>> The problem with compostable flatware: Unless they make it into an industrial composting facility, these forks and spoons don't biodegrade easily.
>> Six green-ish dishwashing liquids reviewed at Grist. Unfortunately, it appears that all of them contain carcinogen 1,4-dioxane, over which California's attorney general recently sued Whole Foods, Avalon Natural Products.
>> The greenest way to dry your hands in a public bathroom. Wiping them on your pants is one option, but Slate.com's The Lantern also notes that "The bottom line is that hand dryers will be the greener choice in about 95 percent of circumstances."
>> Tap water gets popular, due to both economic and environmental concerns. "Although it is difficult to track rates of tap water use, sales of faucet accessories are booming." Earlier: A prize-winning, almost-free drink: L.A. tap water.
>> Get ready for the Bicycle Film Festival, which rolls into town July 17-21. (via Westside Bikeside)
>> Of the 100 most congested metropolitan areas, L.A. tops the list according to INRIX, a traffic information provider. Check out the list of top 10 worst bottlenecks in Southern California.
>> L.A. parking fines are going up by $5 starting late July. The extra money won't go toward improving roads or public transit, but will be used to help fill the city's budget shortfall. (via LAist)
Photo by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times
 Dump the Pump Day, sponsored by the American Public Transportation Assn., happens Thurs., June 19. No news about Dump the Pump celebrations from Metro or Big Blue Bus as of yet, but Foothill Transit riders can get a coupon for free rides all day Thursday by filling out a short survey.
Going a step further, the Orange County Transportation Authority's declared this week Dump the Pump Week. What you get out of it: A free OCTA bus pass valid any day this week and a chance to win prizes by entering a drawing for gift certificates, movie tickets, Dump the Pump T-shirts or Metrolink Tickets.
Relatedly, the Kiss My Gass protest kicked off yesterday (via LAist). The campaign basically asks people to avoid a chosen oil company -- at the moment, ExxonMobil -- for a month. The point is to simultaneously protest high gas prices while encouraging people to rethink their dependency on gasoline.
The only good news about driving has to do with cars that aren't available yet. For example, hydrogen cars are getting celebrity drivers behind their wheels -- though layperson ownership remains very impractical: BMW's Hydrogen 7 "can be filled only by a trained professional, who takes it to Oxnard and refuels it with liquid hydrogen cooled to 423 degrees below zero, a round trip that can take three hours."
Lastly, the Big Three U.S. automakers will get $30 million in federal funding to research and develop plug-in hybrids. (via grist)
 >> Want to stay cool this summer? There's a quick solution that will "lower summertime temperatures in cities, dramatically reduce your air-conditioning bills and help trap some of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming": plant a tree!
>> The most eco wading pool is the public pool -- or the beach! Says Umbra of Grist: "If you live in a city with a nearby wading pool, please use that publicly available resource instead of your kiddie pool. It's the public transit of summer swimming."
>> Drive, don't fly, to your summer vacation destination, says Pablo of Salon.com, before adding this: "But are you sure you really have to travel? Consider taking what is being called a 'staycation.' "
>> One staycation idea: Form a summer nature club. "Parents, grandparents and even kids can create clubs quickly in any neighborhood, urban or suburban. This is an approach that can reduce fear and increase motivation."
>> If you do decide to drive to your summer destination, use these hyper-miling techniques to save gas, money, and a little teeny tiny bit of the environment.
>> Summer dilemmas for the modern eco-parent. Lou Bendrick shares her best tips in Grist: "I like to approach the topic of global warming the way I approach the topic of sex: with a steady stream of age-appropriate facts. My first grader, for instance, ... doesn't need to know about ocean acidification any more than she needs know about chlamydia." Relatedly, here are tips on greening your kid this summer.
Photo by Oz Mendoza via Flickr
High gas prices are bringing up a lot of ideas for curbing our oil addiction:
>> Go on strike. Spanish truck drivers have stopped deliveries; they want "government regulations guaranteeing a minimum price for their services, above fuel costs."
>> Develop nempimania, a new condition defined by hypermiling hybrid drivers.
>> Heckle Hummer drivers, i.e. L.A.'s own transportation deputy Jaime de la Vega, who still drives a Hummer, which gets 14 mpg in city driving.
