1. Educational opportunity for 30 San Francisco schools: Free presentations on amphibian conservation
2. Ask EPA to ban Atrazine
3. Community meeting on Sudden Oak Death in Oakland Nov 16
4. Help Tuolumne River Trust staff Tuolumne in Your Tap at SF Green Festival Nov 12 & 13
5. Go see Monarch butterflies on Yerba Buena Island
6. Reserve for Lost Landscapes of San Francisco at the Castro Theater Dec 8
7. Partnerships and State Parks, November 17 in Berkeley
8. GGNRA Open House in Pacifica November 15
9. SFPUC lunchtime talk: Introduction to Residential Graywater Systems November 17
10. The Pollinator Crisis: What's Best for Bees?/Garden variety native bees - perpetual calendar
11. Feedback: Drones and surveillance cameras
12. Always read the labels on the foods you buy - including the bar codes
13. http://squeeze-this-rice-and-it-drips-blood
14. Free Home Energy Audit in Palo Alto, Redwood City, Cupertino
15. Ruth Schwartz: Talking to God on the Seventh Day
16. No one likes to be told he is wrong; human decision-making: Thinking, Fast and Slow
17. Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
18. God is a Brazilian
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. -Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
(Wisdom consists, first, recognizing that you're a damned fool sometimes. JS)
______________________
1. Dear Jake,
SAVE THE FROGS! received a grant from the San Francisco Tadpole Head Start Program (via Tree Frog Treks) to give free presentations on amphibian conservation to 30 San Francisco schools. I’ve pasted information on the talk at the bottom of this email. If you know of a school or a teacher who would like to host my presentation, please have them contact me to set up a time that I can come teach their students all about the wild world of frogs!
“The Wild World of Frogs”
A presentation by Biologist Michael Starkey
SAVE THE FROGS! Advisory Committee Chairman
http://www.savethefrogs.com/michael-starkey
http://savethefrogs.com/events
How long do frogs live? How many types of frogs are there? What’s the difference between a frog and a toad? Why are frogs disappearing worldwide and what can be done to save them? Michael Starkey answers all these questions and more as he introduces the audience to The Wild World of Frogs. The presentation features many of Michael's photos of amphibians from around the world, and there will be a question and answer session following the presentation.
"Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved." - Jane Goodall
#########################
2. Kerry Kriger: Ask EPA To Ban Atrazine!
Dear Jake,
Because of the pressure we have put on them over the last 18 months -- including the submission of over 10,000 petition signatures -- the US Environmental Protection Agency is now accepting public comments on a potential federal ban on the use and production of Atrazine, one of the most heavily used pesticides in the USA.
Click here and tell the EPA to ban Atrazine!
Note that you do NOT need to fill out any of the fields on the left half of the page. Any person regardless of age or nationality can submit a comment. Comments are due November 14th, 11:59pm EST, so do not delay. You are welcome to give facts about the harm Atrazine causes to wildlife and humans, but most importantly, speak from the heart!
Read my letter to the EPA
Please download and distribute the PDF of my official submission to the EPA's Atrazine Call For Comments:
Why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Should Place an Immediate Ban on the Use & Production of Atrazine
####################
3. The Friends of Sausal Creek would like to invite you to attend a community meeting on Sudden Oak Death in the Sausal Creek Watershed on Wednesday, November 16, 7-9 p.m. at the Dimond Library, 3565 Fruitvale Ave. Please pass this message on to your neighbors! A flyer can be downloaded athttp://www.sausalcreek.org/pdf/FOSC_Member_Meeting_Flyer.pdf .
The meeting will be led by Dr. Matteo Garbelotto of the UC Berkeley Forest Pathology and Mycology Laboratory. In spring 2011, he and his team mobilized more than 400 community members to collect nearly 2000 samples to analyze for Sudden Oak Death (SOD). SOD is a fungus-like mold that is killing oak trees in coastal California. Several samples from the upper Sausal Creek Watershed tested positive. At this community meeting Dr. Garbelotto will discuss the pathogen, the 2011 SOD Blitz survey results, and the possible next steps that volunteers can proactively take to slow down the epidemic.
Also, please mark your calendars for the subsequent field meeting to discuss Sudden Oak Death management and to demonstrate treatment techniques on Saturday, December 3, 1:00 p.m., in Joaquin Miller Park. Details on the exact location will be available at the November 16 indoor community meeting and will be posted on the FOSC volunteer calendar when known, http://www.sausalcreek.org/volunteer/calendar.html .
In the meantime, you can get additional information at:
www.matteolab.org
www.suddenoakdeath.org
There was an article in the Oakland Tribune on 10/31/11:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_19210613
##################
4. Coming up this weekend - the Tuolumne River Trust is looking for volunteers to help staff our annual Tuolumne Tap Water Station at the San Francisco Green Festival. With over 40,000 people expected to attend, the Green Fest is a great opportunity to educate the Bay Area public about the source of their tap water while we help to create a "bottled water-free" event.
The Green Festival features over 125 speakers including renowned authors, leaders, and educators, 350 eco-friendly businesses in a unique marketplace, workshops, green films, kid's activities, live music, delicious organic cuisine, wine, beer, and lots of free giveaways. The festival is a lot of fun, and with your volunteer shift you will receive a t-shirt and free entry for both days. At the request of Green Fest we schedule half-day shifts, and we recruit extra volunteers so that we can take breaks and have time to enjoy the festival during our shifts.
Please email jessie@tuolumne.org if you can help out with one of the following shifts.
