- How to assemble a wind farm: A photo guide.
- How to destroy a relationship: Practice total emotional honesty.
- How to live on fair trade: Man eats only fair trade for a fortnight.
Clicklist: How tos
Pictorial Ode to the LA River
As you know, I went on a tour of the LA River a couple weekends ago — an eye-opening trip that gave me a look at the many sides of LA that I just don’t get to see often (or ever), even as a long-time resident.
If every LA resident had the opportunity to take this tour, I think the landscape of our city would change pretty rapidly — and that the “emerald necklace” of parks around the river that LA Mayor Villaraigosa talks about could become a reality sooner rather than later.
Thus: Here’s a pictoral tour to whet your appetite — with info on how you can tour the river first-hand at the bottom of the post.
Sepulveda Basin in San Fernando Valley
The Friends of the Los Angeles River (FoLAR) brochure calls this spot “A lush soft-bottom stretch. Almost Tom Sawyer-like — and the closest to what the river once looked like.”
Try to ignore the dams, the bridges, and the concrete that looks like it was carelessly slapped onto the banks. Instead, check out this bird by an abandoned shopping cart, relatively unafraid.
Glendale Narrows
Birds are cute.
FoLAR’s description:
“In the shadows of the Griffith Park and Elysian Park hills.
“Site of most of the first new parks and bike paths, [a]long a cobblestone-bottom stretch with abundant greenery and wildlife.”
Arroyo Seco Confluence
FoLAR describes this area as “”The original water source for the pueblo. A grim, hard-to-find site — but slated to become a history-themed park that will link the LA River and Arroyo Seco Greenbelts.”
I wonder how the graffiti artists even find this place, where the grass manages to grow through the concrete embankment –
LA State Historic Park (aka The Cornfield)
FoLar’s description: “Site of a hard-fought and crucial battle for River revitalization — and of the new Los Angeles State Park, which brings a grand outdoor public space to downtown LA.”
Here, a park ranger gave us a lil informative talk about the area (The park rangers are hiring, btw).
Downtown Bridges
No, this is not a pretty place. It’s a smelly place, literally, where the most disenfranchised residents of our city live.
FoLAR’s description: “Historic concrete-arch-bridges — the best spots to view the gritty River downtown (site of movie scenes from Grease and Terminator), and to imagine the LA River Greenway that will link downtown and east LA through the city’s historic and civic center.”
More pictures (and the same pics in bigger sizes) here.
We didn’t make it to the last stop — Maywood Riverfront Park — but maybe you will, if you take the next tour. The next bus tour happens March 24 (cost: $55, or $45 for FoLAR members); the next car-caravan tour happens May 19 (cost: $30 $25, or $20 for FoLAR members). Sign up here — You can pay via paypal :)
Update, 5/12/07: The next tour of the LA River happens on Saturday, May 19.
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Noah’s Bagels to brew fair trade coffee every day
Noah’s Bagels is introducing Tribeca Blend, an organic and fair trade certified blend in its stores! Tribeca Blend’s to brew every day in every Noah’s Bagels store, alongside 4 other “conventional” blends.
Of course, I always recommend patronizing local bagel and coffee shops instead of chains. But it’s good to know that if I’m in a pinch, I can drop by the Noah’s Bagels for a quick and easy cup of fair trade, organic coffee, instead of laboring through the Starbucks Challenge again for a fair trade — but not organic — cup at the mermaid.
Thanks to Noah’s Bagels for giving consumers a stress-free way to vote with their dollars. Hopefully the overwhelming popularity of this fair trade blend’ll make Noah’s consider saying bye-bye to conventional coffee altogether –
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More Flexcars coming to Santa Monica
I’m now a proud Flexcar member! Actually, I have been for a few weeks now, having gotten my lil membership card (left) not too long after I applied.
I haven’t actually used the service yet, but what I have used is the Enterprise discount for Flexcar members — with which I can get a day’s rental for just $30 including tax — the cost of 3 hours of Flexcar use. So far I’ve rented from Enterprise once, then piled all my errands into that day — everything from a trip to IKEA to shuttling some of my students to LACMA for the Magritte exhibit.
