November 2007 Archives

The Santa Ana River flows in the San Bernardino National Forest Tuesday near Seven Oaks, north of Barton Flats, off Highway 38. (Stan Lim/The Press-Enterprise)

We're on tap for a bit of a chilly weekend after this rainy day, perfect for clearing the air to go hiking and getting out and about ... or going mountain biking where this photo was taken, much like the photographer himself has done before.

In fact there's a mountain biking class this Saturday at REI in Rancho Cucamonga. And there's lots of birding activities this weekend, starting Saturday at some San Jacinto wetlands generally not open to the public. There, you'll be expected to see up to 120 bird species, including the white-faced ibis, great egrets and Canadian geese. Click here for all the details of the event by Eastern Municipal Water District and the San Bernadino Valley Audubon Society.

And on Sunday morning, you can join a beginning bird walk with the local Audubon chapter at the San Jacinto Wildlife Area to see waterfowl, shorebirds and raptors. You can learn enough basic birding techniques and identification skills to feel comfortable birding on your own or joining the group's longer birding trips throughout the year.

Later Sunday, you can go inside the San Bernardino County Museum for free, and catch a 2 p.m. lecture on evolutionary history by the geology curator, J. Chris Sagebiel. "The Tree of Life" lecture will present an overview of an exhibit currently planned for the new Hall of Geological Wonders. "Reptiles are no longer a scientific classification. Birds are dinosaurs. We ourselves are viewed as highly specialized fish," Sagebiel says. "Elephants are more closely related to tiny elephant shrews than to almost any other living thing. What has caused scientists to see things in this new light? What do we do with this information?" Sounds like an intriguing talk.

And if you just want to stay in the cozy confines of home, you can checkout the San Diego Zoo’s 17-week-old giant panda cub on the Internet. She has taken her first steps and received the last in a series of vaccinations to protect the cub from disease. But more importantly she's been named! She is now Zhen Zhen (pronounced jun jun), which means precious.

Penny Newman, far right, joins two other residents to put up their own signs after they learned the Stringfellow acid pits were leaking. May 21, 1983. (Fred Bauman/The Press-Enterprise)

It may seem like it was just yesterday when Penny Newman and others in the northwestern Riverside County community of Glen Avon rose up to get the state to clean up the Stringfellow acid pits. Now they are getting ready to celebrate their 30 years of raising heck. Well, they have a stronger word for it, but you get my meaning.

The Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice is holding a celebration and fund-raiser next Thursday in Riverside. To view the details of the $40-a-plate event, click here.

Known as CCAEJ, the group with Newman at the helm has become vocal in several environmental issues in the Inland region -- from perchlorate-tainted groundwater to the proliferation of warehouses that attract diesel-spewing trucks, just to name a few -- and now has offices in San Bernardino and Indio.

And at the acid pits, the region's most notorious Superfund site, a clean up of all the hazardous materials that soaked into groundwater continues today and could go on for many years to come.

A tricolored blackbird (Dave Menke/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

Members of the two groups said this morning in a teleconference with reporters that the largest threats to the birds are global warming and habitat loss. They said that by planting native plants in your own back yard, people can help by creating habitat for some of the birds.

The WatchList also includes the most imperiled of the imperiled. They include the tricolored blackbird, a species that sometimes nests in the San Jacinto Valley. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a year ago denied federal protection for the tricolored blackbird but in September announced a conservation agreement with environmental groups aimed at helping the species.

The decline of tricolored blackbirds in California, once one of the most common species, has gone hand-in-hand with the loss of 90 percent of the state's wetlands, their main nesting grounds, to development or farmland. Some birds have adapted to building nests in silage crops at dairies, but they can be chewed up by harvesting machines before the chicks can leave the nest.

A flock of tricolored blackbirds landed more than a year ago at a dairy in the San Jacinto Valley instead of the nearby San Jacinto Wildlife Area. Audubon California and the Inland chapter paid a dairy farmer $13,000 to delay harvesting by a month. Developer and landowner groups later reimbursed Audubon.