Saturday, November 12
1st Shift: 10am-2:30pm
2nd Shift: 2:30pm-7pm
Sunday, November 13
1st Shift: 11am-2:30pm
2nd Shift: 2:30pm-6pm
The Green Festival will be held November 12-13 at the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th Street, San Francisco. More information including directions, what to bring, etc. upon RSVP.
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5. Monarch butterflies on Yerba Buena Island
Jake --
It already worked, my plea to your throngs. On November 9th, I took the #108 over to Yerba Buena Island with Ruth Gravanis and Veronica Oliva because of an email I'd received from Ruth: "I saw lot's of Monarch's floating about." Understatement of the decade: had one the second I exited the bus and within minutes I had seen more Danaus plexxipus wafting about high in the canopy than ever in five years of crawling around this county. I stopped making hashmarks after 115. I encourage your readers to get over and witness this phenomenon, best viewed at the old Victorian Tower at the summit. When the cooler weather returns and Monarch surveying season begins, I'll return to explore for clusters...but this warm day they danced about our heads as if it was no big deal. We even saw them in pine trees. More to report later...
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6. Rick Prelinger:
It's hard to believe that Lost Landscapes has developed a six-year-history of its own, but indeed it has. Thanks to our sponsor Long Now Foundation, we're moving this year to the Castro Theatre, San Francisco's own movie palace, where I'll be presenting a show jam-packed with uncommonly exciting discoveries. (See below.)
As I think most of you know, Lost Landscapes of San Francisco is a feature-length program of archival film clips drawn from home movies, amateur footage, studio outtakes and industrial films, showing the City as it was. While the allure of vanished San Francisco is a big part of the show, it also aims to get us thinking about our city's future: what can these images of the past tell us about the kind of city we'd like to live in?
Coming up this year, among many other things:
-- Color and B&W footage of San Francisco's cemeteries just before their removal
-- Unique drive-through footage of San Francisco's Produce Market in the 1940s (now Embarcadero Center and Golden Gateway)
-- Cruising the newly-built Embarcadero Freeway
-- Grungy back streets in working-class North Beach
-- New film showing the sandswept Sunset in the late 1930s, before its dunes were covered with homes
-- Wild automobile rides through downtown in the 1920s
-- Newly-rediscovered Cinemascope footage of Playland, the Sky Tram, and other parts of San Francisco, all in bright Kodachrome
And I'm delighted to announce that this will be the first-ever show in HD.
PLACE AND TIME: Castro Theatre, Thursday, December 8, 7:30 (doors 6:30).
TICKETS: Buy tickets here. IMPORTANT: These shows have a way of selling out quickly. The Castro's a big, beautiful room, but I'd advise ordering tickets right now.
TICKET LINK AND FURTHER INFORMATION: http://lostlandscapes.eventbrite.com/
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7. Bay Area Open Space Council
Partnerships and State Parks, November 17
California State Parks, the largest state park system in the country, faces unprecedented budget cuts and closures. Governor Jerry Brown signed budget cuts in May 2011 that included a reduction of General Fund support for state parks by $11 million for Fiscal Year 2011-12 and a total reduction of $22 million by the beginning of Fiscal Year 2012-2013. Seventy parks are slated to close by July 2012, some of which have already done so. China Camp, Olompali, Jack London, Samuel P. Taylor, Sugarloaf Ridge, Annadel, Austin Creek, Petaluma Adobe, Bale Grist Mill, Bothe-Napa Valley, Castle Rock, and Henry Coe are all here in the Bay Area and are all on that list.
New partnerships are being formed. New ways of working together have been created and are being implemented. And new strategies are needed to deal with the new realities of publicly funded conservation. Our next Gathering will cover all of this ground and more.
Join us on November 17 from 10am to 1pm at the Brower Center in Berkeley for a good look at what is being done to address this crisis. We will hear from those who are working on all the details and who are forming the new partnerships. We will hear from:
• Dave Gould, Sonoma Parks Alliance and Former State Parks Superintendent, moderator
• Craig Anderson, LandPaths
• Bob Berman, Benicia State Parks Association
• Lauren Dixon, Sonoma Parks Alliance
• Ruskin Hartley, Save the Redwoods League
• Howard Levitt, National Park Service
• Danita Rodriguez, State Parks, Marin District
• Traci Verardo, State Parks Foundation
Lunch will be served and there will be plenty of time for networking and seeing friends. Our Gatherings can sell out so please register early.
Click here to register.
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8.
Golden Gate National Recreation Area
Open House in Pacifica
November 15, 2011
Drop in anytime 4:30-6:30 PM
Pacifica Community Center
540 Crespi Drive
Pacifica, CA 94044
Map & Directions
Join us for updated plans and projects in Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Meet park staff and provide your input on these projects.
Rancho Corral de Tierra interim trail concepts
General Management Plan
(The review and comment period has been extended through December 9) read press release
Mori Point Stewardship
Highway 1 Safety and Mobility Improvement Study: Phase 2 (South of Devil's Slide)
Trails Forever:
• Hawk Hill
• Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary and Plaza Project
• Presidio Bluffs
• Coastal Trail
• Golden Gate Overlook
• Lands End Lookout
• Redwood Creek Restoration at Muir Beach*
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9. SFPUC Lunchtime Talk: Introduction to Residential Graywater Systems in San Francisco
Don’t let good water go to waste! Come learn about the potential to reuse graywater in your San Francisco landscape. Local expert Laura Allen will give an overview of where and when to install residential graywater systems for outdoor irrigation. The presentation will cover laundry-to-landscape and branched drain systems, as well as more complex systems. To learn more about the SFPUC’s graywater programs: www.sfwater.org/graywater To RSVP for the lunchtime talk: landscape@sfwater.org. Please note that this is a brownbag presentation. You will need to bring your own lunch.
