If you're like me and haven't had a chance to see the documentary Food, Inc. yet, on Tuesday November 17 the California Endowment will be holding a free viewing. There will be a panel discussion at 6pm followed by the film (~90 min) with a reception afterward. The California Endowment is located downtown a short walk from Union Station, so it is easy to access with public transportation, but they do offer free parking as well.
California Endowment's
Center for Healthy Communities
1000 N. Alameda St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
I've gone to a few other events at the California Endowment about food in our communities and I've been pretty satisfied with the topics, the facilities and the people they bring in including a discussion with Marion Nestle and a viewing of King Corn, all for free and a short walk from someplace I normally am anyway.
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Also, PBS has started showing The Botany of Desire, based on the book of the same name by Michael Pollan. I enjoyed the documentary which covered how some plants have essentially thrived because of humans and what the humans get from these plants, including the tulip, apple, marijuana and potatoes. I admit I haven't read this book yet (it's on my library request list), but I have read some of his other books and I've enjoyed them and felt like I learned a decent amount. Oddly enough somehow the book I've been reading about how trees die seemed to cover some of the same topics as the movie. Regardless, PBS will continue to show this documentary in the next week or you can watch the full 2 hour documentary online.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Source (of my time suck)
Recently the LA MTA debuted their new blog The Source. It covers general events with the LA Metro system, like the upcoming Gold Line Eastside Extension, long range plan topics and other related topics. Yesterday, however, was I believe the first that it was used to provide semi-real time updates on delay problems. The particular problem was that an umbrella blew onto the power lines of the Gold Line, preventing trains from running either to Union Station or to Pasadena. This was of particular interest to me as I ride the Gold Line as part of my regular commute.
So I watched the posts to keep an eye out for my evening commute plans, but luckily at 4:40pm the trains were up and running again in both directions. I left work at my normal time only to start crossing the train tracks as the train approached. It was a few minutes earlier than normal. I hopped on and ended up at Union Station in time to catch the Red Line train I normally miss by 2 minutes! As a result of service delays on the Gold Line I ended up getting home EARLY!
On one hand, I guess I can't complain because hey, it's nice to shorten your commute and get home early, if only for a day. On the other hand, it's somewhat frustrating to see that simply by increasing service frequency or altering schedules slightly, I and many others that scramble to transfer from one train to another at Union Station every day could gain a decent amount of free time in our lives. Kinda sad, isn't it?
That's not to say I don't use my time on the train. I'm a huge fan of the Pasadena Library, which is less than a mile from my work, making it super easy to access a large number of books for no cost and my work has a "Book Swap" shelf where people deposit books they are done reading for others to pick up. Sometimes I just look out the window (especially on the Gold Line) and think. Sometimes I talk to a random train person or someone I know from work. From time to time I work on art and craft projects like colored pencil drawings, crocheting, knitting and needle felting. But even despite those things, sometimes it would be nice to get home and do something else instead. A car ride from my apartment to my work would take about 20 minutes. The train ride and walk to and from the stations takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes. It's easy to see why I have difficulties convincing others that even live on my street and work in the same area, to take public transportation instead.
I've been riding the train for over 4 years and it has improved in that time, but sometimes I am also a little discouraged to see so much time pass by and nothing really changing to make my ride more efficient or better in any other way. It's not that I keep my mouth shut either - my line of work both enhances and encourages me to exercise my skills at letting people know where there are problems in their system.
Oh well. Off for another day's commute, this time with How Trees Die: The Past, Present, and Future of our Forests in hand.
So I watched the posts to keep an eye out for my evening commute plans, but luckily at 4:40pm the trains were up and running again in both directions. I left work at my normal time only to start crossing the train tracks as the train approached. It was a few minutes earlier than normal. I hopped on and ended up at Union Station in time to catch the Red Line train I normally miss by 2 minutes! As a result of service delays on the Gold Line I ended up getting home EARLY!
On one hand, I guess I can't complain because hey, it's nice to shorten your commute and get home early, if only for a day. On the other hand, it's somewhat frustrating to see that simply by increasing service frequency or altering schedules slightly, I and many others that scramble to transfer from one train to another at Union Station every day could gain a decent amount of free time in our lives. Kinda sad, isn't it?
