Thoughts of 4th of July parade spectators on global warming and solutions.

A little after noon, before Nevada City's (2pm) 4th of July parade, I started up Broad Street with voice recorder in hand,  asking the earlybird spectators what came to mind when they heard the term "global warming", and then if they indicated it was a problem, what came to mind for solutions.

Report on Friday eve Nov 10 YWI talk: Managing Sierra Forests for Resilience (and chocolate)

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It's getting harder to pick events to attend, around town - among the (non-concert - for concerts, see Festival John's site) options last Friday evening were a Beatles "deconstruction" at the Foundry, a showing* of the Dark Side of Chocolate documentary at BriarPatch, and a Yuba Watershed Institute meeting featuring a talk titled Beyond Multiple Use - Managing Sierra Forests for Resilience, in the community room at the Nevada County library.

If you missed the "chocolate" film, you can watch it online (45 min) - and yes, it likely will put you off non-fair-trade chocolate.  (While the documentary was anecdotal, apparently a recent CNN documentary had similar findings, that child slavery continues.) Solutions?
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Having learned my "don't try to make two events in one evening" lesson a week or two back, I went to just one - the Yuba Watershed Institute talk.

Report on David Cobb's Move to Amend talk in Nevada City Saturday night

Seaman's Lodge held a hefty audience for an impassioned talk by attorney & former Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb Sat. night, after a half hour  Saul Rayo  performance which included an appearance by Elena Powell.

Wild & Scenic Film Fest report – Death of a Forest

For wreaking death & devastation on North America's high-elevation forests, climate change has been wielding a handy tool - the inconspicuous bark beetle.

Nevada City City Council last night - disaster dry run, garbage, water rates, warming center, beautification

Just quick (and likely flawed; please report an error ) notes on the Wed. Oct 12 Nevada City City Council meeting (parts of which have been reported by Christopher Rosacker (on warming center - NC Council moves forward with homeless cold shelter ) and Jeff Pelline ( Water rates: The new elephant in the corner in Nevada City )).

Notes & photos on SYRCL's Greater Yuba River Cleanup and aftermath

Saturday was SYRCL's 14th annual Greater Yuba River Cleanup and restoration. Some photos and notes:

Tom McClintock aide's denial retracted - he was an ALEC member from 2000-2003

I asked Igor Birman to confirm that the initial denial that McClintock had been a member of ALEC had actually come from McClintock himself; it seemed odd that his name was on ALEC's Alumni list (link) and that ALEC staffers weren't responding to my emails about the discrepancy.

Birman's response today:

"Tom was indeed a member of ALEC between roughly 2000 and 2003."

Just 55 cents of each NevCo United Way dollar reaches county's nonprofits

Updates: UWNC CEO responds, below; and (Sept 20) I've checked with some past & present recipients.

It's true that nobody could call the United Way of Nevada County's Maltman Drive digs "opulent"; nor do the salaries of their one executive director and two hourly staff seem excessive. "Vis-a-vis other United Way organizations, we probably fall in the lower quartile of expenses", UWNC Board President Rich Bulotti told me.

But in a small community, the modesty of these administrative costs are more than countered by the modesty of the donations collected - and nearby counties banded together under a single "umbrella" United Way group manage to have considerably lower overhead.

ButtePIC questions...

Updated 2011-07-10 (edited title), 2011-07-06 (some add'l info, though whether it's *all* the add'l funding is unclear; see bottom of post.)

Anyone have suggestions on how to find out what ButtePIC's other (i.e., non Workforce Investment Act) funding streams were?

A tale of two pavers

Last month's Soapbox Derby was held on Nimrod St, recently resurfaced by (sez Brenda at City Hall) Sierra Nevada Construction. They did a beeauutiful smooth job, as the soapboxers and subsequent skateboarders can attest.

And then there's the bone-jarringdensity-building GV resurfacings of Idaho-Maryland to Sutton to the Dorsey Drive intersection...

"Green is the new Red" says Mark Meckler in surprise appearance at local Tea Party meeting

Updated July 4.
Last night's Nevada County Tea Party meeting was an event not to be missed; speaking were NCTPP head Stan Meckler, Sixteen-to-One mine head Mike Miller, Dan Logue representative/ "political wet work" veteran Cliff Wagner, and in a surprise appearance, the Tea Party Patriots' Mark Meckler with an impassioned "Green is the new Red" talk in which he equated sustainability with tyranny.

