>> Why you should read the back of the package. The FDA sent warning letters to 17 food companies for “Front-of-Package Violations” that make food sound healthier than they actually are. The most common issue: Companies touted that their products were trans fat free — without mentioning high saturated fat content.

In addition to the usual suspects like Nestle, a couple organic companies made the list — including one of my favorite cereals, Nature’s Path Organic Flax Plus Multibran Cereal. Why? Apparently the claim “excellent source of Omega-3+” is not approved for use on food products.

>> Why I haven’t bought any canned food this year: BPA-free canned food’s hard to come by — even for green food companies that want to make their containers BPA-free. Both Eden Foods and Vital Choice are struggling to — but not yet succeeding at — keeping BPA out of their products due to both the ubiquity of the chemical and lack of alternatives.

>> Did you know Meryl Streep started working as an environmental foodie activist with the NRDC back in the late 1980s? In an in-depth interview with Wendy Gordon at NRDC’s Simple Steps, Meryl Streep talks in detail about food, health, and the environment — very candidly and honestly, even critiquing her own habits on eco-standards.

Photo by dmoola

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>> Re-envision the gas station — and draw or create what a typical fueling station will look like in the future for GOOD’s contest. The good news for not-so-great drawers: GOOD says “a bad drawing of a great idea will be better than a beautiful rendering of something uninspiring.”

The winner will get $1,000; second and third place winners will get $500 and $200, respectively. You gotta act fast though, because the deadline for submission’s tomorrow, March 10.

>> Design an Earth Day T-shirt for organic clothing company bgreen Apparel, whose comfy clothes I’ve reviewed here. The winner will get a $150 bgreen gift card, a free T-shirt, design credit (a printed bio inside the T-shirts), and the happy knowledge that all proceeds from T-shirts sold with the design will be donated to Los Angeles-area environmental nonprofits. The submission deadline’s Fri., March 24.

>> Get a cushy internship with the Sierra Club. One lucky intern will be chosen to “travel around the country hiking, rafting, and enjoying the outdoors with the Sierra Club’s youth programs” while vlogging his or her adventures during the 8-week internship. Plus, the intern will get a $2,500 and $2,000 worth of gear from The North Face and Planet Explore. You must be at least 18 years old, and get your application in by March 31.

Photo by vrogy

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>> Living near freeways is still not good for you — but many Angelenos have moved into “black lung lofts” unaware of long term health risks (via LAist):

The new study [by USC scientists] showed that alarming numbers of children ages 10 to 18 who live within about a block — 528 feet — of a Southern California freeway suffer reduced lung development, a deficit likely to persist through adulthood, and which may increase the risk of respiratory disease and premature death.

City zoning laws and planning decisions haven’t taken these highway-related pollution studies into account. In fact, the LA Weekly article argues city laws have encouraged more people to live in these polluted areas:

Today, in fact, the Department of City Planning chief Gail Goldberg and the Office of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa concede to L.A. Weekly that nobody in City Hall is tracking, or can even estimate, the number of children who have moved into housing erected within 500 feet of freeways since scientists documented the chilling health effects. Los Angeles lawmakers are making no effort to measure the human health costs of such housing.

Earlier: Death by Smogging: Ultrafine particles in Los Angeles

>> Power plants create heat pollution in the oceans, and environmentalists are trying to make them pay. Basically, the plants suck in cool ocean water — along with little sea creatures — to cool their plants, the dump the warmed water — with now-dead sea creatures — back into the ocean.

Federal rules have banned new plants from drawing in seawater for so-called “once-through” cooling systems. Now the state water board wants to apply this rule to the 19 existing plants dotting the coast from Eureka to San Diego. The board’s proposal … would require plants to supplant seawater pipes with massive cooling towers that recycle water, or to use air-cooling platforms.

>> Tougher emissions rules could make the ports cleaner. The South Coast Air Quality Management District proposed rules to put regulatory teeth into the current voluntary pollution reduction targets. These “backstop rules,” if passed, would make polluters pay for not reducing pollution.

Each year, pollution from the movement of goods through the region contributes to an estimated 2,100 early deaths, 190,000 sick days for workers, and 360,000 school absences, according to the California Air Resources Board.