Ali Sahabi stands on the bamboo-covered bridge at Dos Lagos. (Silvia Flores/The Press-Enterprise)

A tribal chairman from the Inland region will be the latest speaker to take part in an ongoing lecture series held at Dos Lagos in south Corona. Robert Martin, the tribal chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, will talk about "Transition from Blight to Might: Social Impact of an Evolving Society" in the free lecture this Wednesday night.

Martin's tribe near Banning is 1,000-members strong, and you probably recognize the tribe's tall hotel-casino-spa every time you drive through the San Gorgonio Pass. As chairman, Martin has worked with city, county, state and federal lawmakers on environmental, transportation, land and water issues.

And speaking of Dos Lagos, its developer Ali Sahabi was among 18 people, foundations and businesses statewide honored by Gov. Schwarzenegger last week for their commitment to integrate environmental values and conservation into their businesses and facilities.

“This honor recognizes our commitment to developing communities that are socially responsible, environmentally sensitive and economically viable,” Sahabi said in a statement. “It is humbling, as a corporation, to be rewarded for doing something so intrinsic to our values.”

And speaking of Sahabi, the subsidiary of his SE Corporation earlier this month became the first real estate developer to join the California Climate Action Registry. Temescal Canyon Properties 8, LLC, was the company that developed an old mining pit into the 543-acre, mixed-use community of Dos Lagos. The registry is made up of groups that voluntarily track, report and certify their emissions of greenhouse gases, which cause global warming.

Sahabi also established the nonprofit GIVE, or the Green Institute for Village Empowerment, in 2006 to build sustainable communities through education, research and initiatives. That brings us back to the beginning. That's the group that's sponsoring Wednesday's talk.

Newell Rubbermaid's new 407,412-square-foot West Coast distribution facility, shown here in October, is part of what will be an 8,500-acre transportation hub in Victorville, delivering shipments by truck, rail and air. It is at the Southern California Logistics Airport, the former George Air Force base.

Dozens of Inland activists are heading west this Friday to attend a two-day conference looking at the impacts of trade, ports and the good movements, something we know a lot about here in the Inland region.

We know about that here because we often have to sit at railroad crossings while cargo-hauling trains inch by, and we see all the freeway-close warehouses where the trucks drop off the goods. Activists here don't like the added pollution the trucks and trains bring to an area already suffering from some of the nation's worst air pollution.

So some 65 folks from our area will be going to the "Moving Forward" conference in Carson, said Josie Gaytan, a community organizer with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, an Inland group based in Glen Avon. The conference is sponsored by a collaboration known as The Trade, Health & Environment Impact Project, which the Glen Avon group is part of.

With talk of a possible "Inland port" which would bring more train traffic here to warehouses where goods from the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports would be sorted, activists are more concerned. Phil Pitchford, our transportation writer and blogger, wrote a story earlier this year in which experts somewhat dismissed that idea but said it still could work using a group of smaller facilities sprinkled around the two Inland counties.

One of the goals of The Impact Project is to ensure that talk about reducing health, environmental and community impacts is not lost when folks are developing policies about and planning for transportation and goods movement.

Bicycle riders travel on the the Santa Ana River Trail near Martha McLean-Anza Narrows Regional Park in Riverside. (David Bauman)

Now that we are all suffering from a turkey or tofurkey hangover, I thought I'd turn your attention to some exercise opportunities this weekend by bringing you up to speed on the Santa Ana River Trail. That is indeed one of our most accessible out and about destinations.

You can now ride 19 continuous miles between Waterman Avenue in San Bernardino to the city limits of Norco, according to Patricia Lock-Dawson. She's the chief strategist for the Santa Ana River Parkway Partnership. She said the city and county of Riverside have completed different segments at Hidden Valley Wildlife Area, a county park, and at Hole Lake, in the city. Official types will be gathering Dec. 8 at the wildlife area to mark the occassion and the public is invited to that weekend event. Click here for details.

