Review of Napa-Sonoma fires finds inefficient procedures, California celebrates first Food Waste Prevention Week, and advocacy billboards are making a comeback.
Relocate or rebuild? Wildfire victims consider their options
The Atlas Fire ravaged Northern California five months ago, destroying thousands of homes and killing dozens. Since then, the people who survived but lost their homes have had to make tough decisions about where to live and whether to rebuild. Napa architect Brandon Jorgensen has encountered three types of responses: some who choose to leave the area, others who are rebuilding immediately, and a third group of more deliberate rebuilders.
Jorgensen says the people who are relocating have a variety of reasons not to stick around, including dissatisfaction with insurance payouts and a sense of unease about their recently burnt surroundings:
They're also kind of devastated that the neighborhood that they may have lived in for ten years or longer is not going to be the same for quite a while, and they don't necessarily want to live around that and be reminded of what happened.
The second group, according to Jorgensen, is not only rebuilding quickly, but also recreating their old homes instead of redesigning them in a less flammable manner:
It's more of a reactive type of rebuilding than a responsive type of rebuilding. So if the fire comes through that area again, I would ... believe that their house would be up in flames again.
Meanwhile, the third group is taking its time in order to design resilient houses that stand a better chance of surviving the next fire. This group, which includes some of Jorgensen's clients, are very active in the redesign process, even researching fireproofing strategies. "They are taking control in a more ... research-based manner," Jorgensen says.
Jorgensen supports these efforts with a group he created called "Architecture of Resilience." Through that project, and his work, Jorgensen helps fire survivors plan to rebuild their houses away from natural chimneys, with less exterior wood, utilizing materials and design strategies that are less likely to lead to future ignitions.
Eat your veggies: California launches Food Waste Prevention Week
The average American family wastes about 1,000 pounds of food per year. In drought-prone California, where about half of the country's fruits, vegetables and nuts are grown, that has enormous implications. About 20 percent of the water used to grow food in the state is trashed.
Andrea Spacht is a food waste expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She joined Take Two's A Martinez to talk about California Food Waste Prevention Week.
Why NRDC launched the initiative
It’s a range of partners that are hosting the food waste prevention week, including Governor Jerry Brown, and a large number of state agencie and nonproits around the state. We’re hoping to raise awareness about the need for all of us to get on board.
Food waste is especially problematic in California
Our focus here is on prevention, and that’s the right place to start. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a guide for prioritizing different strategies for managing food waste, and at the very top of that is prevention. We want to make sure food isn’t going to waste in the first plae.
Individuals are the biggest culprits
It’s across the entire food chain. We could be doing better at every stage, but when you break it down, consumers are the bigtest part of the pie – contributing 43% of food weaste in the country. Little behaviors all add up to a huge amount of food -- even more than grocery stores and restaurants combined. There are a lot of us in our households making small changes. It’s just one apple or one leftover meal we decide we don’t really like and it all adds up.
A lot of food waste is learned behavior
It does feel like it’s something that’s becoming a bigger problem. We waste more food now than we did 40 or50 years ago. We're becoming more removed from our food and valuing it less. It’s cheaper than it’s been in the past. Americans spend less on their food than other countries, so all of that contributes to our under valuing.
The Food Recovery Hierarchy
The U.S. EPA has developed this hierarchy on the same model as reduce, reuse recycle, so prevention is focused on reduce. That first layer of management strategies are all about better supply management, better taking stock of the food you already have and using that food rather than buying it. The next layer is about feeding hungry people and making sure surplus food goes to ensure the food is to feed people. The next layer is feeding animals, so we’re trying to ensure that if there are surplus amounts of food that can’t be given to people for various health and safety reasons that those go to feeding animals. And then further down are industrial uses, ensuring that scraps of food go to compost instead of to the landfill. Ultimately we want to keep all food out of landfill.
Food waste prevention strategies
There are a lot of them. Planning your meals in advance with a list, and sticking to that list. Making sure you don’t impulse buy or buy in bulk because it’s a good deal. Buying food you’re going to be using. Shopping your pantry or fridge before going to the store. Making sure you have all the elements of your recipe so that you’re going to follow through and make the best meal you can.
California adds recycled water to your tap
On Tuesday, California's State Water Board adopted a new method to augment the water supply. It plans to add recycled wastewater to reservoirs with something called "indirect potable reuse."
Randy Bernard is the Recycled Water Unit Chief with the California Water Resources Control Board. He joined Take Two's A Martinez to explain the new system for recycling wastewater.
Before this week, the state's Water Board could only add wastewater into the ground, where it is filtered through aquifers.
