climate change

Creative Greenius Loves Hermosa Beach Sharrows & You Should Too

Categories Bicycles, citizen volunteer, climate change, environment, Sustainability, Yes We Can!Leave a Comment on Creative Greenius Loves Hermosa Beach Sharrows & You Should Too

 

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.

My recent bicycle tour of Long Beach with their Mobility Coordinator extraordinaire, Charlie Gandy, further convinced me of the benefits of sharrows.  Their green painted sharrow lane on 2nd Street in the Belmont Shore neighborhood produced 30% more cyclists with fewer crashes, 20% fewer cyclists riding on the sidewalk and a 50% reduction in car/bike crashes.

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.

Continue reading ➞ Creative Greenius Loves Hermosa Beach Sharrows & You Should Too

Has the Green Idea City Invited YOU Yet?

Categories citizen volunteer, climate change, Environmental Politics, greenwashing, politics, Sustainability1 Comment on Has the Green Idea City Invited YOU Yet?

My old pal, Michael DiVirgilio, the Mayor of Hermosa – until Pete Tucker takes over that ceremonial title later this month –  is putting on a “Leadership Forum” on Sept 10 in Hermosa Beach in the City Council chamber. I only know about it because the announcement was sent to me by accident with a request not to forward it to anyone.  I’m honoring that request by reposting the invite here instead of forwarding it to anyone.

It’s all been very hush-hush with no public announcements or outreach despite the fact that he’s been planning it for a couple of months now.  It’s apparently by invitation only and intended for VIPs of an undisclosed nature.  Call it a closed session if you want to be really accurate.

This isn’t the kind of transparency or sunshine I expect from local elected officials and this level of secrecy isn’t worthy of a “Green Idea City” label.


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.”