And the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors this week approved a $675,152 contract with a company to develop plans to build a segment of the trail from California Street in Redlands north to Greenspot Road in Highland. Thanks to our reporter Imran Ghori for that info.

And a heads-up for next weekend -- if you've ever wondered how the Wonderland of Rocks at Joshua Tree National Park came into being, you can take an outdoor class with naturalist Mark Wheeler, who will lead participants Dec. 2 on an investigation of the area's ecology and geology. Cost is $50. The class involves rock scrambling and walking up to eight miles through rocky terrain. Sounds good to me!

Also sponsored by the Desert Institute, is a two-day class that same weekend on the life and culture of the ancient peoples who lived in J-Tree National Park. BLM anthropologist Wanda Raschkow will focus on the prehistory and history of the Colorado Desert, which sits at a lower elevation than its northern neighbor, the Mojave Desert. Cost is $90.

A satellite image shows that a La Niña weather pattern has been slowly strengthening in the Pacific Ocean for the past nine months. The blue area indicates cold water, which brings less rain and moisture to Southern California. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

You may have noticed articles over the last few days about an impending 30 percent water cutback to western Riverside County farmers. When I was interviewing an official at one of the Inland agencies affected by it, he said didn't think the public at large understands the depth of the drought and other issues affecting the Inland area's water supply. Do you agree with him?

So far, water agencies have asked for voluntary cutbacks, but say there might be mandatory cutbacks coming next year to homes and businesses, especially if the dry La Nina weather brings another low rain season this winter. Perris-based Eastern Municipal Water District has asked for a voluntary 10 percent cutback of its residential and business customers, and the agency launched a challenge to save 20 gallons a day. You can see their ideas to save water by clicking here. But does it have to be mandatory before anyone pays attention?

As for my own home, we've been doing what my dentist suggested we all do in our homes. You may recall what he said in an earlier post and what "mountain girl" said was a longtime practice in the mountain towns. "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down." You get my drift.

As the biggest shopping day of the year approaches us on Friday, when the holiday gift-buying frenzy begins, I thought I'd let you know about The Rev. Billy. You may already have heard of him, he's in the new movie, "What Would Jesus Buy?"

(Associated Press/Jeff Chiu) Shoppers search through purses on sale at Macy's in San Francisco, the day after Thanksgiving last year.

It's a very interesting question. And if you ask The Rev. Billy, he would say buy nothing. He's more apt to convince you to "spend" time with your family and loved ones than actually buy anything. He and his choir from the "Church of Stop Shopping" go around to malls and big box stores pleading with shoppers to stop the insanity. They are based in New York City.

Check out what he says on his Web site. "Consumerism is overwhelming our lives. The corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, 'commons' places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. But if we "back away from the product" - even a little bit, well then we Put The Odd Back In God! The supermodels fly away and we're left with our original sensuality."

For the past few years, there's been a growing movement in some religious groups to become active in environmental issues, believing they must care for God's creation. Even though he is a mock reverend, The Rev. Billy's plea to stop shopping harkens back to the real meaning of the holidays, spending time together. The message also goes along way toward reducing the amount of packaging that ends up in landfills, the gas-guzzling transportation of all the goods, etc.

I first heard of the Rev. Billy on Marketplace Money. And according to the radio show's Web site, we as a nation will spend half a trillion dollars on Christmas this year and create 5 million tons of extra waste.For further reading, Moneyplace has a special project airing on consumerism, and it's fascinating stuff.

As for The Rev. Billy, he's calling this Friday "Buy Nothing Day."

