by Chris Megerian Originally published in the LA Times, August 19, 2016 Mark Bauhaus used to make a point of avoiding Sacramento. Like other technology executives, he saw state politics as nothing more than a drag on Silicon Valley’s freewheeling…
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California is addressing climate change more aggressively than perhaps any government entity on earth. With bold initiatives like its Global Warming Solutions Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2020, its zero net energy requirements for new residential…
For those of you who may have missed it, here is a recording of Paul & Pico's conversation at the Lobero in October 2015.
Join Paul Relis and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History for SCIENCE PUB on March 14, 2016. Sip a pint and hear stories from the environmental frontier, including Paul’s experiences with sustainable technology development in California, perspectives on the…
by Margie Bushman, Santa Barbara Permaculture Network As many of you know, last week we hosted a public forum on the recent Paris Climate Talks at Antioch University Santa Barbara, featuring journalist Ethan Stewart of the Santa Barbara Independent, accompanied by…
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The oil spill caused by rupture of the Plains All American Pipeline, Volkswagen's violation of California’s clean air standards, and now months of methane releases from SoCalGas Company’s Aliso Canyon storage facility--these incidents will produce hundreds of millions (if not…
I attended and spoke at the Los Angeles VerdeXchange Conference on January 25. Of all the environmental conferences I’ve attended over the years, none rivals this one for its consistently high quality speakers and participants, the care given to the…
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A few months ago I was looking down from my window seat from 35,000 feet over western Oklahoma at a pock-marked landscape that stretched to the north as far as I could see. Little rectangles, some with water holding ponds,…
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We’ve lived in lower Mission Canyon in Santa Barbara for 40 years now. It’s a compound consisting of a small California bungalow and two larger homes. We bought it with friends from our university days and created an environment of…
From when I was a boy growing up in nearby Long Beach until I was in my forties, I thought Los Angeles was a soulless city, ugly and mean. Skies in LA were an eerie, almost indescribable mix of gray…
I thought I would share thoughts about the role politics have played in my work to preserve and protect the environment over a 45-year timeframe. These thoughts are drawn from my recent book, Out of the Wasteland: Stories from the…
The November 21 edition of the NYT OP-ED page has a piece by Jeff Biggers, “Iowa’s Climate Change Wisdom.” Biggers writes that this historically conservative state with 99% of its landscape altered over the last one hundred years to accommodate…
On Friday I participated in a meeting with Mark Schapiro, author of Carbon Shock. Among the subjects Schapiro raised with our group is the increased scrutiny the insurance industry is giving to the impacts of climate change. Unlike the factors…
Several years ago I was in London on business and had a free afternoon. At the urging of my friend, the writer Pico Iyer, I visited the Tate Modern Art Museum on the Thames. My experience of the Tate was…
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Paul Relis and Frank Davis Join Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Board of Directors originally posted in Noozhawk October 30, 2015 The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History is proud to announce Paul Relis and Frank Davis as new…
California MSW Organics Digester Prepares To Launch by Nora Goldstein reprinted from BioCycle. October 2015, Vol. 56, No. 9, p. 51 Construction is nearing completion, and all the equipment is installed at CR&R Inc.’s high solids anaerobic digester (AD) facility…
Paul Relis: Environmental Frontiersman by Phyllis de Picciotto, Stan Roden Originally published in the Santa Barbara Independent. October 9, 2015. Paul Relis didn’t just happen to be in the right place at the right time. For Santa Barbara’s environmental movement,…
Paul Relis & Pico Iyer honor the Community Environmental Council’s 45th anniversary. Join this conversational journey exploring the past, present & future of the environmental movement, including a discussion of Paul Relis’s recently published book, Out of the Wasteland –…
The Next Renewable Energy Resource for America by Paul Relis It has been a long time coming; a new renewable energy resource for America is at last emerging. Food waste we clean out from our refrigerators, the discards from supermarkets/…
Reflections of the Refugio Oil Spill by Paul Relis On the prompting of a friend, I went to Refugio Beach yesterday to walk the beach and see for myself the outcome of the "clean up." I walked about half-a-mile of…
Falmouth Memorial Library and Falmouth's Recycling and Energy Advisory Committee (REAC), is pleased to announce a book talk and signing with environmentalist Paul Relis who will discuss his recently published book, Out of the Wasteland: Stories from the Environmental Frontier.…
August 21, 2015 with SOMOS, the Taos writers' group. The event will be at 5:30 p.m. SOMOS is located at 233 Paseo del Pueblo Sur, Taos, NM 87571
Lasting impression: As southern Santa Barbara County beaches get cleaner, what can we make of the Refugio spill? by Sean McNulty reprinted from the Santa Maria Sun. June 25, 2015. Work crews removed thousands of feet of yellow boom from…
For Immediate Release: Santa Barbara County Takes Important Step Toward Clean, Renewable Energy The Community Environmental Council (CEC), helped secure a huge win for renewable energy on Tuesday, June 10, 2015 when the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted to…
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network and Farmer and the Cook Restaurant Presents Award-Winning Documentary Film Rebels with a Cause How a Battle Over Land Changed the California Landscape Forever with Special Guest Paul Relis Thursday, August 6 , 2015 7:30pm -FREE…
The Grant Farm, Californians Against Waste and California Compost Coalition exclusively invite you to Out of the Wasteland: A Conversation with Paul Relis with introductions by Assemblymember Das Williams Please join us for the Northern California book launch of Out…
Come and join us, June 11 at the Ludwick Center, 864 Santa Rosa Street, San Luis Obispo, 7-9 p.m. Critical Conversation-Paul Relis.PDF
Santa Barbara Oil Spill: From 1969 to 2015 by the Dedicated Staff of edhat.com reprinted from EdHat. May 23, 2015 The oil spill at Refugio is making local Santa Barbara County residents shudder with thoughts of the devastating spill in…
Paul will be reading excerpts from Out of the Wasteland and signing copies at Chaucer's Bookstore, Thursday May 14, at 7 p.m. Chaucer's is located at 3321 State Street, Santa Barbara, CA. We hope to see you there!
When I first visited China in 1988, the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou were seas of bicycles and pedestrians. There were very few highways, and those were mostly free of cars. Although construction was beginning to ramp up by the mid-80s,…