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, 1155 Market St, 6th Floor Conference Room
Thursday, November 17, 12-1pm
RSVP: Yes! Space is limited. Please RSVP to landscape@sfwater.org
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10.
NEWS: The Pollinator Crisis: What's Best for Bees?
Pollinating insects are in crisis. Understanding bees' relationships with introduced species could help.
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=44&ms=MzczODA2NDQS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTE4NjMxNjg0S0&mt=1&rt=0
_________________________
GARDEN VARIETY NATIVE BEES OF NORTH AMERICA
The Xerces Society is happy to announce the release of Garden Variety Native Bees of North America - a perpetual calendar. The calendar is produced by the same team that brought us the last two calendars, bee enthusiast Celeste Ets-Hokin and nature photographer Rollin Coville. Each month introduces you to a different bee genus, with a gorgeous full-page pin-up photo accompanied by notes on preferred plants, nesting needs, and guidance on how to identify the genus.
Garden Variety Native Bees of North America is both a guide to some of our more common native bees and a gardening calendar that never goes out of date. The perpetual calendar includes the dates in each month, but not the days of the week. Use this calendar to keep month to month, and even year to year comparative garden notes. It's a great way to record your observations of the bloom times and other characteristics of the bee-friendly plants you include in your garden, along with the numbers and different types of bees that visit them.
PREVIEW A SAMPLE OF THE PERPETUAL CALENDAR
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this gardening calendar will be donated to the Xerces Society, but Xerces will not be directly selling the calendar, so please do not send calendar payments to Xerces.
Click here for more information on how to order the calendar. Please note that you will be redirected to a website hosted by California Lithographers, the printer producing the calendar on behalf of Celeste Ets-Hokin and Rollin Coville. California Lithographers is solely responsible for calendar sales and shipping.
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11. Feedback
Laarry Brown:
Regarding drones:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/sep/29/predators-and-robots-war/
The ubiquity of surveillance cameras is unnerving enough. Automated, miniaturized drones really ups the ante.
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12. From Denise D'Anne:
Always read the labels on the foods you buy--no matter what the front of the box or package says, turn it over and read the back---carefully.
With all the food and pet products now coming from China , it is best to make sure you read label at the grocery store and especially Walmart when buying food products.
Many products no longer show where they were made, only give where the distributor is located. It is important to read the bar code to track it's origin.
How to read Bar Codes .... interesting!
This may be useful to know when grocery shopping, if it's a concern to you, and is a good way to buy US and Canadian products.
The whole world is concerned about China-made "black hearted goods". Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China ?
If the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690 691 or 692, the product is Made in China.
471 is Made in Taiwan .
This is our right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the public.
Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products Made in China, so they don't show from which country it is made. However, you may now refer to the barcode - remember if the first 3 digits are:
690-692 ... then it is MADE IN CHINA
00 - 09 ... USA & CANADA
30 - 37 FRANCE
40 - 44 GERMANY
471 .... Taiwan
49 ... JAPAN
50 ... UK
BUY USA & CANADIAN MADE by watching for "0" at the beginning of the number.
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13. http://www.care2.com/causes/squeeze-this-rice-and-it-drips-blood.html
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14. It's Getting Cold Out There! Time For a Free Home Energy Audit!
Autumn's longer nights and colder weather mean higher utility bills are on the way. Have you had your Green@Home HouseCall yet?
Homeowners AND renters in Palo Alto, Redwood City, and Cupertino are eligible for a FREE home energy assessment, performed by Acterra's trained Green@Home volunteers! Sign up at the Green@Home HouseCalls webpage or call Lisa Dorn at (650) 962-9876 x380.
Residents of Mountain View can also participate and get an on-line home energy profile through the EnergyUpgrade Mountain View website.
Do your friends a favor, too, by forwarding this note to them. Let's help everyone reduce energy waste this fall!
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15.
Talking to God on the Seventh Day
You're not so sure about this world?
Listen. Take another look:
the joyful reckless
barking dogs, convinced of doom, hysterical,
or only proud to own the yard,
the block, the wind --
the raised welt of their voices
roughening your dreams.
The new leaves slightly bent, like
fingers on guitar,
rippling their chord of twigs --
and the still-bare
slingshot branches,
naked as the tails of rats,
liminal as roots.
The squirrel crushed in the road,
its tail still
waving, in the wind of
passing cars, a flag,
and the blackest of black crows,
breaching the body
with its surgeon beak --
black needles of its feet so pleased
with death,
which is also meat, and life.
Another squirrel, its rapid jaws
muttering around a nut:
My number not up yet not yet bub not yet --
Now tell me why you ever thought
you could improve on this
music, this hunger.
~ Ruth L. Schwartz ~
(Edgewater)
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16.
Human decision-making
Not so smart now
The father of behavioural economics considers the feeble human brain
Oct 29th 2011 | from The Economist
Thinking, Fast and Slow. By Daniel Kahneman.
TOWARDS the end of “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman laments that he and his late collaborator, Amos Tversky, are often credited with showing that humans make “irrational” choices. That term is too strong, he says, to describe the variety of mental mishaps to which people systematically fall prey. Readers of his book may disagree. Mr Kahneman, an Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel economics laureate, has delivered a full catalogue of the biases, shortcuts and cognitive illusions to which our species regularly succumbs. In doing so he makes it plain that Homo economicus—the rational model of human behaviour beloved of economists—is as fantastical as a unicorn.
