Each meeting of the Environmental Change-Makers is packed with resources - local, area-wide, state, national, worldwide.  Rather than allow these collections of resources to disappear after our meetings, we are archiving them here.

Thus, even if you are not in our area, or if you missed a meeting, you can still access some of the information we shared among ourselves.

Additionally, online resources is a way we can cut back on hardcopy paper handouts at the meetings, thus saving trees, the water and toxins it takes to manufacture the paper, the toxins in ink/printer cartridges, greenhouse gasses to haul all that, landfill space from excess handouts ... need we say more?

This meeting, several of our Change-Making children spoke, sharing things they do to help the environment.  Kids told about recycling, using recycled paper for their schoolwork, using reuseable water bottles, helping hang laundry to air-dry, riding bicycles as transportation, growing vegetables, and much more.

Resources:

• "10 Things You Can Do About Global Warming (Yes, even if you're not yet an adult)" - A booklet for children.  Reading level: grades 4-8
• The Environmental Change-Makers book list for children

We swapped much more than seeds in this evening focused on growing edible and functional plants.  When local gardeners gather, there are always stories to share!

Resources about seed-saving:

• a delightful article about Seed Swaps by Heather Coburn, author of Food Not Lawns - we'll be following her "potluck" version of organizing
• Suzanne Ashworth,Seed to Seed (available in LA Public Library system)
• read about the Safe Seed Pledge here and here
• a fact sheet on Genetic Engineering from Californians for GE-Free Agriculture (pdf) (html)
• Greenpeace's webpage on genetic engineering
• an article about seeds and biodiversity which has tons of resources at the bottom

Guest Melanie Foster, a local practitioner of Energy Medicine.  We discussed concepts of Ecologically Sustainable Medicine.

Resources:

• "Healing Without Harm ," by Joel Kreisberg, DC
• "Eight ways that modern medicine is oil dependent," by Paul Roth

Resources:

• A gastronome who does not have an environmental conscience is a fool, because without it he will be deceived in every way possible and will allow the earth, from which he draws the essence of his work, to die. In the same way, it may be said that an ecologist who is not also something of a gastronome is a sad character, who besides not being able to enjoy nature and missing out on the pleasure of eating, is indirectly prepared to do serious damage to the ecosystem by the simple act of eating incorrectly.  
  -- Carlo Petrini
• Slow Food USA
• The High Cost of Cheap Food (pdf)
• 10 Reasons to Eat Local Food (pdf)
• Find your local Farmer's Market. Gives times and locations by city.

Resources:

• "Facilitate the Great Reskilling" by Rob Hopkins
• "Is Peak Oil Pessimism a Generation of Men Coming to Realise How Useless They Are?" by Rob Hopkins
• ReLocalizing Your Urban Lifestyle (pdf)
• Knitty.com

Resources:

• Alternative gift options http://legacyla.net/transformation/?p=244
• Unshopping concept, from Co-Op America
• The Simple Living Network which is a network based on the ideas of Duane Elgin's book Voluntary Simplicity

We screened the movie "Contested Streets" http://www.contestedstreets.com/about.html  which tells about how Copenhagen, London and Paris are reclaiming city streets for pedestrians and bicyclists.  Following the movie we held a community discussion about how the ideas in the movie could be applied to Los Angeles.

Resources for the evening included:

• Post Carbon Cities: A Guidebook on Peak Oil and Global Warming for Local Governments by the Post Carbon Institute.  Their #1 principle for the long term reads:  "Deal with transportation and land use (or you may as well stop now)"
• "Descending the Peak: Navigating the Transition from Oil and Natural Gas " report from City of Portland Peak Oil Task Force.
• California Global Warming resources http://www.climatechoices.org/ca/index.html
• Peak Oil resources http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php
• ReLocalizing Your Urban Lifestyle (pdf)

2nd Annual 100-Mile Potluck (Aug. 2007)

What's a 100-mile potluck?  Find out here http://legacyla.net/transformation/?p=241

Bob Galbreath, a Westchester neighbor and a part of the City of Santa Monica's Environmental Programs Division, gave an excellent PowerPoint presentation.  He covered water conservation, preventing urban runoff, drought tolerant landscaping.

Resources from this meeting included:

• Santa Monica Environmental Programs Division handouts
• 12 Water Saving Tips
• LADWP's Free Residential Shade Trees program
• TreePeople's T.R.E.E.S. water conscious design handbook
• Gardening Without Irrigation by Steve Solomon, an online book about growing vegetables in ULTRA low water situations
• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands, by Brad Lancaster (Amazon)
• Oasis Design website, some of the best graywater information available.  Be sure to read their "common mistakes" page.
• Since it's summertime, we'll throw this one in for good measure:  Passive Cooling resources (pdf)

The Amazing Car-Lite Lifestyle (May 2007)

The founders of C.I.C.L.E. (Cyclists Inciting Change through Live Exchange)

Click here to read about this event.

Edible Landscaping Garden Tour (May 2007)

Click here for resources

What You Can Do About Global Warming (Apr 2007)

LADWP Green Power program, Free Shade Trees program, and other environmental programs www.ladwp.com/library/statichtml/homepage_greenla.html

Two handouts from this meeting are available through Joanne's website, www.LegacyLA.net

• "15 Things You Can Do About Global Warming"
• A booklet for children: "10 Things You Can Do About Global Warming (Yes, even if you're not yet an adult)"

Step It Up March for Climate Action (Apr 2007)

Read about our local action and see photos http://la.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/196838.php

Read about national actions http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/16/222128/336
  or www.StepItUp2007.org

Ed Begley, Jr. Speaks (Mar 2007)
"Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live"

Click here for photos.

A recording of this event will be available through KPFK radio.

Planning Your Spring Vegetable Garden (Feb 2007)

Click here for resources from this talk.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rebuy (Jan 2007)

Click here to read about this event.

Greener Gifting (Nov 2006)

Click here for resources from this event.

Teach Your Children Well (Oct 2006)

This meeting focused on our children, the Next Generation, and how we can cultivate the habits of Sustainability in the midst of a more-more-more world.  Resources included the Children's Booklist, items from the Next Generation booth at the Earth Care Fair, and more.

The Earth Care Fair (Oct 2006)

Click here for photos.
The Earth Care Fair showcased local green resources and earth-wiser ideas.