Fumbling on the Environment

I grew up a diehard Rams fan.  I suffered through the 14-7 “Mud Bowl” NFC championship loss to the Vikings at the Coliseum in 1977.  My recall of the Steelers’ John Stallworth grabbing a reception by pinning the football to his helmet is as vivid as my memory of today’s breakfast.  Be it Jack Youngblood [...]

A Visit from the EPA

Heal the Bay staffers and board members had the honor of meeting Thursday with new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at our Santa Monica Pier Aquarium. We gave the administrator a brief tour of the facility and then we sat down to give her an overview of Heal the Bay’s latest work. We covered a lot [...]

Unhappy Labor Day

Jones: who had his back?

As if high unemployment, an economically depressed state and a shrunken stock market didn’t turn your Labor Day weekend into a downer, look no further than Saturday night’s resignation of Green Jobs icon Van Jones from President Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality.
Van is one of the most charismatic and outspoken speakers [...]

Many Rivers to Cross …

Does Los Angeles County really have rivers?
Based on Thursday’s debacle of a Regional Water Board hearing, I’m not sure its staff believe that there is an L.A. River, Compton Creek, Santa Clara River, or San Gabriel River. Flood control channels, yes. Living, breathing rivers, no.
The item before the Board was Los Angeles County’s  Section 401 [...]

Disunited Nations, Part 2

It is time for the public to hold the UN and the world’s nations accountable for the miserable state of the environment and their inability to effectively manage existing “green” governance programs.
An independent non-government organization like the International Union for Conservation of Nature, World Resources Institute or the International Council for Science needs to develop [...]

Disunited Nations

The fathers and mothers of the international environmental movement all met in Montreux this week to reminisce and relive past exploits of green diplomacy at a conference hosted by the  Global Environmental Governance Project.
The list of attendees reads like an environmental hall of fame: Maurice Strong (he of Stockholm, Rio and Earth Charter fame); the [...]

Smoke on the Water

Over the weekend, I went down to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. I didn’t see Zappa, but I did witness environmental history. For the first time ever, all five people who have served as executive directors of the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) attended the same event.
Maurice Strong, the founder and father of the Stockholm [...]