Global warming poses a real and serious threat to California’s wine industry, but vineyards throughout the state—and other agricultural lands—can also take steps to blunt the pace of climate change.

It is increasingly clear, says Ted Lemon (right) , co-owner of Littorai Wines in Sebastopol, that the dominant business model in American agriculture, needs to change.

Monoculture farming has not succeeded in feeding the world. Lemon observes, so a new approach is clearly needed.

The Littorai Winery is an informal demonstration site for the practical application of principals of agroecology. The Wine Institute of California has also intiated a proactive program in support of sustainable vineyard practicies, which you can read about here.

From remote cabins crafted of driftwood to stunningly beautiful and unconventional family homes, Bolinas-based writer and photographer Lloyd Kahn collects innovative individual builders up and down the Pacific Coast.

Below are two examples of the buildings featured in the book: The elbaorate temple built by SunRay Kelly at Harbin Hotsprings, and a whimsical gazebo made of driftwood on a Vancouver Island beach.

The farther north he ventured, the more Kahn found projects that had been built in substantial part from found materials—driftwood on the beaches, and fallen timber inland. He says that immersing himself in that world has had an enduring effect in the way he sees potential resources around him now.

Lloyd Kahn's first building experience was with geodesic domes, which led to his first book as well. But  he eventually became disenchanged  the domes, and turned his attention to the more generalized subject of  Shelter, published in 1973. The success of that volume launched his Bolinas-based publishing business,  which concentrates on books about do-it-yourself homebuilding, and health. He'll present a slide show drawn from Builders of the Pacific Coast at Copperfield's Books  in Sebastopol on Thursday night, Oct. 29, at 7  pm.

For his next publishing project, Kahn says he will be narrowing his lens to focus on creative “micro” housing efforts, such as this work in progress.

The intricately ornamented staircase and loft below is yet another of the utterly unique homes Kahn has featured in Builders of the Pacific Coast.

U.S. law gives constitutional rights to corporations. Now a countervailing legal theory is emerging that defines and defends the legal rights of the environment.

Mari Margill is Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, based in their West Coast office in Portland, Oregon. But as she explains here, the organization's origins lie in Pennsylvania.


Obtaining legal standing for nature, says Margill, requires enacting new laws to spell that out, something that is beginning to happen in scattered local jurisdictions, but faces an uncertain future on appeal.

For more information about CELFD click here.

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The pathogen that causes sudden oak death tends to spread during rainstorms, so with forecasts of a wet winter ahead, now is the time to apply a protective treatment to trees in high-risk areas.

According to Katie Palmieri, the public information officer for the California Oak Mortality Task Force at UC Berkeley, spraying the protective substance directly onto the trunk of vulnerable oaks is the easier method.

Injecting the spore-fighting material directly into the oaks is more complicated, in no small part because the process is a little different for each tree.

The California oak Mortality Task Force has developed guidelines and an instructional video to aid homeowners in the proper application of Agri-Fos as part of the resources available at their website. Below is an illustrated explanation of the pathogen that causes the disease, how it spreads, and the way it affects the trees that get infected.