That's not to say I don't use my time on the train. I'm a huge fan of the Pasadena Library, which is less than a mile from my work, making it super easy to access a large number of books for no cost and my work has a "Book Swap" shelf where people deposit books they are done reading for others to pick up. Sometimes I just look out the window (especially on the Gold Line) and think. Sometimes I talk to a random train person or someone I know from work. From time to time I work on art and craft projects like colored pencil drawings, crocheting, knitting and needle felting. But even despite those things, sometimes it would be nice to get home and do something else instead. A car ride from my apartment to my work would take about 20 minutes. The train ride and walk to and from the stations takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes. It's easy to see why I have difficulties convincing others that even live on my street and work in the same area, to take public transportation instead.
I've been riding the train for over 4 years and it has improved in that time, but sometimes I am also a little discouraged to see so much time pass by and nothing really changing to make my ride more efficient or better in any other way. It's not that I keep my mouth shut either - my line of work both enhances and encourages me to exercise my skills at letting people know where there are problems in their system.
Oh well. Off for another day's commute, this time with How Trees Die: The Past, Present, and Future of our Forests in hand.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Book Review - Corvus: A Life with Birds
Corvus: A Life with Birds by Esther Woolfson is a beautifully and lovingly written memoir. After receiving a few doves, Woolfson and her family soon take in a variety of wanted, unwanted and fallen baby birds including a cockatiel, rook, magpie, starling and crow to become members of the family. Woolfson understands both the costs and benefits of keeping some of these wild birds at home, but takes the time to understand and love these birds as best she can, especially the Corvids. The book itself is a mixture of her personal stories mixed in with natural history of the birds species. She researches the way they are portrayed in culture compared to their nature and personal quirks. She pulls you into her world, describing the sometimes minute details of the birds and their behavior, putting a smile on your face or tears in your eyes at the appropriate moment to make you feel something a bit more for some of the few wild animal we still interact with regularly when outside.
I must admit that I have a fascination with birds, so this book was especially relatable and touching to me. I grew up with a parrot at home, who is the closet thing I'll ever have to an older sibling, so I understood some of the relationships being described of man and bird. I also know a couple people who have had crows before and seem to gush with the same sort of love that Woolfson does. Although this book doesn't have such an intense "green" leaning, I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in birds, understanding the relationship between man and other animals, nature or if you need a little bit of light reading between some of those more intense environmental books.
birds, Solvang, CA 2007
I must admit that I have a fascination with birds, so this book was especially relatable and touching to me. I grew up with a parrot at home, who is the closet thing I'll ever have to an older sibling, so I understood some of the relationships being described of man and bird. I also know a couple people who have had crows before and seem to gush with the same sort of love that Woolfson does. Although this book doesn't have such an intense "green" leaning, I would still recommend this book to anyone interested in birds, understanding the relationship between man and other animals, nature or if you need a little bit of light reading between some of those more intense environmental books.
birds, Solvang, CA 2007
Sunday, October 25, 2009
10/24/09 - International Day of Climate Action - BBC Cleanup
Yesterday was the Internation Day of Climate Action. As part of this event, Siel from Green LA Girl and Sara from the Daily Ocean arranged a 20 minute Blogger Beach Clean-up, which is somewhat part of a large project that Sara has going on. Admittedly, my boyfriend and I did not take the most Climate friendly transportation to Santa Monica to join in, but it was the first time I had been out to Santa Monica since February and I was looking forward to meeting some people. I, as usual, had my camera on hand to tell my part of the story.
heading out to clean for 20 minutes!
I was surprised at the large number of cigarette butts scattered all over. It's like some people see the whole entire beach as a giant ashtray!
One of the two lifeguard towers that Sara focuses her clean efforts between.
Most of my recent clean-up efforts have been focused on the LA River or some of the areas near my home or places where I walk. I've learned that each place has the obvious trash as well as the trash that is possibly more harmful, yet easily missed. I quickly realized there were tiny bits of plastic all over the sand and that these wads of kelp and other sea stuff also contained hidden plastic bits within. This one had some white plastic ribbon stuff. Plastic stringy things are especially alarming as they easily become tangled around animals, especially the feet of birds. I see this all the time with pigeons, which sometimes eventually lose their toes, feet or lives due to infections. I really hope the shoes belonged to someone still at the beach because I left them behind.....
Another wad, this one with some black plastic straws mixed in with some little shreds of white plastic I soon realized were all over the beach and white fluffy stuff that looked like it came from a pillow or stuffed animal.
Remains of a day at the beach, thankfully with no accompanying plastic pieces left behind.
