environment

Creative Greenius and the Marine Exchange Transformation

Categories environment, renewable energy, solar powerLeave a Comment on Creative Greenius and the Marine Exchange Transformation

For those of you wondering what your friendly neighborhood Greenius does when he’s not blogging or hanging out with 999 other climate activists at Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps training, the answer is he works for a living.  And he works hard in his role as Director of Strategic Partnerships and Outreach for CBS EcoMedia.  When he’s not working away at his Manhattan Beach office with his fellow EcoMedia colleagues, or on the road traveling from community to community across the country participating in ribbon cuttings, groundbreakings, grand openings and celebrations of environmental EcoAd funded projects, healthy WellnessAd funded projects or student related EducationAd funded projects, your Greenius is now helping to tell the EcoMedia project stories in videos like this one:

While I wait for the rest of this country to wake up and smell the climate change, every single day I work at EcoMedia I’m making positive progress on behalf of the environment, on behalf of the health and wellness issues that go hand in hand with an unhealthy ecosystem and on behalf of improving the education young people need to survive not just the job market but to face the challenges of global warming and the consequences it will bring them.  It’s all thanks to EcoMedia’s President and Founder, Paul Polizzotto and the vision he had that made EcoMedia a reality and made it a division of CBS.  And of course to Paul’s great eye for talent.

And just in case you were wondering – the Greenius speaks only for himself personally with this blog post and no one should think I’m speaking on behalf of CBS EcoMedia or that they approved this message.  And shouldn’t that be more than enough for you when it comes to weight and credibility?  Yeah, I thought it would.

 

Greenius Will Meet With Al Gore To Talk Climate Reality

Categories citizen volunteer, climate change, environment, fossil fuels, green education, renewable energy5 Comments on Greenius Will Meet With Al Gore To Talk Climate Reality

Joe Galliani Selected As Climate Leader Just As Global Warming Reaches Tipping Points

After five years of studying, writing, advocating, volunteering, community organizing and now working professionally to try and make a positive difference on the issue of global  warming – all in the face of relentlessly increasing world temperatures and rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions – I have reached the point of one last stand. 

We may well be as doomed as doomed can be already – as I frequently tell my friends that we are, and the “Hell and High Water” may already have arrived earlier then even Joe Romm’s dire predictions, but I’m not quite ready to cash in my chips and give up the ghost.  I can’t offer you any scientific hope to hang your sporty new fedora on, or any magic bullet news that might yet save the day, but I just don’t have it in me to piss on the fire and call in the dogs so I can go quietly into that good night.

Continue reading ➞ Greenius Will Meet With Al Gore To Talk Climate Reality

Your Greenius Earth Day Reality Check: Waiting For The Magic Bullet

Categories Bicycles, carbon producers, climate change, electric cars, energy efficiency, environment, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, Killer Coal, politics, recycling, renewable energy, Saving Energy, solar power, Sustainability, water conservation4 Comments on Your Greenius Earth Day Reality Check: Waiting For The Magic Bullet

Today is Earth Day 2012, a day filled with celebrations of the environment and all the things being done to try and improve it and make it more sustainable .  You can go to events where you recycle your old paper tax records, your motor oil, your cellphone, computers and other electronics. 

You can go to festivals and visit the booths of green nonprofits and solar energy companies, take part in composting workshops, learn about wildlife protectors and electric car companies.  You might even get the chance to hug a person wearing a polar bear costume.

You can participate in beach cleanups, ride your bicycle with large groups in parades or march in protests against coal-fired power plants, polluters and planet-pummeling profiteers.  You can even watch NBC-Universal TV and see how they turned their logo green and laugh at their funny PSAs about cutting your energy use or carbon footprint.

But what you cannot do at any Earth Day event – or any other day’s events – is change the sense of urgency of the U.S. government or the majority of our population about taking the immediate and dramatic steps necessary to avoid runaway climate change or the hell and high water that’s coming with it. 

Continue reading ➞ Your Greenius Earth Day Reality Check: Waiting For The Magic Bullet

While Fossil Fools Ignore Climate Crisis EcoMedia Acts Aggressively to Protect Environment

Categories carbon producers, climate change, energy efficiency, environment, fossil fuels, green buildings, green education, News Media, renewable energy, Saving Energy, solar power, Sustainability, water conservation, wildlifeLeave a Comment on While Fossil Fools Ignore Climate Crisis EcoMedia Acts Aggressively to Protect Environment

The latest news on global warming could not be worse.  Climate scientists now agree that we won’t be able to restrict warming to just 2 degrees – which would have been bad enough.  Those in the know, including NOAA say there is no doubt that the world’s extreme weather is being caused by climate change.  And last week’s The Planet Under Pressure conference, made up of planet’s top scientific experts on the climate issued an urgent plea for action as we reach the tipping points for runaway global warming from which there will be no reversal or respite.

“Civilization is at risk,” they warned.

But no one is listening.  You don’t read these stories in your newspaper or on mainstream news sites or see them on your TV news.  The fossil fuel industry floods the airwaves and Internet with lethal lies and propaganda in a nonstop assault on reason and intelligence.  News of the Mega Millons lottery jackpot and the gunning down of individuals in American cities trumps the most important story of the last 100 years.  Distracted by the bread and circuses of our time and doomed by our own lizard brains half of the United States population believes that global warming is a hoax designed to make scientists wealthy.  Every Republican running for President of this country agrees with that ruse and vows to eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency.  Nothing I do can change any of that.

