Call for Revolution

Change, change, change. All the politicians talk about change. Talk, talk, talk. They only tweak here and nudge there.

We don't need change. We need a revolution!

The State of California is a consumer state: Consume electricity, consume water, consume gas, etc. Homes are built with twigs and stucco and poorly insulated.

I call for a revolution! California needs to be turned on its head and become a self-sustaining state. The following are just a few ideas that could be implemented immediately.

Homes should be built to not require any heat in the winter or cooling in the summer. Electrical outlets should be smart or at least have power on/off switches to cut the waste to plugged in electronics.

We need to change the mentality of consume to conserve. Our water, power, and open space infrastructures are heading for disaster within the next decade.

For example, in Huntington Beach, they are building up the downtown and planning how to build it even more. All their plans are built around more consumption, even as the city struggles to balance the books. Even as Pacific City languishes before their eyes and could even fall into bankruptcy, the city plans on creating more overhead and maintenance.

And what will more buildings bring?: more trash, more crime, more cost. The wind blows nearly everyday and could generate enough electricity to sustain the entire public system, yet the city puts its money into intersection cameras to generate revenue.

With more buildings, Huntington Beach will become just another city with very little that makes it unique or special. If they focused on more open space and connecting parks with paths filled with trees and life, they would indeed create something special. These parks could be designed with self-sustainment in mind and be used to create a revolution in the way all of the United States operates (or at least just the state).

I don’t usually buy fish in the market and I’m a HUGE fan of Commercial Fishing

As a diver, I hunt my own game when I want fish – spoils of the hunt and all that.

So why am I a huge fan of commercial fishing? Because commercial fishing will be extinct by 2048, unless we do something about the way we handle our environment.

In a report, http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-11-02-overfishing-threat_x.htm , done by 14 ecologists and economists, analyzing fish populations for 4 years prior determined that by 2048 ninety percent of the fish and shellfish species that are hauled out of the ocean will be gone! Twenty-nine percent of the fish species have already collapsed (meaning no longer generating sustaining populations). The trend is clear and accelerating.

The plummet in fish populations isn’t just from commercial fishing, it’s from coastal area destruction, dredging of reefs and estuaries, and pollution. If the trend is going to be reversed, it will take cooperation from everyone.

I’m a fan of commercial fishing because I believe that 39 years is within their reality ‘vision’ and since they have the most to lose, might possibly fight the hardest to reverse the trend as soon as possible.