Wally Herger campaign manager is ButtePIC's interim executive director (and before that, board member)

Butte County Private Industry Council interim executive director John Peace was Representative (2nd District) Wally Herger's campaign manager, according to a photo caption from 2006 and a Redding Record Searchlight story in 2008.

Peace is also Executive Director of the Oroville Economic Development Corporation and a member of NorTEC.

But to address the obvious query, Peace indicated his ButtePIC positions did not result in Herger exerting influence there: in response to my emailed Q "Did Herger, or anyone acting at his behest or on his behalf, cause monies to be brought into ButtePIC, or have influence on who received funding?", Peace replied, "Absolutely not."

The ButtePIC imploded earlier this year, under its previous head.

Peace declined to answer more questions about ButtePIC finances, pending completion of an audit (by Tenney & Co. of Marysville/Yuba City); but according to NorTEC assistant director Michael Cross, this audit (projected to be complete somewhere around the end of July) is only addressing Workforce Investment Act funds. (Cross also said Butte County is doing a separate audit, of how their county funds were spent.)

There's also a bankruptcy filing in the works; I've emailed Peace asking when it's expected to be filed.

*I believe Peace has been a ButtePIC board member for some years (he was in 2010), but am not certain when he joined; to my knowledge, the composition of the ButtePIC board was never posted online.

Thurs June 30 update: I'm having trouble finding out from Mr. Peace what the other funding streams were, that came through ButtePIC into Nevada County projects, and I haven't gotten a response about the bankruptcy filing details either.

Meckler/McClintock Tea Party Patriot town hall meeting - talks and Q&A

A report of the on-stage parts of the Tea Party Patriot town hall meeting held last week on Wednesday, April 27, 2011: talks by Mark Meckler and Tom McClintock, followed by a joint Q&A.

Climate science exchange with TPP's Mark Meckler, and Qs for y'all

Minor edit, May 5 (added "analogy" quote)
Tea Party Patriot co-founder Mark Meckler shared the stage with Tom McClintock at Wednesday's TPP Town Hall Meeting, and afterward he spoke with me for a few minutes about climate science and credibility.

What may I blog about? A journo practices & standards Q

My question to you: What aspects of last night's Meckler/McClintock forum are legitimate turf for blogging?

Salient aspects & facts:

Dialogue with Tom McClintock on Climate Change

It was a very brief dialogue.

Climate education in Nevada County schools

What's taught about climate science & climate change in Nevada County schools - and is it science-aligned, or antiscience?

Here's what I've got so far; if you know folks who could clue me in further...?

* K-8

• at Seven Hills Middle School
  

* High Schools

• at Bitney College Preparatory High School (home)
  
• at Nevada Union High School (home), Earth Sciences (TBD other fields)
  
• at Bear River High School (home)
  
• TBD: at Ghidotti Early College High School (home) (Madigan, Kirwan)
  

* Community College

• At Sierra College (home), Nevada County Campus
  ESCI 0010 - Introduction to Earth Science (DeCourten)
  GEOG 0001 - Physical Geography (Cox)
  GEOG 0004 - Weather and Climate (DeCourten)
  INT 0001 - Environment/Human Impact (DeCourten & Day)

My climate blog's posts touching on climate education can be found here (link).

Post Mortem - the Nevada County basics

Basic background information; with minor additions Mar. 1

If you saw the joint ProPublica/CaliforniaWatch/PBS Frontline investigation Post Mortem earlier this month, on the difficulties, shortcomings and lack of oversight of death investigations in the United States, you may have wondered what the situation is like in Nevada County.

At City Council meeting tonight: Nevada County Pedestrian Improvement Plan

Thanks to KNCO News, I learned that tonight's Nevada City City Council meeting will include "a presentation of the Nevada County Pedestrian Master Plan"; but as a pedestrian who provided input, I noticed it didn't reflect my concerns.

USFS report on past and future climate trends for Tahoe National Forest and Eldorado National Forest

A recent internal U.S. Forest Service report on climate change effects in Tahoe National Forest and neighboring Eldorado National Forest paints a picture of climate change already under way locally, projecting an extremely uncertain but likely more hazard-prone future for those living nearby and downstream - with a possible 9 degree F mean temperature rise which would equate to the Tahoe Basin's elevation dropping by 2500 feet, and with likely increased fire activity, shrublands spreading up into coniferous areas, and a possibly doubled maximum flow rate of Sierra rivers yielding "a substantial increase in flood risk in flood-prone areas of the Central Valley".