SoCal Minds

3 visions for better food supply, politics, clean tech zone

From Oxy, UCLA, Sci-Arc

With all the partisan rancor that prevails and with so many aspects of public life mired in seemingly intractable issues of all kinds -- from grid-locked transportation to polluted skies and waters and even how and what we eat -- it's all too easy for the cynics and doomsayers to run amok. In the midst of this madding crowd are folks who still aspire to change things for the better, to wit:

A way to harvest 'Good Food' for all

• It consumes 80% of the state's water and as much as 20% of the nation's energy. It's a $12.6 billion component of the regional economy. Despite all those impresive numbers, the food system fails us all in so many ways, advocates say, pointing to the large numbers of Angelenos and Americans who go hungry or who devour unhealthy or unsustainable fooder. So what to do to improve the system, especially in Los Angeles, which, in other ways, can be a food mecca and elysium? Activists, including an Oxy scholar, a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, farmers and policy-makers, have put out a 108-page program for putting in place a 'Good Food for All' plan for the region. It aims for a system and supply in this area that is fair, healthy, affordable and sustainable. The policy product of the LA food task force offers lots to chew on.

A plan for 'good food' that's healthy, affordable, sustainable and fair

Click here for the full recommendations of L.A. food policy task force

How can cash corruption be ousted from U.S. politics?

• Must modern American politics be driven only by cynicism and donors' money or can this democratic policy be steered back to a more ideal focus on candidates and issues? Two experts on politics and political finance will consider in a free, public forum Tuesday night (reservations required) how gushing flows of campaign money have changed the election process, whether the affect has been more for the positive or not and how ordinary citizens can retain their voice and power in the democracy. The chat between Bob Edgar, a former congressman and onetime head of the nonpartisan, nonprofit citizen advocacy group Common Cause, and Jessica Levinson, of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Governmental Studies, will be moderated by Ian Masters, a journalist and KPFK host.

A forum to ponder whether U.S. democracy's now for sale

Nifty ways to rethink, redevelop downtown area for clean tech

• Ask architects, landscape architects, designers, engineers, urban planners, students, and environmental professionals what they might do to redevelop 2,000 acres at the eastern edge of Los Angeles as a corridor for clean technology and its associated enterprises and guess what happens? Mushrooms or umbrellas sprout (see image at right) and maybe things get messy. To get more concrete and specific about the futuristic visions, professional and student, that won prizes and may provide a blueprint for part of the city's tomorrow, it's worth digging into the entries for the contest co-sponsored by the downtown architecture and design school and an industry publication. A blue-chip jury considered the materials and picked what they found to be the most compelling for cash awards and honors.

Winning visions for developing part of downtown as cleantech corridor

 

 

Green tomorrow a front and center focus on campuses

From UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, Loyola Marymount, Occidental, Cal Poly Pomona, CSULB & Chapman

For those in northern climes, will global warming offer surprising boon?

It's not exactly an expected scenario. And, at root, it speaks to a vast global divide that will occur, experts say, due to dire circumstances associated with global warming: Those who live in what's now a vast, often desolate and lesser developed frigid northern climes will find themselves in a newly prosperous, resource rich, probably more affluent and favored zone of the planet when the global environment warms and shifts, a Bruin geographer predicts. This will lead to Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States, he says, suddenly becoming beckoning havens, spots with, perhaps, the only abundant supplies of fresh water, abundant population growth and almost miraculously released natural resources, such as oil and gas supplies. Meantime, he sees wet places on earth getting wetter and parched spots getting even more so, with little cheery news at all for many of the highly populated spots on the present planet. He forecasts China as the world's economic superpower by 2050, with the U.S. sliding into the No. 2 spot and the longer rise of cities north of the 45th parallel. Los Angeles and other spots will still be major population centers and more folks will still be in traditional population centers but look to Seattle, Minneapoli-St. Paul, Toronto, Copenhagen, Moscow and other northern burghs to be the capitals of the climate change tomorrow.

