Archive for the ‘Community Building’ Category
HOW TO SPARK A CLIMATE REVOLUTION – A Conversation with Climate Scientist Dr. Peter Kalmus
Posted May 24, 2021
on:The San Fernando Valley chapter of the Climate Reality Project is very pleased to host, as our June 2021 Featured Speaker, Dr. Peter Kalmus.
Dr. Peter Kalmus is a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. He uses satellite data and models to study the rapidly changing Earth, focusing on biodiversity forecasting, clouds, and severe weather. He has also spent many years becoming an advocate for a fossil-fuel free society.
Dr. Kalmus’s award-winning book “Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution” offers real-life solutions to help you move away from a consumerist lifestyle.
“Changing our lives shifts the culture and creates space for collective action.
Together, let’s explore a more meaningful life–without all the fossil fuel!” — Peter Kalmus
In his book Dr. Kalmus outlines a series of doable steps that anyone can adopt to bring us all closer to a sustainable society. Join us on Tuesday, June 8, 2021, 7PM PDT, for a free Zoom gathering where you can ask Dr. Kalmus your questions about sustainable living.
“I know I can change the world, indeed, I am changing the world. What I can’t do is save it. That I have limits is a fact, and I accept it. I don’t expect my changes to have a big impact. … If what I do has impact, I know this impact arises only from an existing resonance, a resonance that grows through interacting with many other people in turn. We are like water molecules in a wave: we simultaneously transmit the wave and are moved by it. No one molecule causes the wave, but together an enormous number of water molecules carry the wave. It’s all of us together, carried by a resonance, that will affect great change.” -Peter Kalmus
The scientific community tells us we have already passed the Climate Change tipping point. It is critical for each of us to travel our own path to that place where, together, we can carry our dream of a healthy society into the wave of the future.
SFV Climate Reality Project Chapter Meeting
Tuesday, June 8, 2021; 7:00 pm PDT
The International Indigenous Youth Council Offers Their Thoughts on Sustainability
Posted April 5, 2021
on:Mark your calendar for the next meeting of
Tuesday April 13, 7-8:30 pm
We are honored to create space to hear voices of local International Indigenous Youth Council members. The International Indigenous Youth Council seeks to organize youth through education, spiritual practices and civic engagement to create positive change in our communities.
“Through action and ceremony, the IIYC commits to building a sustainable future for the next seven generations. We look forward to sowing seeds of mutual aid and solidarity.”
Register now at bit.ly/SFVCR

Noseworthy; A Memoir
Posted September 4, 2020
on:Would a heaping dose of hope-in-the-future help you right now? How about someone in your circles who might be looking for some inspiration?
A whole lot of us are finding just that in a newly published book from my dear friend Barbara Caplan-Bennett. If you have been feeling the weight of all the crises happening in our world, if you are not sure how to find hope in the face of your daily struggles, this is a book worth your time.
Check it out for yourself and then please help spread the word.
NOSEWORTHY, A Memoir
“Noseworthy is a memoir about a woman who faced a difficult choice when diagnosed with melanoma — lose her entire nose or very possibly lose her life. Her year long journey to obtain a prosthetic nose is filled with big challenges and small victories.”
This is a real-life story of courage in the face of great trauma (or as Barbara likes to call it, “the shit show”) and, ultimately a triumph over a life-changing course of inescapable events. Barbara has been a bright spot in my life for many years. I have always been awed by her ability to keep smiling through the tears and to welcome whatever life throws at her.
I watched her face this battle and come out on the other side with her moxie, her sense of humor, and her love of life still intact. As a writer she has a natural gift for making her readers comfortable and the skill to tell her stories in her very authentic, likable, honest voice.
To Order an Autographed Copy — Email Noseworthy2020@gmail.com
Venmo, PayPal, credit cards Accepted
Also available on Amazon — bit.ly/NoseworthyBarbara
The Unknown Hero and the Stubborn Dragon
Posted by: Tara Sitser on: May 14, 2012
John and his wife, Judy Glass, are well-known in the progressive community in Los Angeles. They are, and she will still be, staunch supporters of organizations that work for peace and social justice. John’s central cause for the past handful of years was the single-payer health care movement. He believed that health care is a right, not a priviledge, and should be available to everyone without the constraints of a particular employer or the limitations of insurance companies dictating what doctors can provide based on their own self-serving priorities.
I have known John for almost 40 years. He was a giver from the word “go” and never stopped focusing on making the world a better place for us all. Throughout his career John was a sociologist, a professor, a volunteer coordinator for non-profit organizations, a therapist, a published author and a friend to the working man. Every choice he made was in the service of others and with the true intention of helping and healing the world and the human heart.
Talk to anyone who knew John and practically the first thing they will recall is his enthusiasm about the social causes and political candidates he supported. He always carried fliers with him for whatever rally or event was coming up and would invariably offer the fliers to whoever was within earshot with a bold statement encouraging his audience to attend. Show up! Make your voice heard! Make a difference!
John died Tuesday night, May 9, 2012, at the age of 76, after a week-long battle with pneumonia and a lifetime battle against the dragons that seek to diminish the individual spirit. He will be missed by many and our work to regain the dignity of the common man will be made harder for his absence.
Of all the responses we received to our announcement of John’s death this was the one that hit me the hardest and is, I believe, the perfect statement of how John’s life affected the world in which he lived:
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