In one experiment described by Mr Kahneman, participants asked to imagine that they have been given £50 behave differently depending on whether they are then told they can “keep” £20 or must “lose” £30—though the outcomes are identical. He also shows that it is more threatening to say that a disease kills “1,286 in every 10,000 people”, than to say it kills “24.14% of the population”, even though the second mention is twice as deadly. Vivid language often overrides basic arithmetic.
Some findings are downright peculiar. Experimental subjects who have been “primed” to think of money, perhaps by seeing a picture of dollar bills, will act more selfishly. So if someone nearby drops some pencils, these subjects will pick up fewer than their non-primed counterparts. Even obliquely suggesting the concept of old age will inspire people to walk more slowly—though feeling elderly never crossed their mind, they will later report.
After all this the human brain looks less like a model of rationality and more like a giddy teenager: flighty, easily distracted and lacking in self-awareness. Yet this book is not a counsel of despair. Its awkward title refers to Mr Kahneman’s two-tier model of cognition: “System 1” is quick, intuitive and responsible for the quirks and mistakes described above (and many others). “System 2”, by contrast, is slow, deliberative and less prone to error. System 2 kicks in when we are faced with particularly complex problems, but much of the time it is all too happy to let the impulsive System 1 get its way. (Readers may be reminded of Freud’s “id” and “superego”, though Mr Kahneman never mentions this particular intellectual ancestor.)
What, then, is System 1 good for? Rather a lot, it turns out. In a world that often demands swift judgment and rapid decision-making (fight or flight?), a creature who solely relied on deliberative thinking wouldn’t last long. Moreover, System 1 generally works well. As Mr Kahneman says, “most of our judgments and actions are appropriate most of the time”. He urges readers to counteract what he considers to be mistakes of System 1 thinking, such as the “loss aversion” that deters people from accepting favourable gambles (such as a 50-50 chance to win $200 or lose $100). He also recommends checking the performance of an investment portfolio no more than once a quarter, to limit needless anguish over short-term fluctuations and the “useless churning” of shares.
Mr Kahneman does not dwell on the possible evolutionary origins of our cognitive biases, nor does he devote much time to considering why some people seem naturally better at avoiding error than others. Still this book, his first for a non-specialist audience, is a profound one. As Copernicus removed the Earth from the centre of the universe and Darwin knocked humans off their biological perch, Mr Kahneman has shown that we are not the paragons of reason we assume ourselves to be. Often hailed as the father of behavioural economics (with Tversky as co-parent), his work has influenced a range of disciplines and has even inspired some policy. But the true consequences of his findings are only starting to emerge. When he presents the poor victims of his experiments with conclusive proof of their errors, the typical reaction is not a chastened pledge to shape up, but confused silence, followed by business as usual. No one likes to be told he is wrong.
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17. Historical salvage
Ghost stories
A trawl through an historic underbelly
Nov 5th 2011 | from The Economist
Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe. By Norman Davies.
HISTORY, most people reckon, is what you can remember about the past. But the forgotten bits can be the most interesting ones. Norman Davies terms his new book, “Vanished Kingdoms”, a work of “historical salvage” in which he brings to the surface long-sunken wrecks of European history.
The variety is striking: the Byzantine empire lasted more than 1,000 years; the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine barely 24 hours. Some, like Aragon or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, grew into empires. Others (Eire and Estonia) started life by breaking away from someone else’s empire. The timeline ranges from the fall of Rome to the present. Mr Davies is not the sort of historian who sticks to books. His magpie’s eye for detail includes not just quirks of the past but first-hand reportage worthy of a fine travel writer.
Some wrecks have sunk deeper than others. Most readers will have a vague idea about Prussia (or Borussia as he calls it). Few will know of the Visigoths’ kingdom of Tolosa, centred approximately on modern Toulouse, or an ancient British domain in what is now modern Scotland, so completely forgotten that even locals have never heard of it.
Mr Davies is well known as an iconoclast who punctures the comforting myths of countries (like England or Russia) that history has blessed with conquest, expansion and linguistic dominance. He enjoys highlighting the stories of the underdogs—be they the Welsh or the Estonians. All empires fall and all states eventually fail; the end of the United Kingdom “is a foregone conclusion”. That is a provocative point, but predictions without dates are easy. All trees fall; it is spotting the diseased ones that is tricky.
Even his fans would not say that Mr Davies’s forte is details; some niggling errors deserve speedy correction. His pen sometimes runs away with him: it is silly to call a language “gobbledygook” (as he terms Estonian) just because you don’t understand it. But like Mr Davies’s other works, “Vanished Kingdoms” gives full rein to his historical imagination and enthusiasms, imparting a powerful sense of places lost in time. All across Europe ghosts will bless him for telling their long-forgotten stories.
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18. Brazil’s oil boom (from The Economist)
GEOLOGICAL structures of vast antiquity are more often called on to bolster the arguments of atheists than enlisted as tokens of a deity’s existence—let alone his nationality. But the deep Cretaceous salts which trap oil in rocks off Brazil’s coast are “strong evidence”, in the words of President Dilma Rousseff, “that God is Brazilian.” It is not a new conceit, but it has rarely been a more apposite one. The pré-sal (“below the salt”) oilfields look set to generate wealth on a scale that could transform Brazil’s economy.
(God a Brazilian? And here I've always thought She was a Republican.
And transform its economy? Not to mention our oceans--the drilling will be much, much deeper than BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.
And another thing, Ms Rousseff, these gifts often turn out to be curses. Hold off on the thank yous.)
