>> If your bicycle needs a post-week tuneup, check out "The Chainbreaker Bike Book," a new "seat-of-the-pants, low-budget ... do-it-yourself bike maintenance guide that keeps things simple, straightforward, and, most importantly, real," according to Keith Goetzman in Utne.
>> A bold water conservation plan's coming to L.A. The plan includes mandatory water-use restrictions on residents, changes in building codes, and waste water recycling programs. "Administration officials say the point is to act now so the city can meet increased demand through a combination of conservation and recycling. They note that Los Angeles is an arid metropolis that has grown by dipping long straws in far-flung water supplies."
If you socialize regularly at Green Drinks with local environmentalists, note the new location for the event tonight. What used to be East Side Green Drinks, meeting at Good Luck Bar in Silver Lake every third Thursday of the month, has now mysteriously become the West Hollywood / Silver Lake Green Drinks, despite the fact that the two neighborhoods are nowhere near each other.
I think the new multi-city alliance of sorts was created simply because the organizers decided to hold tonight's Green Drinks at Cisco Home, which is far, far west of Silver Lake. However, Cisco Home -- located at 440 N. La Brea -- isn't in West Hollywood either. It's more accurately in Hollywood, though the building is actually about a block south of the area officially considered to be Hollywood.
Quibbles about the location aside, L.A. Green Drinks has really changed quite a bit since its inception a few years ago -- so much that I've, um, stopped going. That doesn't mean that the event's made a turn for the worse; Green Drinks is simply different. What used to be a relatively unstructured monthly social event at a local bar, where everyone entered for free and bought their own drinks, has now turned into sponsored events at furniture stores requiring a cover and featuring environmental speakers.
Some may love the opportunity to hear local environmentalists speak. But because of what I do, I hear environmental speakers all the time -- and am a little sad that what used to be a relaxed night of socializing's turned into yet another speaker series, with drinks on the side. Most of my friends are also very involved in the enviro-world; all of us probably complain about the change in Green Drinks' structure and venues way too much.
Still, tonight's speaker sounds interesting: It's Tom O'Leary, the Communications and Development Specialist, from Forest Ethics. Here are the details for those who want to hear O'Leary:
When: Tonight, Thurs., May 15, 7 p.m. - 10 p.m. Where: Cisco Home, 440 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles Cost: $5 donation
I'll be elsewhere. In the meantime, some friends and I are thinking of starting a structure-free Green Drinks Santa Monica. Want to be kept in the loop? E-mail me.
The freeway is the new park?! Maybe, if the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce gets its way. The group's proposing a freeway park deck, running from Bronson Avenue to Wilton Place above the 101 Freeway. The project's name: Hollywood Freeway Central Park. (via groovy green)
Why a park there? For one, it'd mean "24 acres of new green space in Hollywood, directly adjacent to a high school currently under construction." The 101 runs below street level in that area, so the park deck would create "a brief tunnel for vehicular traffic while affording a street-level park for pedestrians." Plus, of course, there'd be environmental benefits:
In addition to the many obvious benefits of creating new park space, by placing a “cap” over one of the world’s most congested freeway system, the necessary ventilation system would be required to clean the air before re-circulating it back into the environment - creating a positive improvement in the air quality in Los Angeles.
From what I can tell so far, the project has broad-based support. Mayor Villaraigosa -- as well as all four are neighborhood councils -- are behind the plan. Anyone have objections to it? Whether you're for it or against it, you can weigh in at the Community-Wide Hollywood Central Park Meeting tomorrow:
When: Saturday, Jan. 26th, 9 am - 1 pm.
Where: Selma Elementary School - Auditorium, 6611 Selma Avenue, Los Angeles
RSVP: email rsvp@hfcp.org
Villaraigosa, LA City Council President Eric Garcetti, Councilmember Tom LaBonge, and Assemblymember Mike Feuer are all expected to represent. Oh, and there'll be free refreshments and lunch.
If GreenXchange was the conference that went beyond business to tie the many facets of a green future together, Hollywood Goes Green was the one that sold out to big corporations.
Sure, Hollywood Goes Green started out great, with keynotes from Allen Hershkowitz of Natural Resources Defense Council and actor-activist Ed Begley Jr. But it went quickly downhill from there. The next 4 keynote sessions came from each of the conference's title sponsors. Yes, that means big corps like IBM and Subway got a half hour to pitch their products from center stage -- nevermind that Subway isn't exactly in the entertainment biz.
