Daily Acts, a Petaluma-based dedicated to sustainability and transformation, works, its founder says, by exercising “the freedom to act without having all the answers.”

As the impacts from Daily Acts ripple outward from the North Bay,  founder and Executive Director Trathen Beckman says they are looking for new ways, and new partners, to help expand their influence.

From conservation to graywater reuse to designing and installing permaculture landscapes, many Daily Acts projects now are focused in one way or another on water. Which, when you think about it, is only natural.

  This was the postcard invitation to the fundraising (and networking) breakfast on Thursday, Nov. 5. Part of the program was a informational video about the organization, created by local filmmaker Eve Goldberg. You can also see it here:

There’s nothing like seeing other parts of the world first-hand to give one a different perspective on “home.” A Sonoma State professor who did just that last summer with his students in the international Semester at Sea program, reports back.

The Semester at Sea program offers educational voyages that go completely around the world, and shorter trips, such as the summer voyage in which Rocky Rohwedder participated. Rohwedder, a professor of Environmental Studies, explains how that was structured.

That sequence was set up to ease the touring students into new cultures, by beginning with western European nations that have much in common with the United States. But as they traveled eastward around the Mediterranean, Rohwedder recounts, the changes became more dramatic.

As he traveled, Rocky posted regular blog entries from the trip, with many photographs embedded. In this one, he is seen with his son Ryder, in a public marketplace in Fes, Morocco.

Click here to find out how to apply for a semester at sea.

Sonoma County inventor James McElvaney (right), has developed a system to convert organic waste into energy and other beneficial byproducts, one that creates the energy that powers it in the bargain.

Bob Hillman, McElvaney's partner in their start-up,  Bioconverter LLC,  sees their new technology as a tool to capture greenhouse gases while also combating invasive, non-native plants, such as the Ludwigia, or Creeping Water Primrose, now prevalent in the Laguna de Santa Rosa.

The company offers a more comprehensive explanation of their processes on the FAQ page of their website, but you can read an overview here.

The primary process of bioconversion takes place in a series of vertical tanks, such as those seen at left.  In addition to the environmental benefits of bioconversion, Hillman notes that it has the economic potential to actually fund some of those productive outcomes.

Some invasive plants in northern California will not tolerate higher temperatures and other habitat changes resulting from global warming. But there are others that can be expected to thrive and spread even further.

Elizabeth Brusati is program manager for the California Invasive Plant Council.  She was among the presenters at the State of the Laguna Conference in Rohnert Park last week, where  one area of emphasis was  strategies for adapting watershed ecosystems to climate change.