A sunny forecast for northern lands in the era of drastic global climate change

Can student commuters find eco alternatives to cars, crowded parking?

• Now that Labor Day has come and gone and the calendar marks the end of summer, tens of thousands of students across the Southland have or soon will be racing back to campus, all too often commuting across considerable distances, one to a car, to get to classes and a higher education. And, if the responses from 500 students studied for a Fullerton research project are indicative at all, driving -- and especially stashing that car in costly, chaotic, congested parking -- is no fun at all for young people, who argue they have little choice about how they get to school. Three-quarters of those Orange County students motor to school, alone, researchers, including Edwin Shin and Jessica Watson, found in Prof. Ray Young's urban planning course. (Shin and Watson flank Young in Karen Tapia photo at right) Here's another big finding, though: Students who take public transportation or who bike or walk to school are much more satisfied with their commuting experience. The students involved in the academic research on commuting offered their own suggestions on how to provide incentives to get their peers out of the car-parking-commuting snaggle. In Westchester and Eagle Rock, though, school officials have taken one small step to cut down on the presence of so many vehicles, working, as many other campuses have, to provide the Zipcar program. The vehicle-sharing program aims to allow not only students but also neighbors to sign up for relatively affordable, short-term rental of cars.

In Fullerton, proof that the headache list often tops out with cars for commuting, campus parking

In Eagle Rock, a new sharing option for those who need a car only rarely

In Westchester, a way to cut congestion, parking through vehicle sharing program

How to power up, track better campus environmental programs

•  As long as there's going to be huge demand for big expanses to park student commuters' cars, well, why shouldn't such spots do double-duty and provide campus shade and solar generating spots, too? In Pomona, two new installations on the roof of a school gym (shown in photo at right) and with a canopy over a parking lot will help the school chip away at becoming 'carbon neutral.' The leased equipment, which also comes with grants and subsidies, will generate roughly 1.8 kilowatt hours of electricity annually for the campus, which has an annual, total electric consumption of some 45 million kilowatt hours, school officials say. But how best to monitor and encourage green practices at institutions of higher education? In Long Beach, where the school spends more than $7.5 million annually on utility costs, officials have created an intern program to help both track and spread best environmental practices with efforts such as a fall audit of classroom energy use and a residence hall competition to see which dorm can conserve the most power. And, in Orange, school officials are touting their participation in a new, 230-institution 'sustainability' program, which aims to provide greater accounting and transparency about campuses' environmental and conservation efforts. An aim of the 'STARS' program, in which the Orange County folks also hope to win some key certifications, is to provide an alternative to some existing efforts, which have drawn considerable criticism for their evaluation methods and seemingly punitive rating systems.

In Pomona, solar power arrays start popping up all over 

In Long Beach, interns help campus push its green programs

In Orange, joining up with consortium's new, more open monitoring of green campus efforts

In 1 green day, 800 advocates, a 600-megawatt plan

From Oxy & UCLA

Think 800 and 600 -- that's people and megawatts -- just to followup on that big green day last week. In Eagle Rock, more than 800 people showed up to participate in an Obama administration 'listening session' with all kinds of ideas on what policies this country should put in place for conservation, recreation and preservation of the great outdoors. The speakers, who came from Santa Barbara to Mojave, told Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, among other things, that it's crucial for the country to get more young people and people of color involved in saving the environment. Over in downtown L.A., meantime, green energy advocates unveiled Bruin research that argues for a city initiative  to let businesses and residents invest in solar panels, then to sell any excesss power generated back to the city through a 'feed-in tariff program.' That program, at a cost of $25 million to $35 million, would be more cost-effective than other Department of Water and Power plans to obtain sustainable power, advocates say. They also contend it would create 11,000 green jobs and help Los Angeles meet ambitious goals for sustainable energy by creating one of the nation's largest such solar programs.

