citizen volunteer

South Bay Bicycle Coalition Scores $240,000 Grant! Huge Grassroots Victory for Brand New Bike Group

Categories citizen volunteer, climate change, environment, Yes We Can!1 Comment on South Bay Bicycle Coalition Scores $240,000 Grant! Huge Grassroots Victory for Brand New Bike Group
South Bay Bicycle Coalition members including Redondo Beach Councilman Steve Diels, with County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas and County Department of Public Health Staff upon awarding of the grant. That's South Bay Bicycle Coalition Chairman, Todd "Elvis" Dipaola rocking the shades.

Your Greenius got great news from downtown Los Angeles on Friday when my pal, Todd Diapola called me from outside the Kenny Hahn Hall of Administration to report that he and the other representatives of the South Bay Bicycle Coalition, of which I am a proud founding member, had just been told our SBBC was getting the big, fat $240,000 grant we had applied for.

Considering that our volunteer group had scrambled and worked our asses off at a whirling dervish pace to get all the paperwork and lobbying done by the deadline, it was especially sweet news for us.

Continue reading ➞ South Bay Bicycle Coalition Scores $240,000 Grant! Huge Grassroots Victory for Brand New Bike Group

Mayor DiVirgilio: “Why Hermosa Beach is Going Carbon Neutral”

Categories carbon producers, citizen volunteer, climate change, electric cars, energy efficiency, environment, environmental legislation, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, green building, green education, green jobs, plug-in cars, politics, recycling, renewable energy, Saving Energy, sea-level rise, solar power, SustainabilityLeave a Comment on Mayor DiVirgilio: “Why Hermosa Beach is Going Carbon Neutral”
Hermosa Beach Mayor, Michael DiVirgilio, speaking on behalf of 350 at the International Day of Climate Action last October.

Hermosa Beach Mayor, Michael DiVirgilio, has on Op Ed piece in today’s Daily Breeze on why he is leading his city to a carbon neutral future.

In an era when most elected officials offer no substance and no positive vision for our future, DiVirgilio is downright JFK-like in his view of what must be done:

“But now is not the time to narrow the vision for our own future, to diminish our expectations for the better days ahead or to downsize the ambitions for our children’s quality of life.

Now is the time to step up and seize the opportunities available to those who act on new realities before they become mainstream trends. Now is the time to use the stimulus, grant and foundation money available to those who lead before the map is even drawn.

Now is also the time to act because we are standing at another threshold, the threshold of climate-change tipping points that may diminish the future prospects and possibilities for young and old alike.”

So we choose to go carbon neutral, not because it is easy, but because it is our best possible future, and the best path to preserving the small-town beach community and culture we all cherish and want to pass on to the generations who follow.

ToxicTown Torrance to Hold Public Forum on Chemical Threat

Categories citizen volunteer, environment, environmental legislation, Environmental Politics, Sustainability1 Comment on ToxicTown Torrance to Hold Public Forum on Chemical Threat

Your friendly neighborhood Greenius wrote seven months ago about the chemical problems in the City of Torrance, known throughout the South Bay as ToxicTown (when it isn’t going under its new official designation as a Blighted Community), but not a single person on the City Council, in City Government or connected with the city in any way cares enough about this issue to address it.  They have been silent and impotent regarding the over 157 schools and hospitals located within a five mile radius of the JCI Jones “high risk” chemical plant here in Torrance.

That’s why my friends at Greenpeace are doing the civic work for them and offering this terrific Public Forum next Sunday, March 21, at the George Nakano Theatre right across the parking lot from City Hall.  Maybe Mayor TowTruck will amble on over and learn something.  After all,  Frank Scotto is running unopposed in the next election so it’s not as if he’s busy campaigning and doesn’t have the free time.

Fortunately, my pal, Jenny Binstock, from Greenpeace has put together a terrific program including Diane Moss from Congresswoman Harman’s office, who will be there to introduce the subject and some great panelists.  I’ll be in the audience and I hope you’ll join me to learn what no one connected to the City of ToxicTown has the guts to tell its citizens – including self-appointed “Environmental Champion” Councilman, Cliff Numark.

Check out the flier with all the details after the jump

Continue reading ➞ ToxicTown Torrance to Hold Public Forum on Chemical Threat

Getting To Work In Hermosa Beach – The Carbon Neutral ClueTrain Leaves the Station

Categories campaign, citizen volunteer, climate change, energy efficiency, environment, environmental legislation, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, green building, green education, green jobs, News Media, plug-in cars, politics, recycling, renewable energy, Saving Energy, sea-level rise, solar power, Sustainability, Yes We Can!1 Comment on Getting To Work In Hermosa Beach – The Carbon Neutral ClueTrain Leaves the Station

Courtesy of YouTube and the Hermosa Beach City website, and converted and enlarged through the magic of Greenius, we bring you this exclusive look at the Carbon Neutral ClueTrain leaving the Hermosa Beach station this week.  Local mainstream media missed this story completely but fortunately for them this on-line record will exist for them to use as research.  So will the reporting that the new Patch.com news group will be providing.

