Blogs & Ecology

Every time I feel as though L.A. is finally on the cusp on improving its (woefully) underfunded public transit system, something comes along to scuttle my excitement. The latest controversy surrounds the Expo Line, an $862 million light rail project that will connect downtown Los Angeles to Culver City and which is slated for completion in mid-2010. (That will be the first phase; the second phase will eventually extend the line from Culver City to Santa Monica -- see the "subway to the sea.") The plan could be delayed, however,...

photo: Daniel Figueroa

Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has unveiled a solar power plan for the city that the LA Times is right to call ‘ambitious’: The plan the calls for the city to get 1,280 MW of power from solar panels by 2020.

The financial analysis of the solar plan, and what (if any) rate increases that LA electric customers will pay, will be done over the next 90 days. Here’s how the plan would work:...

Today, the Green Car Journal gave its 2009 Green Car of the Year award to the Volkswagen Jetta TDI at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The 2009 Jetta TDI is a quiet-running, diesel-powered car. It beat out hybrids and mini-cars to take the title. The Jetta uses a technology called "clean diesel" which actually lives up its name pretty well. It has a very clean tailpipe, and an EPA estimated 41 mpg highway fuel economy.
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If you live in Los Angeles or in the New York/New Jersey metro area and want an electric Mini Cooper pay attention.

Starting today you can apply to be one of the 500 lucky people taking part in a year-long field trial (no, you can’t keep it afterwards) of the Mini E. That’s the good news. The less good news is that you’re going to have to pony up $850 per month (plus some up front fees and sales tax; not to mention liability insurance) for the privilege of giving Mini feedback on the performance of the car.

Image from steven.buss

Image: BohPhoto

We’ve all become familiar with the fair trade ethos with our food buying, but one person is trying to bring the same values to a very different part of the retail industry. Sam Roddick’s Coco de Mer is a sex shop with an environmentally friendly ethos, selling everything from corsets to clitoris creams.

Making Pedestrian Life Easier
Our friends at StreetFilms have a short & sweet video about diagonal crosswalks (aka pedestrian scrambles, or Barnes dances) in Los Angeles. These make life easier for pedestrians by allowing them to get across an intersection diagonally without having to cross twice, and they improve safety because you don't have cars trying to turn while people are crossing.

Read on for the video and more details....

Welcome to our new "TreeHugger Deals" column, which will run every Tuesday and is exclusively for TreeHugger readers.

Transition City LA Just One of Many
It looks like it may have been almost a whole month since I last wrote about Transition Towns – covering the arrival of the Transition movement in Japan, and the incredible growth of Transition Towns in New Zealand. I make no secret about it, I’m a huge fan of this community-lead response to peak oil and climate change.

Image from fredcamino

Add another potential victim to the long list of those already claimed by the rolling credit crunch: Los Angeles County's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Yes, in another sign of the financial crisis's pervasiveness, the public transit authority could be forced to slash services for its 1.5 million customers because of a series of (now toxic) deals it made with insurance giant American International Group.

Eco-Ganik model/photo by Eco-Ganik
At L.A. Fashion Week on Wednesday night, Eco-Ganik showed a collection of gorgeous, flirty frocks, relaxed knits and flouncey short skirts that were on point with every spring fashion forecast from New York to Paris, with one significant difference: Every element used in the line is eco-friendly.

Get the eco-fashion scoop plus an exclusive backstage video…
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photo/A+R
With retail sales down and expected to continue plummeting, will buyers eschew green products in favor of less-expensive fare? Not if retailers expand their definition of “eco-friendly,” said Andy Griffith, one-half of the team behind the wildly popular A + R stores in Los Angeles, CA.

From an MP3 player from sustainable hardwood to vintage fabric stuffed animals: Find out more about the green gifts Griffith is betting on this season.
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Besides being a terrific actor, Diane Keaton is a former board member of the Los Angeles Conservancy and is currently a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She bemoans the loss of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Maggie Gyllenhaal at Gen Art's Fashionably Natural Show/photo provided by Gen Art

L.A. Fashion Week opened with a sustainable bang on Thursday, October 9th as Gen Art presented Fashionably Natural, an exclusive runway show featuring the city’s largest collection of eco-friendly designers showing their Spring 2009 collections. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal hosted the show, which took place at a transformed Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, CA.

Photo credit: Edun

Attention, Edun fans: The socially and environmentally conscious fashion label will be setting up temporary shop in San Francisco and Los Angeles to showcase its Fall/Winter 2008 collection, which we first featured on TreeHugger in February.