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

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

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.

Tags: extreme weather, floods, global warming, Hell and High Water, Jackass, Joe Romm, record temperatures, Ryan Dunn, wildfires

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

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.

Tags: Al Gore, giant sequoias, Mike Baggetta, multiverse, Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park, Sierra magazine, string theory, The Parks Company, Three Rivers California, time travel, Wayback Machine

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

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.

Tags: Carolyn Miller, Manhattan Beach, plastic bags, plastic pollution, Sona Kalapura, Transition South Bay L.A.

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

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.

Tags: Beyond Coal, CicLaVia, Greenpeace, Jenny Binstock, Roll Against Coal, Sierra Club

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

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

Tags: federal deficit

3 More Reasons I’m Happy I Dumped the Democrats

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.

Tags: Charlie Sheen, Congressman Collin Peterson, Congressman Nick Rahall, Democrats, Nixon, Reagan, Rep Michele Bachmann, Republicans