October-November 2005 -
In This Issue
 Current Projects & Initiatives
Reports and Studies
OCE Staff News
Help Us Reduce Air and Water Pollution
Thanks to Our Lawyers and Community Partners for Your Help!
Current Projects and Initiatives
Mother Nature in the Spotlight
Mother Nature recently took center stage at the Environmental Media Awards, an annual event that seeks to honor film and television productions for their contribution to awareness and activism regarding environmental issues.
On October 19, the Environmental Media Awards in Los Angeles celebrated the year's best television and feature films covering the intergenerational commitment to the planet and its natural resources. There were plenty of celebrities in attendance, including keynote speaker Al Gore. Since 1991, the annual Environmental Media Awards have sought to recognize writers, producers, directors, actors and others in the entertainment industry who have expressed concern for the environment in their work, serving as role models and promoting good environmental practices. This year's awards went to The West Wing: "The Hubbert Peak" (television drama), King of the Hill: "A Rover Runs Through It" (television comedy), Lilo & Stitch: "Ploot" (children's television), Trippin': "Nepal" (reality television), I (Heart) Huckabees (feature film), and Farming the Seas (documentary). In addition, the Turner Award went to George Lopez: "Prescription for Trouble" as an example of primetime television that dealt effectively with the theme of population growth and the empowerment of women.
The Environmental Media Awards seek to honor film and television productions that increase public awareness of environmental issues and inspire personal action. However, environmentalism today isn't just about recycling or saving trees. It's about people in a consumer culture learning to say, "I have enough." It's about people of color fighting against hazardous waste dumps which end up in their neighborhoods more than anywhere else. It's about courageous individuals fighting to protect the health of their families and friends.
Keep on Truckin': Diesel Awareness Day
A day of action targets diesel pollution, as elected officials, doctors, community and labor leaders joined voices in a Bay Area campaign to mitigate the health and environmental effects from idling buses and trucks.
In June 2004, a group of San Francisco Bay Area environmental health and justice organizations started developing a regional strategy to reduce diesel pollution. Now, the Ditching Dirty Diesel Collaborative is more than twenty organizations strong, and represents neighborhoods from across the region. In October of this year, the Collaborative launched its "Don't Sit Idle" campaign with a day of action and awareness building in six local communities. Starting at 3am, diesel control advocates rallied and distributed anti-idling fliers to truck and bus drivers as well as local residents.
While a law limiting diesel truck idling to five minutes has been in place for a year, it has been sporadically enforced and a loophole has allowed truckers to idle their vehicles overnight. Idling is not only a waste of fuel and money, but it also has health and environmental ramifications. In 1998, diesel exhaust was declared a toxic air contaminant by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), as it is harmful to respiratory health, particularly in children and the elderly. In some communities, residents face diesel emissions 40 times the state average with hospitalization rates for asthma and other respiratory ailments as much as ten times higher than neighboring areas. The Ditching Dirty Diesel Collaborative sees truckers not as part of the problem, but as part of the solution. A week following the "Don't Sit Idle" day of action, CARB decided to close the loophole that had allowed diesel pollution from idling to persist.
For more information, contact Joel Ervice at joel@rampasthma.org or Andrea Samulon at asamulon@pacinst.org .
Top
Reports and Studies
Hooray for Hollywood!
Once again Los Angeles holds the dubious distinction of having the nation's dirtiest air, wrestling the "smog capital" title from rival contenders Houston and the San Joaquin Valley (CA).
In the City of Angels, walking on clouds takes on a different meaning as ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in smog, is cooked into an unhealthful haze by the sun. The ozone, formed from reacting organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, is emitted from the burning of fossil fuels in cars, factories, power plants, rail yards and ports. Despite having fewer smoggy days this year than last, continuing a relatively steady three-decade trend toward cleaner air, the greater Los Angeles region is again home to the worst air in the nation, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Exceeding the federal health standard for air quality for more than two and a half months this year lends some credence to the quip that Angelenos (cough, sputter) do not trust any air they cannot see.
The EPA requires that areas exceeding the smog standard should develop plans to reduce ozone-forming pollution, but the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the region's chief smog-fighting agency, says that cleaning up the air is problematic because there are not a lot of easy emissions to target. Critics have argued that the EPA has switched its standards for measuring smog pollution, effectively pushing back the compliance deadline from 2010 to 2021, at which time, if Los Angeles still exceeds smog standards, it will risk losing federal transportation funding.
Even so, state and local regulators have made dramatic strides in reducing the haze. In 1976, the Los Angeles region surpassed smog standards for more than half of the year. As a result, regulators issued Stage 1 alerts informing the public that the air was unhealthful to breathe on 102 days that year. With a handful of exceptions, those numbers have dropped steadily ever since. Regulators have had to issue a Stage 1 health warning only once in the last seven years.
Top
OCE Staff News
Taking Title V to Task
Marita joined OCE in October and is commandeering our eBay fundraising efforts. She took the LSAT earlier this month and is now applying to law and graduate schools for fall 2006. She intends to study animal rights law, corporate personhood issues and urban planning.
Following her graduate level schooling, ideas for the future include starting a business in Austin, trading in recycled and ethically produced goods and mobilizing the environmental movement in Texas.
Marita moved to San Francisco in October 2004 from Santa Cruz, Ca, where she earned her BA in Environmental Studies and a minor in Politics fro UCSC. While she considers herself a homebody, Marita has a broad range of interest include interior design, cooking, watching nature and science documentaries, reading, and listening to music. She also enjoys spending time with her furry, orange cat Simon Calhoun.
Top
Help Us Reduce Air and Water Pollution
There are many ways you can support OCE. Please take a moment to consider which would be the best way for you.
Tell a family member and friends about us! Our diverse membership base is a critical component of our work. Without members, we couldn't do what we do across the nation to make local, state and federal governments accountable for protecting
public health and the environment. We need members throughout the nation -- please help us recruit new members today.
Shop at our eBay and CafePress online stores! You never know what you'll discover. We have sold thousands of items ranging from designer shoes and handbags to handmade Italian leather luggage and OCE monogrammed t-shirts, baby bibs and more! 100% of the final sale price from the eBay items will go directly to OCE. Help us meet our goal of raising over $20,000 through our eBay fundraising efforts.
Click here http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZourchildrensearth and here http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZoceseller1 to begin shopping on our two eBay auctions.
http://www.cafepress.com/oce
Top
Thanks to Our Lawyers and Community Partners for Your Help!
Altshuler, Berzon, Nussbaum, Rubin & Demain
American Lung Association
A Walk in the Woods
Bay Area Clean Air Task Force
Bayveiw Hunters Point Community Advocates
Bushnell, Caplan, & Fielding
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
Marc S. Chytilo
Clean Air Council
Clean Water Action
Coalition for Mercury-Free Dentistry
Communities for a Better Environment
Earth justice Legal Defense Fund
Ecological Rights Foundation
Environmental Advocates
Environmental Defense
Environmental Integrity Project
Environmental Law Foundation
Environmental Working Group
Get Oil Out
Golden Gate University Environmental Law & Justice Clinic
Matthew Hagemann
George Hays
Hilton Kelley
Latino Issues Forum
Planning and Conservation League
Montana Environmental Information Center
William Moore
National Parks Conservation Association
Natural Resources Defense Council
Nevada Environmental Coalition, Inc.
Northwest Environmental Defense Center
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles
Santa Barbara ChannelKeeper
Sierra Club
Chris Sproul
Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund
Union of Concerned Scientists
Urban Habitat, a project of the Tides Center
Reed Zars
Top |
