The Nonfiction Portions of Legacy: Chapters 5-6

In most novels, blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction is all part of the fun. In Legacy, understanding which items are really happening in our nonfiction world is an essential part of the project. Listed below are references to further information on many of the real parts of Legacy. These are presented in the sequence in which they appear in the book. See also the Resources section of this website, as well as Chapter 11 of the novel.

Caution: This page may contain plot spoilers!

Chapter 5

2040 date (Section 1)
* The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected that carbon dioxide emissions must peak and begin to decline by the year 2040 in order for atmospheric concentrations (and thus temperature impacts) to stabilize. (Source link)

UNFCCC Conference, Montreal (Section 1)
* Photos and brief text about the December 2005 Montreal session are located here (link to source) The real conference occurred after Legacy was published.

LA’s water sources (Section 4)
* Los Angeles water sourcing information is per websites of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Metropolitan Water District

Legacy LA agendas (Section 5)
* The desalinization project was a pilot program. (Source Link)
* “Desalinization of seawater has proven outrageously expensive and leaves behind brackish water mostly uninhabitable for marine life.” Per “A World Without Water,” Village Voice, August 21, 2002.

State-level greenhouse gas initiatives (Section 6)
* Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont are already part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Maryland, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania are close to being on board. (source link) California, Georgia, Illinois, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin have some form of state level greenhouse gas legislation.  New Mexico and North Carolina have action plans. (source link1 link2 link3 link4).
* “Our goal in the years immediately ahead should be to strengthen and deepen state and local commitments and actions. We should work to get every state to adopt an overall GHG reduction plan, a renewable energy portfolio standard, the California plan for vehicles, and an energy efficiency program that covers everything from much tighter building codes to transportation and land use planning. … Environmental groups and other NGOs have helped pass the path-breaking actions to date, and they need our vigorous support.” James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, p. 217.
* California Assembly Bill 1493 passed July 22, 2002 directing the California Air Resources Board to develop and adopt regulations that achieve the maximum feasible and cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. It would be effective for vehicles manufactured in 2009 and beyond. (source link accessed 2/20/05) The law is not flawless.  (source link accessed 2/20/05) The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, whose membership includes DaimlerChrysler, General Motors and Ford, joined the American International Automobile Dealers to challenge this in January 2005. Results of the lawsuit are pending.  (source link accessed 3/8/05)

Vision-making (Section 9)
* Vision-making is discussed in Steven Covey’s First Things First, and in Richard Lieder’s The Power of Purpose.
* Manifesting a vision is covered in Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow by Marsha Sinetar and in Power of Flow by Charlene Belitz and Meg Lundstrom.

The world is going to hell, Ari’s fears (Sections 9-13)
* Following the 2004 UNFCCC Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2004, Italy called for an end to the Kyoto Protocol after the environmental treaty's intiial period in 2012, preferring voluntary agreements.  (source link)
In June 2005 EU countries disagreed over a new EU constitution, and an EU Summit meeting failed. Although effects of this disagreement are yet to be seen, it does not bode well for world environmental campaigns where the EU has taken a leadership role.

Garden appearances (Section 13)
* Jana’s fictional triplex garden would look like the front yard at Path to Freedom www.pathtofreedom.com
* Sahara’s fields would look like the photographs of John Jeavons’ biointensive garden found in Gardening for the Sake of the Earth, Howard Yana Shapiro.

Ratification of Kyoto (Section 15)
* As of August 2005, 153 countries had ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. had not ratified. Source: UNFCCC website.

China (Section 15)
* China and Brazil explained at the Buenos Aires summit how they plan to contribute to the fight against global warming. “… both are keen participants in the movement to arrest climate change and both can boast real achievements.” Elizabeth Blunt, “China, Brazil reveal climate plan,” Dec 11. 2004, BBC news, source link accessed 7/24/05.
* Since 1996, the National Resources Defense Council has been conducting a “China clean energy project to support China's efforts to develop a sustainable energy system that maximizes energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy.” source link
* “China to build wind farms offshore” May 16, 2005 cnn.com (source link)
* China’s own top environmental officials aim to stop the deterioration. “China laments failure to enforce environmental protection laws” June 30, 2005 http://news.yahoo.com

Cassandra’s lecture, Tia’s portion (Section 17)
* Dust bowls are not a phenomenon of the past. “On April 18, 2001, the western United States – from the Arizona border north to Canada – was blanketed with dust. The dirt came from a huge dust storm that originated in north-western China and Mongolia on April 5. … on April 12, 2002, South Korea was engulfed by a huge dust storm from China that left people in Seoul literally gasping for breath.” Lester R. Brown, “From Dirt to Dust: Protecting Cropland,” World Ark magazine (published by Heifer International), July/August 2005
* California's Central Valley supplies one-foruth of the nation's food.  (source link)
* Megadroughts are explained by Peter DeMenocal, “After Tomorrow”, Orion Magazine, January/February 2005
* Projections of Sierra Nevada snowpack and other California climate changes can be viewed at the Union of Concerned Scientists report entitled “Climate Change in California: Choosing Our Future.” This report is available free online at http://www.climatechoices.org/

