chaparral Archive

Featured Stories

• Defensible Space: My Wildfire-Appropriate Retrofit Journey – Part I
  Posted on November 16, 2018 | 1 Comment

  As the Western U.S. continues with massive wind-driven, high-intensity wildfires that often turn deadly, Naomi Pitcairn recommends retrofitting homes on the Wildland Urban Interface for fire-resistant resiliency. This is Part I of a three-part series.

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• KXL Blocked – How Indigenous People Will End Tar Sands Pipelines
  Posted on November 12, 2018 | 1 Comment

  A federal judge blocked the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline in November 2018, saying the Trump administration’s justification for approving it last year was "incomplete," meaning it vacated for political effect the requirements of environmental law in the US. Idle No More and AIM leader Lydia Ponce reflects on her visits to the camps challenging tar sands pipelines to protect Mother Earth and Indigenous sovereignty.

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• Mythological Journey to the Aztec Underworld
  Posted on October 10, 2018 | 1 Comment

  In Aztec cosmology, the soul's journey to the Underworld after death leaves them with four destinations: the Sacred Orchard of the Gods, the Place of Darkness, the Kingdom of the Sun, and a paradise called the Mansion of the Moon. The most common deaths end up on their way to Mictlán with its nine levels, crashing mountains and rushing rivers, and four years of struggle. This pantheon of gods and goddesses and the expanse of the 13 Heavens provides the cultural basis for the Day of the Dead customs and celebrations.

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• Confronting Wildfire: Retrofit Communities, Not Forests
  Posted on September 17, 2018 | 1 Comment

  As California continues with massive wind-driven, high-intensity wildfires that often turn deadly, the governmental and institutional response has been to thin forests and "grind up vegetation" to fight fires. Naomi Pitcairn points to a movement by plant community and wildfire experts led by the Richard Halsey of the Chaparral Institute to focus on protecting vulnerable communities rather than trying to control nature, which now faces extreme heatwaves and droughts from an unpredictable greenhouse-gas-warmed climate.

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• San Onofre Nuclear Waste Dangers Compound
  Posted on September 4, 2018 | No Comments

  Since it was closed for safety violastions in 2012, the dangers of San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS) between Orange County and San Diego have only continued to loom. Listen to this EcoJustice Radio interview with activists from Public Watchdogs explain how the nuclear waste being buried on the beach poses serious dangers to California.

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• Waste Colonization, Plastic Pollution and the Pacific Gyre
  Posted on August 27, 2018 | 1 Comment

  How do we confront the swirling gyres of plastic pollution dumped into our oceans? EcoJustice Radio on KPFK-Los Angeles examines the social and environmental implications of wasted resources, and follow two interrelated approaches to solving the problem from an indigenous woman doing exemplary work in New Zealand and an LA-based plastics pollution fighter who built a raft made of plastic junk and crossed the Pacific.

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• Rise for Climate Los Angeles: September 8
  Posted on August 22, 2018 | No Comments

  On September 8, the international Rise for Climate Day of Action is bringing people together for Climate, Jobs, and Justice, calling on governments, corporations, and organizations to initiate aggressive action on climate change, protect frontline communities, and create good jobs in the clean energy economy. Join us to Rise Together in Los Angeles on Saturday, September 8, in solidarity with events in San Francisco and around the globe that same day.

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• San Onofre Beach as Permanent Nuclear Waste Dump
  Posted on August 7, 2018 | 2 Comments

  According to a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chief, the beach in front of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station could become a permanent nuclear waste dump. Learn why Edison's program of storing deadly nuclear waste on the beach is not a "temporary" plan. And cartoonist Jerry Collamer weighs in.

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• The Underworld, Rebirth and Renewal with Ceres and Proserpina
  Posted on June 29, 2018 | No Comments

  In ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. The following myth tells how her daughter Proserpina was abducted by the ruler of the underworld, forced to become his wife, but with Ceres' help, she watches over the springtime growth of crops and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth or renewal.

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• Cinematic Cultural Change in West Africa with Idrissa Ouédraogo
  Posted on June 3, 2018 | 1 Comment

  Idrissa Ouédraogo, whose simple, carefully observed movies about cultural change in Burkina Faso and elsewhere in Africa, brought him international acclaim and a top award at the Cannes International Film Festival, recently died. We share his first film, Yam Daabo (The Choice) about a family facing famine in the Sahel.

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