The weirdest choice for a keynote, though, was the GM speaker -- Susan Docherty -- whose bio bragged that she'd managed the Hummer brand, helping launch the new H3 "which increased Hummer's sales by greater than 70%." Why exactly was a Hummer woman giving a keynote at a supposedly eco conference? No real reason, it seems, except that GM was a title sponsor.
Even the gold sponsor, COPAN, got to take the stage for a 10 minute presentation before lunch. Which meant that the breakout sessions with actual experts didn't start until 2:15 -- and even these sessions were infiltrated by speakers from the title sponsors! IBM managed to get a record 4 speakers into these panels.
Yes, Hollywood Goes Green DID bring in some enviro experts. But many of the speakers had a different problem -- With only tenuous ties to the entertainment industry, they couldn't really speak to moving Hollywood in a green direction. The wonderful experts on the green building panel, for example, covered everything from prefab to LEED certification -- but didn't really talk about the entertainment business until an audience member asked how one might go about convincing those in power not to simply pick the cheapest set materials. Greg Reitz, principal at REThink Development, kicked off the response to that question with a less-than-promising "I don't know enough about the entertainment industry to answer that very well, but...." He then said people need to "widen their view" and look at the environmental impacts of the materials they use. True, but not actually a helpful or practical answer to the question at hand....
It all left me with the impression that Hollywood has few experts in the industry that have actually gone green, even if some of its celebrities are individually moving deeper into environmentalism.
And it made me think that Hollywood Goes Green's organizers cared about sponsorships first and the conference second. Because the sponsorship hoopla didn't just end with the miserable keynotes. We had sponsor logos glowing on the walls and, at the cocktail reception, in the hotel pool. In fact, we had to stop by the Chevy Volt model to get our drink tickets.
Perhaps the reception was the best part of the conference -- and not just because of the free VeeV drinks, mixed by bike-powered blenders. Despite its faults, Hollywood Goes Green did bring some cool people together, and I ran into many who are actually doing real green stuff.
I still opted out of going to the second day of the conference on Wednesday though. I hope it was more productive, since it wasn't filled up with sponsor keynotes --
Upside to having a GM dude on the same panel as electric car advocates: The ensuing smackdown's kinda fun to watch. Downside to having such a panel at a conference titled Hollywood Goes Green: So many enviros are mad at GM that the bulk of the questions get aimed at Dave Barthmuss of GM -- meaning GM gets the lion's share of the panel time.
Still, the car panel -- "Easy Rider: Fuel Usage, Energy Efficient Vehicles and Freight Options" -- ended up being an entertaining one, with Dave getting attacked for everything from GM's lack of more fuel-efficient vehicles at the LA Auto Show (the photo above's part of GM's display at that show) to GM's lobbying against tougher fuel economy standards to -- of course -- Hummers. Dave maneuvered around the questions pretty well, but his response about how GM's coming out with a baby baby hummer drew some gags from the audience.
A big chunk of the discussion settled around the whole hydrogen fuel cell vs. electric car debate, which Ken Bensinger of the LA Times recently dissected. Basically, fuel cells use hydrogen to make electricity, which in turn powers the car. Electric cars charge up on electricity, then power the car with it.
At the panel, Chris Paine, director of "Who Killed the Electric Car?", called the push behind hydrogen fuel cell technology a boondoggle. Greg Abbot, founder of ElectricMotors jumped on Chris' side. Their argument against fuel cells: Why use electricity to make fuel cells that'll then be used to create electricity to run the car, when you can just directly use electricity to run the car? Dave of GM responded by saying that GM's "in the process of chasing as many innovations and technologies ... that we can."
I'm inclined to side with the electric cars -- or at least plug-in hybrids, at this point. The biggest argument against electric cars and plug-in hybrids seems to be that a lot of our electricity in the US comes from burning coal, which is even worse than burning gas. But in addition to the fact that many are working to replace coal with renewable energy, hydrogen fuel cells are also made using power from the grid -- and use several times the electricity required by electric cars. Moreover, we already have an electric grid all set up, but we'll have to set up a whole new infrastructure to make hydrogen fuel cells work. As Andrew C. Revkin of Dot Earth notes, hydrogen cars may be here, but the hydrogen economy is not:
It’s one thing to have a few hydrogen cars, and another thing entirely to transform an energy and transportation system built on fossil fuels into one built on hydrogen generated without producing carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse-gas emission linked to recent global warming. In a 2004 report, the National Academy of Sciences said such a transition was probably decades away.
The bottom line? Transforming the energy source that makes a car run is relatively easy compared with rebuilding a multitrillion-dollar transportation and energy grid that took more than a century to create (no matter what we think of it now).
