environmental legislation
Greenius on Patch.com: Redondo’s Most Important Vote Has Nothing to Do With Zoning
Although local temperatures have been unseasonably low most of this summer, much of the rest of our planet has been burning (Russia’s historic fires), melting (Greenland glacier chunk breaks off, Arctic Sea Ice Loss), overheating (record heatwaves), or experiencing the extreme weather conditions climate that scientists have been warning about for decades now.
Regardless of what polling of a mostly misinformed and ignorant general public shows, the overwhelming and undeniable consensus of the world’s climate scientists, the people who specialize on the subject, says that we’ve pumped too much greenhouse gas from burning fossil fuels into our atmosphere and it’s overheating global temperatures in the air and in the ocean.
Not surprisingly the fossil fuel industries have spent hundreds of millions trying to con people about what’s happening and focus blame somewhere else. They’ve been doing exactly what the tobacco industry did until the stack of dead bodies from lung cancer victims got too big to ignore.
Greenpeace Los Angeles Kicking Ass on Chemical Risks
While every elected official I know in the Los Angeles area has been silent and invisible on the issue of chemical plant security over the past year, our true heroes at Greenpeace Los Angeles have been kicking ass and taking names when it comes to keeping this issue on the front burner, informing the public and calling for the necessary action. Chemical plants using poison gases and other lethal toxic compounds surround our highest population areas here in So. Cal and put us all at risk. They could easily switch to safer alternatives but won’t do so unless they are forced by law.
My pal, Jenny Binstock, one of L.A.’s tireless environmental champions has been relentlessly pursuing this issue and was featured in a Greenpeace video from just two weeks ago talking to regular folks at the farmers market. All she’s trying to do is prevent a toxic nightmare right here in our own backyard… Check it out:
If that doesn’t move you to take some action of your own, listen to what this nursing student has to say about how the local medical community would be able to handle a medical emergency in the L.A. area if we had a chemical disaster:
If you’re ready to take some action – and nothing will happen unless you do – we need you to tell your Senators to prevent a toxic nightmare in your community by co-sponsoring and voting for the the Secure Water Facilities Act (S. 3598) and the Secure Chemical Facilities Act (S. 3599).
It wouldn’t hurt if our local council members and mayors in the South Bay spoke out about this issue too, but don’t hold your breath… Or maybe you better.
Greetings from ToxicTown Torrance! Breathe Deep… That’s the Smell of Dirty Money
My pals at Greenpeace, spearheaded by my sister from another mother, Jenny Binstock, produced the video above to warn folks like me, who live in ToxicTown Torrance, that we’re not really safe from the danger that surrounds us all over the South Bay and throughout all of Los Angeles. Luckily we have Greenpeace on the case to do the job that our own Mayor and City Council just aren’t courageous or visionary enough to do.
Mayor Frank Scotto and my friend, Councilman Cliff Numark, should be the ones informing us of this danger and they should be the ones inviting Retired LA fire captain Ed Shlegel to talk to our citizens about the importance of chemical security legislation and the ways we could all be made safer in our homes, in our schools and in our businesses. They should be the ones urging you to contact US Senator Boxer to tell her to schedule a vote on the Secure Water Facilities Act before the August Recess.
But they’re not and they’re unlikely to ever show that kind of leadership. They’ve never shown the willingness or the balls to take on for profit businesses who foul our skies, pollute our air and poison our lands. They seem to think that short term financial gain and tax dollars are worth the long-term health and safety risks that come with these dirty businesses. I’m afraid to report that their idea of sustainability applies only to their own terms in office.
So it’s up to Jenny Binstock and Greenpeace – and me and you to show the courage, the vision and the balls. Click here to find out everything you need to know to take action
Here’s Boxer’s phone number: 202-224-3553. Tell her you won’t vote for her in a few months unless she does the right thing right now.
Tell her that after her failure to get us a climate bill that you’ve lost faith in her ability to deliver on ANY of her promises and that you don’t care if she loses her job or not. That’s what I told the staffer who answered her phone.
Exclusive Greenius Video: Bill McKibben on Hermosa Beach as a Carbon Neutral City
Renown environmental author and activist, Bill McKibben, is in Los Angeles today where we met him at the L.A. Times Festival of Books.
Bill is the founder of 350.org and we’ve only previously talked together on the radio, so it was a great joy for me to meet Bill in person and exchange hugs and fist bumps.
Bill’s newest book, Eaarth was the topic of of his wide ranging discussion with L.A. Times staff writer, Susan Salter Reynolds, well known for her book reviews and “Discoveries” column.
I got a chance to talk to Bill about a few of the things we’re working on here in the Los Angeles area and the first subject was our Carbon Neutral City efforts in Hermosa Beach.
Greenius Says No to Offshore Drilling. Mr. President, You Are Following A Failed Strategy & Wasting Time
It’s perfectly obvious that President Obama is attempting to reach out to the right and members of Congress who are owned by the oil industry with his move this week to make offshore drilling part of his energy mix. The Greenius understands full well this “Let’s Keep Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman Aboard the Climate Bill Bandwagon” approach, just as I can grok how ineffective and nonproductive that approach is. It’s not the first time the President has followed the same failed path of imaginary bipartisanship with people who only seek a return to the disastrous Katrina-style polices of the past – and it no doubt won’t be the last.
What did we expect? The dude is a politician, not problem solver. That’s MY job. I’m not running for nothing. I’m already the Greenius and there’s no term limits that come with this territory.
My pals at Surfrider Foundation aren’t running for anything either and they’re not about kissing ass to politicians who are nothing more than paid shills for big oil. That’s why they’re among the environmental organizations offering the public the truth and reality on the issue this week. With all due respect to the White House, all they offered was bullshit and spin this week. To see the difference for yourself, join us after the jump to read the four biggest Offshore Drilling Myths and Legends straight from the folks at Surfrider:
Mayor DiVirgilio: “Why Hermosa Beach is Going Carbon Neutral”
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
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
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.
Planet-Warming Texas Oil Refineries Embrace Communist Chinese Stance on Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions. CO2-Belching Texas Polluters Pony Up Millions To Overturn California’s AB 32
Your Greenius is sorry to report that there’s been nothing but more bad news on the climate action scene in the past couple of weeks.
Maybe you missed last week’s issue of China Daily with the headline:
“No Intention of Capping Emissions“
“China has no intention of capping its greenhouse gas emissions even as authorities are committed to realizing the nation’s target to reduce carbon intensity through new policies and measures, the country’s top climate change negotiators said yesterday. The negotiators also warned that rich and developing countries have little hope of overcoming key disagreements over how to fight global warming.
China “could not and should not” set an upper limit on greenhouse gas emissions at the current phase, said Su Wei, the chief negotiator of China for climate change talks in Copenhagen, at a meeting in Beijing on China’s climate change policies in the post-Copenhagen era.
But you don’t have to go to Communist Red China to find people who spew greenhouse gases but have no intention of capping their emissions.
Just mosey on over to the Republic of Texas where two of America’s biggest polluting oil companies are ponying up millions of dollars to pay for an initiative on the California ballot that would suspend our state’s Global Warming Solutions act, AB 32.
Creative Greenius 