In Eagle Rock, hundreds offer environmental ideas to Obama officials

Bruins back plan for big Los Angeles sustainable power plan

A higher-ed peoloton offers a look-see at SoCal minds

From Oxy

Phew, it's summer and an ostensible pause in the seasons of anxiety for collegiate aspirants. But some work never ends, and, for some fun-seeking college counselors, a work-vacation offers an opportunity to see up-close what's on SoCal Minds via a rolling, 400-mile tour of regional campuses. The folks over in Eagle Rock are hosting a stop on the bicyclist look-see, a grownups' peloton aimed at getting a personal-professional view of what's new at spots like the Claremont collective, the universities of Redlands and LaVerne, Oxy, Caltech. LMU and USC. So what, in hyper-conscious fashion, should the schools know about what the 19 visiting pros from 13 states have to say about them as they undergo their seventh annual cycling whistle-stop tour of schools? Because this is the age of blogging, the East Coast Gray Lady offers a big forum for the observations of group members...

College counselors cycling 400 miles in tour of area campuses 

Click here for NYT 'Choice' blog, with dispatches from biking counselors

It's a green day with top Obama officials listening, a focus on solar

From Oxy & UCLA

It's a red-letter day for the higher-ed environmental crowd, as the Obama administration administers a big dose of love and attention on the president's Eastside alma mater and outdoors types and the Bruins and the Villaraigosa administration and allies go big about solar with Southland business leaders.

• While the Westside typically gets the high-powered political affection, particularly since that's where the moneyed and donating Hollywood folks dwell, it will be Eagle Rock hosting Cabinet level officials for a 'listening' session this afternoon as to what America ought to do about its great outdoors. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (shown at left) and EPA Secretary Lisa P. Jackson (shown at right) will be joined by Ag undersecretary Harris Sherman and Jo-Ellen Darcy, an undersecretary from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in hearing comments to shape future national environmental, conservation and recreational policies. The free, public and open program, at which there will be break-out sessions for citizens to share ideas, is part of the America's Great Outdoors Initiative with similar 'listen-ins' scheduled around the nation.

In Eagle Rock, top Obama officials to alight for 'listening' session on great outdoors

• In downtown this morning, the Los Angeles Business Council, city officials, green advocates and policy-makers will gather to discuss new Bruin data on the solar potential of the city of Angels, particularly how it could best be tapped by a 'feed-in tariff program.' Proponents have stressed that governmental actions are needed to spur business and residential customers to make the often hefty investments to go solar, thereby creating jobs, economic growth and helping the city reach Mayor Villaraigosa's articulated, ambitious goals of adding big new sources of renewable energy while reducing the city's reliance on less-green power supplies. Bruin researchers previously have examined how utilities around the globe have set up sensible rate programs to let big and small customers install solar panels on roofs and open spaces like parking lots and sell back energy they generate; they are to report back on how Los Angeles might make similar accommodations at the Department of Water and Power -- the giant utility already under public fire for its creative and slippery accounting.

In downtown, Bruins, business leaders, city officials press forward with solar plans

Click here for LA Business Council info on 'feed in tariff' plan on solar power 

What do Americans want from great outdoors in 21st Century?

From Oxy

He's a guy who's better known for his fast feet roaming up and down an indoor basketball court or for his sharp maneuvering through Washington's corridors of power. But President Obama's alma mater has taken up his challenge to let the public give him and his administration an earful about what Americans want to see accomplished in the 21st Century in the areas of conservation, recreation and the Great Outdoors. Thursday is the deadline to sign up for a scheduled July 8 forum in which administration officials will listen and take in ideas on these topics from such varied interested parties potentially as tribal leaders, farmers, ranchers, sportsmen, foresters, business people, educators and representatives of parks, recreation and conservation groups, as well as state and local governments. Similar sessions will be put on in venues across the country, with the president saying they will help set the outdoors, conservation and recreation agenda through the century. 

RSVP deadline nears for forum to tell Obama administration views on conservation, recreation

Click here to learn more about 'America's Great Outdoors Initiative'

A weekend for books, gardens, history, eccentrics

From UCLA, the Arboretum, the Huntington, Cal State Dominguez Hills & Occidental

On a weekend with promises of no rain, brisk temperatures but plenty of sunshine, here's to the ample opportunities to explore and experience what once would be an idyllic, ideal scholarly life awash with books, history, gardens and plenty of other diversions.

