Rocking the boat down the Los Angeles River

As much as I love my adopted city, I still follow the town where I grew up enough to have a label for it, even if I tell my students, "there is a reason the place is called La La Land and it's not just because the initials are L.A."  I'm also interested enough in water for it to have a label, also.  Before this entry, the two categories never intersected.*  With this clip from LinkTV, now they do.

Kayaking the LA: Revitalizing an Urban River

Earth Focus features the film Rock the Boat which follows a controversial kayaking expedition down the partially cemented Los Angeles River, an act of civil disobedience led by satirical writer George Wolfe, whose goal was to have the Environmental Protection Agency declare the river navigable so that it could gain protection under the Clean Water Act. Boating down the LA River became a political movement which lead to changes in federal policy and opened up public access to a long-neglected waterway. With George Wolfe and Thea Mercouffer, film director. Produced in collaboration with the Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital.

This would be a great video to show my students, as it connects federal environmental policy, the built environment, water conservation, outdoor recreation, and an environmental movie together.  As I point out to my students repeatedly, everything is connected to everything else, and this video demonstrates that.  Now, the clip is a little on the long side, but I might be able to pull it off next week as an example of how individuals matter.  I'll keep you all posted.

*They could have in Water wars, Detroit style, plus a programming note, as I compared and contrasted Detroit's water wars with California's, but I don't think I had a "Los Angeles" label at the time.  I'm not going to add one to that entry's labels, either.

China's top six environmental problems

China's air pollution isn't just a problem that is causing trouble with its neighbors, it's a major domestic health issue. It's also only one of six environmental problems the country faces, according to LiveScience.

China's Top 6 Environmental Concerns

China's environmental crises seem to arise on a scale as sweeping and epic as the vast nation itself:

Thousands of dead, bloated pigs floating down the river that supplies Shanghai with its drinking water. Air pollution in Beijing so impenetrable the U.S. Embassy's air quality measuring station can only call it "beyond index." Industrial towns where rates of cancer are so high they're known as "cancer villages."

Compounding these problems is the Chinese government's stony silence about anything that might imperil the country's economic development — including environmental regulation.

But China's increasingly restive population of 1.3 billion people is now starting to demand government action to combat the deadly plagues of pollution and disease that are stalking the 21st century's economic powerhouse.

Follow over the jump for the full listing of all six issues along with recent stories illustrating each one.

Second anniversary of Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown: video tributes

To follow up to last year's video memorial, I commemorate the second anniversary of the event with videos about the event from the last 12 hours of my YouTube subscription feed.  I begin with a local angle from WOOD-TV.

Japan Earthquake: Two Years Later

THERE IS STILL DAMAGE LEFT BEHIND FROM THE DISASTER... NOW TWO YEARS LATER.
WE WANTED TO KNOW HOW JAPAN IS COPING WITH THE AFTERMATH AND HOW FAR THEY'VE COME. JOINING 24 HOUR NEWS 8 FOR SOME INSIGHT IS JOHN PARKER, CHIEF SALES OFFICER FOR AMWAY.

Next, an overview from a more sophisticated international source, Link TV.

3/11, Two Years Later: How is Japan Coping Today? (LinkAsia: 3/8/13)

March 11th marks two years since Japan's devastating triple disaster of a massive earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that left 20,000 people dead or missing. LinkAsia's Toshi Maeda reports from Tokyo on how people in Japan are coping today with the aftermath.

More videos over the jump.