The Judas Party Gets Its Silver For Selling Out their Saviors

March 17, 2013March 17, 2013carbon producers, climate change, energy efficiency, environment, fossil fuels, green education, Killer Coal, politics, renewable energy, sea-level rise, solar power, Sustainability2 Comments

It’s kind of a shame that our kids’ futures are being crucified since they’re the ones we need to resurrect us

In the many years I spent studying for the priesthood I learned that the stories of Jesus Christ’s years on our planet serve as models and lessons for all of us.

So it’s as obvious as a bad face lift that we are going through the stations of the cross and that climate change is our crucifix.

It’s been the Republican party, in the type cast role of Judas Iscariot. And the silver they betrayed us all for came from today’s Pontius Pilatus and the Romans – the dirty fuel industry top executives whose empire stretches farther and wider than Caesar’s ever dreamed of.

But unfortunately the way this version of the story is being written there is no Easter and Black Friday becomes Groundhog Day – doomed to repeat ad infinitum.

That’s because when it comes to humanity, vision and a sense of the future of their own brand, the Republican Party and their supporters makes the ancient Romans look like Quakers.

Continue reading ➞ The Judas Party Gets Its Silver For Selling Out their Saviors

Greenius Will Meet With Al Gore To Talk Climate Reality

July 26, 2012August 18, 2012citizen volunteer, climate change, environment, fossil fuels, green education, renewable energy5 Comments

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

April 22, 2012April 22, 2012Bicycles, 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

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

April 1, 2012April 2, 2012carbon 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

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

Dude! What Part of Fires, Flood, Drought & Record Temps Didn’t You Understand?

July 2, 2011July 3, 2011carbon producers, climate change, environment, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, SustainabilityLeave a Comment

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. That’s What Happens When YOU’RE the Jackass driving 140 Miles An Hour Totally Toasted

Good old now dead Jackass, Ryan Dunn, never provided me with a single ounce of entertainment, but he has handily provided me with an apt metaphor for all his fellow Jackasses who keep talking smack and moron-level nonsense about global warming and climate change being a hoax.

So he’s got that going for him now.

If we’re not the climate equivalent of a Jackass who already has 23 tickets and still gets drunk off his ass and drives 140 miles an hour and crashes and burns well then, I don’t know who is.

According to court records, Dunn had at least 23 driving infractions over the last 13 years from six different counties, among them citations for speeding and careless driving, driving an unregistered vehicle, driving without a license, two parking-related transgressions and a criminal mischief-damage to property citation.

Continue reading ➞ Dude! What Part of Fires, Flood, Drought & Record Temps Didn’t You Understand?

Traveling Through Time, Exploring the String Theory and Hugging the Giant Sequoias

June 4, 2011June 20, 2011climate change, environment, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, green vacations, national parks, renewable energy, solar power, Sustainability1 Comment

I took an unexpected trip in the WABAC Machine last week while I was on vacation with the lovely and talented Debra just outside Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park here in America’s most beautiful state, California.

We like to rent a house in the town of Three Rivers when we go up there and we’ve always found different, very cool places to stay on Vacation Rental By Owner (vrbo.com). The house we stayed in this trip was perfect. It was a craftsman-built one-bedroom with every amenity. Private. Quiet. On 13 acres and just a 15 minute drive from the Park’s southern entrance.

There was a nice selection of books, especially guides to the flora and fauna of the High Sierras. We also found magazines (Utne Reader anyone?) CDs and Blueray DVD movies and documentaries.

I pulled an old issue of Sierra (the magazine of the Sierra Club) from July/August 1997. It was there because the cover story was “Among the Ancients, Giant Sequoias of the Sierra” Another article headline that made the cover, “Is Al Gore Our Great Green Hope?”

Wow… 14 years ago doesn’t seem like a million years ago, but damn if it wasn’t.

Vice President, Al Gore, talking about the need to take immediate action on global warming and failing to convince the President or any Republicans that he knew what the hell he was talking about.

Indeed as it turned out he knew far more than the President or any member of Congress did on the subject but none of them cared because Gore’s personality and persona didn’t work on TV. I’ve always said that it’s a curse to be truly intelligent in the USA and nobody in American politics ever fails when they attack the smartest person in the room for having too damn much intelligence and not enough common man “I want to have a beer with that dude” appeal.

Al Gore is one reason I like to believe in my own favorite version of the String Theory of particle physics – multiple alternative universes occurring simultaneously is the way I like to grok it.

Continue reading ➞ Traveling Through Time, Exploring the String Theory and Hugging the Giant Sequoias

Free Earth Day Movie Friday, April 22, in Manhattan Beach

April 6, 2011April 6, 2011carbon producers, citizen volunteer, climate change, environment, environmental legislation, fossil fuels, Sustainability1 Comment

From my great friends, Carolyn Miller and Transition South Bay L.A. and Sona Kalapura and the green city of Manhattan Beach

If you don’t know how damaging plastics are to our environment here are two free showings on Earth Day 2011 – Friday, April 22 – of the movie BAG IT that will enlighten you and make you angry. Angry is good when it comes to more petroleum based products that we have shoved down our throats until they choke our landfills and oceans. The Greenius says, Ban Plastic Bags! Then force the manufacturers of those bags to clean up the mess they’ve made all over the planet.

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

April 5, 2011April 5, 2011Bicycles, carbon producers, citizen volunteer, climate change, environment, fossil fuels, Sustainability1 Comment

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.

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

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

March 4, 2011March 4, 2011carbon producers, climate change, environment, environmental legislation, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, green education2 Comments

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

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

3 More Reasons I’m Happy I Dumped the Democrats

March 4, 2011March 4, 2011carbon producers, climate change, environment, environmental legislation, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, Killer CoalLeave a Comment

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.

Continue reading ➞ 3 More Reasons I’m Happy I Dumped the Democrats