The story actually began last week during Hermosa Beach Mayor’s State of the City address where Mayor Michael DiVirgilio spoke about the Carbon Neutral City concept:

Mayor DiVirgilio was right back at it Monday night at the Hermosa Beach Green Task Force meeting, speaking enthusiastically on behalf of the idea:

Join us after the jump to see your friendly neighborhood Greenius and my Fratelli Verde, Robert Fortunato, following the Mayor with our own remarks.

Continue reading ➞ Getting To Work In Hermosa Beach – The Carbon Neutral ClueTrain Leaves the Station

BREAKING NEWS: Hermosa Beach To Become Carbon Neutral City! Acting Locally, Thinking Globally

Categories carbon producers, citizen volunteer, climate change, electric cars, energy efficiency, environment, environmental legislation, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, green building, green education, green jobs, plug-in cars3 Comments on BREAKING NEWS: Hermosa Beach To Become Carbon Neutral City! Acting Locally, Thinking Globally

Ever since the Copenhagen climate treaty talks ended in impotence two months ago there hasn’t been a single ounce of positive news on the international scene about our chances of cutting the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and getting CO2 levels back down to the safe 350 ppm zone.  Here in the United States our President and Congress haven’t shown the leadership or sense of urgency necessary to prevent a climate catastrophe and they’ve given the people no hope for their children’s future at the national level.  Many in Congress have acted unethically and immorally with the responsibility they have been trusted with.

As the Creative Greenius and organizer of the South Bay Los Angeles 350 Climate Action Group that’s just unacceptable to me.  If they can’t get the job done in Washington, DC or at the UN – and it’s obvious to me that they cannot – then we will take the reins of responsibility from them right now and we will get the job done here locally.

That’s exactly what is happening now.

Last night at the Hermosa Beach, California City Council meeting, Mayor Michael DiVirgilo, confirmed that he and the City Council are committed to making their iconic beach town a Carbon Neutral City at the earliest possible date.  Hermosa Beach’s Green Task Force was directed to come up with the plan and a special joint session of the Council and the Task Force was scheduled for March 30 to get the carbon neutral ball rolling.  This makes Hermosa Beach the first city in the South Bay of Los Angeles County, and the first city in all of Los Angeles County to declare their intent to become carbon neutral and sustainable.  And that makes them the leadership model we will replicate in all of the other 87 cities that make up this County of 10 million people.

None of this is happening by accident.

Your Creative Greenius was there on the scene to witness the historic action and to add my remarks to note the occasion.  Check out the video excerpt courtesy of Hermosa Beach’s website after the jump, and discover, in classic Paul Harvey tradition, the rest of the story…    

Continue reading ➞ BREAKING NEWS: Hermosa Beach To Become Carbon Neutral City! Acting Locally, Thinking Globally

It’s 2010 – Are YOU Ready for The Greenius Decade?

Categories citizen volunteer, climate change, electric cars, energy efficiency, environment, fossil fuels, plug-in cars, renewable energy, solar power, Sustainability, Yes We Can!2 Comments on It’s 2010 – Are YOU Ready for The Greenius Decade?

I sure hope you’re strapped and ready to roll for the Greenius Decade because ready or not, it’s already begun and I guarantee you it will not be like any other decade you’ve ever experienced or even previsualized.  The Greenius Decade will be all now and totally happening.  The Greenius Decade is ready to discover the limits of the possible by venturing a little way past them into the impossible.

Continue reading ➞ It’s 2010 – Are YOU Ready for The Greenius Decade?

These Kids and the Greenius Say No Holiday Vacations for World Leaders Who Didn’t Finish Their Work

Categories citizen volunteer, climate change, environmental legislation, Environmental Politics, Yes We Can!Leave a Comment on These Kids and the Greenius Say No Holiday Vacations for World Leaders Who Didn’t Finish Their Work

While world leaders and a bunch of legacy environmental groups were patting themselves on the backs and raising toasts to themselves for their “accomplishments” in Copenhagen, the youth of the world, along with your Creative Greenius were not among those applauding.

Maybe someone can explain to me how the President can get so badly punked in Copenhagen by the Chinese and then not even tell us the truth about what happened?  Of course, our American media played right along and you had to go all the way to England to read: “How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen Deal?  I was in the room”

We’ll talk more about this next week…

I Am Spartacus!

Categories campaign, citizen volunteer, climate change2 Comments on I Am Spartacus!

President Obama’s on Air Force One flying home from Copenhagen as I write this and while the final details of the side deal he cut with a handful of countries outside the UN process aren’t fully known yet, one thing is already certain.  The deal he negotiated isn’t ambitious, it isn’t fair and it isn’t binding.  In short, it ain’t the real deal this climate crisis calls for and it’s not worth celebrating.

The Greenius says we can no longer wait for the leadership at the national level to prevent a climate catastrophe from being the legacy we leave our children.

I for one will not stand for that.  In the wake of the failure of supposed leaders to stop the sellout of the Small Island states and Africa and all the other most vulnerable to climate change peoples, it’s time for you and I to step up and accept our responsibility to lead.

It’s time to take a look in the mirror and ask yourself what you are made of and what you stand for….

That’s why I am Spartacus now.

Who else among you is Spartacus?  Who else among you will stand with me and lead?