>> Raise parking prices. Free parking at work and other places -- as well as too-cheap parking meter rates -- have people unnecessarily driving and and adding to the congestion.
>> In other news: California's attorney general sues Whole Foods, Avalon Natural Products, and two other companies for failing to warn of carcinogen 1,4-dioxane on their soap labels. "Eighteen other companies were also warned that some of their products contained the chemical."
Photo by Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times
>> Why we have horrific traffic snarls in SoCal. The fact that we haven't invested enough on public transit's obvious, but Jeffrey L. Rabin and Dan Weikel of the L.A. Times point to a second reason: "For years, elected county and city officials across Southern California have put economic development and jobs ahead of mobility, approving major commercial and residential developments without requiring builders to pay enough for improvements needed to handle extra traffic."
>> The psychological toll of long commutes. Symptoms range from road rage to "a feeling of being out of control."
>> The health toll of long commutes. "One stark study, published in 2004 in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that nearly one in 12 heart attacks was linked to traffic. Left unresolved was whether the culprit was stop-and-go car exhaust, which can starve the heart of oxygen, or stress, which spikes blood pressure, leading to strokes and heart attacks."
>> How to save $10+ on your next day on the beach: Take the bus! Tara tries out the Culver City bus for 75 cents, avoids $10 parking fee plus $4.38 per gallon on gas, enjoys sunny sands.
>> Earlier: De-car-ing. Fight traffic less, enjoy the city more and avoid being a designated driver -- all while having fun out and about.
>> Also earlier: Q&A: De-car-ing in the Valley, Q&A: Greening a cheap renter's long commute.
Photo: Richard Hartog / L.A. Times
>> Get a green gift for dad on Father's Day, with some help from Grist's eco-friendly gift guide.
>> Order local, organic groceries online. Michelle Slatalla writes about a growing number of online retailers connecting consumers to local farms. Spud.com delivers to the L.A. area -- but "local" here's defined by a 500-mile radius. (via Lifehacker)
>> The problems with a car culture mentality -- as described in a 1947 article in Time magazine: "this peculiar state of mind had not only sucked thousands of American oil wells dry, stripped the rubber groves of Malaya, produced the world's most inhuman industry and its most recalcitrant labor union, but had filled U.S. streets with so many automobiles that it was almost impossible to drive one." (via kottke)
>> Minivans: Not doing well. These soccer mom vehicle sales are sinking, along with the sales of trucks, SUVs, and other huge gas guzzlers.
>> L.A. looks into recycling its wastewater,
what with the state drought and all. The success of Orange County's
"toilet-to-tap" project could also help propel L.A.'s water recycling
project -- though it sounds like it'll be a while before we approve,
build, and start running an L.A. plant.
>> 21 (Eco)Visualizations for Energy Consumption Awareness. Check out these visuals, applications, and devices that can motivate you to conserve by making you see more clearly the environmental impacts of your (or our collective) actions. Above is one of the 21: the USA National GAS Temperature Map (h/t groby)
>> Re-visualizing trees. Artist Rob Kesseler's created strange but pretty electron microscope images of tree bits for his exhibition "Canopy" at Kew Gardens, London. According to New Scientist, "Kesseler's images are intended to show trees on a scale you have never seen before, through artistic manipulation of high-powered microscope technology."
>> Local enviro-group TreePeople will launch a comprehensive California Wildfire Restoration Initiative that will help restore forests that won’t recover on their own. The initiative will include a volunteer mobilization campaign; about 7,500 volunteers are needed to help cover about 10,000 acres over a period of 3-5 years. The effort will be funded by a $1 million grant from the Boeing Co.
>> Girl drives under speed limit, sees 14% gain in fuel efficiency. Writes Karina at Tiny Choices: "I will add ... I did my best to drive the speed limit but I was generally driving within 5 miles of the speed limit, and that there were at least 1 or 2 trips that were a little faster than originally planned because I was in a big hurry."
>> A biodiesel boat trying to circle the globe in record time bumped into an unknown object and is now "limping across the Pacific," reports Wired's Autopia. "Earthrace was on pace to beat the record, set in 1998 by Cable & Wireless Adventurer, by 15 days before the collision. With that kind of cushion, Earthrace might still pull it off, but only if nothing else goes wrong."