2. Ask EPA to ban Atrazine
3. Community meeting on Sudden Oak Death in Oakland Nov 16
4. Help Tuolumne River Trust staff Tuolumne in Your Tap at SF Green Festival Nov 12 & 13
5. Go see Monarch butterflies on Yerba Buena Island
6. Reserve for Lost Landscapes of San Francisco at the Castro Theater Dec 8
7. Partnerships and State Parks, November 17 in Berkeley
8. GGNRA Open House in Pacifica November 15
9. SFPUC lunchtime talk: Introduction to Residential Graywater Systems November 17
10. The Pollinator Crisis: What's Best for Bees?/Garden variety native bees - perpetual calendar
11. Feedback: Drones and surveillance cameras
12. Always read the labels on the foods you buy - including the bar codes
13. http://squeeze-this-rice-and-it-drips-blood
14. Free Home Energy Audit in Palo Alto, Redwood City, Cupertino
15. Ruth Schwartz: Talking to God on the Seventh Day
16. No one likes to be told he is wrong; human decision-making: Thinking, Fast and Slow
17. Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
18. God is a Brazilian
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. -Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
(Wisdom consists, first, recognizing that you're a damned fool sometimes. JS)
______________________
1. Dear Jake,
SAVE THE FROGS! received a grant from the San Francisco Tadpole Head Start Program (via Tree Frog Treks) to give free presentations on amphibian conservation to 30 San Francisco schools. I’ve pasted information on the talk at the bottom of this email. If you know of a school or a teacher who would like to host my presentation, please have them contact me to set up a time that I can come teach their students all about the wild world of frogs!
“The Wild World of Frogs”
A presentation by Biologist Michael Starkey
SAVE THE FROGS! Advisory Committee Chairman
http://www.savethefrogs.com/michael-starkey
http://savethefrogs.com/events
How long do frogs live? How many types of frogs are there? What’s the difference between a frog and a toad? Why are frogs disappearing worldwide and what can be done to save them? Michael Starkey answers all these questions and more as he introduces the audience to The Wild World of Frogs. The presentation features many of Michael's photos of amphibians from around the world, and there will be a question and answer session following the presentation.
"Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved." - Jane Goodall
#########################
2. Kerry Kriger: Ask EPA To Ban Atrazine!
Dear Jake,
Because of the pressure we have put on them over the last 18 months -- including the submission of over 10,000 petition signatures -- the US Environmental Protection Agency is now accepting public comments on a potential federal ban on the use and production of Atrazine, one of the most heavily used pesticides in the USA.
Click here and tell the EPA to ban Atrazine!
Note that you do NOT need to fill out any of the fields on the left half of the page. Any person regardless of age or nationality can submit a comment. Comments are due November 14th, 11:59pm EST, so do not delay. You are welcome to give facts about the harm Atrazine causes to wildlife and humans, but most importantly, speak from the heart!
Read my letter to the EPA
Please download and distribute the PDF of my official submission to the EPA's Atrazine Call For Comments:
Why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Should Place an Immediate Ban on the Use & Production of Atrazine
####################
3. The Friends of Sausal Creek would like to invite you to attend a community meeting on Sudden Oak Death in the Sausal Creek Watershed on Wednesday, November 16, 7-9 p.m. at the Dimond Library, 3565 Fruitvale Ave. Please pass this message on to your neighbors! A flyer can be downloaded athttp://www.sausalcreek.org/pdf/FOSC_Member_Meeting_Flyer.pdf .
The meeting will be led by Dr. Matteo Garbelotto of the UC Berkeley Forest Pathology and Mycology Laboratory. In spring 2011, he and his team mobilized more than 400 community members to collect nearly 2000 samples to analyze for Sudden Oak Death (SOD). SOD is a fungus-like mold that is killing oak trees in coastal California. Several samples from the upper Sausal Creek Watershed tested positive. At this community meeting Dr. Garbelotto will discuss the pathogen, the 2011 SOD Blitz survey results, and the possible next steps that volunteers can proactively take to slow down the epidemic.
Also, please mark your calendars for the subsequent field meeting to discuss Sudden Oak Death management and to demonstrate treatment techniques on Saturday, December 3, 1:00 p.m., in Joaquin Miller Park. Details on the exact location will be available at the November 16 indoor community meeting and will be posted on the FOSC volunteer calendar when known, http://www.sausalcreek.org/volunteer/calendar.html .
In the meantime, you can get additional information at:
www.matteolab.org
www.suddenoakdeath.org
There was an article in the Oakland Tribune on 10/31/11:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_19210613
##################
4. Coming up this weekend - the Tuolumne River Trust is looking for volunteers to help staff our annual Tuolumne Tap Water Station at the San Francisco Green Festival. With over 40,000 people expected to attend, the Green Fest is a great opportunity to educate the Bay Area public about the source of their tap water while we help to create a "bottled water-free" event.
The Green Festival features over 125 speakers including renowned authors, leaders, and educators, 350 eco-friendly businesses in a unique marketplace, workshops, green films, kid's activities, live music, delicious organic cuisine, wine, beer, and lots of free giveaways. The festival is a lot of fun, and with your volunteer shift you will receive a t-shirt and free entry for both days. At the request of Green Fest we schedule half-day shifts, and we recruit extra volunteers so that we can take breaks and have time to enjoy the festival during our shifts.
Please email jessie@tuolumne.org if you can help out with one of the following shifts.
