Western datebook: Darwin in San Diego

IF YOU are looking for intelligent design, you could do worse than the newly opened show celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th of the publication of his “On the Origin of Species.”  For more information, click here. The show runs through February 28, 2010 at the San Diego Natural History Museum.

For an online biography of Darwin from the Natural History Museum in London, click here or for links to the celebrated traveling show on Darwin from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Field Museum in Chicago, The Royal Ontario Museum and the Museum of Natural History, London, click here.

For the National Public Radio series Darwin: The ‘Reluctant Revolutionary,’ click here.

Some relief

Source: NOAA. Click on the map to be taken to the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center.

Western datebook: Weed maps

The Invasive Spartina Project uses aerial photography and GPS to monitor cordgrass in the San Francisco Bay. Source: California Invasive Plant Council. Click on the map to be taken to the project's home page.

CORRECTION: IN EARLY versions of this post, the dates for the event below were incorrectly given for November. The event is in December.

Wednesday December 9 and Thursday December 10, the California Invasive Plant Council will be giving courses at the Audubon Center at Debs Park in Los Angeles on invasive plant control and mapping methods.

For information, click here.

For information about PlantRight, a campaign to convince nurseries to remove invasive plants from their shelves, click here.

The week that was, 11/1-7/2009

Passing an entire package of water bills takes a herculean effort, and, in this case, the load was carried to a remarkable extent by just a few legislators who led this effort. Assemblyman Mike Feuer and Senators Fran Pavley and Joe Simitian were authors of bills that evolved dramatically after endless committee hearings and were swept into this final package. They’ve been working on these bills for two years or more. But the heaviest lifting in the legislature was done by Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg and Assemblyman Jared Huffman. — Barry Nelson, On leadership and the water package,” NRDC Switchboard, November 6, 2009

The Dry Garden: How green is your green bin?

Jorge Santiesteban estimates that food scraps constitute roughly 15% to 25% of what goes into black garbage bins in Los Angeles. The city’s solid resources manager has been struck by the seasonal changes in how much food we throw away since 1997, when, in the week after Thanksgiving, he had a garbage truck empty its contents for him. Santiesteban picked through the trash, putting like objects with like until a clear picture emerged. This is what is known in recycling circles as “waste characterization.”

As bad as it must have been for Santiesteban during that November audit of rotting giblets and pie crusts, his San Francisco counterpart might have had it worse. Waste characterizations done there show that as much as 30% of San Francisco’s garbage has been composed of food scraps.

Now the race is on to see which of the two cities can divert more kitchen waste from

« go backkeep looking »
  • After the lawn


  • As you were saying: Comments

  • As I was saying: Recent posts

  • Garden blogs


  • Contact

    Emily Green by e-mail at emily.green [at] mac.com
  • Categories