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  • Green Room Membership Required

    Anticipating the New Jayson Haws Album

    → Emily Richards Green Room
  • Do You Have an Intellectual Understanding of Sustainability?

    Posted Yesterday at 10:06 a.m. to AWAKE Community Public | Comment

    We at AWAKE are deepening our awareness of sustainability.  And we are finding there are many folks that want to gain an understanding of the sustainability issues we're facing in our communities, country and globe.  We've learned some frightening facts, but are looking for solutions.  Did you know humanity is devouring its life support system faster than it can replace or 'heal' itself?

    mountaintop removal mining
    Example of Mountaintop Removal Mining in the U.S.

    Ok, let's go wtih a fitness analogy......  Imagine exercising several hours a day, but without giving your muscles time to repair, and barely eating or drinking -- burning fat and muscle faster than your body can replace or nourish itself.  What would happen?  You might start out with muscular injuries, than as that system weakened, skeletal injuries, then perhaps, dehydration, and serious risk to your overall health, and even existence.  Any life-system requires equilibrium between inputs and outputs to endure. 

    What do you know about sustainability?  How can you live  more sustainably? At AWAKE, we're still learning so much in this area -- we've really only begun.  But if you want a place to increase your awareness, may we suggest listening to the words in the song below.  Think of it like musical cliff notes to sustainability :)

    Sustainability (morgantj mix featuring Snowflake)
    Sustainability (morgantj mix featuring Snowflake)
    by ccMixter from Orange Album
     

    We also recommend this highly informative wikipedia page.  And if this learning sparks your awareness enough to want to make a difference, contact us to volunteer!  We'd love your help :)

    Peace.

  • Valhalla Featured Tonight on KPRI's Homegrown Radio Show

    Posted March 6, 2010 at 8:54 p.m. to Emily Richards Public | 7 Responses

    Tune-into KPRI tonight between 9-10p PST to hear Valhalla featured on The HomeGrown Hour with Cathryn Beeks.  The HomeGrown Hour on 102.1 K

    PRI features local artists and Cathryn is a leader in the San Diego music scene.  If you miss the broadcast, I hope to share it with Green Room Listening Lounge members tomorrow!

    homegrown
hour

    The first person to post on this or my other KPRI blogpost, after they hear Valhalla played on KPRI, will receive a free Purple Room membership (you get my entire discography in digital-LP format over the next couple of months!  (That's eleven free albums!)

    Check out a preview of the newly released Valhalla digital-LP while you wait :)

    Peace.....

  • PRESERVE MIRA MESA'S LAST VERNAL POOLS, ENDANGERED FAIRY SHRIMP

    Posted Feb. 27, 2010 at 8 p.m. to AWAKE Community Public | 4 Responses

    SAY GOODBYE TO ONE LAST VERNAL POOL HABITAT?

    The San Diego Unified School District and Mira Mesa Town Council support plowing over one of the last couple of Vernal Pools on the Mesa....to build a new school.  They will spend $30M on one new school, while our six other schools are in desperate need of funding and capital improvements. 

    Salk Site Vernal Pool
    THREATENED VERNAL POOL

    AWAKE is doing a lot of research on the history of Vernal Pools in the area, the Engangered Fairy Shrimp they support, and the other life forms that have been losing their habitat, site by site.  We look forward to sharing it with you, and you can see some photos from our Salk Site visit HERE.

    Interestingly, it is the undeveloped land in a neighborhood that raises its property values.  And children that explore natural habitat have a connection with nature and imagination that paved-and-park-only-kids can miss completely.

    Vernal pool habitat has been severely reduced by urban development in southern California. This fenced pool near Mira Mesa Market Center (San Diego County, CA), is the last remaining of an original complex that contained 67 vernal pools.
    (Photograph by A.G. Vandergast, USGS)

     AWAKE recommends Mira Mesa Town Council and the San Diego Unified School District change their plans for the betterment of all of our elementary children, instead of a small group, by improving our six existing schools instead of building a new one -- and save miillions of public monies too.  And while we're at it, preserve one of the last recovering Vernal Pool Habitats for Endangered Fairy Shrimp we have left.

     

    Email us for more information and to learn how to get involved.

  • Mira Mesa Town Council, Schools - Not Money Smart, Not Green

    Posted Feb. 27, 2010 at 7:20 p.m. to Emily Richards Public | Comment

    DISREGARD FOR MIRA MESA'S MONEY, LIFE & UNDEVEOPED LAND 

    You hear about folks funneling public monies for personal use, but it is weird to experience it in my own backyard, literally.  (Below is a one of our photos of my brother-in-law at a Vernal Pool habitat that will be plowed over by San Diego Unified School District - in my neighborhood.)Jared at Jonas Salk Vernal Pool

    When I learned the Mira Mesa town council supports spending $30M on a new school (we don't need, at all) in my neighborhood.....on top of one of the last Fairy Shrimp habitats on the Mesa, well, I schlupped to a long and boring Town Council Meeting (no wonder people don't pay attention!)

    Although seemingly good folks, these guys are not exactly fresh-thinking-spring chickens. (Nor any of them Filipino, odd, since our town's nickname is Manila Mesa, and for good reason.)  They are certainly anything BUT green.

    After Jason and I shyly expressed our concerns, both financial and environmental, with their proposed $30M Jonas Salk School project.....they actually made fun of us and invited us to a party where they would be 'barequeing fairy shrimp' (they actually said these Horton-Hears-A-Who fragile creatures 'hate our kids'  --  really guys?). 

    Mirsa Mesa Endangered Fairy Shrimp - Due to Loss of Habitat

    There are six schools on our Mesa, and all of them have excess classroom capacity, and are laying off teachers due to budget cuts. They could all use some nice capital improvements too -- like a new computer lab or in-school network, or new lockers for the kids, better (and more environmentally friendly) heating, cooling, electrical and water systems, and more.

    mira mesa census info

    The number of kids in our schools has decreased steadily over the past 10 years, by more than 20%.  Very worst case predictions by the San Diego School District say we might gain back 10% of that population by 2025.  They also say, "It is really difficult to get a new school approved, so we need to build it now just in case our neighborhood ends up growing again."  Seriously guys?

    Why not improve our exising six schools instead? Benefit all our of children instead of just the lucky ones that get to go to Jonas Salks?  Save millions of dollars, now and in the future? And preserve one of the last undeveloped pieces of land, that house the very cool (and terribly endangered) Mira Mesa Fairy Shrimp?

    Hickman Elementary School

    Why not?  Because Sillman Wright and other developers won't be able to add more taxpayer revenue to their income statement over the next five years?  I was most saddened at Sillman Wright's GreenWashing - touting sustainable projects.  If you're plowing under protected land for an endangered species, well, how is that sustainable? 

    I'm going to go bang my head against the wall and lament the ignorance of the citizenry and the corruption of those in power.....and have hope for our future, still!

    Peace.

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