Climate Change

Greer Wylder, the Daily Pilot’s “Best Buys” columnist, will celebrate the launch of her “Green E-zine,” which focuses on environmentally friendly retailers, Wednesday at Mesa restaurant in Costa Mesa. The first issue went live Monday at greersoc.com/bestofoc/ . Wednesday’s party will include a no-host bar and music by deejay Ron “Spider” Entwistle. It starts at 8 p.m. at 725 Baker St. “I am most excited about this Green E-zine because it promotes businesses and individuals who are truly making a difference in Orange County and beyond.

Hundreds of international artists and digerati will converge at the UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts from Dec. 12 to 15 for DAC 09, the Digital Art and Culture conference organized by Simon Penny, UCI Studio Art and Engineering professor and conference director. This is the first time that the international conference, founded in 1998, will take place on the West Coast. The international interdisciplinary conference series involves a variety of fields, including media studies, media art, hyper-textual literature, computer science, cognitive science and human-computer interaction.

  IRVINE, Calif. (Aug. 17, 2009)— As sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiatives continue to grow, the University of California, Irvine Extension announces the availability of several new education offerings designed to provide advanced knowledge specific to this burgeoning field. This fall, a new program—“Specialized Studies in Sustainable Buildings: Renewable Energy Management”—will be introduced; and three new elective courses under the existing Certificate Program in Sustainability Leadership will be offered in response to increases in the demands and complexity of today’s advancing corporate environmental charters.

Costa Mesa Assemblyman Van Tran will be working some late nights, but not for marathon budget negotiations with other legislators. Instead of trying to cut taxes and shrink government, he'll be warming bottles and changing diapers for his first child. Tran's wife, Cyndi, gave birth early Friday to the couple's son. Alexander Thai-Son Tran (the assemblyman says the middle name means "great mountain" in Vietnamese) weighed 6 pounds, 11 ounces and was born two weeks early. Tran said Wednesday being in the delivery room to watch the birth was "a gift from God."

Regarding a recent editorial about the Costa Mesa Senior Center (“Perhaps a new liaison is needed,” Dec. 14), the Costa Mesa Senior Center is without a doubt the most warm and welcoming of the five senior centers in Orange County I have visited. I have worked as a volunteer there for 11 years, taking lessons in cooking, computer, dancing, 55 alive, played Scrabble and bridge, all these by time donated by volunteers. I am presently enjoying a play-reading class. Our director, Aviva Goelman, came in with 44 classes offered, and has doubled that, putting an emphasis on fundraising as we are only one-third supported by the city.

I agree with Jim Righeimer (“$4 a gallon: We did it to ourselves,” May 10) that the recent high gas prices are our own creation. However, after recovering from all the spinning he did in his article, I realized it was not due to any lack of developing and draining our natural resources to the point that we are so dependent on foreign terrorist sponsored oil. We did it with the help of people like his good friend Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,...

Habitat for Humanity breaks ground today This morning marks a new beginning for six low-income families. Officials from Habitat for Humanity of Orange County and the Orange County Technology Collective will break ground on a collaborative project in Costa Mesa that will provide affordable home ownership with increased access to technology. The project will rehabilitate blighted land and transform existing structures that contain hazardous building materials into six safe homes.

UCI’s baseball stadium will be named after former Chancellor Ralph Cicerone tonight. He flew in from Washington, D.C., for the dedication ceremony. Cicerone, who left UCI in 2005 to head the National Academy of Sciences, was instrumental in bringing baseball back to campus after the school disbanded its team during financial hard times in the early 1990s. The university’s team is now the top-ranked program in the country for the fifth week. “This was not a slap-dash thing; it was a commitment to make a first-class program, and I think you can see the results,” Cicerone said.

  Vanguard University’s Students In Free Enterprise to hold Environmental Sustainability Conference Targeting the Orange County business community, the conference features keynote speaker Martin Diedrich, Founder of Kéan Coffee, and focuses on environmental sustainability with an emphasis on innovation and creativity. Costa Mesa, CA – December 16, 2009 – The news from the environmental front seems to constantly be bleak. Sojourner’s Magazine states that due to the effects of climate change, 40 -170 million people are at increased risk of malnutrition and hunger, 200 million people will suffer from ravaging diseases like malaria and fevers, and 100 million will experience the devastating effects of coastal flooding.