"This new move is to augment our potable water, which means taking municipal wastewater and mixing that with surface water plants," Bernard said.
The state is already taking on more drought-resilient measures, and this augmentation is just another addition to the effort.
"It will provide more sustainable and drought-sustainable options for our state. We won't have to import so much water from Northern California," Bernard said.
Regarding the "ick" factor of drinking recycled water, Bernard thinks the public will have peace of mind with outreach programs and education from the state.
"The treatment processes are very high-level, very advanced. Our job is to be protective of public health," Bernard said.
Can you make an electric vehicle sound like a Ferrari
Ever Lee Hairston is walking along Sunset Boulevard. Nothing unusual here except she's blind.
"I’m waiting to listen to the pattern of the traffic so I’ll know when it’s safe to move," Hairston said, before starting to cross the street. "I could hear those cars turn, but if it was an electric car, the quiet car, I wouldn’t have heard that at all."
Hairston is president of the California affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind and is one of many sightless people who’ve been advocating for a regulation that will take effect in about two years. Starting in 2020, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will require electric vehicles to include an artificial external sound.
It’s usually a low-grade humming or whirring that plays from an exterior speaker the moment the car’s put in gear. It lasts until the car reaches a speed of about 20 miles per hour. Without it, EVs are silent at low speeds.
And that’s a problem for pedestrians of all kinds, not just the blind. Already, people on foot tend to lose when they step into a street in front of a two-ton vehicle – even one that makes plenty of noise.
"The National Federation of the Blind became concerned about new hybrid and electric vehicles in 2003," said Chris Danielson, public relations director for the NFB. "Several of our members had expressed concern to us."
One of them was Debbie Kent Stein, of Illinois. A friend of hers had gotten a Toyota Prius and was boasting about how quiet it was. So Stein "decided it would be good to do a test," Danielson said. "She positioned herself in front of her house and the plan was for her to wave when her friend drove by in his Prius.”
Her friend drove by once, but Stein didn’t wave. He drove by again, but Stein still didn’t wave.
"And she said, 'Have you started the test yet because I’ve been standing here for several minutes.' And her friend said, 'I’ve been past you about five times.'”
So began the federation’s lobbying efforts, which eventually led to the Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act passed in early 2011 – just a couple months after the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf first came on the market, ushering in the modern EV era.
General Motors has been working on these sorts of artificial external vehicle sounds even before the Toyota Prius came to town. It started with GM’s first modern-day electric, the EV1, way back in the ‘90s.
"When we first began working on our EV1, it became apparent to us that it was important to be able to have some type of pedestrian alert system because the car was so quiet," said Mike Lelli. He’s a vehicle chief engineer with General Motors. "We had a steering wheel stalk that when you pulled the stalk it chirped the horn."
Today, the sound GM uses on its Bolt EV and Volt hybrid electric cars automatically turns on when the EV is put in gear. It turns off when the natural noises of rolling tires and rushing wind generate enough sound.
Unlike the real noise of gas-powered cars, it’s an engineered audio file that plays from a speaker outside the car. The Nissan Leaf has one too. It's called the VSP, or Vehicle Sounds for Pedestrians system.
A word of caution for wannabe EV drivers who dream about customizing the sounds of their cars.
"The law was very clear that we didn’t want to get into a situation where you essentially had ring tones for cars," said Danielson of the National Federation of the Blind. "We felt very strongly that the sounds needed to be identifiable as automobiles."
NHTSA’s upcoming rule for the artificial sounds EVs can emit is pretty limited. And they’re not much like the natural sounds of gas-powered cars. So in the future, LA traffic might sound more like a gentle whir.
Four billboards inside Los Angeles
Life has a funny way of imitating the movies. The Oscar-nominated film "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" tells the story of a woman who rents three billboards and posts messages attacking the local police chief for not solving her daughter's rape and murder.
In Los Angeles, billboards have become the medium of choice for a variety of messages, most of them unrelated to advertising.
Before last weekend's Oscars, three billboards in Hollywood were hijacked with angry messages about harassment in the industry. One of them read, "We all knew and still no arrests."
LA is now the latest to post a billboard to recruit LeBron. Big sign on Westwood Blvd.
— ¡ Deezy ! (@DerekB_PxW)
@ESPNLosAngeles LA is now the latest to post a billboard to recruit LeBron. Big sign on Westwood Blvd. pic.twitter.com/XnR1YqiJxx
— ¡ Deezy ! (@DerekB_PxW) March 7, 2018
Then four roadside ads popped up in L.A. on Wednesday, attempting to lure NBA superstar LeBron James to the Lakers.