Cassandra’s lecture, Cassandra’s portion (Section 17)
* “The tonnages of beans that reach the supermarkets across the continent are from a very few highly uniform microregions, where one, at most three, bean cultivars dominate the fields. Under the present circumstances, the U.S. National Research Council has predicted that an epidemic could easily devastate the entire Western dry bean industry. Diseases or pestilence could also have catastrophic consequences if they ever hit the Eastern green bean production areas at the wrong time, for they too are supported by a stringbean-thin genetic base.” Gary Paul Nabhan, Enduring Seeds, p. xxv
* To see visual images of the diversity of heirloom beans, see the cover of Suzanne Ashworth’s book Seed to Seed or photographs at the websites of heirloom seed distributors Seeds of Change and Native Seed/SEARCH.
* “… even among batches of the true Hopi lima beans there is considerable variation. Part of the heterogeneity may be due to the wide-ranging environmental conditions experienced by their plantings, from dry-farmed dune fields to spring-fed terrace gardens. Levels of nitrogen and soluble salts can vary threefold between different bean plots. Still, nutritional analyses of Hopi limas indicate a variability that is not only environmental. Genetic heterogeneity in environmental responses must also be taken into account. An eightfold difference in sodium content ahs been found among Hopi limas. Chemists have also documented a thirty percent difference in crude protein; a threefold difference in iron; and a fourfold difference in crude fat between lima bean types around the mesas.” Gary Paul Nabhan, Enduring Seeds, p. 75
* Howard-Yana Shapiro provides a clear and readable discussion of Seed Saving and Selection, and Plant Breeding, at Chapters 6 and 7, Gardening for the Future of the Earth.
* Iowa’s 50% arable topsoil losses was a 1981 figure. Source: Howard-Yana Shapiro, Gardening for the Future of the Earth, p. 77.  The current statistic is undoubtedly much worse.
* “for each pound of food you eat which has been grown by conventional practices, it is estimated that 6 pounds of farmable soil are lost in the U.S. due to wind and/or soil erosion.” (emphasis theirs) “Sustainable Gardening,” Bountiful Gardens, source link accessed 9/20/05
* Soil being strip-mined is from Howard-Yana Shapiro, Gardening for the Future of the Earth.
* Running out of soil before oil quote is from Lester Brown, paraphrased in “Wounding the Earth’s Fragile Skin” by Jocelyn Kaiser, Science Magazine 11 June 04.
* List of sustainable farming practices is from R. Lal, “Soil Carbon Sequestration Impacts on Global Climate Change and Food Security,” Science magazine 11 June 04.

Raising thinkers (Section 19)
* Books referred to are John Holt, Teach Your Own and Learning All the Time. John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down.
* “Promoting regional and local adaptation in the schools would be an essential part of the revitalization of local economies. Training in locally-adapted agriculture, architecture, artisan production, and appropriate technologies suited to the specifics of climate and local resources would further a real decentralization of production for basic needs. Rather than educating the young for ever greater specialization in a competitive, ‘jobless growth’ economy, children would be equipped for diverse economic systems that depend primarily, but not exclusively, on local resources.” Helena Norgerg-Hodge, quoted in Small is Beautiful: 25 years later E.F. Schumacher, Paul Hawken et al editors. p. 73.

Homeless (Section 21)
* “Since the early 1980s, the city of Los Angeles has tried to prevent the spillover of cardboard ‘condos’ into surrounding council districts or into the more upscale precincts of Downtown by keeping homeless people ‘contained’ (the official term) within the 50-square-block area of skid row. In 1996, the city council formalized the status quo by declaring a portion of skid row’s sidewalks an official ‘sleeping zone.’ As soup kitchens and skid row missions brace themselves for a new wave of homelessness in the wake of recent state and federal welfare reforms, the LAPD maintains its traditional policy of keeping street people herded within the boundaries of the nation’s largest outdoor poorhouse.” Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear, 1999, p.384

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (Section 21)
* When the Kyoto Protocol came into effect in February 2005 for 141 countries internationally, yet the U.S. government refused to ratify, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels decided to take action at the city level, forming a Green Team which he hoped would include 141 U.S. cities committed to greenhouse gas limits. At this writing (June 2005) Mayor Nickels’ Green Team includes 172 cities. (source link) “Nearly every major city” in Chapter 5, Section 21 is a fictional projection.

