Assembly Bill 212 and the cozy and deceitful legislative initiative of Felipe Fuentes

Northeast San Fernando Valley Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, while nobody was watching mainly because he has been so invisible, took steps to strip the City of L.A. and its citizens of their basic right to decide land use issues by letting developers do anything they want like tear down houses and put up apartments. Voters will reject him in November. read more

Larisa Alexandrovna: Welcome to the final stages of the coup

Let me first point you to the Bush administration's so-called Wall Street bailout bill, here http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/09/20/treasurys-financial-bailout-proposal-to-congress/, so that you can see for yourself that this treachery is being conducted in the light of day. Fascism is finally and formally out of the right-wing closet even if the F word is not yet openly being used (although it should be, and often). The door has been opened to Fascism. read more

Tipping Point Ahead: Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip

Beautifully made, informative and alarming ten-minute animated film about climate change.
These are extraordinary times. Preventing runaway global warming is the single most important task in all of human history – and it has fallen to us to do it. If we don’t, then everything else we work to achieve in our lives will be destroyed, or become meaningless. Those who came before us didn't know about this problem, and those who come after will be powerless to do anything about it. But for us, there's still time! We'd better get a move on though. read more

The relocalization process of restoring the Tujunga-Pacoima Watershed

The objectives of restoring the Tujunga-Pacoima Watershed point to a green jobs based economy arrived at by a process of Relocalization involving some key concepts featured in Biologist Jason Bradford's Relocalization: A Strategic Response to Climate Change and Peak Oil:

Relocalization is based on a systems approach that doesn’t solve one set of problems (peak oil) only to make another problem (climate shift) worse.

Relocalization is based on an ethic of protecting the Earth System--or Natural Capital-- knowing that despite our cleverness, human well-being is fundamentally derived from the ecological and geological richness of Earth.

Relocalization starts from the premise that the world is a finite place and that humanity is in a state of overshoot (relying on an oil-based economy and resource consumption levels beyond the planet's carrying capacity). Perpetual growth of the economy and the population is neither possible nor desirable. It is wise to start planning now for a world with less available energy, not more.

While we can’t know future threats precisely, scientists do agree that creating a carbon-cycle neutral economy should be the dominant task occupying our minds. This is exactly what Relocalization aims to do.

Relocalization advocates rebuilding more balanced local economies that emphasize securing basic needs. Local food, energy and water systems are perhaps the most critical to build. In the absence of (past) reliable (but now exhausted) trade partners, whether from peak oil, natural disaster or political instability, a local economy that at least produces its essential goods will have a true comparative advantage.

Relocalization takes a different perspective altogether. Instead of working to keep a system going that has no future, it calls us to develop means of livelihood that pollute as little as possible and that promote local and regional stability. Since much of our pollution results from the distances goods travel, we must shorten distances between production and consumption as much as we can.

Then given the processes involved, What is Relocalization?

Relocalization is a strategy to build societies based on the local production of food, energy and goods, and the local development of currency, governance and culture. The main goals of Relocalization are to increase community energy security, to strengthen local economies, and to dramatically improve environmental conditions and social equity.

The Relocalization strategy developed in response to the environmental, social, political and economic impacts of global over-reliance on an oil-based economy. Our dependence on once cheap non-renewable fossil fuel energy has produced climate change, the erosion of community, wars for oil-rich land and the instability of the global economic system.

Urban planning and design must be ordered by the watershed. One needs to insure that survival of civitas will be dependent on having close-at-hand access to (work, food, water, energy, shelter, clothing, health care, education, culture). Bio-regional determinism effected by the process of Relocalization will define watersheds as the basic political governing, economic and social units where the grassroots governs from the bottom up.

State Democrat Pundits Bet on Payola to Win

One-party town, 'payola to the developer,' top-down politics may predict a lock-down win, but his opponent is a long-time architect and grassroots, neighborhood advocate, co-author of the award winning Panorama City Commercial Area Revitalization Study which has spurred pedestrian-friendly remodeling and face-lifting and is the one who has the name recognition and community-based reputation to win with a third of the votes plus one.

Run Jack Run. This contest is one Green Party Jack Lindblad will win!