The panel did agree on one thing: To do your own research about these technologies to make your own decisions. To that end, try the links above as well as this primer on biofuels at Grist.
As a sidenote: Even if we magically converted all the cars to the cleanest tech overnight, it's not actually going to get rid of the gridlock on the 405. Do like Ed Begley, Jr. and I and consider the Metro. For those who flew into LAX for the conference, ogle these best 5 airport to city rail connections. The LAX connection may not be as simple, but Ryanne says the Metro got her from the airport to downtown LA in a hour during rush hour. Total cost: $1.25.
If you rarely watch TV, you may, like me, find yourself getting oddly entranced when placed in front of TV-type programming. Suddenly, every promo looks enticing and incredibly entertaining; every show sounds like the kind you should block out your evenings to watch.
So take my enthusiasm for the newish green TV programming I heard about at the TV and Cable programming session at Hollywood Goes Green with a grain of salt. After all, I only saw the promos, I'm too easily impressed by moving images -- and I'm probably never going to sit down in front of a TV to actually watch any of these shows.
Planet Green: Next year, environmentalists can start watching green TV 24-7, because Discovery's launching the Planet Green channel. A show to watch: Greensburg, a 13-part series showing how a tornado-hit rural town in Kansas rebuilt itself, greenly. The executive producer's Leonardo Dicaprio. Eileen O'Neill, president of Planet Green, kindly showed us all a preview -- and I'm totally planning on Netflixing it when it comes out on DVD.
EcoZone Project: Call this the un-extreme green home makeover -- with star power. Celebrities -- Scott Wolf being one -- get their homes greened, with the help of Daisy Fuentes and an eco-team. The next episode airs on CBS Dec. 15. I'd totally watch it -- if I owned my own home....
Sundance Channel's The Green: Sundance's green programming's expanded. In addition to "Big Ideas for a Small Planet," The Green now also has an 8-part series called "It's Not Easy Being Green" which follows a family striving to get self-sufficient.
If that's not enough, there's also Living With Ed on HGTV with actor and eco-activist Ed Begley, Jr., who also spoke earlier today.
Will environmentalism give you a toilet paper obsession? Possibly. Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist at Natural Resources Defense Council, said that after getting the Oscars to switch to recycled-content toilet paper, he spent the event in the bathroom to see if people were reading the little signs about the switch. "People thought I was a pervert," he joked at his keynote at Hollywood Goes Green.
Allen's helped green many Hollywood events -- and the entertainment business as a whole -- often by doing research into the supply chain, figuring out things like where oil for CD jewel cases come from, how much resources are saved by making the liner notes out of recycled paper, and what happens to those items at the end of their lifecycle.
His talk worked to connect the green initiatives taken in these efforts to the issues of biodiversity and environmental impact. In fact, the connections he tried to make were so vast that the talk did wander a bit, covering everything from deforestation to waterborne diseases to species extinction to waste to Darfur.
But Allen came back to the entertainment industry. Because it's so culturally influential, "this industry has a unique opportunity to move us beyond the circumstance we are at right now in terms of raising consciousness and stimulating understanding," Allen said.
To underscore his point, Allen screened a short video, narrated by Robert Redford, about Major League Baseball's new greening initiative. In conjunction with NRDC, the National Baseball League's going to green its stadiums and business practices, using more recyclable products, conserving energy, getting rid of toxic chemicals, and educating baseball fans, hopefully making environmental consciousness part of America's national pastime. The initiative seems to be in the beginning stages; any baseball fans seen this greening in action yet?
Allen ended the talk by -- going back to toilet paper. If you do one thing for the environment, change your toilet paper, he said. After all, why cut down ancient forests for a product you'll use for just 5 seconds?
To that end, here's a review of recycled toilet papers done by the funny people at Grist. And below's a funny video from Greenpeace activists who infiltrated a Kleenex advertising shoot to draw attention to the "Kleercut"-ing of ancient forests.
I got a chance to chat with Allen after his talk; more on that -- as well as some pictures -- to come --
Signs that the enviro-movement's gotten huge in L.A.: 2 big green conferences overlap, but each manages to attract lots of big-name speakers and panelists. The 2-day conference Hollywood Goes Green starts on the second day of the GreenXchange event -- but both events have put together impressive programs.
Hollywood Goes Green -- being an entertainment biz event -- sounds a little glitzier and a bit less wonky. Put together by iHollywood Forum, Hollywood Goes Green's the first conference that brings together the entertainment biz with environmental issues, to "offer industry insiders a forum to collaborate and develop partnerships for a sustainable future."
