EnvironmentLA - The City's official site for information about projects and programs that are making Los Angeles more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power - LADWP offers environmental Green LA programs, including Trees for a Green LA, Energy Efficiency for a Green LA, Solar Energy for a Green LA, Electric Vehicles for a Green LA, Green Power for a Green LA, Recycling for a Green LA and Educational Services for a Green LA.
Green LA Action Plan - The City's official plan to improve energy conservation, transition to renewable power sources, and change the ways citizens commute to work and school.
US Green Building Council-LA - A resource for agencies, municipalities, professionals and companies interested in sustainable, green buildings.
While the world scrambles to find clean energy solutions, somewhere, every minute of every day, saws buzz through a forest, cutting down one of nature’s antidotes to carbon pollution.
[caption id="attachment_6323" align="alignright" width="280" caption="Saving forests in the Congo will help save endangered gorillas (Photo: John Martin)"][/caption]
There’s a nice symmetry to this green trend that’s taken root among financial institutions. Aware that their paper-spewing tendencies carry a high carbon price (not to mention their actual price), many banks and credit companies are planting trees for customers who agree to forgo paper statements.
The latest to announce such a tree-planting project is the Kinecta Federal Credit Union in Manhattan Beach, Calif. Kinecta will make a donation to plant a tree in the Brazilian Rain Forest for every customer who converts to electronic statements between now and Sept. 30.
“Our intention is not only to show our commitment to being a green organization, but also to motivate our members to consider the positive global impact even the smallest decision can have,” said Shannon Doiron, Director of Marketing & eCommerce in a news release. “Collectively, credit union members can make a tremendous difference simply by opting out of paper statements.”
Given the enormity of climate change, it’s not always easy to calculate how we individuals can make a contribution that matters. In honor of World Oceans Day (June 8), the Nature Conservancy has assembled a list of a few concrete ways we can help heal, or at least minimize the damage to, our marine world.
The list is a testament to our connectedness here on planet Earth — did you realize that the nitrogen fertilizer you dump on the yard could be part of the pollution overpowering streams and rivers; winding up in the ocean where it creates algal “blooms” that starve marine life of oxygen? Ah, right. That’s not what you were thinking of when you cracked open the bag of weed-and-feed. Heavy stuff, yes, but the sort of thing we humans need to think on. That lovely green turf comes with an environmental price tag — unless and until you find other ways to feed the lawn, like using lower nitrogen-content organic food.
The US-Mexico border fence aims to strengthen American security and reduce illegal immigration, but a one-mile section of the 18-foot tall concrete-and-steel fence threatens to destabilize a nature preserve in South Texas, jeopardizing wildlife, jobs and habitat.
The result is that the Nature Conservancy, which protects ecologically important lands and waters around the world, has found itself in a court battle with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which filed a suit against the Conservancy in December to condemn land within the Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve.
The 1,034-acre preserve contains a rare sabal palm forest, a native plant nursery that is critical to reforestation projects throughout South Texas; an ongoing demonstration of organic farming and a habitat for rare birds and endangered wildcats – the ocelot and the jaguarondi, says the Conservancy’s Texas state director Laura Huffman.
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