CicLaVia is Back This Sunday & We’ll Be Rolling Against Coal!

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.

My favorite part of this next CicLaVia is the Bike Parade coming from my friends at Greenpeace and Sierra Club which they’re calling ROLL AGAINST COAL.  In case you didn’t know, the City of Los Angeles still gets 40% of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, the dirtiest polluters and greenhouse gassers on the planet. It’s long been time to kick coal out of L.A.’s power supply and that’s exactly what Greenpeace and Sierra Club have in mind with their BEYOND COAL CAMPAIGN.

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.

Why You Shouldn’t Give A Shit About the Federal Budget Deficit

If you’re worried about leaving our kids and grand kids a great big fat bill they’re going to have to pay for because of our multi-trillion dollar federal budget deficit, then stop worrying.  Those numbers don’t mean squat and they won’t be a problem for our future generations.  During my 53 years on the planet we’ve had deficits and we’ve had surpluses and it hasn’t meant a damn bit of difference to the kids or their parents.

It’s only made a difference to professional politicians who regularly wave the bloody shirt of deficits to try and scare the public and get them to spend less money on the poor, the sick, the disenfranchised and especially the environment while we simultaneously splurge like drunks in Vegas on phony wars, shameless subsidies for the dirty fossil fuel industries and tax breaks for rich people and big business.

But what do you expect from people in the political field whose business model is to constantly have their begging hand out while they ceaselessly hit you up for “campaign donations” so they can get elected and re-elected and then have their staff people do all the work while they themselves keep on fundraising.  If you want to take financial advice from people of that ilk then you deserve to get conned and jacked.

But if you’d like a simple explanation of why you should just laugh at the fear of deficits then read on after the break for today’s enlightenment, courtesy of a commenter on Gawker.com

3 More Reasons I’m Happy I Dumped the Democrats

When I quit the Democratic party last summer the last straw for me was their total FAIL to take a stand and do anything about climate change.  Watching their spineless jellyfish routine in the face of the unified madman approach the Republicans employed was cringe worthy to say the least.

The piss poor performance of California’s Assembly and Senate Democrats to deal with our state’s budget issues only made me feel more certain of my decision.  And my personal experience working with certain Democrats at the local level helped convince me that they weren’t worthy of my loyalty or support any longer They probably never were.

I was a registered Democrat from the time I turned 18 in 1975 until the summer of 2010. It was always an easy choice because the Republicans were so clearly the party of phonies, hypocrites and mean-spirited, self-centered, big business boot-licking, environment-hating pollution-lovers.

Meet A Leader In Today’s Death Wish Congress

According to yesterday’s Environment and Energy Daily (subscription required):
Senator John Barrasso continued his campaign yesterday to stop the Obama administration from incorporating climate change into federal plans and policies, taking aim at an interagency report released in October that proposed ways for the federal government to respond to increased frequency of severe weather events and other effects of global warming.”

Barrasso, a rightwing whack job from Wyoming, introduced a bill (S. 228) that would bar the federal government from implementing any law or regulation related to climate change, whether it has to do with cutting industrial greenhouse gas emissions or not.

That might make some Bizarro Planet sense if Barrasso was just an ignorant dolt who didn’t have any education and knew nothing about science – but he can’t cop to that.  Dude was a physician before becoming the Senator from one of America’s dirtiest coal producing states.

What kind of doctor looks at the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence of rapidly accelerating global warming and then decides we should pass a law keeping the feds from doing anything about it? I’m betting the kind who had his fingers crossed when he took the pledge to “first do no harm.”  The kind who still probably recommends cigarette smoking to his patients to help them calm their nerves and improve their health.

The kind who doesn’t have the balls to just come out and say, “Look, my state is the number one coal producing state in the USA and I am not going to do anything to stop the world’s #1 source of climate changing greenhouse gases from doing whatever the hell they want to in order to keep their profits and payoffs spewing.  If we’ve got to sacrifice the future generations to make that happen then so be it.”

The Greenius Misplaces His Mojo… Momentarily

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.

Amazon.com Packaging FAIL – Hey Jeff Bezos, Who is the Airhead That Packed This?

I ordered my new 2011 wall calendar for my office from Amazon.com because they had the best price and free shipping.  But I thought that free shipping meant “no cost” not “brain free.”  Apparently that’s not the case because Amazon sent me my 2011 calendar in a box big enough to ship a flat screen TV.  Check it out: When the box arrived via Fed Ex ground, I got excited thinking someone had sent me a large gift…I mean this box was huge, dwarfing my large sized trash and recycle bins…

GREENIUS ON PATCH.COM: Hey, Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce, I’ve Got Your New Direction Right Here!

The Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce quietly parted ways with its executive director last week, telling local reporters only that it wanted to embark on “a new direction” that would include “more community outreach and more collaboration with local businesses and city government.”

Well I’ve got just the new direction the Chamber is looking for.

It’s a direction totally in line with its mission to “promote, educate and organize the businesses which serve our residents” and will instantly deliver on its desire for community outreach and collaboration with both businesses and city government.

The Green Idea City movement has been slowly building since the Hermosa Beach City Council embraced it at its January goal-setting workshop, as then-Mayor Michael DiVirgilio outlined in his March article in the Daily Breeze.

Read the rest of the story on Hermosa Beach Patch.com

GREENIUS ON PATCH.COM: Top 10 Green Champions in Hermosa I’m Most Thankful For

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:

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

Ready To Be Part of Art History & Be Seen Around the World? Join Us On November 21 for Another 350.org Spectacular!

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.

Don’t Miss the RETHINK: GREEN Benefit for ECHS on Nov 6

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!