The newly identified brodiaea santarosae species. (Wayne Armstrong/Special to the Press-Enterprise)

In case you missed it in the newspaper this morning, Tom Chester, et al, have achieved the "Holy Grail of Botany" by finding a new species in our very own back yard. The lilac flower was found at the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve near Murrieta. The brodiaea santarosae species is estimated to be about 5 million years old. You can read all about it by clicking here.

And you may have recalled a couple months ago my mentioning a certain University of Redlands professor who may just have the best job ever. Well, that prof, Tyler Nordgren, is speaking to the Sierra Club tomorrow night in Upland about what ordinary people and national parks can do to protect an invaluable natural, scientific and cultural resource.

That resource? The night sky and the Milky Way's glowing band of awe. Click here for more info about the free event. Nordgren is on a break right now from taking the better part of a year to travel to some of the nation's national parks looking at the night sky. Like I said, the best job ever.

Clouds gather and dwarf the cross atop Mt. Rubidoux one late afternoon this past Aug. 31. (The Press-Enterprise/kurt miller)

Barneys in New York may be going green with new eco-chic clothing lines, but here in the Inland region, we have our own "green" department store. Macy's today is celebrating the completion of its solar-powered electrical system at its Moreno Valley store. I don't often talk about shopping in the out and about column because I'd rather be outside then inside a mall. But, heck, we all have to go shopping once in a while.

A chapter of the Sierra Club in California is celebrating its 25th birthday today as many of its aging members are wondering if younger activists will step forward to lead the group in coming years. I wonder if that's the same here in the Inland region. The San Gorgonio chapter of the Sierra Club is named for our tallest peak in the Inland region. You can click here to see the many hikes the chapter organizes.

I once wrote a story about Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside for the paper's Outdoor page and called it Mount Playground. That's because you can hike, bike or rock climb there. And on Saturday morning, the climbing group known as the Access Fund will be hosting a clean-up there. Click the above link to see how to register if you're interested in participating.

And all weekend, starting today, is the 25th annual Wildlife Art Festival at the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands. Prominent wildlife artists will exhibit their paintings, sculptures, carvings, and limited edition prints. This year, Lee Kromschroeder from Escondido will present “Running the Spit.” Signed limited edition prints along with the original painting will be highlighted at the festival.

On Sunday, the local Audubon chapter is hosting a field trip in in the northern San Jacinto Valley, where the goal will be to see 100 bird species. Click here for details.

A view of Torres del Paine National Park and the Grey Glacier falling into the Grey lake is seen in Chile on Nov. 10. According to Greenpeace, the glaciers of Patagonia are some of the fastest retreating glaciers on Earth due to global warming. (Associated Press/Roberto Candia)

The international body of scientists that recently won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore is about to release its fourth and final report on global warming this year. The so-called "Synthesis Report" from the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change is expected to sum up the three previous reports and highlight tools and technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

At least one report from AFP is saying the ideas to reduce emissions could be outdated. I guess we'll find out as news trickles out of the Spanish port city of Valencia where the scientists have gathered.

And here in Southern California, Senators Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have agreed to appear at a forum focused on global warming and America's energy future. The Nov. 17 forum in West Los Angeles is sponsored by Grist in partnership with the California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, NRDC Action Fund, and other groups. And did you catch the latest story of when Clinton was caught having scripted a question about global warming during a campaign stop in Iowa?

And speaking of presidential candidates and in the realm of "is he or isn't he?" here is what Al Gore had to say about increased speculation that he would join the race for the White House. "I have no plans to be a candidate again," Gore said. "I'm not ruling out participation in the process sometime in the future."

What do you think: should he or shouldn't he?

----

To see coverage of that global warming forum, click here.
To see coverage of the IPCC report, click here.

Kelly Clemens places groceries, bagged in reusable cloth bags, in her hybrid vehicle outside a Whole Foods Market grocery store in Providence, R.I. (Associated Press)

It's America Recycles Day tomorrow, so I took a moment to ask one of our local experts -- what is the one thing we can do in that arena? Turns out it's using your canvas shopping bag, according to Olivia Sanchez, program manager for Zero Waste Communities, a coalition of 16 cities in San Bernardino County and the county itself.

