Home/Posts Tagged ‘California’
Posts Tagged ‘California’
Natural disasters, Science & Technology, Jul 11th, 2012,
Humans have believed that animals can predict earthquakes for thousands of years. I mean the human belief that earthquakes can be predicted by animals has been held for thousands of years – just in case you thought I was saying that animals might be able to forecast seismic activity a thousand years into the future. I’m glad we got that straightened out. Anyway, despite observations of animals fleeing the scene prior to a destructive quake since the Ancient Greeks saw rats, snakes and weasels leave Helice before that place was flattened, no real evidence was found for this amazing animal…
Tags: 1989, California, earthquake, japan, prediction, Vladimir Keilis-Borok
Climate Change, Natural disasters, Science & Technology, Jun 25th, 2012,
The seminal California hardcore punk band Youth Brigade sang “I’ll sink with California when it falls into the sea” way back in the 1980s. And they weren’t singing about sea level rise or climate change, but seismic activity that will eventually cause a large portion of the Golden State to break off along fault lines like the famed San Andrea. What residents have long referred to as “the Big One”, meaning a massive earthquake, could result in parts of California “drifting” into the ocean and becoming submerged. Something like that, anyway. Read a better, more detailed explanation here. But sea…
Tags: California, san andreas, sea level, sinking
Politics, Pollution, Jun 7th, 2012,
In March I posted about how the poverty-stricken industrial city of Richmond, California is turning towards a cooperative business model. For the people of Richmond, always a place for poor and minority families (a town of oil refineries and chemical plants isn’t where the upwardly mobile go house hunting) the recession hits harder because residents don’t have a financial cushion. It also makes sense to try more democratic economic models when the typical capitalist system hasn’t worked out so well for you. But it’s not just an economic problem. Refineries, toxic dumps, an industrial port, hazardous waste… these kind of…
Tags: California, poor, refineries, Richmond
Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Wildlife & Flora, May 29th, 2012,
Pacific bluefin tuna have been clocked swimming at speeds of 48km/h (30mph). This might help explain why bluefin carrying low levels of radiation believed to be from Fukushima were found off the coast of California so soon after the nuclear disaster in Japan. Though the reports are only surfacing now, 15 radioactive tuna were caught off of San Diego in August 2011, only around 4 months after the majority of radiation was released into the waters around Fukushima. The elevated levels of cesium-134 and cesium-137 found in the tuna are considered safe and are well below the Japanese and US…
Tags: bluefin, California, cesium, Fukushima, japan, radiation, radioactive, tuna
Nature, Pollution, Weird Stuff, May 28th, 2012,
I first heard about the Salton Sea via a couple of documentaries focusing on pollution and economic collapse. One, VBS TV’s ‘TOXIC Imperial Valley’ shows the Salton Sea and surrounding area as a polluted wasteland populated by a few rugged individualists, stragglers and diehards. The millions of fish in the Salton Sea are dying off and the once playground for California’s rich and famous is now some kind of post-apocalypse Mad Max landscape dotted with abandoned tourist traps as well as a derelict military base. Honestly, it’s just the kind of thing that gets my imagination running. But are things…
Tags: California, fish, park, Pollution, salton sea
Animals, Nature, Wildlife & Flora, May 14th, 2012,
A couple of months ago California’s only wild wolf went back to Oregon, leaving the Golden State effectively wolfless. But now he’s back in Cali and the paparazzi have caught him on film. Actually, OR7′s – or as he is sometimes referred to, Journey’s – photo was snapped by an employee of the California Department of Fish and Game From the Los Angeles Times: For the last couple of months he has wandered back and forth across the state border, most recently spending time in Modoc County. Tuesday, state fish and game staff were visiting ranchers, advising them that the…
Tags: California, coyote, journey, OR7, Oregon, wolf
Animals, Videos & Documentaries, Wildlife & Flora, May 1st, 2012,
A dolphin has spent several days apparently hiding out in Orange County, California’s Bolsa Chica wetlands reserve. When rescue workers on paddleboards attempted to persuade the dolphin to return to the open sea on Saturday, it was driven back into the wetlands by a group of dolphin bullies. On Friday, it was human spectators who scared the dolphin back into the reserve. Marine experts are now recommending that the dolphin be left alone rather than encouraged to leave and be exposed to the intimidating dolphin group. It can feed on fish in the wetlands and is able to find its…
