12/31/2022
Transition To Green Community Year-in-Review 2022!
December 30, 2022
Dear Transition To Green Supporters,
As we close in on the final hours of 2022, we want to wish all members, supporters, and families of our Transition To Green (T2G) Community an excellent 2023 ahead! As many longstanding members know, public educational forums are the heart of our community, and we realized early on in the pandemic that a virtual-only forum experience would not be the same, and decided to pause the forums and instead focus on educational posts via Meetup and our page, as well as share occasional extracurricular events that were either environmentally-minded (virtual) lectures and a few other no-host (outdoor) events. We will be planning several outdoor events in the new year, and once we reunite with the community, we will resume some of our other outings, such as our beloved family-friendly hikes. Stay tuned!
Here, we highlight a few of the events that some of us attended remotely from the comfort of our homes, workplaces or perhaps elsewhere through our computers or mobile devices. In addition to connecting again in 2023 with some hikes (again, please be patient as we start planning for these again), some other outdoor activities will include clean-up events, bike rides, and other educational extracurricular activities. We also plan to re-launch our Eco Book club, with an eye right now towards an exclusively online option especially during the first half of the new year.
Some Notable Virtual Events that We Have Attended this Year:
A newer series hosted by the Los Angeles County Library has been environmentally-minded virtual events, mostly webinars, and we have shared these with the community, with a number of you in attendance:
●In August, we attended the "Lawn Removal 101: Save Water with Native Plants,” which was a great primer for those of you thinking about or even starting the transition from lawn/turf to native plant varieties in your yard, or a refresher for veteran native plant enthusiasts.
●In September, we attended “Caring for Our Oceans,” which was a given by a member of Heal the Bay, a non-profit group that we have supported over the years. The talk began with the definition of waterways in general, with an emphasis on the major waterways, largely urban versions, that exist in Los Angeles County and ultimately feed into our local beaches and the Pacific Ocean. These include the major systems that many of us are familiar with, including the Los Angeles River, Rio Hondo which feeds into the Los Angeles River, and the San Gabriel Valley River, which has a largely natural component in the San Gabriel Mountains but has been concretized in much of the lowlands following severe floods from wintertime rains especially in the early part of the 20th Century. Restoration efforts have been underway in recent decades to return portions of these waterways into their natural character, though these projects are relatively modest in terms of their total overall flow length.
Even though these are the major arterials, there is also a complex but intricate web of smaller washes and waterways, many of which may traverse to the rivers, or else flow into storm drains. The latter are aptly named “Storm Drains” because during our precipitation events, primarily between late autumn through spring (with the occasional surprise summer shower in the lowlands of Southern CA), they unfortunately collect a wide variety of waste materials, whether they being physical (paper or plastic bags, litter, plastic in general, or any other solid materials) or fluids (from the precipitation itself but also runoff such as oils from vehicles, fertilizers/pesticides/herbicides from urban gardens and lawns, and much more).
Most of the talk was about our impacts on local waterways and storm drains, many of which make their ways into the ocean. How do our actions impact storm drains? This is where we as individuals and members of our communities can participate in trying to ameliorate the situation by not only reducing our own waste, but commencing a dialogue with local leaders about community-to-city plans to address and decrease runoff, and determining how local businesses can get involved as well. The first question one can ask one’s local leadership or city council: Is an environmental plan even in place?
●Just before Thanksgiving, our participation in the Virtual LA County Library series culminated in attendance of the webinar, entitled, “Foodways of the First Angelinos,” given by Lazaro Arvizu Jr., who is “an artist, educator, musician, and researcher dedicated to the culture of the first people of Los Angeles.” This was an excellent and very intriguing talk, which touched upon many important areas - nature, the environment, foods native to the region (elderberries, acorns, local chia (not like the chia found at most stores), Hollyleaf Cherry, California Black Walnut, and more), and most importantly, the balance between the Indigenous peoples, their environment, and locally available nuts, seeds, and fruits that were collected and then painstakingly processed into edible nutrition. The interplay and intersection between food and the environment is extremely important; in August 2021, Dr. Travis Longcore of UCLA gave a (virtual) talk about the ongoing losses of native California Black Walnut trees due to development patterns and the lack of consideration in many cases of their preservation. The speaker of the Library Talk (Mr. Arvizu Jr.) stated that education, discussion, conservation, and propagation of these species are essential for their survival in this region.
We will continue sharing relevant LA County Library Virtual webinars when their topics overlap with educational interests of the Transition To Green Community. The next webinar, poised to happen on January 4th, 2023, will be family-friendly, and will be entitled, “Recycled Origami Workshop for Kids,” in which we’ll learn about how to use old newspapers or magazines to create the ancient artform of origami. This should be very interesting – stay tuned for the official post in the coming days!
There was also an excellent symposium we shared with the Transition To Green Community that some of us attended in early October, the “World Migratory Bird Day Webinar”. Dr. Travis Longcore, of UCLA, was one of three speakers. During this symposium, we learned not only that billions of birds are migrating across the globe, but more urgently, that high intensity light can lure birds into cities, wreaking havoc on migratory patterns but also causing numerous deadly accidents every year. Thus, the theme of this year’s World Migratory Bird Day(s) was “Dim the Lights for Birds at Night.” The speakers discussed a number of important guidelines for reducing light pollution, which by the way not only helps migratory birds but always enables greater visibility of the night sky for literally billions of us humans who live in relatively bright cities! This is an environmental topic that we’ve touched upon before, since understanding the “geography” of the night sky is a natural treasure that any of us should be able to enjoy, but based on where we are, what is actually visible at night is different for nearly everyone.