But I had to admit to her that although I have a few canvas totes myself, I often forget to bring them along on shopping trips. So I asked for some tips to share:

1. Keep it in your car and visible. If you put it in the glove compartment, she said, it's out of sight, out of mind.

2. Attach your club card to it. You want to make sure to get those discounts so you'll be sure to grab it and your tote at the same time. Some of the smaller club cards even have hole punches, making it easy to tie them to the bag.

Sanchez also said that not all curbside recycling can properly recycle plastic grocery bags. She said it's actually better to bring them back to the store for recycling.

If not disposed of properly, the plastic bags choke up waterways, end up in storm drains and become a blight when they are simply tossed out into the environment, she said.

There are more plastic bags out there than you think, she said. So I checked the numbers. They are staggering. Just in California, residents use more than 19 billion plastic grocery bags each year, creating 147,038 tons of waste in the landfills. And more than 600 bags per second are thrown out. That's according to the lawmaker who crafted legislation that went into effect this past summer. And that same law is the reason we're seeing more reusable bags for sale in the grocery stores.

Along the same lines, the state just launched a recycling Web site geared toward kids. Click here for that. If anyone else has some tips, post a comment here.

Skier Julian Carr takes flight in the new Warren Miller film, "Playground." (Will Wissman)

Warren Miller, the veteran filmmaker of extreme winter sports, has a new film out. Aptly called "Playground," the film features extreme skiing and boarding in winter playgrounds from Sweden to Canada, Alaska to Japan and even an unlikely winter sports hub in the Arabian Desert. It's out in limited release now but will be screened here in the Inland region this week to raise money for a nonprofit. In fact, it's one of two benefits slated for the region this week for environmentally related issues.

REI in Rancho Cucamonga and the city are hosting the screening of "Playground." All proceeds from the $15 tickets go to the Bobby G. Vega Foundation, started by the San Bernardino parks and rec commissioner of the same name. The nonprofit foundation is dedicated to helping fund outdoor youth programs in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, among other programs for at-risk kids.

And in Joshua Tree on Friday night ... there will be a benefit performance of “Backstreet to Broadway: One Singer’s Walking Tour” at the Hi-Desert Cultural Center’s Blak Box Theater. The cabaret show stars New York stage veteran Pamela Galvin.

Organizers say a significant portion of the $25 tickets will benefit the California Desert Coalition’s campaign aimed at stopping the Green Path North project. The project calls for building utility towers and power lines across desert preserves in Yucca Valley and the Morongo Basin. The coalition is an advisory committee of the Mojave Desert Land Trust.

A view from the Cougar Crest Trail shows Big Bear Lake and San Bernardino Peak (Allen Riedel/Special to The Press-Enterprise)

Big Bear Lake could become the latest Inland city to sign on to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. The mountain hamlet is looking for public input by Dec. 1 before signing the agreement. You can click here to find out how to do that.

If you recall, a handful of Inland cities have already pledged to do their part to stem the tide of greenhouse gas emissions. They include Riverside, Chino, San Bernardino, Yucaipa and Hemet. And at this month's meeting of mayors in Seattle, Redlands mayor Jon Harrison wore a button saying he signed it.

The effort among the nation's mayors began with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels a few years back when nine mayors -- mostly from "green" cities such as Portland, Ore.; Boulder, Colo.; and Santa Monica -- signed an invitation to the rest of the nation's mayors to join them in reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Since then, more than 500 mayors have signed on, many with the backing of their city councils.

Mayors who sign the pact agree to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 -- the same target set in the 2005 Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that the United States has refused to join.

The pact recommends conducting an inventory of global warming emissions, adopting land-use policies that reduce sprawl and preserve open space, creating walkable urban communities and promoting bike trails and car pooling. California Attorney General Jerry Brown was in Riverside last week, and made similar recommendations to leaders of western Riverside County.