Photo by andropolis

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>> Want to be a serious bicycle activist in L.A.? Watch this short video of a day in the life of local biketivist Ramon Martinez and follow him as he volunteers at the Bicycle Kitchen, organizes a protest ride with the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, and of course, bikes!

Earlier: StreetFilms put together a short video about the 3 bicycle co-ops in the L.A. area. There is now also a fourth, The Valley Bikery.

>> L.A. has 3 fun bike rides happening on Sat., March 6. Unfortunately, none are on the west side…. Earlier: Green weekender and other green happenings this week.

>> Volunteer for the Orange Line bike study, happening March 24 and 27. According to Metro’s blog The Source, “Volunteers will survey bike riders, walkers and car drivers who utilize Orange Line park-and-ride lots. Volunteers also will count bike and pedestrian trips on the Orange Line’s bikeway.”

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This week’s green weekender went up yesterday — but a lot more’s happening this week!

>> Catch a free screening of Rock the Boat, a documentary about Angeleno activists who kayaked 51-miles of the L.A. River in 2008 to show that the river is a navigable waterway — and thus falls within the Clean Water Act. According to LAist, the screening happens tonight at 9 pm at the Electric Lodge, 1416 Electric Ave., Venice.

>> The next West Side Green Drinks happens at The Green Life, where you can get a really great deal on recycled envelopes. The party begins this Thurs., March 4 at 7 pm at The Green Life, 2409 Main St., Santa Monica.

>> Help save pelicans at G2 Gallery’s “Fill The Bill” reception to support International Bird Rescue and Research Center’s pelican rescue efforts. According to Will Campbell at Metblogs — who says he’s too often “been up-close and personal with a dead brown pelican along Ballona Creek” — that event happens this Fri. at G2 Gallery, 1503 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice.

>> Get your cat neutered with a free voucher from Actors and Others for Animals. Los Angeles County residents who want one of the 400 vouchers must register at online by March 9, and complete the surgery by April 20.

>> Work out at Lemon Grove Park in East Hollywood, which now has a new fitness trail and exercise zone that includes a 10-piece set of exercise equipment.

Photo of Joe Linton kayaking the L.A. River via L.A. Creek Freak

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Bicycle:

>> The L.A. Times reports on the LAPD’s new effort to respect bicyclists’ rights:

Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck told a group of bicycle advocates that department-wide training would be implemented to highlight the rights of bicyclists on the road and ensure that officers know how to deal with incidents involving bikes.

Toward that end, officer training “would include a document that would be included in official department policy outlining officers’ responsibilities in dealing with cyclists on the road” as well as a mandatory “computer-based ‘e-learning’ agenda … to help [officers] better recognize problems and issues involving cyclists.”

>> Expect more bicycle sharrows by mid-June, after LA DOT finally implements the long-awaited sharrows pilot program. Earlier: Bike sharrows may be on L.A. streets by May.

>> BikingInLA has a great summary of what went down at the first Metro Roundtable.

>> Will Campbell took 89 fun beachy photos of people passed while biking on The Strand between Hermosa Beach and the Ballona Creek bridge.

Bus:

>> Metro got the first of 50 new buses bought with funds from the Stimulus Bill. According to Metro’s blog The Source, “the buses are powered by natural gas and will replace 33 diesel buses and 17-propane fueled buses.”

>>  L.A. Times profiles a 26-year-old bus rider — who used to be a snobby driver. Now she enjoys the money savings from de-car-ing, and the views and conversations on the bus. Longer-term bus taking bloggers are split on their take on this profile. Damien Newton at Streetsblog LA sounds happy that the article describes “riding the bus as a fun place to be,” while Rosemary — formerly of Booking it Bus Style and now of Ro Ro Ro Your Blog — says the article “dripped with an offensive and condescending tone from start to finish.”

Rail:

>> L.A. City Councilmember Tom LaBonge wants to see the Metro Red/Purple line extended from Union Station to 6th Street in the Arts District.

Photo by Russ Roca Photography

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>> Read an interview with green LA girl on Handmade News! I share my thoughts on upcycling, a challenge for greening your life, and tips on starting an eco-blog.