One of the more modern culprits, which Dr. Longcore discussed in detail, was the attitude of, “If it’s cheaper, I’ll just use more.” Indeed, nighttime brightening has outpaced population growth for decades, but the more recent emergence of the flooding of LED lights has been a particular concern. Specifically, controlling the spectrum and reducing the amount of blue-end of the spectrum for outdoor lighting, for the sake of both wildlife and our own health, should be front-and-center in terms of mitigating factors. Indoor lighting can also emulate this! A paper published in 2018, “Rapid Assessment of lamp spectrum to quantify ecological effects of light at night” (in Ecological and Integrative Physiology”), was written by Dr. Longcore and co-authors.
We also posted a few non-host in-person events, including the resumption this year in September of the Wiggle Waggle Walk & Run, an important annual fundraiser for the Pasadena Humane Society, which the registration fee proceeds helped, as always, provide food, shelter, medical care, and more for the 12,000-plus animals that come to that Humane Society location each year.
Local Weather and Climate Update:
Many of you who have participated on family-friendly hikes with us during pre-pandemic times may recall that Dr. Terence Kubar would typically provide monthly to seasonal weather and climate updates for Southern California or the West Coast in general, but over the past few years, we’ve been providing occasional virtual updates. At we close out 2022, we are in the midst of yet another La Nina year, a “triple-dip” La Niña since it is the third consecutive year. Typically, cool-season (e.g. November – April) precipitation in California correlates positively with the strength of El Niño, with precipitation typically lower than normal during La Niña years, though the correlation strength is quite modest with lots of interannual variability, meaning that there are also some wetter-than-normal winters during La Niña years, and some drier-than-normal winters during El Niño years. Many of you may recall our discussion in early 2016, for instance, during a very strong El Niño event, in which precipitation over Southern CA was notably weaker than average. The more general term, El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), refers to the year-to-year oscillatory nature of ocean temperatures over the near-equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean which then drives characteristic “teleconnections” of weather patterns especially pronounced from late autumn through early spring. Since other factors influence seasonal weather and climate, this is why El Niños or La Niñas don’t guarantee a mean weather pattern for the upcoming season, but increase the probability of wetter or drier conditions, respectively.
So, how are we doing so far in the new water year, which started on October 1st, 2022? The snowpack so far over three different subareas of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California is above average for the end-of-December, ranging from 136% of average in the north (to date as of December 23rd, 2022) to 149% of average to date in the central Sierras, to 183% of average in the southern Sierras, so that is good news so far for water resources. However, the longer-term trend over the past few decades has been reduced water levels in the Colorado River and some manmade lakes created in the early to middle 20th century (Lake Mead/Lake Powell). Some indices suggesting lower-than-normal water supplies triggered a state of emergency to conserve more water especially in portions of Southern CA. We will continue to keep an eye of this evolving situation, and while there is some glimmer of hope that precipitation may exceed the climatological averages in the near-term, conservation is always key at the individual and local/community levels that we discuss at Transition To Green.
At the end of 2017¸in our end-of-year letter, we wrote the following during what then was an exceptionally dry start to that water year (this water year has been relatively wet in comparison so far!), and even though this year seems promising, the following reveals important lifestyle choices that are environmentally prudent generally in the semi-arid Southwest:
What does all of this mean for us as environmental stewards? Water conservation, especially in California, is an important way-of-life. Individually, we have choices, including replacing water-thirsty plants with natives and/or drought-tolerant varieties in our outdoor landscapes, being mindful of the once-per-week water schedules during the winter in most cities (and especially after significant rain events), and not forgetting about our invaluable trees, which need occasional deep watering to thoroughly reach their root systems. We can be mindful of our water usage indoors as well, including installing efficient faucets, showerheads, or even gray-water systems if possible. Washing full loads of dishes in dishwashers and of laundry in washing machines is important as well, and this offers us an excellent opportunity that conservation extends to our energy consumption, which saves on our monthly electricity bills, too!
Other Environmental News and Updates:
As we’ve been doing for many years now, we have continued to post either short-form posts or longer essays on both our Meetup and Facebook Fan pages, and here we briefly synthesize some highlights; our posts are either summaries of peer-reviewed research on environmental topics, acknowledging or commemorating local, national or global days of interest for the conservation and environmental communities. On March 22nd, for instance, we wished our community a Happy World Water Day, a day recognized annually since 1993, with the focus this year on groundwater and changes thereof. This is a particularly relevant topic especially in highly-productive agricultural regions of Central California, but also something the scientific community is better able to quantify with use of newer satellite data over the years. One notable mission and set of observations comes from NASA’s GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) Satellite.
In June, we wrote a review of the paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on the Adverse Effects of Air Pollution on Brain Health. This research was important and extended well beyond the consequences that many of us already think about in terms of air pollution, which are usually associated with the degradation of lung and cardiovascular health. As we wrote at the time, “Some of the likely effects of long-term exposure to air pollution include increased ‘brain aging, augmenting the risk of dementia and reduced cognitive function, ... as well as the (increased) prevalence of depression, schizophrenia, and likelihood of stroke,’” thereby suggesting the urgency of reducing air pollution globally. See our full post here (you must be a member of our Meetup group to view):
https://www.meetup.com/Transition-To-Green/boards/view/viewthread/?thread=53613261
Here’s to a healthful and happy 2023, in which we continue to always Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!
Best Wishes,
The Transition To Green Team