Saturday, November 12
1st Shift: 10am-2:30pm
2nd Shift: 2:30pm-7pm
Sunday, November 13
1st Shift: 11am-2:30pm
2nd Shift: 2:30pm-6pm
The Green Festival will be held November 12-13 at the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th Street, San Francisco. More information including directions, what to bring, etc. upon RSVP.
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5. Monarch butterflies on Yerba Buena Island
Jake --
It already worked, my plea to your throngs. On November 9th, I took the #108 over to Yerba Buena Island with Ruth Gravanis and Veronica Oliva because of an email I'd received from Ruth: "I saw lot's of Monarch's floating about." Understatement of the decade: had one the second I exited the bus and within minutes I had seen more Danaus plexxipus wafting about high in the canopy than ever in five years of crawling around this county. I stopped making hashmarks after 115. I encourage your readers to get over and witness this phenomenon, best viewed at the old Victorian Tower at the summit. When the cooler weather returns and Monarch surveying season begins, I'll return to explore for clusters...but this warm day they danced about our heads as if it was no big deal. We even saw them in pine trees. More to report later...
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6. Rick Prelinger:
It's hard to believe that Lost Landscapes has developed a six-year-history of its own, but indeed it has. Thanks to our sponsor Long Now Foundation, we're moving this year to the Castro Theatre, San Francisco's own movie palace, where I'll be presenting a show jam-packed with uncommonly exciting discoveries. (See below.)
As I think most of you know, Lost Landscapes of San Francisco is a feature-length program of archival film clips drawn from home movies, amateur footage, studio outtakes and industrial films, showing the City as it was. While the allure of vanished San Francisco is a big part of the show, it also aims to get us thinking about our city's future: what can these images of the past tell us about the kind of city we'd like to live in?
Coming up this year, among many other things:
-- Color and B&W footage of San Francisco's cemeteries just before their removal
-- Unique drive-through footage of San Francisco's Produce Market in the 1940s (now Embarcadero Center and Golden Gateway)
-- Cruising the newly-built Embarcadero Freeway
-- Grungy back streets in working-class North Beach
-- New film showing the sandswept Sunset in the late 1930s, before its dunes were covered with homes
-- Wild automobile rides through downtown in the 1920s
-- Newly-rediscovered Cinemascope footage of Playland, the Sky Tram, and other parts of San Francisco, all in bright Kodachrome
And I'm delighted to announce that this will be the first-ever show in HD.
PLACE AND TIME: Castro Theatre, Thursday, December 8, 7:30 (doors 6:30).
TICKETS: Buy tickets here. IMPORTANT: These shows have a way of selling out quickly. The Castro's a big, beautiful room, but I'd advise ordering tickets right now.
TICKET LINK AND FURTHER INFORMATION: http://lostlandscapes.eventbrite.com/
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7. Bay Area Open Space Council
Partnerships and State Parks, November 17
California State Parks, the largest state park system in the country, faces unprecedented budget cuts and closures. Governor Jerry Brown signed budget cuts in May 2011 that included a reduction of General Fund support for state parks by $11 million for Fiscal Year 2011-12 and a total reduction of $22 million by the beginning of Fiscal Year 2012-2013. Seventy parks are slated to close by July 2012, some of which have already done so. China Camp, Olompali, Jack London, Samuel P. Taylor, Sugarloaf Ridge, Annadel, Austin Creek, Petaluma Adobe, Bale Grist Mill, Bothe-Napa Valley, Castle Rock, and Henry Coe are all here in the Bay Area and are all on that list.
New partnerships are being formed. New ways of working together have been created and are being implemented. And new strategies are needed to deal with the new realities of publicly funded conservation. Our next Gathering will cover all of this ground and more.
Join us on November 17 from 10am to 1pm at the Brower Center in Berkeley for a good look at what is being done to address this crisis. We will hear from those who are working on all the details and who are forming the new partnerships. We will hear from:
• Dave Gould, Sonoma Parks Alliance and Former State Parks Superintendent, moderator
• Craig Anderson, LandPaths
• Bob Berman, Benicia State Parks Association
• Lauren Dixon, Sonoma Parks Alliance
• Ruskin Hartley, Save the Redwoods League
• Howard Levitt, National Park Service
• Danita Rodriguez, State Parks, Marin District
• Traci Verardo, State Parks Foundation
Lunch will be served and there will be plenty of time for networking and seeing friends. Our Gatherings can sell out so please register early.
Click here to register.
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8.
Golden Gate National Recreation Area
Open House in Pacifica
November 15, 2011
Drop in anytime 4:30-6:30 PM
Pacifica Community Center
540 Crespi Drive
Pacifica, CA 94044
Map & Directions
Join us for updated plans and projects in Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Meet park staff and provide your input on these projects.
Rancho Corral de Tierra interim trail concepts
General Management Plan
(The review and comment period has been extended through December 9) read press release
Mori Point Stewardship
Highway 1 Safety and Mobility Improvement Study: Phase 2 (South of Devil's Slide)
Trails Forever:
• Hawk Hill
• Golden Gate Bridge 75th Anniversary and Plaza Project
• Presidio Bluffs
• Coastal Trail
• Golden Gate Overlook
• Lands End Lookout
• Redwood Creek Restoration at Muir Beach*
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9. SFPUC Lunchtime Talk: Introduction to Residential Graywater Systems in San Francisco
Don’t let good water go to waste! Come learn about the potential to reuse graywater in your San Francisco landscape. Local expert Laura Allen will give an overview of where and when to install residential graywater systems for outdoor irrigation. The presentation will cover laundry-to-landscape and branched drain systems, as well as more complex systems. To learn more about the SFPUC’s graywater programs: www.sfwater.org/graywater To RSVP for the lunchtime talk: landscape@sfwater.org. Please note that this is a brownbag presentation. You will need to bring your own lunch.