Dark clouds rolls over Lake Elsinore as a bee lands on a flower in a photo taken in summer of 2006. (The Press-Enterprise/Ed Crisostomo)

Forecasters are calling for some rain this weekend but I'm sure that's never stopped many of you from getting out and about. But if you also want to know about some cool indoor happenings this weekend, keep reading.

And if you want to have a little fun with your computer this weekend, you can help name the Giant Panda cub at the San Diego Zoo. There are four names to choose from, but you need to case your vote by Sunday. Check them out here.

There are two more plant sales on Saturday to get those hard-to-find native and/or drought-tolerant plants. In downtown Riverside at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum, the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society will host its annual sale from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

And at the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve near Murrieta, a plant sale will benefit the Team Stream volunteer group in its restoration efforts in oak woodlands and riparian areas. Plants for sale are drought tolerant and those that protect homes from fire, according to Carole Bell, the reserve's manager. And the first 50 people purchasing plants will receive a free garden tote bag!

The San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands will celebrate National Chemistry Week on Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. Students from the Chemistry Club students at California State University, San Bernardino, will help visitors to see chemistry in action.

Also on Saturday, Museum Director Robert McKernan will present a lecture on waterfowl and wetlands, which will focus on the relationship of duck stamps to wetlands conservation. Revenue generated from the sale of duck stamps to licensed waterfowl hunters is the single largest source of revenue for the purchase and conservation of wetlands in the United States, according to the museum. This year's top entries for the duck stamp design, a national art competition, will be on display at the museum, Nov. 14 thorugh Dec. 20.

And that reminds me of the story in this month's National Geographic, "Hunters: For the Love of the Land," about the decline of hunters in the U.S. The article makes the case that "the great irony is that many species might not survive at all were it not for hunters trying to kill them." Might make some interesting reading this weekend. If you have any thoughts on the article, post them here.

A blue poison dart frog from South America. (Bert Buxbaum/The Living Desert)

The Living Desert in Palm Desert is taking steps to help reverse the worldwide decline of amphibians. There will be a new exhibit featuring different species of frogs, toads and salamanders from aournd the world. Check out one of them pictured here.

Zoo officials will be holding a press conference today to talk about their effort. Check tomorrow's paper or the Web site for full coverage.

A giant sphere representing the earth is on display at the "Water H20=Life" exhibit now at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The exhibit focuses on the Earth's precious resource, how we use it and what we can be done to make sure there's enough of it. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)

Now you too can act like a reporter and pose questions about the environment to experts from around the world.

The United Nations Environment Programme has started an online feature called Ask UNEP. Each day a new UNEP expert from Saudi Arabia, Canada and other reaches of the globe will provide answers to your questions about environmental projects and issues around the world. The expert-a-day exercise, UNEP officials say, aims to bring the environment into public discourse and create a discussion about the health of the planet and the sustainability of natural resources. One hint to remember, the dates are European style, so if you look at today's session, it says 07-11-2007. That's not July 11, that's today.

And on Thursday, you can catch the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's weekly interactive forum. This week, Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock will discuss how the federal agency measures its performance and finds new ways to deliver environmental results. He will also talk about his blog "Flow of the River." To submit a question now or during the live discussion on Thursday, visit the Ask EPA site.

And if you want to know what happened with the Shadowrock vote in Palm Springs, voters rejected it, as environmental groups had lobbied for. You can get all the details here, and see what the developers say.

A view of downtown San Bernardino on June 21, 2007. (Stan Lim/The Press-Enterprise)

Smog season may be over, but it doesn't mean that air pollution still isn't an issue in the Inland region — or in your house. So I thought I'd let you know that the December issue of Consumer Reports, out on stands today, has come out with its latest tests of air purifiers for the home.

So what was deemed the top-rated portable filter among the 27 tested?