From Westwood to Arcadia, of course, there are the pillars and posts of the spring season: on the Westside, there will be the big Los Angeles Times Book Festival attracting tens of thousand of bibliophiles and an array of authors, including Bruin faculty; and on the eastside, there's the Los Angeles County Arboretum's annual garden show, one of the largest such outdoor events on the West Coast with plenty of plants for sale and a focus this year on environment friendly gardening. Snatch the kids' wagon and take it to both events to bring home piles of autographed tomes and lots of great new greenery to add to the lushness of the area's rain-soaked yards.

Click here for more info on the Times' 'Festival of Books'

Bruin authors at the book fest in Westwood

In Arcadia, Arboretum stagest one of the largest garden events on West Coast

The Golden State, then as it sometimes feels now, might only have been a far imagining in the farthest distance of the frontier. But for some reason, on a contemporary basis, the Revolutionary period of the nation rides triumphant this weekend in the Southland as a major exhibit opens in San Marino, examining not the 1776 American divorce from Britain as a crown colony but the crucial predecessor stirrings on the new continent as colonists, including a young soldier named George Washington (shown at right), took on French interlopers in 1754 and set a tone and tenor in the Seven Years War that would be critical for then British America and all that would follow. That New World conflict, experts say, had a huge effect on shaping not just what would become the United States but it also ended up involving and affecting many of what then were global powers. The result? Well, a key document that would spring forth from the rabble-rousing set makes a West Coast stop in a national tour and will be available for a free, public but restricted viewing Saturday. It's a historic pressing of the Declaration of Independence, printed by colonial craftsman John Dunlap just hours after Thomas Jefferson had finished his writing. This rare copy moldered behind and hid in a junky picture frame until it was discovered in a flea market and later changed hands to a Norman Lear-supported foundation that paid $8.1 million for it.

In San Marino, opening of exhibit focused on Seven Years' War, British America

*Updated 9-9-201: a working link to info on Declaration

In South Bay, a chance to view historic Declaration

If the clamor for getting out of the house or tackling something fun don't encompass, well, say, chowing down on entries in the annual Grilled Cheese Invitational or maybe roaming downtown to collect pointers so as to win hotel stays in an online trivia contest, well, then perhaps the thing to do is to hie over to Eagle Rock for an eccentric, eclectic, free, public event that hearkens to a time when it is said the arts and sciences weren't separated and even more weirdness than can commonly be found in zany Southern California often prevailed. Intellectual impressario Lawrence Weschler (shown at right) will be putting on his day-long cavalcade of art, film, chat, PowerPoint, music, performance and whatever else fits into the ol 'Wonder Cabinet.' Hmmm.

In Eagle Rock, a day-long cavalcade of art, science, music, performance

Time for thinking and talking about Obama, God

From Oxy & Pepperdine

If the environmental fervor associated with Earth Day just doesn't grip and grab so tightly that all other intellectual endeavors for the day get squeezed out, well, there are other passtimes of the mind planned for this evening. In Eagle Rock, the folks at his alma mater will discuss and dissect one of the school's best-known and notable alums, a onetime multiracial student then-named Barry. The always smart, lively and entertaining Patt Morrison (shown at right) of the LA Times and KPCC will be part of a panel with faculty and pundits from the NY Times and Huffington Post in a free, first-come program at 7 tonight on 'Deconstructing Obama.' In Malibu, the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College at 4 this afternoon will take off on a thought-provoking topic titled, 'Is God Dead?' That session is free and open to the public but space is limited.

In Eagle Rock, alma mater examines a top alum's leadership, reaction to it

In Malibu, a provocative topic for Claremont McKenna scholar

Bah, which schools are happy, stressful, got buzz?