The same day, four more billboards cropped up to protest the latest Bachelor, Arie Luyendyk.
Don’t watch the Bachelor but heard what that so called man did. This billboard is going up in Times Square. Love it
— Laura (@baiofour)
Don’t watch the Bachelor but heard what that so called man did. This billboard is going up in Times Square. Love it pic.twitter.com/bi1oIDQywP
— Laura (@baiofour) March 7, 2018
This week, four billboards popped up outside of Palm Springs last week, celebrating tennis star Serena Williams' return to the court. They were rented by her husband.
Those Cute Ads With Serena Williams and Her Baby Are Also Ads for the Billboard Company
— Nooboy (@Nooboy)
Those Cute Ads With Serena Williams and Her Baby Are Also Ads for the Billboard Company https://t.co/OigLJM2SYs pic.twitter.com/Ydfq8ec8FM
— Nic van den Bergh (@nic_vandenbergh) March 3, 2018
To understand why billboards have suddenly become so popular in Southern California, Take Two spoke with Tim Nudd, the creative editor of AdWeek magazine.
The "Three Billboards" effect
That's part of it. We write a lot about billboards at AdWeek. It's a medium that's been under rated lately with so many people focused on digital. People forget how powerful a billboard can be. The movie helped. There's been a lot of parodies, but these LeBron ads were pretty interesting and then the Serena ones too.
The allure of using old-fashioned roadside advertising
In some ways, the Internet has helped billboards because first of all they're quite cheap to buy and they're up for weeks on end, so they become part of the fabric of the city. Now part of the strategy is to photograph them and try to make the photos go viral. If you have a clever idea, you get millions of impressions for a single billboard just by paying a few thousand dollars.
What makes an effective billboard
Simplicity. You can't use too many words. It's dangerous for drivers, for one thing. When you put up a billboard, it's a grand statement. Imagine the guy who wants LeBron to come to L.A. Putting the message on a web site, nobody would care. You're putting up something that's bigger and larger than life. It's a grand gesture, and if the message is simple enough people pay attention and absorb the message.
The best place to put up a billboard in L.A.
If you're up for spending a little more money, the Sunset Strip is still the epicenter particularly for the entertainment industry. They were called vanity boards at one time. L.A. has such a car culture. Almost anywhere in L.A. it will get more eyeballs than usual. Hollywood, downtown LA and along the 405. People have plenty of time to look at them on that highway.
Introducing Kanopy, the streaming service that lets you watch thousands of titles for free
Every month we take a look at what movies or TV shows are deserving of your time. Writer and film buff Mark Jordan Legan is our guide, and usually he highlights great stuff that you should binge watch on the most common platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu, but this time we're doing something a little different.
This week we're highlighting content on a relatively new streaming service called Kanopy. It's an on-demand video service that's unique in that it works with many public libraries around the country, providing a large collection of films and documentaries to students and library patrons for free!
The Los Angeles Public Library is part of this system, so if you have a valid library card, you can access Kanopy. It's sort of like having an art house cinema right in your viewing device. It specializes in indie films, foreign films and for true cinephiles - the Criterion Collection.
Here are three titles he recommends.
HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE
Written and directed by Taika Waititi, it's the highest-grossing film ever in New Zealand. Based on a very popular New Zealand novel, it's the story of a troubled kid who has bounced from foster home to foster home, before being placed with a hard-working farmer and his wife.
As you can see, it's incredibly entertaining, funny and moving without ever being sappy.
DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD
Besides movies, the service also has tons of choices for fans of documentaries, and from 2015 there's "Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon." The film tells the story of the groundbreaking humor magazine, National Lampoon, which ran from 1970 to 1998.
It focuses on the roots of the magazine - which was started by two Harvard graduates, Doug Kenney and Henry Beard.
For years the magazine was considered the cornerstone of American satire and raunchy humor. Much of the staff went on to create or help write such comedy classics as Animal House, Caddyshack, and of course, the Vacation series staring Chevy Chase.
It’s a lively and engrossing film about one of the most important pop culture and comedy influences in modern America.
THE PHONE CALL
Finally, Kanopy has a lot of genres that are hard to find on traditional streaming services. They have a World Cinema section, a LGBTQ Film section and award winning short films like, "The Phone Call."
It stars Sally Hawkins as a counselor at a suicide hotline crisis center. Oscar winner Jim Broadbent plays the voice on the other end of the call.
The film is only 20 minutes long, but the two performances from Hawkins and Broadbent are top notch and it really packs an emotional punch.
is a writer, living in Los Angeles. If you're interested in seeing past Binge segments, click here.