information
for the transition to a green, sustainable, post-carbon future
Home | News | Local Resources | Topics | Contact Us
Featured in this newsletter :
- Solar done right - siting in the desert
- Help build California's sustainable food future today
- Teens Turning Green
- Video of the week : Peak Oil and a Changing Climate
- The PSGS bulletin board
Note from the editor : dear
friends, due to your ongoing interest and the number of green and newsworthy
events in the valley, PSGS has been expanding in many directions.
Trying to bring you the most interesting information and relevant
events on a weekly basis, has unfortunately stretched its' (ie. my ) capacity to its' limits. The Events page has gone, but events will continue to be posted on the newsletter's "bulletin board".
The News page has changed - easier to update, but still with a great selection of articles on a regular basis.
Solar done right - siting in the desert
Solar Done Right is a coalition of public land activists, solar power
and electrical engineering experts, biologists and others who view with
concern the rush to develop our few remaining wildlands for industrial
solar energy.
The Solar Done Right website has posted numerous briefings and articles
written by notable experts in the field that highlight the fact that
industrial scale solar projects have been erroneously touted as the
holy grail of alternative energy. The recurring myth that bigger
is better only serves the big utilities, corporations, and lobbys, and
defies the fundamental truth that there are other strategies for
renewable energy generation that are less environmentally destructive
and more cost-effective:
|
Solar Done Right holds that there is a proper hierarchy of priority
for strategies to end our nation's addiction to fossil fuels. We should
start the switch by using the most cost-effective strategies for
renewable energyproduction, which also happen to be the least
environmentally destructive. In descending order of priority:
- Reduce demand. According to some estimates,
an aggressive program of conservation and energy efficiency using
currently available technology could reduce US power consumption by
nearly one third.
- Generate renewable energy at or near the point of use.
Rooftop solar on homes and businesses is cost-competitive with many
other commonly-used energy sources and does not incur the energy loss of
distribution through transmission lines. Users can benefit through
reduced utility bills or sales of power into the grid, or both.
Installation time from project conception to completion is measured in
weeks rather than years.
- Generate renewable energy on a larger scale within the built environment.
Most cities possess large industrial spaces including warehouse roofs,
brownfields, large parking lots, airports, and other areas that could be
either converted to or augmented with renewable energy production using
existing technology. Emerging technologies offer promise for additional
methods to incorporate solar energy production into new residential and
commercial construction.
We contend that a mixture of these techniques can meet our electrical
energy needs without the need for large remote concentrating solar
projects. However, should it turn out that such common-sense methods
fail to meet our society's long-term demand for renewable energy, and
that after every practicable effort is made to reduce demand and
generate renewable power at the point of use some form of remote
concentrating solar turns out to be necessary, such projects should be
restricted to heavily degraded land that offers no wildlife habitat,
agricultural, or similar values, and to technologies that do not deplete
scarce water resources. Public and private wildlands and productive
agricultural land should never be converted to large-scale renewable
energy production.
|
If you are interested in this subject, don't miss the upcoming lecture :
|
Nature Lecture: Solar Energy & the California Deserts
Tuesday, February 1st at 6:00 PM
Laura Crane, Senior Project
Director for The Nature Conservancy, will discuss the current situation
related to renewable energy siting in the California Deserts and
important considerations to accommodate both renewable energy and the
conservation of water and wildlife.
The lecture will begin at 6:00 p.m. in The Learning Center (TLC).
FREE, but seating is limited. This program is presented in partnership with the Desert Institute at
Joshua Tree National Park.
Palm Springs Public Library
300 South Sunrise Way
Palm Springs, California 92262
|
|
|
Help build California's sustainable food future today
During his recent inaugural address, incoming Governor Jerry
Brown spoke eloquently about the difficulties facing Californians and our
nation. Painfully, Americans are well aware of the unemployment, housing
foreclosures and the massive budget deficits that greet California and our
nation as we enter into the second decade of the 21st century.
Regretfully, these problems pale in comparison to the issues
that this state will face in the decades ahead as the looming threats of
climate change, peak oil, water shortages and a rising population will place on
the state’s natural resources and the farms that produce the food we eat daily
to sustain us.
As the number one agricultural producing state in the U.S.,
California’s farms produce more than half the nation’s fruits, nuts and
vegetables, Californians have a special obligation to make sure that the
state’s resources are used wisely and will be available for future generations.
Click
here to automatically add your name to the letter to Gov. Jerry Brown
asking that he work to make healthy, sustainable local food a priority
for California's future.
Rather than continue ahead on the current path, California’s
leaders must work together to build a food system that prioritizes access to healthy
food, sound environmental stewardship, a valued workforce and economic
prosperity for farmers.
As Governor Brown begins his new term it’s important that he
know that thousands of constituents want him to support healthy food and farms
for all Californians.
