Posts Tagged ‘conservation’

Wow.  Two weeks ago I posted a short film I did with Patrick Benson on LA's tenuous relationship with water.  And as I often do weekly, I posted the link to most of the LinkedIn groups to which I belong.  From a bird's eye view, the results were interesting:  I think few actually watched the film, but I sure got a lot of comments based on my title, which was "Is water really the next oil?"

Los Angeles and water sure have a sordid history together.  Of course there's the 1974 movie, Chinatown, that sums up the backroom deals and violence that worked to bring water to a thirsty and ambitious Southern California.  Now we are on the verge of another chapter in the "water wars," as years of drought, increasing population, and frustration elsewhere in California threaten to disrupt the way of life to which Angelinos have grown accustomed.

(more...)

Halloween holds a special place in my heart—my birthday is close to the holiday, so growing up, my mother often had very creative ideas for my Halloween-themed birthday parties . . . I remember one birthday party where we made individual caramel apples, using licorice, of course, for those 70s moustaches.  Years later, in my mid-20s, I put dry ice in fruit punch for a cool “witches brew” effect.  When I lived in Korea, my friend Janet threw a party to remember, featuring bobbing for apples, and we wore army uniforms that I had salvaged from a pile of unwanted clothes at the lobby of my apartment building. (more...)

My dear friend in Ottawa announced several weeks back—on Facebook—that she had bought a dual flush toilet.  I remember seeing these all over East Asia, especially in Korea and Japan.  It makes sense, right?  Smaller flush for #1, and well, a bigger flush.  That’s actually how I figured out the Chinese characters for “big” and “small.”  I’m surprised this never caught on in California, but concern over the drought, and rebates, are slowly changing how we flush. (more...)

I recently had a discussion with like-minded folks where we bantered about what it meant to be “green.”  It’s gone from fringe to fashion, activist to academic, from mocked to a true movement.

Growing up, the debate had always been so polarized.  Remember the spotted owl controversy of the early 1990s?  Then there was the urban garden kerfuffle in LA a few years back.   (more...)

Who would have thought South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford would become the latest joke on the talking head shows?  Isn't it bizarre that he took off for a few days, his wife didn’t know where he was (didn’t anyone learn from John Edwards?), and that he went away on Father’s Day?  Oh yeah, not to mention hiking on National Go Hiking Naked Day.  Oh wait, I started writing this post before the truth came out,  and well, it turned out he was in Argentina, seeing the coast of Buenos Aires, which is about 3 kilometers long--and was enjoying a view very much like this photo--well, I don't know if he bothered with the view, but anyway-- (more...)

I’ve always believed the debate over green technology and alternative fuels should focus on the technology and fuel used on the back-end, not on “exotic” or “sexy” products such as hybrid cars.  So much of the basic manufacturing and processing of materials that we use in our daily lives use a lot of energy. (more...)