Faced with this bizzaro world reality I have opted out of futile protests and demonstrations and chosen to do the only thing I can do – increase the amount of renewable energy, energy efficiency, tree plantings and sustainability practices in the most effective way I can.  Which is why I now work for EcoMedia, who is responsible for doing all of those things, and more.

Continue reading ➞ While Fossil Fools Ignore Climate Crisis EcoMedia Acts Aggressively to Protect Environment

Environmental Charter High School Gets Solar; Greenius Goes EcoMedia

Categories citizen volunteer, energy efficiency, environment, green building, green education, renewable energy, solar power, Sustainability, water conservation1 Comment on Environmental Charter High School Gets Solar; Greenius Goes EcoMedia
Alison Diaz (with scissors) along with ECHS staff and supporters about to cut the ribbon in front of Environmental Charter High School's new solar-powered greenhouse. (photo by Glenn Marzano)

I have seen the future and it looks like a solar-powered greenhouse, a solar-powered pump driving aquaponics, a non-toxic termite treatment for buildings, students growing their own fruits and vegetables on their high school campus irrigated by captured rainwater, and other sustainable practices paid for by grants from corporations with no strings attached.

The on-stage banner heralding the ribbon cutting event @ ECHS. (Courtesy of CBS EcoMedia)

In a still repressed economy during an era when “no new taxes” is the mindless mantra that forces cutbacks and the elimination of educational programs and resources, the only place the dollars are going to come from are nontraditional, innovative sources.  You can argue the merits of that if you want, but I’m done arguing. I just want to see projects get funded, renewable energy put to work, energy efficiency retrofits instituted, conservation measures adopted and sustainable practices replace business-as-usual before the climate crisis makes any positive action a moot point.

That’s why for the past week I’ve been working at my new job in Manhattan Beach where I’ve transitioned from the volunteer advocacy efforts I’ve been contributing since 2008 to a professional role in sustainability partnerships for CBS EcoMedia.  EcoMedia employs exactly the kind of nontraditional, innovative business practices I’m talking about through their EcoAd program – the kind of innovative business practices that found me on the campus of Environmental Charter High School (ECHS) in Lawndale on Friday morning to celebrate the ribbon cutting for their new solar-powered greenhouse.

Continue reading ➞ Environmental Charter High School Gets Solar; Greenius Goes EcoMedia

Greenius Plants Tree to Help Restore Hope

Categories citizen volunteer, environment, SustainabilityLeave a Comment on Greenius Plants Tree to Help Restore Hope
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.

Continue reading ➞ Greenius Plants Tree to Help Restore Hope

Join the Greenius to Defeat Vile Vandals & Restore Hope & Trees

Categories citizen volunteer, environment2 Comments on Join the Greenius to Defeat Vile Vandals & Restore Hope & Trees

Let me tell you how pissed off I was the day after Thanksgiving when I read this headline in the Daily Breeze:

“Vandals Uproot Saplings Planted by Youngsters“

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.

Continue reading ➞ Join the Greenius to Defeat Vile Vandals & Restore Hope & Trees

Greenius Shredding & Recycling Dream Come True!

Categories environment, green education, recycling, Sustainability1 Comment on Greenius Shredding & Recycling Dream Come True!
16 file cartons full of paper to be shredded!

It’s true.  I’ve been dreaming of this day for several years now and I’ve got to say I feel even better than I thought I would.  I’m downright giddy in fact.

I just got rid of 14 cartons of old paper files and 8 cartons of old VHS tapes, reclaimed all that space in my attic and my garage and didn’t have one scrap of any of it go into a landfill.  Yee ha!

Your friendly neighborhood Greenius is a fastidious filer and I have every financial record and work related project file archived going back to 1979 – which amounted to storage box after storage box jammed full of papers in files filling my attic and garage. 

For years now I’ve been wanting to have a shredder truck come to my house so I could get rid of all but the last 7 years worth of records, but I’ve been too cheap to actually make the call and dig into my wallet to pay for the truck to show up at my door and securely shred then recycle all that shredded paper.  I knew that one day I’d get lucky enough to participate in a free community shredding day and get rid of all those files for nothing.  But for one reason or another I kept missing out on the chance when it came.

So when I found out that on Saturday, October 8, my city of Redondo Beach would have free document shredding by Iron Mountain Shredding Company, with no limit of how many boxes I could have shredded, I knew I had hit the jackpot and my heart lept with joy as I did the happy dance around my garage.

Continue reading ➞ Greenius Shredding & Recycling Dream Come True!

Moving Planet South Bay Shaping Up To Be Spectacular!

Categories environmentLeave a Comment on Moving Planet South Bay Shaping Up To Be Spectacular!

What, pray tell, has the Greenius been up to?  No posts on Creative Greenius, no new columns on Patch.  What gives with that? Did he go to DC to get arrested with the rest of the 350 gang?  Fraid not, friends.  I’ve been busy working to get the South Bay Bicycle Master Plan passed in the seven cities it covers and helping to get the Vitality City Livability Plan passed in Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach.  And for the past couple of months I’ve been combining that passion with my organizing work for 350 and this year’s Moving Planet event on September 24 and the result is Moving Planet South Bay.  We’ve got over 35 different organizations, groups, businesses and local cities partnering with us and putting on incredible demos, workshops and displays on how we’re going to make our communities more bikeable, more walkable and more livable.  Check it out and then join us in Manhattan Beach – You’re going to love it!