Heading back to the meeting area after the cleanup we walked past the bathrooms and realized there was once again a large "jackpot" of plastic pieces and more cigarettes
A peek into my bag at the end of the 20 minutes. Most everything was plastic or Styrofoam including wrappers, countless plastic straws and tiny shreds or broken pieces of plastic. Based on the difficulties myself and others had at trying to figure out if what we saw was a piece of shell, plastic or Styrofoam or if something was a straw or the shaft of a feather, I can easily see how animals are confused as well. It's saddening and frustrating to see what we've done and how small careless actions can really add up.
After our 20 minutes of cleaning, everyone got together to hear some people speak briefly, including a representative from Heal the Bay, CICLE, and Sara from the Daily Ocean, while enjoying some of the complimentary snacks and drinks.
The Heal the Bay representative and the trash the group managed to pick up in only 20 minutes.
Afterward we headed over to Pourtal for some drinks before I was seduced by the beauty of a sunset on the beach, something I don't often get a chance to see, but reminds you why consciousness of the problems and efforts to fix them are all worthwhile.
Thanks to Siel and Sara for putting together this cleanup event!
I think after all of these cleanup events I've realized that a couple things really need to happen. First, people need to become more aware of what types of things are passing through their hands and into the trash. There is no need to generate the amount of waste that we do. Theoretically, if everyone picked up as much trash as they intentionally or unintentionally dropped, there wouldn't be trash all over the place. Obviously that doesn't happen. I think some people also don't see the big picture or the cycle from the comfort of their cars and from their tv set. I think after many people reach this point, they also begin to realize that it's actually very difficult in some instances to work around this waste problem because the companies that sell the products that create this waste are not held accountable for the entire lifecycle of their products. What are all of these stupid tiny pieces of plastic? If every business that handed out straws for drinks had to make sure the straws ended up in the "right" place, I don't think they'd be so generous with the plastic tubes that might end up traveling to more destinations in their lifespan than the person that once placed their lips on them to sip their soda from a plastic cup.
heading out to clean for 20 minutes!
I was surprised at the large number of cigarette butts scattered all over. It's like some people see the whole entire beach as a giant ashtray!
One of the two lifeguard towers that Sara focuses her clean efforts between.
Most of my recent clean-up efforts have been focused on the LA River or some of the areas near my home or places where I walk. I've learned that each place has the obvious trash as well as the trash that is possibly more harmful, yet easily missed. I quickly realized there were tiny bits of plastic all over the sand and that these wads of kelp and other sea stuff also contained hidden plastic bits within. This one had some white plastic ribbon stuff. Plastic stringy things are especially alarming as they easily become tangled around animals, especially the feet of birds. I see this all the time with pigeons, which sometimes eventually lose their toes, feet or lives due to infections. I really hope the shoes belonged to someone still at the beach because I left them behind.....
Another wad, this one with some black plastic straws mixed in with some little shreds of white plastic I soon realized were all over the beach and white fluffy stuff that looked like it came from a pillow or stuffed animal.
Remains of a day at the beach, thankfully with no accompanying plastic pieces left behind.
Heading back to the meeting area after the cleanup we walked past the bathrooms and realized there was once again a large "jackpot" of plastic pieces and more cigarettes
A peek into my bag at the end of the 20 minutes. Most everything was plastic or Styrofoam including wrappers, countless plastic straws and tiny shreds or broken pieces of plastic. Based on the difficulties myself and others had at trying to figure out if what we saw was a piece of shell, plastic or Styrofoam or if something was a straw or the shaft of a feather, I can easily see how animals are confused as well. It's saddening and frustrating to see what we've done and how small careless actions can really add up.
After our 20 minutes of cleaning, everyone got together to hear some people speak briefly, including a representative from Heal the Bay, CICLE, and Sara from the Daily Ocean, while enjoying some of the complimentary snacks and drinks.
The Heal the Bay representative and the trash the group managed to pick up in only 20 minutes.
Afterward we headed over to Pourtal for some drinks before I was seduced by the beauty of a sunset on the beach, something I don't often get a chance to see, but reminds you why consciousness of the problems and efforts to fix them are all worthwhile.
Thanks to Siel and Sara for putting together this cleanup event!
