Winds of Change....

Tonight it will be exactly one week since the Winds of Change blew through Los Angeles County. Last Wednesday night, Dec. 1st, winds hit Los Angeles moving in some regions at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour. These winds brought down concrete lightposts, 100-year-old trees, loose rooftops and basketball hoops, leaving swaths of the city without power or water for several days. Areas of the city still have torn out trees, shrubbery and other debris stacked into 10 foot tall piles, waiting for the city to remove them.  There are still streets with no working streetlights.  Its shocking that a week later there is still so much debris everywhere and that the grid is still down in places.  Its AMAZING that no one died or got severely injured, though word on the street is that some folks did get into car accidents with fallen and falling trees....

 

The Rose Parade bleachers! 

Now, you may be thinking – these gusts sound more like ‘storm’ than ‘winds of change’; why use such a term? Well, Local to Global Life Works (LTG) is taking a global perspective on this local issue. More specifically, LTG is taking a global warming perspective on this issue. Outside of the various reasons for why climate change could be caused or heavily impacted by nonhuman activity, scientific sources generally concur that change is going to happen. The extent of this change is still uncertain, but what is certain is that if humans don’t fundamentally change their manner of producing things (such as our food and energy systems) and doing things (such as how we transport ourselves around), our children and grandchildren may not have a place to call home in the future. So, let’s call this windy event the “Winds of Change” to blow some inspiration into our spirits to make small changes in our own lives that can lead to bigger changes in the world around us.

The rest of this blog post will be dedicated to pictures of the aftermath of the Winds of Change.  See the end of this post for links to information on global warming.

Someone cleared a path here.  It was actually very beautiful.

LIGHTS OUT!!!

On global warming/climate change:

United States Environmental Protection Agency:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

National Geographic:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming.html

Union for Concerned Scientists:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

NASA:
http://climate.nasa.gov/

NASA information on uncertainties about global warming:
http://climate.nasa.gov/uncertainties/

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL):
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/earth/

On island nations and global warming:
http://www.tuvaluislands.com/warming.htm
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/172/30325.html

Thanksgiving love!!!

If you are looking to partake in Thansgiving love, join the Venice Learning Garden with a dish to share! They are providing turkey and mashed potatoes and hope you will bring dessert, salad, non-meat entrees, etc.! This is in part a fundraiser for the Program for Torture Victims, so donate if you can since they provide crucial services to torture victims and refugees, which no one else in Los Angeles is currently providing.

I'd you are looking for a recipe, or want to try cooking with a real pumpkin, here is a great recipe for pumpkin pie from scratch: http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php

And, here is a link for a great crust that I used with the pie recipe: http://www.localforage.com/local_forage/2007/11/quiche.html.

I tried these recipes together and my pie turned out DELICIOUS!  The pie picture above is of the remainder of the pie I made a couple of weeks ago using the above recipes. You can easily make such a pie using super fresh, local ingredients!  I have to admit - most of my ingredients were not local to Los Angeles, though they were mostly local to California and the United States in general.  FYI, it took me about an hour to make the crust, to steam the raw pumpkin and to make the batter, plus an extra 45 minutes to bake the pie. Try it out, let us know how it goes and happy Thanksgiving!