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My Fair Trade journey
My Fair Trade journey
Last year I joined a remarkable group of individuals working to transform the Fair Trade movement to benefit more of the world’s working poor. I’m on a steep learning curve and will be sharing some of the successes, challenges and my learnings at Fair Trade USA.
In six months I have spent time in Côte D’Ivoire visiting cocoa farmers with leading chocolatiers. Bumped up rocky tracks in Costa Rica…
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Did you know that pineapples built a community center?
Did you know that pineapples built a community center?
Earlier this week my wife sent me a photo of a box of pineapples from Whole Foods. These were no ordinary pineapples. They were Fair Trade Certified™ pineapples from a Costa Rican farm I had recently visited. I like a pineapple as much as the next person. But I love these pineapples because I saw firsthand what they mean for the people who harvest and pack them.
Over the past decade, every time…
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Coastal Commission fight highlights need for open, accountable government
#CoastalCommission fight highlights need for clear, accountable government #SaveTheCoast
Tomorrow, behind closed doors, twelve members of the California Coastal Commission will debate the “Possible Dismisal of the Executive Director.” There’s sure to be a rowdy crowd at Morrow Bay for the public portion of the “debate.” But when all’s set and done the future of Dr. Charles Lester, who has served as executive director for the past five years, will be decided in private.
To many it’s…
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Loss of UNESCO world heritage site is on all our shoulders
Loss of UNESCO world heritage site is on all our shoulders #forests #climatechange
An article in yesterday’s Guardian caught my attention. One of the last remaining Gondwanaland forests is being destroyed as wildfires ravaging Tasmania turn 1,000 year old trees to ash.
It’s tragic to see our last living link to a Gondwanaland — a continent that broke away from Pangea 180 million years ago — destroyed before our eyes. The importance of these forests was recognized when they were…
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Sea Level Rise Impacts Infrastructure Today
Sea Level Rise Impacts Infrastructure Today
Unfortunately I didn’t have my phone with me earlier today when I ran past the crew working on the main train line from the Bay Area to Sacramento and then on to the rest of the United States.  But I wasn’t surprised to see them. Why?
The tracks run right along the shore of the Bay through Pinole. I’ve always loved this stretch of the train ride to Sacramento, but until recently I hadn’t fully…
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In honor of Robbie Burns
Remembering Islay on Burns night
In honor of Burns night, I dug back in my archives for some photos from the magical island of Islay. I think I’ll skip the haggis tonight, but I will be raising a glass of Islay malt and remembering a glorious week touring the distilleries of this western isle.
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Wasting every drop? The north-south divide.
Is it a colossal waste when water flows to the ocean? @MarketPlace #drought
With El Niño finally starting to drench California, barely a day goes by without a news story covering it.  Yesterday’s Marketplace had an in-depth report on the winter rains in Los Angeles that featured many of my former colleagues from my time in Los Angeles working on water issues.
It’s a great piece and is well worth the seven minutes it will take you to listen to it. It argues that while LA…
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Is private forestland at risk as owners age?
Are American's #forests at risk as we age? #conservation
A recent report on NPR’s market place about family forests in the United States caught my ear. It argued that 2016 was shaping up to be a big year for sales of family-owned forests face.  This has been a common refrain in the almost 20 years I have been working on forestry issues in California. But much of the report did not ring true to me – at least not here in California.
First it suggested…
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We need to redesign our water bills to drive conservation
We need to redesign our water bills to drive conservation
Our water bill for the end of the year was among mail delivered after our trip to England.  “Great,” I thought. “I can see how our efforts to save water are adding up.”
I’d never really looked at the bill before, beyond figuring out how much to pay. But this time I took a harder look. With the drive to conserve I was expecting clear information on the bill to help me understand how our household…
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What does the American Civil War have to do with a park at the geographic center of the UK?
What does the American Civil War have to do with a park at the geographic center of the UK?
The history of place fascinates me. Especially when that place is a park.
On a recent trip to Williamson Park in Lancaster, England, I picked up another fascinating park foundation story. It’s a surprising one as it spans both centuries and miles. It connects an ornate memorial that I have passed countless times driving up the M6, to the American Civil War, and to that classic kitchen flooring –…
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Floods force us to confront returning land to nature
Floods force us to confront returning land to nature
I’ve just returned from two wet weeks in northern England visiting my family for the holidays. Let’s just say it was wet. Very wet.
Over the last few weeks, England has suffered historic floods with no end in sight. The evening news showed town centers such as Kendal, Carlisle, Appleby, Leeds, and Manchester inundaded.  Talking with the old farmers around Sedbergh who have lived on the land for…
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Visualizing Immunization Rates in California Schools
Visualizing immunization rates in California Schools #GIS #CartoDB
Earlier this summer Governor Brown signed into a law that will ban most vaccine exemptions in the State. Past time if you ask me. Vaccinations are a simple and safe way of keeping our kids, and society safe from diseases that used to routinely kill and debilitate thousands each year.
I’d read the reports about vaccine rates being low in otherwise educated areas – take Marin for instance. But I…
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Bringing spatial decision making to the masses
Bringing spatial decision making to the masses #GIS #EsriUC
Geography is everywhere.  Of course, being a geographer I would say that. But for many people geography means a list of state capitals and perhaps the atlas published by the National Geographic.  I’ve just come back from the 2015 Esri user conference in San Diego and saw first hand that this is changing quickly. While much of the discussion was about new software and tools, the most…
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How will climate change affect California's park visitation?
How will climate change affects California's park visitation?
This year’s warm and dry winter is expected to become the norm in the future. Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent time up at Tahoe and most recently among the north coast redwoods. My anecdotal observation is the weather this year is already affecting tourism and our public agencies have yet to catch up.
The lack of snow in the mountains drove people down to the lake shore where the visitor…
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The challenge of cutting water use by 25 per cent - the water meter
The challenge of cutting water use by 25 per cent - time for smart water meters #drought
It took snow pack levels to drop to 6 percent for the State to finally mandate water conservation. They are targeting a 25 percent reduction in water use across the state. But what does that mean for the average residential user?
Unfortunately, I think it may mean not much.
After all, we’re used to reading that the biggest water users are agriculture. Can’t we just let the farmers growing almonds…
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Red Oak Victory anchors Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park
$11.bn maintenance backlog in #NationalParks only tells part of the story as this Rosie Riveter park shows
Did you know there’s a National Park on the waterfront in Richmond, California?  This city, which makes the news for all the wrong reasons — think the Chevron Refinery catching on fire or gun violence in the iron triangle — is also home to Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front Historic Park (quite possibly the longest park name in the nation).
It’s fascinating park both for the story it…
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Is it time to make the initiative process more transparent?
Is it time to make the initiative process more transparent? #BanTheBag
I was just reading an article about the Plastic Bag initiative that recently qualified for the 2016 election. My interest is more than passing, as securing a state-wide ban was a major success while I was at Heal the Bay. It had taken years of work, resulting in a political compromise that was signed into law by Governor Brown last year.
Now it’s on hold after the plastic bag manufacturers put up…
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