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, 1155 Market St, 6th Floor Conference Room
Thursday, November 17, 12-1pm
RSVP: Yes! Space is limited. Please RSVP to landscape@sfwater.org
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10.
NEWS: The Pollinator Crisis: What's Best for Bees?
Pollinating insects are in crisis. Understanding bees' relationships with introduced species could help.
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=44&ms=MzczODA2NDQS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTE4NjMxNjg0S0&mt=1&rt=0
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GARDEN VARIETY NATIVE BEES OF NORTH AMERICA
The Xerces Society is happy to announce the release of Garden Variety Native Bees of North America - a perpetual calendar. The calendar is produced by the same team that brought us the last two calendars, bee enthusiast Celeste Ets-Hokin and nature photographer Rollin Coville. Each month introduces you to a different bee genus, with a gorgeous full-page pin-up photo accompanied by notes on preferred plants, nesting needs, and guidance on how to identify the genus.
Garden Variety Native Bees of North America is both a guide to some of our more common native bees and a gardening calendar that never goes out of date. The perpetual calendar includes the dates in each month, but not the days of the week. Use this calendar to keep month to month, and even year to year comparative garden notes. It's a great way to record your observations of the bloom times and other characteristics of the bee-friendly plants you include in your garden, along with the numbers and different types of bees that visit them.
PREVIEW A SAMPLE OF THE PERPETUAL CALENDAR
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this gardening calendar will be donated to the Xerces Society, but Xerces will not be directly selling the calendar, so please do not send calendar payments to Xerces.
Click here for more information on how to order the calendar. Please note that you will be redirected to a website hosted by California Lithographers, the printer producing the calendar on behalf of Celeste Ets-Hokin and Rollin Coville. California Lithographers is solely responsible for calendar sales and shipping.
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11. Feedback
Laarry Brown:
Regarding drones:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/sep/29/predators-and-robots-war/
The ubiquity of surveillance cameras is unnerving enough. Automated, miniaturized drones really ups the ante.
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12. From Denise D'Anne:
Always read the labels on the foods you buy--no matter what the front of the box or package says, turn it over and read the back---carefully.
With all the food and pet products now coming from China , it is best to make sure you read label at the grocery store and especially Walmart when buying food products.
Many products no longer show where they were made, only give where the distributor is located. It is important to read the bar code to track it's origin.
How to read Bar Codes .... interesting!
This may be useful to know when grocery shopping, if it's a concern to you, and is a good way to buy US and Canadian products.
The whole world is concerned about China-made "black hearted goods". Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China ?
If the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690 691 or 692, the product is Made in China.
471 is Made in Taiwan .
This is our right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the public.
Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products Made in China, so they don't show from which country it is made. However, you may now refer to the barcode - remember if the first 3 digits are:
690-692 ... then it is MADE IN CHINA
00 - 09 ... USA & CANADA
30 - 37 FRANCE
40 - 44 GERMANY
471 .... Taiwan
49 ... JAPAN
50 ... UK
BUY USA & CANADIAN MADE by watching for "0" at the beginning of the number.
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13. http://www.care2.com/causes/squeeze-this-rice-and-it-drips-blood.html
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14. It's Getting Cold Out There! Time For a Free Home Energy Audit!
Autumn's longer nights and colder weather mean higher utility bills are on the way. Have you had your Green@Home HouseCall yet?
Homeowners AND renters in Palo Alto, Redwood City, and Cupertino are eligible for a FREE home energy assessment, performed by Acterra's trained Green@Home volunteers! Sign up at the Green@Home HouseCalls webpage or call Lisa Dorn at (650) 962-9876 x380.
Residents of Mountain View can also participate and get an on-line home energy profile through the EnergyUpgrade Mountain View website.
Do your friends a favor, too, by forwarding this note to them. Let's help everyone reduce energy waste this fall!
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15.
Talking to God on the Seventh Day
You're not so sure about this world?
Listen. Take another look:
the joyful reckless
barking dogs, convinced of doom, hysterical,
or only proud to own the yard,
the block, the wind --
the raised welt of their voices
roughening your dreams.
The new leaves slightly bent, like
fingers on guitar,
rippling their chord of twigs --
and the still-bare
slingshot branches,
naked as the tails of rats,
liminal as roots.
The squirrel crushed in the road,
its tail still
waving, in the wind of
passing cars, a flag,
and the blackest of black crows,
breaching the body
with its surgeon beak --
black needles of its feet so pleased
with death,
which is also meat, and life.
Another squirrel, its rapid jaws
muttering around a nut:
My number not up yet not yet bub not yet --
Now tell me why you ever thought
you could improve on this
music, this hunger.
~ Ruth L. Schwartz ~
(Edgewater)
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16.
Human decision-making
Not so smart now
The father of behavioural economics considers the feeble human brain
Oct 29th 2011 | from The Economist
Thinking, Fast and Slow. By Daniel Kahneman.
TOWARDS the end of “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman laments that he and his late collaborator, Amos Tversky, are often credited with showing that humans make “irrational” choices. That term is too strong, he says, to describe the variety of mental mishaps to which people systematically fall prey. Readers of his book may disagree. Mr Kahneman, an Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel economics laureate, has delivered a full catalogue of the biases, shortcuts and cognitive illusions to which our species regularly succumbs. In doing so he makes it plain that Homo economicus—the rational model of human behaviour beloved of economists—is as fantastical as a unicorn.
