green buildings

The Curious Case of the Torrance Enivornmental Commission

Categories citizen volunteer, climate change, environment, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, green building, green buildings, politics, recycling, renewable energy, Saving Energy, solar power, Voters, water conservation, wildlife9 Comments on The Curious Case of the Torrance Enivornmental Commission

scoop1I attended the first 2009 meeting of the Torrance Environmental Quality and Energy Conservation Commission last Thursday night and it was curiously different from anything I expected.

First of all, I was the only member of the public who attended the meeting. Secondly, the energy level, enthusiasm and sense of urgency I’ve experienced at other environmental meetings was nowhere to be found among the Commissioners. Maybe they all wished they were watching the Lakers-Celtics game that night instead…

Your Greenius already knew the Lakers would beat down Boston, so my focus was fixed on what was going down in the room.

Continue reading ➞ The Curious Case of the Torrance Enivornmental Commission

Inside The Green Task Force

Categories carbon producers, citizen volunteer, climate change, environment, Environmental Politics, fossil fuels, green buildings, politics, renewable energy, Saving Energy, solar power, Sustainability4 Comments on Inside The Green Task Force

main_imageFor more than a year now in this blog I’ve been researching and reporting on climate change, energy and transportation issues and related environmental stories covering them on both a personal and a global perspective.  I haven’t been breaking any hard news, I’ve just been spreading the news that doesn’t get enough attention and adding my take on top of it for the majority of my readers who don’t have the time to dig as deep as I do.

hh125I have to admit I’ve shared a pretty dire world view when it comes to the current and coming impacts of climate change.

That’s what happens when you start each morning reading blog’s like Joseph Romm’s Climate Progress and following the work of Dr. James Hansen and the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change.

But during this same past year, I’ve also been attending the meetings of the South Bay Cities Green Task Force.

I’m there as one of the only independent citizens – and of course as the Creative Greenius, but I’m mostly there because I’m an aspiring policy wonk and I eat the content of these meetings up.   The truth is, I’m unabashedly fascinated by and truly interested in the work they’re doing.  And the work they’re doing brings California’s leading edge fight against global warming right into my neighborhood and into my home.  It is, as the cliche puts it, where the rubber meets the road, and the road is the street I live on.

Continue reading ➞ Inside The Green Task Force

My Green Escape

Categories environment, green buildings, green lodgings, green vacations, Sustainability1 Comment on My Green Escape

(written September 16, 2008)

Greetings from Kaweah Cottage, our gorgeous green getaway in the rural Sierra Foothills outside of Sequoia National Park. After nine straight months of working and Greeniusing I needed a break and more importantly I needed to spend some time up in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

If I don’t get up to Sequoia, or Yosemite or Big Sur and into the forest at least once a year then I start to go a little squirrely and feel like my life has no real purpose or direction.  So I make it a point to get me to the woods whenever it’s been a little too long.

I’ll proudly cop to being a treehugger and tell you honestly that I’d rather hug a tree than hug most of the  people I meet out there who are far more useless than trees as they merely suck up oxygen and supply none. They typically supply nothing else worthwhile either…but let me not get myself all worked up, after all it’s that kind of real world news that I’m here to escape from.  Serenity now… Serenity now…

Continue reading ➞ My Green Escape