Now more than ever, California's
food system must provide healthy and affordable food, benefits and wealth to
workers and farmers. Policies should be in place to reduce greenhouse
gases and nitrogen and help restore the soil, water, species diversity,
and climate upon which food production depends.
With the right policies, we have the power to
nourish California with abundant safe, healthy, fresh, affordable food for
everyone. We must seize this moment to make sure that healthy food and
agriculture are recognized as vital to the future of our state by our policy
makers.
Tell Gov. Jerry Brown and the
California legislature it’s time to push for comprehensive legislation that
supports healthy food and farms for all Californians.
Join us in signing this letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, encouraging
him to make healthy, local, organic and sustainable food policies a
central part of his administration.
|
Teens Turning Green
|
Teens Turning
Green is a student led movement devoted to education and advocacy
around environmentally and socially responsible choices for
individuals, schools, and communities. We seek to promote global
sustainability by identifying and eliminating toxic exposures that
permeate our lives, often unknowingly, yet threaten public and
environmental health.
What began in the Bay Area in 2005 now has a presence at elementary,
middle and high schools, universities, and student organizations across
the country, as well as a strong virtual platform and media presence.
The TTG chapters lead grassroots efforts that aim to raise awareness,
encourage behavior change, and lobby for policy that will lessen local
and global impact.
|
This
is a great organization, lead by the generation that is already having
to cope with many of the toxic choices our, and prior, generations have
made.
Parents, teachers, school principals... turn your kids on to this
dynamic and constructive young organization, if they don't already know
about it! These savvy youngsters are focused on making our world a
healthier place and they are becoming an influential force on the
consumer front.
Check out the article about one of their campaigns on the Huffington Post.
Teens Turning Green Environmental Summit LA
Join us for an informative, inspiring, and mobilizing environmental
forum coalescing students, teachers, community members, policy makers,
eco business leaders, and non-profits to engage students and activate
change.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
More Information
|
Teens Turning Green: Schools
is an initiative led by high school students that inspires awareness
about daily toxic exposures in schools, then takes action to eliminate
these exposures and implements healthy, greener alternatives.
To find out more, check out About Us.
|
Toolkits, events, campaigns, start a chapter or school club, press, videos, blogs....
|
Video of the week
|
By Karen Rybold Chin at The Nation
The
scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil
fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while
warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels
cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs
out?
Peak Oil is the point at which petroleum production reaches its
greatest rate just before going into perpetual decline. In "Peak Oil
and a Changing Climate," a new video series from The Nation and On The
Earth productions, radio host Thom Hartmann explains that the world
will reach peak oil within the next year if it hasn't already. As a
nation, the United States reached peak oil in 1974, after which it
became a net oil importer.
Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and the
other scientists, researchers and writers interviewed throughout the
series "Peak Oil and a Changing Climate" describe the diminishing
returns our world can expect as it deals with the consequences of peak
oil even as it continues to pretend it doesn't exist. These experts
predict substantially increased transportation costs, decreased
industrial production, unemployment, hunger and social chaos as the
supplies of the fuels on which we rely dwindle and eventually disappear.
Chomsky urges us to anticipate the official response to peak oil based
on how corporations, news organizations and other institutions have
responded to global warming: obfuscation, spin and denial. James Howard
Kunstler says that we cannot survive peak oil unless we "come up with a
consensus about reality that is consistent with the way things really
are." This documentary series hopes to help build that consensus.
Watch the introductory video, and check back here for new videos each week.
Click here to view
Duration: (20m.)
|
Prior "Work with the planet, not against it!" postings:
For
millions of years life on Earth has persisted and evolved in concert
with the chemical, physical and biological processes in the
environment. The advent of the Age of Liquid Fossil Fuels brought
humanity the ability to jump start and force-march many of these
processes at terrible cost to the planet's environmental viability. In
the waning days of the Oil Age, it is time for humanity to relearn the
lessons of the past tens of thousands of years of civilization: life,
human and otherwise, on Planet Earth can recover and maintain its
viability and sustainability only as we rediscover working WITH this
planet's environment, animate and inanimate, not against it!" John Cooper
The PSGS bulletin board
|
Special Screening : FOOD, Inc.
CAMELOT THEATERS
SATURDAY, FEB. 5, 9 a.m.
sponsored by Chipotle Mexican Grill
$10 donation
benefitting the Certified Farmers' Market
"Food, Inc.
illustrates the dangers of a food system controlled by powerful
corporations that don’t want you to see, to think about or to criticize
how our food is made. The film reveals how complicated and compromised
the once simple
process of growing crops and raising livestock to feed ourselves and our families has become. But,
it also reminds us that despite what appears to be at times a hopeless
situation, each of us still has the ability to vote on this issue every
day – at breakfast, lunch and dinner."
|
Camelot Theaters, 2300 East Baristo Road
Palm Springs, CA 92262-7128
|
___________________________________
 |
February Potluck at Standards of Excellence
MONDAY, February 7th, from 5:30 – 7 pm
|
Thank you Ren for pointing out the error made last week!