Enterprise — which is 2 blocks from me — is way closer than the 2 Flexcars in Santa Monica, both of which are near Third Street Promenade, about 15 blocks away. So last night, I sent an email to Flexcar, not only asking for more Flexcars further east in Santa Monica, but also marking out potential parking spots that might work around me (Whole Foods was one of my suggestions).
Then today, I got this email from one Walter at Flexcar:
Funny you ask. We’re putting some out near your side of town this month and there’s another by the promenade as well. Check the website for updates in about 1wk.
Thanks for the speedy and personal response, Walter! I’ll report back here in about a week as to where this new Flexcar near me is located, exactly –
BTW, I took advantage of a $40 credit for those who sign up as a Grist reader. I think Barent’s working on a waiver for the $35 annual membership fee for LA Green Drinks people too.
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Tuesday questions: A buck out of Starbucks
A series that runs every Tuesday, where I ask questions unrelated to the environment, fair trade, or local politics that I’ve been wondering about but haven’t been able to google the answers to. Any advice is appreciated.
“Annoyed with Starbucks and wouldn’t mind making a buck off of them?” is the first line of an email I got from the FON people. I’m guessing they found me via the Starbucks Challenge stuff.
So, are ya annoyed? If so, you might be interested in the FON strategy. The basic idea: If you have your own wifi and live in wifi distance from a Starbucks, you can opt to share your own free wifi with other FON users. In exchange, you get a buck for everyone who takes you up on your generousity. You yourself get free access to the entire FON network, as well as a free router.
Sez Alicia, the PR gal for FON: “Rather than paying the ridiculous $10 for the T-Mobile Wifi, a person who frequents Starbucks can pay $2 to access the FON wireless network.”
I was gonna try it as an experiment, but luckily, I have no Starbucks in wifi distance — Yay!
My question is, do you? And if so, are you tempted by the offer?
A while back, I was thinking ’bout sharing my wifi with my neighbors after I read the yellow chair stories — but was sorta discouraged from doing so by some of my techie readers. Perhaps you peeps might weigh in again, regarding your thoughts on FON?
Of course, if the LA wifi plan stays on schedule, this whole effort will be null in a couple years –
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Clicklist: Attention!
- Attention beer-drinking biodieselers! Your biodiesel habit may drive up the cost of beer!
- Attention omnivores! Michael Pollan, who called out Whole Foods in his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, will chat with John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, via live telecast tonight at 7 pm. (via grist)
- Fortune covers the Starbucks v. Ethiopia debate: “For Starbucks, the scenario is a potential public relations disaster, pitting the coffee company, which had record revenue of $7.8 billion last year, up 22 percent over 2005, against one of the world’s poorest countries.” (graphic by the Worsted Witch)
- Changing the Present’s a sort of portal for donations to socio-environmentally conscious nonprofits. Downside: CtP adds another layer between the donor and the recipient. Upside: Would-be-donors have a quick way to see the programs and organizations out there working on their cause.
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Blogging green
Update, 4/26/07: I can’t, in good conscience, recommend Sustainable Websites, even with its claim to green. Here’s why.
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If you run a green blog, you’re likely to want a green web host! I made the switch to a green host back in November 2006, and totally forgot to write about it, but the Worsted Witch’s recent trouble with trying to switch hosts reminded me –
green LA girl is proudly hosted by Sustainable Websites, thanks to Ivan, who helped me move everything over and gave me a nice discount to boot. Since the switch, things’ve been running quite smoothly –
That said, the initial transfer was rather stressful — not due to mistakes on Sustainable Websites’ part, but because I wasn’t prepared for what to expect. Because Bluehost, my old host, made it so easy to get things up and running by bundling all the processes together, I wasn’t prepared for the more difficult task of switching hosts. Here’s the 3-day story of the switch:
It started easy. On the morning of Nov. 20, I signed up for Sustainable Websites online, then gave Ivan access to my Bluehost stuff so he could transfer the site over. That process took over a day — during which Ivan kindly sent me email updates, like “we ran into a small glitch because of some special configuration that bluehost has on their cpanel but should be able to resolve it soon.” Fair ’nuff.