>> A new report, Stop Trashing the Climate shows that aiming for zero waste by reducing waste and encouraging the reduce, reuse, recycle mantra "is one of the fastest, cheapest, and most effective strategies available for combating climate change." Get involved with L.A.'s Zero Waste Plan!
>> Dwell on Design begins today! The exhibition portion doesn't start until Saturday, so you still have time to use the coupon code for free admission and see what the event's all about.
Image courtesy of gasbuddy.com
 >> Water: The new dwindling resource. Writes Mark Clayton in the Christian Science Monitor: "Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast, says a 2007 global investment report. But governments pushing to privatize costly-to-maintain public water systems are colliding with a global “water is a human right” movement." Earlier: Water Week.
>> L.A. River: May lose federal protections. "The city's river can't even float enough boats to qualify as a full-fledged navigable waterway, according to the Army Corps of Engineers." Earlier: June 8: A popular day for touring the L.A. River.
>> Nuclear: Not attracting investors. "Capitalists instead favor climate-protecting competitors with less cost, construction time, and financial risk. The nuclear industry claims it has no serious rivals, let alone those competitors — which, however, already outproduce nuclear power worldwide and are growing enormously faster." (via grist)
>> BioBlitz: Biodiversity, measured in the Santa Monica mountains. "More than just a species count, it aims to connect scientists who might not typically work together and to give non-scientists a firsthand look at what biodiversity -- the wealth of different life forms that exist on the planet -- is all about."
>> Coral reefs: Biodiversity, disappearing. "The culprit here is carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that is responsible for global warming and that also is turning our oceans into an acid bath," writes Margaret Wertheim, co-creator of the Crochet Coral Reef Project, in an op-ed.
>> Debunked: Some gas saving myths. Neither filling up in the morning nor changing your air filter will improve your gas mileage.
Photo by Third Eye via Flickr
>> Above is the USA National GAS Temperature Map as of 10 this morning. The redder an area, the more expensive gas is -- and California's quite reddish.
>> Why gas is more expensive in Cali than in other places, and how the federal government could fix the problem with the stroke of a pen. "California's strict air quality regulations require a special blend of gasoline that only a few refineries outside of California are capable of producing. So when demand spikes in California, or a disaster (or simple maintenance overhaul) takes out even just one refinery complex for any extended period of time, prices rise quickly across the state because supply can't easily be found to replace the lost production." At the end of the article is the answer to how YOU can handle this problem.
>> Idling: Bad for your wallet and the planet. "If you're going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds, it's best to shut off your engine. The one exception is when you're stopped in street traffic — it's illegal to kill the engine in many states."
>> Driving fans are the ungreenest component at concerts. Radiohead commissioned an enviro-study of their last two North American tours. "The report revealed that 97 percent of the environmental damage done by the group's 2003 tour — nearly 10,000 tons of CO2, the equivalent of 4,000 trans-Atlantic flights — was fan-related." Stop driving to the Hollywood Bowl, people.
>> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's getting sued all over the place:
- California joined 10 other states to sue the EPA in an effort to overturn weak ozone standards, which are said to be too weak even according to the EPA's own science advisory board. Health and environmental organizations led by Earthjustice filed a parallel lawsuit.
- A coalition of environmental groups plans to sue the EPA today to "force it to overturn motor vehicle emissions limits for Southern California, charging that the targets fail to address hazardous pollution faced by 1.5 million people who live next to freeways."
Image courtesy of gasbuddy.com
>> Coal: Still dirty. And now we've got a new website -- Clean Coal Body Slam -- that has "pulled together some of the best and most outspoken leaders on the environmental, public health and economic effects of America's addiction to coal." There I found the best clean coal ad ever, below.
>> Umbra of Grist has a few tips on wearing skirts with bikes, but none seem particularly easy to implement. Anyone have better suggestions?
>> If your skirt-wearing habit keeps you off a bike, check out these other ways to green your commute. I use the "Stay home" method.
>> Continue to fill up your tank and you may have to deal with a new form of theft: thieves drilling into fuel tanks to get vehicles' gas.
>> In case you were having a good day, here's a debbie downer: Thanks to climate change, we're at increased risk of crop failures, outbreaks of invasive species and insects, and depleting the nation's water resources -- and those problems "will persist for at least the next 25 to 50 years," according to the Department of Agriculture.
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