From Claremont McKenna, Pomona & UCLA

What's with the zeitgeist in Claremont? Or maybe the question should be, What's with the American fascination about ratings, rankings and lists -- aside from the media manufactured attention grabbing that these gigs generate? Just in time for the academics to boast about or belittle the various annual ratings and rankings by certain publications, there are a couple of cyber lists that are worth a mention for Friday water-cooler fodder. Says the Daily Beast, based on criteria that barely eke beyond the risible, Southern California campuses, especially those out in Claremont, are among the Happiest, while others are the most Stressed Out. Let's cut to the chase: Claremont McKenna tops the bliss list, followed by Harvard, Pomona, Harvey Mudd and Scripps, with Caltech (8), Oxy (12), UCLA (13), UCI (16), Pitzer (22), UCSB (28) and USC (31) following. On the other hand, the high anxiety crowd is said to be topped by Stanford, Columbia and MIT, with Caltech (9), USC (18), UCLA (30) and UCSB (41) following. Not quite sure of what to make of another set of measures that are said to tap the 'buzz' detectable online, in social media and other ways about schools, though Pomona shows up No. 6 on this list, which also mentions Oxy (45), Claremont McKenna (66), Harvey Mudd (80), Pitzer (92) and Scripps (93), allegedly following the tops of Wellsely, Williams, Colorado College and Oberlin; among the universities, UCLA hits this list at No. 14. And while deciding what to make about the U.S. News & World Report and other such list-mania that's popping up, well, a good dose of perspective from the Bruins on the topic, put together by the always readable Claudia Luther. By the way, we're not linking here to every school's post on this topic, just a sample few.

In Claremont, just one of the kvelling reports on the Happiness list 

From Pomona, a favorable nod from monitor of the 'net 'buzz' about schools

Click here to see the 'Beast' list of Happy schools

Click here for the 'Beast' list of Stressful campuses

Bruins put magazine, publications' school ratings in perspective

Three takes on science: of history, fraud and fun

From Occidental, Caltech & the Huntington

Science can be serious but never stuffy stuff in Southern California, where it's the topic of some serious thinking about its potentially fradulent aspects and also where it will be dished up this weekend on  the wry, as well as by international scholars focusing on its 19th Century history.

In Eagle Rock, Bill Nye, the 'science guy' who also happens to be an engineer, author, inventor and comedian, will take on the topic, 'Our Planet Isn't What It Used to Be, So Let's Change the World!' in a free, public talk on Saturday morning at 10. No reservations are required but space will be limited for his fun, free-wheeling chat, which is part of the school's Phi Beta Kappa series. Nye, who has won multiple Emmys and is hosting three science and environment related television series, continues to work on his inventions (like the device to help people throw a baseball better) and has expanded his interests to the exploration of space.

Click here for more info on free lecture in Eagle Rock by the 'science guy' 

In San Marino, scholars from across the country and the globe will gather Friday and Saturday for a conference that explores the relationships among empires, territorial expansionism and colonialism and the rise of technology and science in the 19th Century. Reservations are required for the program and there is a small registration fee. Among the topics that experts will take on will be scrutiny of how long ocean voyages for exploration, trade and territory led to advances in cartography, astronomy, time-keeping and intellecutalism.

Click here for full 'empires, science' program, registration info

In Pasadena, an academic chief and prominent physicist with deep experience and expertise on scientific misconduct has taken up the topic in a new book with some fascinating history and lots of insight as to what constitutes research fraud. David Goodstein, the school's vice provost, the drafter of a formal policy on proper research practices, and now a co-instructor in a high-level course on science fraud, says he hopes 'On Fact and Fraud' will help lay people as well as scientists understand the complexities of scientific investigation done well -- and badly. He uses cases from the school and outside, including a scrutiny of long-standing claims that the institute's first president cooked data for his Nobel Prize-winning work (the author decides not). He cites ego, career pressure, time concerns and competitiveness as some of the causative factors that can push scientists into research wrong-doing, though the nature of the field, with its emphasis on collaboration and replication of experimental results, holds down the number of egregious cases. Goodstein previously wrote a best-seller, 'Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil.'

An investigation as to what constitutes scientific fraud