I think after all of these cleanup events I've realized that a couple things really need to happen. First, people need to become more aware of what types of things are passing through their hands and into the trash. There is no need to generate the amount of waste that we do. Theoretically, if everyone picked up as much trash as they intentionally or unintentionally dropped, there wouldn't be trash all over the place. Obviously that doesn't happen. I think some people also don't see the big picture or the cycle from the comfort of their cars and from their tv set. I think after many people reach this point, they also begin to realize that it's actually very difficult in some instances to work around this waste problem because the companies that sell the products that create this waste are not held accountable for the entire lifecycle of their products. What are all of these stupid tiny pieces of plastic? If every business that handed out straws for drinks had to make sure the straws ended up in the "right" place, I don't think they'd be so generous with the plastic tubes that might end up traveling to more destinations in their lifespan than the person that once placed their lips on them to sip their soda from a plastic cup.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
impact echos
Today I finally got my hands on a copy of the much talked about No Impact Man book by Colin Beavan, which goes along with the blog and movie of similar names. Although it's been out for a few weeks, I was number 3 or 4 on the library waiting list. I visited the library at lunch, so it wasn't until the train ride home that I had time to start reading. If you're not familiar with No Impact Man's story, a man and his family decide to live the most environmentally friendly life they can, while living in New York City. They decide to do this for a year, unaware of what it actually means to do so. This book seems to appeal to both those that are already on this same path in that it gives them another's view point and how they got there as well as those that aren't sure where to even start. This post isn't really meant to be a review of the book though.
In Chapter 2, Colin begins with the story of his first day as "No Impact Man". In the first 10 minutes of being awake he's felt bad about using a dead tree to blow his nose, felt bad about using a diaper for his 1.5 year old daughter and realized his milk came in a disposable container. I think about the handkerchief I have tucked in my purse and how I need to remember to replace it when I do laundry tonight. I don't want to use a paper tissue at work as I quickly learned that handkerchiefs are so much more pleasant to use. I think about the plain white cloth napkins I grabbed on impulse at my most favorite thrift store ever when my total purchase didn't meet the debit card minimum and how I quickly grew to rely on them as napkins and handkerchiefs. I think about the brand new set of Hankettes I bought my boyfriend for his birthday, a month late, but handmade with organic cotton in Canada. Out the corner of my eye I see, the woman sitting next to me on the Red Line train digs in her bag and pulls out a wadded, bright white paper tissue. She rubs her nose and drops it on the floor between her legs.
I look and point at the tissue and say, "you dropped something" as I pull my eyes away from the book, the event all the more obvious as I just finished reading one of the few book passages I've ever read about blowing one's nose. She says "oh ok" and does nothing.
I can't help but to try to understand her actions. Did she really just not understand me? Does she not care because she doesn't want it anymore? Does she assume someone else will take care of it? Does she not know what else to do with it? Is she embarrassed that I said something? I realize that this No Impact Man book might be more helpful in a way I wasn't expecting. Although I try to keep others perspectives in mind and trying to understand, I know I suffer from assuming others have certain bits of information in their heads. People were brought up different ways. I pull out my handkerchief and blow my nose and tuck it back into my bag. I hope if nothing else, I can lead by example some of the time.
In Chapter 2, Colin begins with the story of his first day as "No Impact Man". In the first 10 minutes of being awake he's felt bad about using a dead tree to blow his nose, felt bad about using a diaper for his 1.5 year old daughter and realized his milk came in a disposable container. I think about the handkerchief I have tucked in my purse and how I need to remember to replace it when I do laundry tonight. I don't want to use a paper tissue at work as I quickly learned that handkerchiefs are so much more pleasant to use. I think about the plain white cloth napkins I grabbed on impulse at my most favorite thrift store ever when my total purchase didn't meet the debit card minimum and how I quickly grew to rely on them as napkins and handkerchiefs. I think about the brand new set of Hankettes I bought my boyfriend for his birthday, a month late, but handmade with organic cotton in Canada. Out the corner of my eye I see, the woman sitting next to me on the Red Line train digs in her bag and pulls out a wadded, bright white paper tissue. She rubs her nose and drops it on the floor between her legs.
I look and point at the tissue and say, "you dropped something" as I pull my eyes away from the book, the event all the more obvious as I just finished reading one of the few book passages I've ever read about blowing one's nose. She says "oh ok" and does nothing.
I can't help but to try to understand her actions. Did she really just not understand me? Does she not care because she doesn't want it anymore? Does she assume someone else will take care of it? Does she not know what else to do with it? Is she embarrassed that I said something? I realize that this No Impact Man book might be more helpful in a way I wasn't expecting. Although I try to keep others perspectives in mind and trying to understand, I know I suffer from assuming others have certain bits of information in their heads. People were brought up different ways. I pull out my handkerchief and blow my nose and tuck it back into my bag. I hope if nothing else, I can lead by example some of the time.
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