Once the transfer was done on Nov. 21, Ivan asked me to tell Bluehost to switch the nameservers over to my new host. I had no idea what nameservers are, but after an email to Bluehost, I figured out how to change ‘em over. Cool.
But what I didn’t know was the fact that switching nameservers doesn’t happen instantaneously. In fact, it seemed that no one — except maybe Bluehost — had much control over this part. And I was REALLY unprepared for this news and instruction: “Please hold off on blogging until the nameservers have changed over, sorry. This should happen pretty soon, assuming bluehost can make the changes ASAP.”
During this waiting time, Ivan helped me transfer my domain name away from Bluehost. A necessary task, but again, one I didn’t know I’d need to do separately, because Bluehost had bundled everything together for me. The nameservers finally changed over around 4 pm on Nov. 22, so I could start blogging again.
My guess is that transferring to any other host would’ve been about as stressful — which is why staying with one’s old host is always very tempting, since all you have to do is hit renew. However, if I had known at the getgo the steps involved and the time it would take, I would not have thought of this as a stressful procedure.
If I were a host, I would let the would-be-hostee know at the beginning of the process that there’ll be 3 steps: 1) transferring the site, 2) switching nameservers, and 3) transferring the domain name, which usually takes around 3 (or whatever is typical) days to complete, during which time the site cannot be updated. Given that info, I would’ve simply put up a post telling readers that the switch is happening, then relaxed for a couple days.
I think the switch is v. much worth making — I just want readers to know what to expect from the process. Post-switch, I’m v. happy. My web hosting’s cabon neutral, and green LA girl’s has less downtime than it had with Bluehost.
Want to make the switch yourself? Sign up here, and use the coupon code greenlagirl, which’ll give you a 10% off one time discount.
Update, 4/26/07: I can’t, in good conscience, recommend Sustainable Websites, even with its claim to green. Here’s why.
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A Green Oscar Night
Actually, it was more of a NOscar night for me since I don’t watch TV, but I did click around Oscar.com a lil bit:
I’m not sure that the Oscars could ever qualify as a green event, what with the flights in from all over the world and lots and lots of bright lights. That said, the 79th Academy Awards is at least giving a nod to environmental issues, with a big “Go Green” button displayed on its homepage….
The site goes on to list a number of environmentally-friendly choices that one can make — although the list doesn’t seem to have a direct link to the production of the Oscars itself (The last point, in fact, specifically encourages farmers to cut down on pesticides). What the production team did to minimize the environmental footprint of the celebrity-studded event remains unclear.
Turns out though, that during the Oscars, Gore and others talked a bit about the greening effort. Cool! More on Worldchanging Los Angeles.
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Clicklist: Actions and campaigns
- Step It Up 2007: Get ready for the National Day of Climate Action on April 14.
- Not For Sale: A new campaign to end slavery in our lifetime.
- Oceana gives out the MOMMIEs, “honoring America’s chlorine plants for outstanding achievement in the field of poisoning our tuna fish sandwiches.” See more pics here.
- The current debates within the fair trade movement explained in a nice, reader-friendly article in the Boulder Weekly. One correction: If you order a latte at Starbucks, it won’t be fair trade, whether or not you ask for it. Starbucks only offers drip coffee that’s fair trade, which you have to ask for specifically — at which point you have about a 50% chance of getting what you asked for.
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Friday freebies: Fermenting Revolution
A weekly sharing of eco-shwag!
I just realized I forgot to do a freebie last week, so this week gets 2!
This giveaway is my reviewer’s copy of Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World, written by Christopher Mark O’Brien, beer activist. My full review’s here.
Comment or email me by Tuesday night to get into the drawing, which’ll happen Wednesday morning.