Whirlpool Whispure AP45030S, at $230, followed by the Kenmore Progressive 83202, at $270. The highest-rated models did a better job of cleaning at their lowest, quietest speeds than many others did at their higher, noisier settings, according to Consumer Reports.

If you recall, the state of California recently banned the sale of ozone-generating air purifiers, saying the ozone can irritate lung tissue, cause nausea and aggravate asthma. Consumer Reports echoes that sentiment, saying those that draw air through fabric filters are among the most effective at removing dust and smoke.

And, according to Consumer Reports, studies also suggest that ozone creates other irritants as it reacts with household products such as scented cleaners and air fresheners. Among these irritants are formaldehyde, a carcinogen; and acrolein, a toxic irritant found in cigarette smoke.

Among whole-house air purifiers that don’t produce ozone, the Lennox Healthy Climate HC16 was Consumer Report’s top choice among professionally-installed filter systems; it was also the magazine's Best Buy at $350. The Healthy Climate system uses non-HEPA filtration and emits no ozone.

Attorney General Jerry Brown makes a stop in Riverside this afternoon to talk to Inland city officials about ways they can address global warming.

If you recall, Brown and others sued San Bernardino County earlier this year over its latest general plan, saying the county didn't do enough to address greenhouse gas emissions. Some in the county begged to differ. The case, however, was later settled, and the county agreed to track emissions and create a plan to reduce them. Look for coverage of Brown's visit in tomorrow's newspaper or on the Web site.

And if that's not enough on the subject, an attorney with extensive experience representing public agencies in California will be at UC Riverside on Wednesday to discuss “The Role of Local Governments in Addressing Climate Change." That lecture is from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. in HMNSS 1500. It is free and open to the public. The lecture by Greg Stepanicich is part of the Paul and Diane Garrett Public Policy Lecture series of UCR’s Public Policy Initiative.

Naomi Flores, 7, recently got out and about on Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside. (Carrie Rosema/The Press-Enterprise)

They are forecasting Santa Ana winds to make a return to the Inland region this weekend, so beware of driving out there just in case ... but if you're looking for something to do ...

I've mentioned this one before, but the annual plant sale at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont starts Saturday. It features hard-to-find plants, both native and non-native. Click here for details.

And to be a kid again! With the cooler weather in the Coachella Valley, more events are gearing up at the Living Desert in Palm Desert. Gecko Explorers classes start this Saturday, and will be held most Saturdays through April 5. They say it's the coolest desert junior naturalist club in the desert. Kids will learn about African animals and plants, conservation, insects and desert geology. Daily tuition cost is $28 and it runs from 9 a.m to noon for ages 5-12.

The local Audubon chapter is hosting a beginning bird-watching walk on Sunday at Louis Robidoux Nature Center on the other side of the Santa Ana River from Riverside. They'll be teaching basic birding techniques and identification skills so you can join longer birding trips throughout the year.

And just a note to those hikers, mountain bikers and off-roaders, the Cleveland National Forest has extended the closure of recreational facilities because hotspots still exist and the promise of more winds this weekend. The use of lands, roads, or trails is prohibited. Violators are subject to fines and/or imprisonment.

Something we all have to tackle — what happens to our bodies once we die?

The Live Earth folks put out the question of whether cremation or burial is the greenest way to go. And they got some interesting responses you can check out here.

One person said cremation is bad because it is done with fossil fuels. Another person said burial is the right way to go, but to use only pine boxes or even fast-growing bamboo. Someone said humans pollute their bodies with tons of chemicals and medications, and the burial casket protects the environment and ground water from contamination. Another gave an elaborate description of how to build a burning platform and use cow dung.

I once checked around in the Inland region to see if we had any of the new wave of so-called green cemeteries, and had a hard time finding them. Here's an interesting story about some of those cemeteries in other parts of the state and the country that ran recently in the Sacramento Bee.

But check out a few things folks had to say, and post your own comment here or there on what you think.