Earth

COSTA MESA — It wasn't until the artist Bigfoot described the mural he's making for Hurley's )( Space Gallery that his pieces revealed new meaning. "There are seven main guys, and they're all emerging from behind trees and stuff," he said. "The tallest character is blocking the road where a truck and a bulldozer are trying to get in. " Is he making an environmental statement? "Maybe," Bigfoot said, laughing it off. The mural, which he was working on during the interview, will debut at the )

Two avid cyclists and members of Transition Laguna's Mobility Group are finding ways to make biking around town feasible for more Lagunans. Residents Michael Hoag and Les Miklosy recently adopted the "bicycle recycle plan" from green cities around world; they repair and refurbish unwanted bikes and then donate them to people who want them. "Our goal is to solve the transportation problem in a town that is automobile-centric," Miklosy said. "We are repairing these bikes to encourage people to ride them."

A year ago, about this time, I was invited to join an Earth Day celebration at the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center, which is tucked into a bluff overlooking the north end of Newport Beach’s Back Bay. I went, enjoyed it and I’ll return Sunday to share the 2010 version. It will have more meaning to me because, in the intervening year, I have learned a lot of history about Earth Day, which, a year ago, would have made my decision to attend easier. What I learned starts about four decades ago when a U.S. senator from Wisconsin named Gaylord Nelson set out on a mission.

Students marveled at electric cars on the lawn outside the Robert B. Moore Theatre on Wednesday after listening to a two-hour lecture on the dangers of the amount of plastic amassing in the Pacific Ocean. Dubbed “Green Coast Day,” Charles Moore, a Long Beach ship captain, talked to 300 students inside the theater, explaining how the Pacific has become a depository for millions of tons of plastic due to the prevailing clockwise atmospheric currents that continually swirl around trash with no end in sight.

I am predicting an excellent weekend to be on the water, with only a very slight chance of rain this morning. The skies will clear up with sunshine and the air temperatures will reach the mid-70s. The swell heights are dropping and the swells at Point Conception are anticipated to be less than 8 feet, and not building until Monday. My advice is get out on the water, but expect foggy conditions in the mornings due to the warming air temperatures along the coast. I received a few e-mails from last week’s column about the curvature of the Earth and why the curvature would affect boaters, besides just not being able to see something over the horizon.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher recently penned a letter of praise to Russian scientists working to protect Earth from gigantic asteroids hurtling through space. In a letter to Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Space Agency, Rohrabacher extolled Russia for taking steps to prevent the giant Asteroid Apophis from colliding with Earth. The congressman also vowed to try and forge a partnership between Russian and U.S. scientists. “Asteroids nearly destroyed life on Earth more than once and it would be foolish and irresponsible for America to cede our responsibility on this critical threat to all of humanity,” Rohrabacher wrote.

Let me fill Joseph N. Bell?s ?thimble? of scientific knowledge to overflowing with some real scientific facts (?Motives degrade debate,? Dec. 17). According to Bell, anyone who doesn?t fall in lock-step behind his chosen selection of ?scientists? is a global warming denier akin to a holocaust denier. What a crock! The Earth has been cooling for 10 years or so. The planet?s climate changes constantly ? always has, always will. There have been six ice ages in the last 2 million years, where the level of the seas has fallen 300 feet or more in the glacial period and then have risen 300 feet again in the inevitable warming period that always follows.

Raising four kids, all less than 11 years old, is a full-time job for Costa Mesa mother Amy Palmerton, but she would rather use that as a catalyst for getting involved in charitable work than an excuse not to. Palmerton is one of a group of 20 to 40 local moms who used to get together every week so that their toddlers could run around and play at parks. They mostly met through their church, Rock Harbor, in Costa Mesa. Then, in 2008, one of the moms, Justina Erre, decided that it would be good example to spend the time they usually spent watching their kids play to set up a table at Wilson Park and distribute food and water to the needy.

Walt Disney was once known for producing beautiful nature films starring real animals instead of their cartoon counterparts. “Earth” is a welcome return to the grand documentary style he pioneered in the 1950s with “The Living Desert.” Modern cinematography and satellite images magnify the stunning visuals in this first-rate production. “Earth” begins with dazzling views of Earth from space. Starting near the North Pole, it focuses first on a family of polar bears living on the edge of the melting arctic ice cap. Moving south, the everyday lives of creatures great and small are revealed in fascinating detail all across the planet.