Posts Tagged environment

Angelenos Shocked to Find Their River Looking Like a River

“In many places throughout the world, rivers are the lifeblood of civilization, havens of tranquility which keep rhythm with a higher order of time — but in Los Angeles, it’s more likely to conjure a Nick Cage flick than musings on eternity. For the last 70 years or so, the once free and winding LA river has been largely LA-ified, riddled with pollution and concrete slabs, deemed too dangerous for public enjoyment. But now, thanks to the efforts of local conservationists, the river’s making a comeback as more and more folks are discovering that, even in the concrete jungle, there’s still a bit of real nature to be found.”

Angelenos Shocked to Find Their River Looking Like a River via Stephen Messenger – Treehugger

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Measuring Your Plastic Footprint

“With climate change and carbon dioxide emissions dominating the environmental conversation much of the time, the issue of plastic pollution tends to get short shrift. Still, the problem is worrying enough to be stirring serious concern among environmental and scientific experts, especially when it comes to plastic that ends up in the oceans, where it never quite biodegrades and can form a swelling gyre of sludge.

Beach and river cleanups simply no longer suffice. With plastic consumption growing, some are calling for a bigger-picture attempt to reduce wasteful use of plastic, increase recycling and raise awareness that plastic is essentially stored petroleum. Enter the Plastic Disclosure Project, an initiative that echoes the well-established Carbon Disclosure Project.”

Measuring Your Plastic Footprint via Bettina Wassener – NY Times

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Paddle the LA River Kicks Off

“Looking for a new adventure? Well, it’s official. Starting Saturday, August 13th, you can legally kayak the Los Angeles River.

The pilot program, Paddle the LA River, will run from August 13th to September 25, 2011, Saturdays and Sundays only.

The Los Angeles Conservation Corps will offer supervised educational canoe and kayak trips down a 1.5 mile stretch of the Los Angeles River in the San Fernando Valley at the Sepulveda Basin.”

Paddle the LA River Kicks Off via NBC LA

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Celebrating A Nutrition Revolution In The South Bronx

“On Tuesday, May 24th, 2011, Family Life Academy Charter School (FLACS), celebrated one year of a major change in the way their food is prepared and how students are fed.

This little school of just approximately 368 students, situated within the poorest congressional district in the USA, took it upon itself to do something special for its students. Ms. Marilyn Calo, the principal of FLACS, led the nutrition revolution in a school where 90% of the children get free or subsidized lunch and breakfast because they fall below the poverty improving the food they eat. Chef Bennet Fins, a professional chef, was hired to cook nutritious, portion-controlled meals daily.

The results after the first year have been rewarding. Parents and teachers note differences in how the children have been affected by this change and how this shift has permeated the entire school. Children plant and cultivate flowers, herbs and vegetables. There is an after school cooking club and the after school program teaches relaxation through meditation and yoga as a means of helping students cope with their environment. Health and nutrition now form part of the curriculum.”

Celebrating A Nutrition Revolution In The South Bronx via Noemi Santana – Food Revolution

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Launching a new vision of the L.A. River

“The long-awaited Paddle the Los Angeles River pilot program got off to a wobbly start Monday as two dozen civic leaders in hard hats and bulging life vests stepped into kayaks and pushed out through murky ripples in the Sepulveda Basin.

The group of flood control officials and City Councilmen Tony Cardenas and Ed Reyes was chaperoned by experienced kayakers and naturalists on hand to make sure no one tipped over into the treated urban runoff or entangled themselves in the heavy brush laden with shredded clothing and plastic bags that lines the 70-foot-wide channel.

The maiden voyage of the first legal float down the river in seven decades only ventured a few hundred yards from the put-in point at the Balboa Boulevard bridge. But for Reyes, the 30-minute ride past glades of sycamore and oak trees where cormorants and herons roost triggered dreams of a regional recreational zone in the making.”

Launching a new vision of the L.A. River via Louis Sahagun – LA Times

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CSR Means True Partnerships

“This month I sat down withJohn Perkins, the author of the New York Times bestseller, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and many other titles, and former chief economist at a major international consulting firm.

Scott: Tell me about your work with business students around the US, particularly as it relates to Corporate Social Responsibility.

John: We talk about what’s really important for any business leader to understand today. We have moved into a new era where people understand we’ve created a failed system.  When less than 5 percent of the world’s population live in the United States and consume more than 25 percent of the world’s resources, while roughly half the world is either starving or on the verge of starvation — the only way you can define that system is as a failure.”

CSR Means True Partnerships via Scott James – Forbes CSR Blog

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VIDEO: Bill McKibben Answers Questions about the Tar Sands Action

“Wednesday August 3rd, Bill McKibben took to LiveStream to give an updates on the action answer questions from folks who will be attending. Here is a recording of that conversation.”
VIDEO: Bill McKibben Answers Questions about the Tar Sands Action via Tar Sands Action

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The Permaculture Movement Grows From Underground

“As a way to save the world, digging a ditch next to a hillock of sheep dung would seem to be a modest start. Granted, the ditch was not just a ditch. It was meant to be a “swale,” an earthwork for slowing the flow of water down a slope on a hobby farm in western Wisconsin.

And the trenchers, far from being day laborers, had paid $1,300 to $1,500 for the privilege of working their spades on a cement-skied Tuesday morning in late June.

Fourteen of us had assembled to learn permaculture, a simple system for designing sustainable human settlements, restoring soil, planting year-round food landscapes, conserving water, redirecting the waste stream, forming more companionable communities and, if everything went according to plan, turning the earth’s looming resource crisis into a new age of happiness.”

The Permaculture Movement Grows From Underground via Michael Tortorello – NY Times

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VIDEO: Chicago author urges black community to go green

“The green movement is more popular than ever, but experts say socioeconomic barriers like high crime and lower household income keep the trend from catching on in all communities.  When a tankless water heater costs $1,500 more than a standard one, environmentalism often takes a backseat to saving money. Kaitlin Meehan shares one local author’s quest to get the black community to go green.”

SEE VIDEO: Chicago author urges black community to go green via Medill Reports Chicago

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Tim DeChristopher Is Going to Jail, Now It's Our Turn

‘”The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.” –Ed Abbey

“The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.” –Terry Tempest Williams

There’s something about the redrock canyons that seems to inspire great writing — I was lucky enough to know Ed Abbey and to count Terry Tempest Williams as a great friend. Both wrote — and both fought. They fulfilled the duty they owed that great landscape. They fought to protect great chunks of land

And they’re joined by Tim DeChristopher, sentenced today to 24 months in prison for a creative act of resistance straight out of the Monkey Wrench Gang. He didn’t damage anything except the pride of the Bureau of Land Management, when he posed as a bidder and won 14 parcels of land at an oil-and-gas lease auction. They were gorgeous pieces of land that he protected — but far more, he was acting on behalf of every landscape left on the planet.”

Tim DeChristopher Is Going to Jail, Now It’s Our Turn via Bill Mckibben – Huffington Post

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