Tags: bullied, California, dolphin, Reserve, wetlands
Green living, Apr 27th, 2012,
Ernest Callenbach, author of the environmental landmark novel Ecotopia, died of cancer on April 16th in Berkley, California, at the age of 83 . Ecotopia was first self-published in 1975 and is credited as being a major influence on the environmental movement. One of the first novels in the ‘environmental utopia’ genre, Ecotopia blended science fiction, utopian fiction and contemporary scientific research, as well experiments in alternative living, which were actually being practiced at the time. The novel deals with the premise that Oregon, Washington State and Northern California break off from the rest of the US and form an independent…
Tags: California, Callenbach, Ecotopia, Ernest, novel
Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 10th, 2012,
About a month after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, radioactive particles were detected in giant kelp samples off the California coast. The level 7 nuclear incident resulted from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region around Fukushima, Japan in March of 2011. In a recent study California State University marine biologists tested giant kelp up and down the coastline of the state, from Laguna Beach to Santa Cruz, and found radioactive iodine, suggesting that radiation that leaked from the damaged Fukushima reactors had reached California. Levels 250 times higher than previous measurements were found in…
Tags: California, Fukushima, iodine, japan, kelp, radiation, radioactive
Green living, Politics, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 19th, 2012,
The city of Richmond, California is fighting a local recession with origins that stretch back at least 60 years. For this economically depressed city the answer to the boom and bust style of business that often leaves communities in tatters is a democratic, cooperative model inspired by the Mondragon Corporation, a federation of worker-owned cooperatives in Spain’s Basque region. Richmond was an industrial boomtown during the Second World War, but suffered a harsh economic downturn in the post war years. Unemployment is currently at 17% in the city and crime is high. But cooperatives are offering hope in the form…
Tags: Business, California, cooperative, Mondragon, Richmond, Spain
Conservation, Politics, Mar 12th, 2012,
A fast track approach by the US government towards certain renewable energy projects has drawn lawsuits and protests from some Native American groups and environmentalists in California. US President Barack Obama has set a goal of sourcing 80% of the country’s electricity from clean projects, but some of the projects are on lands considered sacred to Native American tribes. Environmental groups are also concerned that the projects could hard sensitive desert ecology. Government officials claim to have consulted tribal organizations and have determined that the works, such as a massive solar energy farm in Blythe, California, will not harm historical…
Tags: California, desert, government, native american, sacred, solar energy
Animals, Wildlife & Flora, Mar 7th, 2012,
Journey (aka OR-7), for a while the only Gray Wolf living wild in the state of California, has now packed up and returned north to Oregon. It was fun while it lasted, but like many who become disillusioned with the shallow glitz of celebrity, Journey is in need of real friends. Those don’t exist in California, not for wolves anyway. OR-7 won’t find a pack or a lone mate, since he is the only wild wolf known to set foot in California since the 1920s. Of course, since Journey is tracked by satellite thanks to a GPS collar, it’s easy…
Tags: California, gray, journey, or-7, Oregon, wolf
Animals, Wildlife & Flora, Feb 13th, 2012,
The Tejon Ranch, a massive, high-priced private hunting park located to the north of Los Angeles, California, will suspend its hunting operations after authorities found that mountain lions have been illegally killed on its grounds. Tejon Ranch sounds a bit like something out of an old African hunting safari, where rich trophy hunters pay to be driven close to exotic animals so they can shoot them, mount the heads on the walls of their mansions and brag about how macho they are over cigars and glasses of sherry. A former Tejon hunting guide, Bron Sanders, claims he was fired for…
Tags: California, hunting, mountain lion, ranch, Tejon
Green living, Politics, Jan 17th, 2012,
