Solar v. Redwoods

Oh, California.
You sue-happy, tree-hugging nuts.

Just look at this nonsense from Sunnyvale.

A man sues his neighbor because the neighbor's redwood trees are blocking his solar panels.


image (c) New York Times

Thanks to the Solar Shade Act of 1978, your neighbors' trees actually can be considered a nuisance. California Senator Joe Simitian has introduced a bill to rectify this situation, ensuring that trees planted pre-solar enjoy the right to grow in peace. The bill will undergo committee vote this month.

As for the panels-vs.-trees feud, it ended up in Santa Clara County criminal court, with the tree owners convicted and ordered to ensure that no more than 10 percent of their neighbor's solar panels will be shaded.

Goooooooooood grief.

The Ella Baker Center - Green Jobs Campaign

The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has launched a green jobs campaign. The Oakland-based group "creates opportunities in the green economy for low-income people and people of color," working to solve social problems by training a Green Jobs Corps with soft and hard skills to work in the up-and-coming clean tech sector (green building and renewable energy). The Campaign aims to connect lower-income individuals to environmental issues that have, in the past, been concerns only of the wealthy. The City of Oakland gave $250,000 to the program in 2007, and the Green for All initiative was presented to the Clinton Global Initiative in the fall of last year.



While environmentalism has been an overwhelmingly white phenomenon (as discussed in Van Jones's "Unbearable Whiteness of Green"), the Campaign works to promote "Green Cities for Brown People" (as their recent conference was called).

As Van Jones says, "With murder rates soaring and employment rates plummeting, Oakland is in a literal do-or-die struggle to build a sustainable local living economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty."

Donate, sign up for the mailing list, or volunteer by e-mailing Ian Kim.

Use Old Tires, Get a Grant

I guess used tires are a big problem?

Have a good tire idea? Live in California?
"Tire Recycling, Cleanup, and Enforcement Grant Programs provides funds to support the development of tire-derived products markets."

I'm not exactly sure why this has caught my attention, but think of all the things you could invent!



Swimming pools made out of old tires!

Race tracks made out of old tires!

Carpet made out of old tires!

Someone smarter than me will have to come up with how to do all that, though.