>> Hear James Cameron talk about Avatar and environmental issues on Bravo’s Inside the Actor’s Studio tonight at 7 pm! In this clip from the show, James Cameron talks about how he wrote a play called “Extinction Syndrome” for his high school’s theater arts program. “It was about our human proclivity to destroy ourselves and the world around us,” James says — and adds that the same concerns were on his mind when he wrote Avatar in 2005.

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>> Environmentalism as a secular religion? Because atheists can’t burn in hell, but they could burn on a warmed earth…. A professor of philosophy draws some funny connections (via Ideas):

We even find parallels in environmentalism of the most extreme, self-flagellating forms of religious guilt. Nietzsche claims that religion has fostered guilt to such neurotic levels that some people feel culpable and apologetic about their very existence. Compare this with extreme conservationists who want to sacrifice themselves for trees and whales.

I don’t totally agree with the guy’s conclusions — after all hell doesn’t exist, but earth actually could burn up and us with it, so some panic and serious action is absolutely necessary. Still, an interesting read.

>> The cutest DIY deity ever. Are you a Pastafarian like me? One Amanda knit her own god (right) — and I want the pattern!

>> One lovably nerdy dude in London wrote a paper using an equation to illustrate why he doesn’t have a girlfriend (PDF). Said equation is N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L — and is typically “to estimate the number of highly evolved civilizations that might exist in our galaxy.” Tracy Clark-Flory at Broadsheet summarizes his dour calculations:

His basic requirements: They live in his hometown of London (to “avoid the difficulties of long distance relationship”), are between the ages of 24 and 34 (“I don’t want to feel older than I am … because I haven’t read Twilight and don’t know who the Jonas Brothers are”), have a college education (“we would have more in common”) and are physically attractive to him (“it makes sex easier”). The result: 10,510 women. “That is 0.00017% of the UK and 0.0014% of Londoners, which doesn’t seem so bad,” he writes.

Then he adds on another filter to figure out how many of these 10,510 women might be into him — thereby bringing the number down to 26 women! It is possible that not that many women may be into guys that think of female humans as alien life forms, but this guy reminds me of another nerdy dude that decided to spend his time creating a 2D girlfriend to spoon with — because he didn’t have the time to go out and meet real girls.

Image via The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

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>> 10 things you didn’t know about orgasm. Watch Bonk author Mary Roach’s sexy TED talk below.

>> 15 things you should know about breasts. Most instructive: “Don’t smoke if you want to avoid saggy boobs.” Or breast cancer.

>> 8 unique properties of 11. Did you know 11 is the only prime comprising an even number of identical digits? 11’s also my favorite number. Get the gossip on your favorite number at NumberGossip.com. (via Wired magazine)

>> How Millenial Are You? I scored an 88% on the quiz. You? (via fimoculous)

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>> Take a snack break and enjoy L.A.’s greenest sorbet from Truly Raw Gourmet. Made by a local couple working behind Groundwork Coffee in Venice, the tasty low calorie dessert’s made of raw honey, coconut water, and locally-sourced fruit — and sold at Co-opportunity and local Whole Foods. I got to try a couple flavors, and recommend the Apple Pie. One downside: Each 9-ounce glass jar costs $10.

>> Win an eco-vacation to see sea turtles in the wild by taking Oceana’s Ocean IQ quiz. Answer 10 questions and you could win Nautica watches and goodies or a Nintendo Wii system with the Endless Ocean game! If you take the quiz and challenge four friends to test their knowledge too, you’ll also be entered to win the grand prize: A sea turtle conservation trip — plus airfaire.

>> Screen No Impact Man in your community during Earth Week in April! For $100 — or less, if you appeal for a reduced fee — you can get a license to host a small screening between April 18 and 25 — along with a DVD, access to an RSVP registration system for your audience members, and an electronic screening toolkit with everything you need to market your event.

Earlier:
>> Film Review: No Impact Man — The sustainable joys of sustainable living
>> Book Review: No Impact Man — Freedom’s just another word …
>> An Interview with No Impact Man, Colin Beavan — Finding eco-happiness

Photo by Zach Behrens/LAist

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