Wasteful battery chargers for smartphones, tablet computers, laptops, etc., will be subject to new, stricter rules in the US state of California. ‘Vampire’ battery chargers can waste up to 60% of the energy they take from electrical outlets. California is the first US state to confront this problem, with the California Energy Commission voting unanimously to improve efficiency standards, which will cover some 170 million chargers. The manufacturers of consumer appliances of course strongly objected to the new regulations, despite projections that the improved energy standards would save $306 million per year on commercial and residential electricity bills. From the…
Tags: battery, California, chargers, electricity, energy, smartphones, vampire
Animals, Conservation, Wildlife & Flora, Jan 13th, 2012,
Last month I mentioned a ‘celebrity wolf’, who has been making a solo journey of hundreds of miles (over 1,000 km) throughout the American State of Oregon – the great state in which I was born if anyone cares… didn’t think so. Anyway, the lone Gray Wolf, until now known by the clinical moniker OR-7, has made his way – like so many disillusioned loners in search of stardom – into California. He’s the only wild wolf known to set foot in the state in over 80 years. OR-7 has also got himself a new, infinitely more marketable, celebrity name:…
Tags: California, coyote, gray, journey, lone, or-7, Oregon, wild, wolf
Politics, Dec 6th, 2011,
The couple views the wreckage And dreams of home sweet home, They’d almost paid the mortgage, Then the system dropped its bomb. –Crass “Systematic Death” Those suffering from the effects of the subprime mortgage crisis include working families who for various reasons are unable – or simply not allowed by their banks – to make payments on their homes. The very financial institutions, which caused and even orchestrated the crisis, were later bailed out by taxpayers so that, apparently, they could get back to their old tricks: profiting off the disadvantages of those they conned and fleeced with unscrupulous…
Tags: California, Los Angeles, mortgage, Occupy Our Homes, San Francisco
Weird Stuff, Wildlife & Flora, Dec 2nd, 2011,
In a well-to-do suburb in Los Angeles County, California, there is an uncommon – and uncommonly beautiful – pest. The bilingually named La Cañada Flintridge is home to a roaming band of peafowl. Peafowl are of course brightly colored peacocks and the more understated, but still large, peahens. Their exotic squawks annoy some La Cañada Flintridge residents, as do their messy droppings. Apparently they also make a mess of a few local gardens. Although the peacock and peahen population of La Cañada Flintridge numbers only 25 and is located mainly at one intersection of the city, they’ve been the subjects…
Tags: beautiful, California, La Cañada Flintridge, Los Angeles, peacock, peafowl, peahen
Climate Change, Wildlife & Flora, Nov 21st, 2011,
Millions of bullfrogs imported into California carry an infectious fungus that, although not fatal to bullfrogs, can wipe out populations of native frogs. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis breeds in the conditions in which bullfrogs, many of which are imported from Taiwan, are shipped in. The main purpose for shipping the live bullfrogs is for use in traditional Asian cuisine. Bullfrogs carry the fungus but do not die from it. Most of the millions of bullfrogs imported to California each year for use in the food, pet and dissection trades are infected with the fungus, according to several recent studies. –LA Times…
Tags: American, Asian, bullfrog, California, Climate change, food, fungus, species
Climate Change, Green living, Nov 16th, 2011,
I recently posted about the drought in Texas and how that American state is suffering from a combination of effects due to climate change, urbanization (in a desert, no less) and groups who seek to profit from the current water crisis. The great state of California, Southern California to be more precise, is not currently facing drought conditions like Texas, but simply does not have the water to supply its nearly 22.5 million inhabitants Southern California currently pumps in much of its water from the Colorado River, over the border with Arizona, uphill – 242 miles (390 km) along the…
Tags: aqueduct, California, Colorado River, Southern, water
Wildlife & Flora, Nov 6th, 2011,
Southern California is a strange place. It is the global center for popular culture; film, television, music, media, etc. But there are wild animals roaming Hollywood Blvd at night. Coyotes – these native North American canine predators hunt in the suburbs of Southern California. The same places where residents with manicured lawns raise families and keep pet cats and dogs. Sometimes coyotes eat cats and dogs. Sometimes they even attack small children. So it’s understandable that some California residents would like to exterminate coyotes, rather than risk attacks on their families and pets. Even though its human garbage and pet…
Tags: Calabasas, California, coyotes, Southern
