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. 

Tags: Amazing Kreskin, Annie Hall, Earth Day, Faith Popcorn, Greenius, Hell and High Water, La Dee Da, NBC-Universal, Redondo Beach Powre Plant, XL Pipeline

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.

Tags: EcoAd, EcoMedia, Enterprise Community Partners, Forest Stewardship Council, National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, Paul Polizzotto, Volunteers of America, Waterkeeper Alliance

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.

Tags: Alison Diaz, aquaponics, Assemblyman Steven Bradford, Children Affected by AIDS Foundation, ECHS, EcoAd, EcoMedia, Environmental Charter High School, GRID Alternatives, Jenni Taylor, Lawndale City Councilman Jim Osborne, Living Christmas Company, Manhattan Beach, Paul Polizzotto, Portia Cohen, Scotty "Claus" Martin, solar powered greenhouse, Sona Kalapura, South Bay 350 Climate Action Group, South Bay Bicycle Coalition, South Bay Bicycle Master Plan, South Bay Environmental Services Center

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.

Tags: Kaaren Lee Brown, Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park, Lilly Fabri, Martin Byhower, plant restoration, Sona Kalapura, tree planting

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.

Tags: Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park, Lake Machado, Martin Byhower

Greenius Wins The SEED Award for Environmental Outreach & Education

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!

Tags: Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Moving Planet South Bay, South Bay 350 Climate Action Group, South Bay Bicycle Coalition, South Bay Bicycle Master Plan, South Bay Environmental Services Center, Transitions South Bay LA, Vitality City