August 23, 2010
12:30pm - 1:30pm
Atlantic Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability
Green Camel Bell is a rare, officially registered grassroots environmental NGO in China. The scope of their work covers the entire Gansu Province and parts of Western China, and they are a very inspiring and effective organization. The founder of Green Camel Bell, Zhao Zhong was named Hero of the Environment in 2009 by Time for their work protecting the Yellow River. The organization has received numerous awards for their conservation work, which includes environmental education, river protection, eco-farming, promoting green commuting, earthquake reconstruction, and much more.
Ran Liping, GCB's Program officer, will give a presentation on their programs, their successful cases, and the challenges of doing of environmental work in China and in its western region specifically. She will give people an overview of environmental activism in China and also of her work with communities fighting water pollution in Gansu. After her presentation, it's Q&A and open discussion.
Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.
The San Francisco Ocean Film Festival donated several books about the seas and marine conservation to the library this week, including:
David Helvarg's 50 Ways to Save the Ocean - a practical guide to the daily choices we can make to help restore and preserve the seas,
Jon Bowermaster's Descending the Dragon - his account of his 800-mile sea kayak expedition along the northern coast of Vietnam, and
Douglas Whynott's Giant Bluefin - an account of the New England bluefin tuna harpoon fishery, a fish greatly prized in Japan for sushi and sashimi.
Also: Stephen Harrigan's Water and Light, David Mercy's Berserk: My Voyage to the Antarctic in a Twenty-Seven-Foot Sailboat, Robert Kurson's Shadow Divers, and John Long's The Big Drop.
Be sure to check out their website for information about their film festival coming up this February 19 to 22 with over 35 documentary, fictional, and animated films from around the world. Thank you SF Ocean Film Festival.
Also in the Chronicle, Gov. Schwarzenegger signed bills to coordinate local planning measures to control sprawl in an effort to combat global warming, and to approve bond funds for water storage, levee improvement, and conservation projects, but he vetoed a measure that
would have set a $60 per container fee on shipping traffic at the state's ports in Oakland, Long Beach and Los Angeles. The money would have been used to clean up truck and ship emissions.
The San Francisco Chronicle today reports on a new environmental study released by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for the proposed projects to upgrade the century-old water system that travels 167 miles and crosses five active fault lines to deliver water to the San Francisco Bay Area. The study recommends limiting additional water diversions from the threatened Tuolumne River ecosystem over the next decade and committing the region to expanded water recycling, groundwater development, and water conservation. The SFPUC will have a hearing Oct. 30 to decide whether to formally accept the report.