A potluck get together will be held in the beautiful demonstration
kitchen at the Standards of Excellence showroom in Rancho Mirage.
Guest speaker will be Lance Davis, a master beekeeper and honey
entrepreneur. He has been beekeeping since the age of 12. Lance is an
earthy person who loves life and fine cooking. He will talk about
bees, honey, and differences in flavor of pollinated &
non-pollinated fruit.
Participants are invited to (but not required to) bring a potluck dish or beverage.
$10 for SHDC members, $15 for non-members.
Standards of Excellence,
70-190 Highway 111, Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
RSVP at SlowFoodDesert@aol.com.
www.slowfooddesertcities.org
___________________________________
Hi-Desert Workshops!
Some interesting hi-desert workshops have come to our attention via Transition Joshua Tree.
Extreme Composting workshop in Joshua Tree, CA
February 16th, 10am – 5pm, $75
In this workshop you wlll get hands-on experience setting up efficient
thermophilic and mesophilic systems as well as a vermiculture system. Turn
every organic waste from paper waste, kitchen waste, tumble weeds, paper waste, old
clothing, animal waste and human waste into nutrient rich, safe soil by
choosing and managing the right composting system for the waste. We will be working on
an off-grid living site at the edge of town (location given withregistration).Dress to work
outside and bring work gloves. Please bring your own snacks and beverages. A light lunch will be provided.
$25 holds your space. Registration deadline February 13
paypal account: nettlesting@yahoo.com
?Questions? nettlesting@yahoo.com
www.spontaneousvegetation.net
Greywater design workshop in Joshua Tree, CA
February 24, 10am – 5pm, $75
Learn how to filter and reuse or simply direct your greywater (bath and sinks)
and dark greywater (kitchen) out of your house and into the landscape to hydrate
and feed your desert plantings or existing trees.
We will be working on an off-grid living site at the edge of town (location
given with registration). Dress to work outside and bring work gloves. Please
bring your own snacks and beverages, a light lunch will be provided.
$25 holds your space. Registration deadline February 20
paypal account: nettlesting@yahoo.com
Questions? nettlesting@yahoo.comwww.spontaneousvegetation.net
Rainwater Harvesting workshop in Joshua Tree, CA
February 23, 10am – 5pm, $75
In this workshop you will get hands-on experience designing and building out a
rainwater harvesting system for a specific home site. Learn rainwater budgeting
as well as collection and storage options and take the skills you learn and
apply to your own situation at home.
We will be working on an off-grid living site at the edge of town (location
given with registration). Dress to work outside and bring work gloves. Please
bring your own snacks and beverages, a light lunch will be provided.
$25 holds your space. Registration deadline February 20
paypal account: nettlesting@yahoo.com
Questions? nettlesting@yahoo.com
www.spontaneousvegetation.net
www.salvationjane.net_
___________________________________
UCR Palm Desert's "Imagining the Future"
Lecture Series
"Alternative Transportation Fuel Research at UCR - Building the California Roadmap to the Future" |
| |
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 6 p.m.
This
lecture will discuss how transportation fuels and vehicle technologies
will evolve into the future. These strategies include the production of
ethanol from biochemical methods, such as enzymes, biodiesel fuels made
from various oils and algae, hydrogen, and more. Presented
by Dr. Tom Durbin, Research Engineer, UCR Bourns College of Engineering -
Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT). Click here to register.
|
|
"The Desert of 2050: Alternative Scenarios" |
| |
Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 6 p.m.
By 2050, the Coachella
Valley could be a model sustainable urban-wildland ecosystem, or a land
of rusted pipes and weeds. The difference depends on the willingness to
plan for and work through the range of issues with long-term
sustainability in mind. Dr. All en
will discuss some of the implications of alternative decisions in terms
of ecological sustainability (biodiversity, clean air, and adequate
water). Presented by Michael F.. Allen, Ph. D., Director, Center for
Conservation Biology, Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology,
Department of Biology, UCR. Click here to register.
|
|
"Population Growth, Aging, and Sustainability" |
| |
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 6 p.m.
This
lecture will explore how demography often determines destiny.
Population growth around the world is closely tied to the aging of that
population, and aging has profound consequences for economic growth and
financial  sustainability. This lecture
will touch upon these inter-relationships and highlight the potential
impact of demographic changes on inland Southern California's future. Presented
by Anil Deolalikar, Ph.D., Associate Dean, Professor of Economics,
College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, UCR. Click here to register. |
|
|
| |
