about the city’s addiction to coal and the life-saving difference Los Angeles could make if it fully commits to the green vision for a clean energy future! Get all the details you need after the jump.
The entire 2nd half of 2010 found the Greenius in a Mystery Spot where the rules of nature no longer applied....
Wow, March First already. Time do fly, don’t it? It has definitely been been awhile, hasn’t it? How you been?
Your beloved Greenius has been M.I.A. from this URL for all of 2011 – until now. Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn’t. Either way, I’m back and I’m returning with a new attitude, recharged energy and a fresh direction. I can only imagine how thrilled you must be.
After playing a more subdued, measured and politically correct role locally for the past two years I am soooo over that. I’m taking the gloves back off and cracking my knuckles. Consider me now unshackled, uncensored and unafraid. The perfect positioning for our What the Fuck? era.
I’d say “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” but hell I’m such an inherently nice guy at heart that no one would believe that… well, except maybe the gasholes who I’ll be metaphorically skewering like a razor sharp steel spike through a marinated lamb shish-kabob over burning hot coals. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
I put up with a lot of crap last year and some of it shook me to my core. I’ll be the first to admit it, I lost my mojo as 2010 wore on and it wasn’t pretty. Ennui and despair are a bitter and ugly cocktail to swallow, but that’s what was being served at the Green Bar for the last six months of 0h-ten and I drank enough to suffer a long hangover.
But I’m not hungover any more. And I’ve not only got my mojo back, I’m ready to have me some laughs. Seriously.
When it comes to the holiday season I’m a Thanksgiving kind of guy.
I love everything about T-Day: the focus on gratitude and appreciation, the gathering of family and friends, the sharing of a feast we’ve all contributed to, and best of all, its non-denominational inclusiveness.
In a year when there was hardly anything on the national environmental scene to be thankful for (and frankly plenty to flat out freak out over) it’s been the right time to think globally and act locally, especially if that locality happens to be Hermosa Beach where you have green champions such as:
As you know my pals at 350.org have a certain flare for the dramatic. The Global Work Party on 10/10/10, which your South Bay 350 Climate Action Group was proud to be part of, was the largest day of carbon-cutting action in the planet’s history. And there’s no way we’re stopping there. The acceleration of climate change in 2010 won’t let us.
Now, artists and activists have dreamed up an out-of-this-world art project that will keep the climate crisis on the front pages of media outlets around the globe. Talk about pure creative greenius!
And when I say “out-of-this-world” you can take me literally.
If you dig Environmental Charter High School and the the Green Ambassadors as much as I do then you’re not going to want to miss this all star charity event on their behalf, especially if you’re also a fan of Ed Begley Jr. and his Living With Ed Show. Check out the details and join me on Saturday, Nov 6 in supporting these true green heroes!
Members of the newly formed South Bay Bicycle Coalition are happy with the Hermosa Beach "sharrows," which allow bicyclists to use a lane of traffic on Hermosa Avenue. The group hopes to see more South Bay cities install such bicycle-friendly facilities. (Steve McCrank, Daily Breeze Staff Photographer)
I’ve written before about the sharrows Hermosa Beach painted on Hermosa Ave earlier this year and how much I like them. I continue to use them and I like them even more now. I feel safer when riding on Hermosa Ave and the cars on the road don’t seem to have any real problems going around me if they need to.
Since I stop at all the stop signs, I get a certain amount of respect from the vehicles I’m sharing the road with too.
I think a lot more streets should feature sharrows throughout Hermosa Beach and the newly resurfaced Upper Pier Ave is a good place to put them next. I think most of my friends in the South Bay Bicycle Coalition and the Beach Cities Cycling Club agree with me.
A big part of the reasons sharrows work so well in Long Beach is because of the great job they did educating their elected officials, the police force and the public. They made sure they got the word out, that people in the community understood what the rules were and what the benefits would be from working together. The result? Long Beach is fast on the way to becoming the most bicycle friendly city in California.
There’s no reason Hermosa Beach can’t follow that same sharrow story of success and indeed if Hermosa really wants to be taken seriously as a “Green Idea City” or wants to actually achieve carbon neutrality it’s going to need sharrows and a lot more bicycle infrastructure and friendliness to get there.
Step one to get there is for a strong bicyclist turnout for Wednesday (Oct 20) night’s public forum on Hermosa Beach Sharrows. Check out the details after the jump.
Creative Greenius 