When: Tues and Wed., 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. both days Where: Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood Cost: $695 for 1 day; $895 for both days
Ed Begley Jr. of Living With Ed, will help kick off the event with his keynote speech. And while some of the panels -- i.e. "Going Green is the New Black" and "I Love Green" -- already sound tired and worn out, others, ranging from pitching green-themed shows to throwing an eco-friendly premiere, seem very specific and intriguing.
In fact, the conference sounds like it'll bring a wide range of ideas and personalities together. There'll be bottom-line focused people -- The tagline for the conference is "Going Green is good for Hollywood’s bottom line," after all. There'll likely be green washers; one of the major sponsors is GM, which will offer test drives of its "greener" vehicles (you can read how I feel about those here).
But Begley will be there, as will Allen Hershkowitz of Natural Resources Defense Council. I just wish their talks weren't happening so early in the day. Allen's talk, in fact, directly conflicts with the press conference that morning, which is supposed to include big announcements from big corporations like IBM. Coincidence? Hopefully.
How can musicians protest a new dam that's screwing the environment for the sake of more electricity? Play acoustic, of course.
That's what the Icelandic band Sigur Rós did for the most part, when it performed a series of concerts all across Iceland last year. Now the world can see bits of those concerts, captured in "Heima," a film that follows Sigur Rós through this tour. The film, which I watched at a screening at the AFI Festival, weaves the band's music and performances with interviews with the band members and beautiful shots of Iceland's natural beauty.
In fact, "Heima" draws a clear link between the geography and nature of Iceland itself and the music of Sigur Rós -- a connection that the band itself is loathe to make. In a Pitchfork interview, singer Jón "Jónsi" Þór Birgisson responds to the question "Is there something about Iceland that ties in with the music that you make?" by saying that question is on the band's "hate list."
Of course, Sigur Rós isn't exactly an interview-friendly band. All you have to do is watch this extremely painful NPR interview to see just how much these four band members hate dealing with the media. Though to be fair, the NPR dude's questions themselves are rather painful. Sample: "Are you guys a bit of a phenomenon in Iceland?" How might anyone answer that kind of question without coming off as an idiot?
"Heima" can't be termed an environmental film -- but it's certainly a film beautiful enough to make one yearn to preserve the few pristine spots we have left on this earth. In it, members of the band deride the short-sightedness of some people who just want to make money now, without thinking about the long-term consequences of that personal profit on Iceland and its people.
And of course, the music is gorgeous. Watch the trailer here; the DVD comes out in the U.S. on Nov. 20.
De-car-ing: 704 down Santa Monica to Vine, then walked a few blocks up to the Arclight. Thanks, Mia, for the ride home.
People who drive to the Hollywood Bowl for a show are kind of nuts, IMHO. Maybe I've gotten inadvertently caught in the pre- or post-show traffic too many times, but the thought of willingly driving into that snarl of honking cars seems rather masochistic to me --
Which is why I, along with a whole bunch of other Bright Eyes fans from Santa Monica, took the Park-and-Ride option last Sunday -- except I just walked over to the bus and so skipped the park part.
All I did was put in my zip and concert time on this Hollywood Bowl page to figure out when my bus was gonna be there, get to the bus by that time, hand $5 to the driver, and take a seat.
The Park-and-Ride thing's really quite popular, at least in Santa Monica. We had a pretty full bus, and concertgoers actually started their picnics early, opening up their coolers and pre-partying on the bus.
One snafu -- My friend Hannah took the Park-and-Ride option from Culver City, and her bus was late! However, she arrived just 10 mins after I did, well before the show started, and didn't seem too bothered by the tardiness --
The bus leaves 25 mins after the end of the concert, and the $5 covers the trip back too. Hollywood Bowl also has a Bowlbus Shuttle service leaving from 4 locations (none near me, but maybe there's one near you) for $3 roundtrip and free parking.
All in all -- I liked not fighting traffic, not paying $12+ for parking, and not being stuck waiting in a stack parked car after the show. Why DO people drive to the Bowl?
As a teenager, Siel sped past Paramount Studios on the 10 Metro bus to get to Fairfax High School. Now she cuts through the concrete jungle of Los Angeles on her pink Townie bike to shop at local farmers' markets and socialize in pre-loved Prada heels. A contributing editor to BlogHer, Siel also keeps a personal blog, green LA girl. Send your burning green questions to greenlagirl@gmail.com.
>> If your bicycle needs a post-week tuneup, check out "The Chainbreaker Bike Book," a new "seat-of-the-pants, low-budget ... do-it-yourself bike maintenance guide that keeps things simple, straightforward, and, most importantly, real," according to Keith Goetzman in Utne. 
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