In one experiment described by Mr Kahneman, participants asked to imagine that they have been given £50 behave differently depending on whether they are then told they can “keep” £20 or must “lose” £30—though the outcomes are identical. He also shows that it is more threatening to say that a disease kills “1,286 in every 10,000 people”, than to say it kills “24.14% of the population”, even though the second mention is twice as deadly. Vivid language often overrides basic arithmetic.
Some findings are downright peculiar. Experimental subjects who have been “primed” to think of money, perhaps by seeing a picture of dollar bills, will act more selfishly. So if someone nearby drops some pencils, these subjects will pick up fewer than their non-primed counterparts. Even obliquely suggesting the concept of old age will inspire people to walk more slowly—though feeling elderly never crossed their mind, they will later report.
After all this the human brain looks less like a model of rationality and more like a giddy teenager: flighty, easily distracted and lacking in self-awareness. Yet this book is not a counsel of despair. Its awkward title refers to Mr Kahneman’s two-tier model of cognition: “System 1” is quick, intuitive and responsible for the quirks and mistakes described above (and many others). “System 2”, by contrast, is slow, deliberative and less prone to error. System 2 kicks in when we are faced with particularly complex problems, but much of the time it is all too happy to let the impulsive System 1 get its way. (Readers may be reminded of Freud’s “id” and “superego”, though Mr Kahneman never mentions this particular intellectual ancestor.)
What, then, is System 1 good for? Rather a lot, it turns out. In a world that often demands swift judgment and rapid decision-making (fight or flight?), a creature who solely relied on deliberative thinking wouldn’t last long. Moreover, System 1 generally works well. As Mr Kahneman says, “most of our judgments and actions are appropriate most of the time”. He urges readers to counteract what he considers to be mistakes of System 1 thinking, such as the “loss aversion” that deters people from accepting favourable gambles (such as a 50-50 chance to win $200 or lose $100). He also recommends checking the performance of an investment portfolio no more than once a quarter, to limit needless anguish over short-term fluctuations and the “useless churning” of shares.
Mr Kahneman does not dwell on the possible evolutionary origins of our cognitive biases, nor does he devote much time to considering why some people seem naturally better at avoiding error than others. Still this book, his first for a non-specialist audience, is a profound one. As Copernicus removed the Earth from the centre of the universe and Darwin knocked humans off their biological perch, Mr Kahneman has shown that we are not the paragons of reason we assume ourselves to be. Often hailed as the father of behavioural economics (with Tversky as co-parent), his work has influenced a range of disciplines and has even inspired some policy. But the true consequences of his findings are only starting to emerge. When he presents the poor victims of his experiments with conclusive proof of their errors, the typical reaction is not a chastened pledge to shape up, but confused silence, followed by business as usual. No one likes to be told he is wrong.
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17. Historical salvage
Ghost stories
A trawl through an historic underbelly
Nov 5th 2011 | from The Economist
Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe. By Norman Davies.
HISTORY, most people reckon, is what you can remember about the past. But the forgotten bits can be the most interesting ones. Norman Davies terms his new book, “Vanished Kingdoms”, a work of “historical salvage” in which he brings to the surface long-sunken wrecks of European history.
The variety is striking: the Byzantine empire lasted more than 1,000 years; the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine barely 24 hours. Some, like Aragon or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, grew into empires. Others (Eire and Estonia) started life by breaking away from someone else’s empire. The timeline ranges from the fall of Rome to the present. Mr Davies is not the sort of historian who sticks to books. His magpie’s eye for detail includes not just quirks of the past but first-hand reportage worthy of a fine travel writer.
Some wrecks have sunk deeper than others. Most readers will have a vague idea about Prussia (or Borussia as he calls it). Few will know of the Visigoths’ kingdom of Tolosa, centred approximately on modern Toulouse, or an ancient British domain in what is now modern Scotland, so completely forgotten that even locals have never heard of it.
Mr Davies is well known as an iconoclast who punctures the comforting myths of countries (like England or Russia) that history has blessed with conquest, expansion and linguistic dominance. He enjoys highlighting the stories of the underdogs—be they the Welsh or the Estonians. All empires fall and all states eventually fail; the end of the United Kingdom “is a foregone conclusion”. That is a provocative point, but predictions without dates are easy. All trees fall; it is spotting the diseased ones that is tricky.
Even his fans would not say that Mr Davies’s forte is details; some niggling errors deserve speedy correction. His pen sometimes runs away with him: it is silly to call a language “gobbledygook” (as he terms Estonian) just because you don’t understand it. But like Mr Davies’s other works, “Vanished Kingdoms” gives full rein to his historical imagination and enthusiasms, imparting a powerful sense of places lost in time. All across Europe ghosts will bless him for telling their long-forgotten stories.
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18. Brazil’s oil boom (from The Economist)
GEOLOGICAL structures of vast antiquity are more often called on to bolster the arguments of atheists than enlisted as tokens of a deity’s existence—let alone his nationality. But the deep Cretaceous salts which trap oil in rocks off Brazil’s coast are “strong evidence”, in the words of President Dilma Rousseff, “that God is Brazilian.” It is not a new conceit, but it has rarely been a more apposite one. The pré-sal (“below the salt”) oilfields look set to generate wealth on a scale that could transform Brazil’s economy.
(God a Brazilian? And here I've always thought She was a Republican.
And transform its economy? Not to mention our oceans--the drilling will be much, much deeper than BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.
And another thing, Ms Rousseff, these gifts often turn out to be curses. Hold off on the thank yous.)
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