A power struggle in Windsor is pitting homeowners against PG&E, whose engineers have concluded that the best place for a new electrical substation lies in the town’s south center area. The people already living nearby think that’s a very bad idea.

Homeowner Rosemary Olson describes the reaction she got when she shared the PG&E substation plans with an electrical analyst who has no connection to the project.

Another issue with potential health impact, says Dr. Wayne Freenman, is exposure to the constant electro-magnetic fields that would be present at the substation.

Flood, droughts and rising sea levels and other effects of global climate change are already displacing millions of people around the world, a situation documented in the new film, Climate Refugees.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Nash first screened Climate Refugees at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen last winter. The film made its domestic debut at Sundance.  And even as he hopes for US commercial distribution to kick in later this fall, Nash says he is fielding requests for showings from a growing number of governmental and church groups.

Climate Refugees is meant to be apolitical, at least in the partisan sense, says Nash (right). And even if the issue he spotlights may be new to many viewers, he observes that it has been building for years.

Nash has said his starting point for making this filnm was a desire to show “the human face of climate change.”  In doing so, he learned that one doesn’t need to go very far to find it.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2ULoJYTsrM

Horror movies and popular musicals notwithstanding, carnivorous plants do not eat people, nor do they grow to tower over us. Without that far-fetched scare factor, they are strangely beautiful…and decidedly weird.

Peter D’Amato was just a boy when he first sent for a mail-order Venus Flytrap. It didn’t last long, but his interest in these strange plants did, especially after he was introduced to some that were growing in the wild not far from his home.

D’Amato’s California Carnivores nurserypropagates and breeds many of the plants they display and sell, such as sundews and pitcher plants. They need to be kept wet, he explains, but they don’t need to be fed.

Aside from the loss of habitat that threatens them, carnivorous plants are naturally long-lived.

Many of D'Amato's specimens are currently on display in San Francisco, at the exhibit called Chomp 2 at the Conservatory of Flowers.

Since the Americans With Disabilities Act was enacted by Congress 20 years ago, it has changed much more than building codes.

When the ADA passed, it took some time for the law’s new requirements to have a visible effect. But Anthony Tusler (left), founder of About Disability, a Penngrove-based advocacy office, observes that there were some notable changes in the public media landscape almost immediately.

 Most adult Americans with disabilities were cheered and empowered by the passage of the ADA in 1990, but Tusler acknowledges there were a few who felt threatened by the changes the bill would bring, and opposed it.

Despite their gains in other areas, most disabled Americans continue to struggle to find meaningful employment. Tusler suspects some employers manipulate the hiring process to avoid dealing with the ADA.

This is one of a series of photos taken in April, 1977 by Anthony Tusler at the demonstration and picketing at the U.N. Plaza in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco. The group then entered the offices of HEW and refused to leave. It was the longest occupation of a Federal Building by any group. Demonstrations were also held at other Federal Buildings across the country. Because of the political pressure of these actions Secretary Califano signed the regulations in May. A more complete history can be read at 504 Sit-in: Historical Articles and Eyewitness Accounts.