Environmentalists and Religious Thinkers, Matthew’s lecture (Section 23)
* The text of the Lynn White essay, “Historical roots of our Ecological Crisis,” 1967, is available online from several sources. Erik Hoffner discusses religion and environmentalism in his article “Faith–based Environmentalism”, Orion Magazine, January-February 2005.
* The National Religious Partnership for the Environment has a website at http://www.nrpe.org/
* The World Council of Churches maintains their environmental support information onlin (source link accessed April 2, 2005
* The National Council of Churches open letter about the environment is online. (source link1 link2)
* Information about the Evangelical program Creation Care can be found online.
* The National Association of Evangelicals' document is online. Biblical quote contained within is from (Gen 2:15)
* The Catholic position on population growth is interwoven with an admirable vision for social and developmental growth that is remarkably similar to UN developmental goals for least-developed nations.
scroll down to “Global Climate Change and Population Growth” (source link)
* Discussion, and illustrations of multiple world religions, can be found online.

Weedpatch School (Section 23)
* Read about the children of Weedpatch in Jerry Stanley’s children’s book, Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp (New York: Crown Publishers, 1992)

Vehicles (Section 25)
* California Assembly Bill 1493 passed July 22, 2002 directing the California Air Resources Board to develop and adopt regulations that achieve the maximum feasible and cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. It would be effective for vehicles manufactured in 2009 and beyond. (source link accessed 2/20/05 The law is not flawless (source link accessed 2/20/05). The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers whose membership includes DaimlerChrysler, General Motors and Ford, joined the American International Automobile Dealers to challenge this in January 2005. Results of the lawsuit are pending (source link accessed 3/8/05).
* Emissions compared to mpg: A graphic in The Greenhouse Effect by Sharon Elaine Thompson shows CO2 emissions during a car’s lifetime. A car getting 18.0 MPG emits 57.75 tons of CO2 over its lifetime. A car getting 45.0 MPG emits only 25.93 tons of CO2 over its lifetime. Source referenced is the Energy Conservation Coalition. Thompson p.76
* Hydrogen: “It is estimated that more than 95% of generated hydrogen is produced by reforming conventional hydrocarbon fuels or from coal.” Per “Hydrogen – Are Production and Storage Technologies Robust Enough to Deliver It?” by Viswanathan Krishnan, January 5, 2005 (source link accessed 2/23/05).
* 8600 pounders: “Auto companies already add weight to trucks to place them over the current 8500 pound weight, which exempts them from CAFÉ standards. Trucks, such as the Hummer, Suburban, Tahoe, and Excursion weigh 8600 pounds or more to utilize this loophole.” (source link accessed 4/9/05).
* Rocky Mountain Hypercar: The concept of Hypercars is discussed at length in Chapter 2 of Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins.
* Unfortunately, many automakers now are utilizing the hybrid technology to boost power, rather than to improve fuel economy. “ … at a Detroit, Michigan, auto show in January [2005], the Honda Accord Hybrid boasts modest fuel efficiency gains over the conventionally powered Accord. What it does have is a noticeable boost in acceleration, courtesy of the gasoline-electric technology. Aiming for a more mainstream hybrid buyer, automakers are using the technology less for jaw-dropping mileage, more for chest-thumping power.” Brian Handwerk, “Hybrid Cars Losing Efficiency, Adding Oomph,” National Geographic News, August 8, 2005.

Steve’s other sustainability groups (Section 25)
* Awareness is increasing, even if we have not yet attained the goal.  Support organizations and city efforts for sustainability include: San Francisco http://www.sustainable-city.org/ Monterey Bay http://www.soltrain.itgo.com/about.html Santa Barbara’s Oakland has a Sustainable Community Development Initiative. Long Beach has some specific sustainably-focused park and greenbelt areas. and San Diego's sustainability efforts. Additionally, Santa Monica’s Environmental Programs Division recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

El Nino and climate change impacts (section 28)
* “During the El Nino event of 1982-1983, some of the abnormal weather patterns observed included: Drought in Southern Africa, Southern India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Southern Peru, Western Bolivia, Mexico, Central America; Heavy rain and flooding in Bolivia, Ecuador, Northern Peru, Cuba, U.S. Gulf States.” (source link accessed 7/14/05)
* “A reduction of the fish population reduces the amount of fishmeal produced and exported to other countries for feeding poultry and livestock. If the world’s fishmeal supply decreases, more expensive alternative feed sources must be used, resulting in an increase in poultry prices worldwide.” (source link accessed 7/14/05)
* WorldWatch Institute monitors Vital Signs Facts: “As climate change translates into more intense storms, flooding, heat waves, and droughts, more and more communities will likely be affected. Desertification, for example, puts some 135 million people worldwide at risk of becoming environmental refugees.” From article “Global Warming to Contribute to Rising Numbers of Environmental Refugees,” June 15, 2005.

Antarctica / Ross Ice Shelf Religious Summit (Section 32)
* What if world religious leaders united for a Summit and lead the way to care of the earth? Credit for this giant “what if” belongs to Gary Gardner, who proposed such a gathering in “Invoking the Spirit”, WorldWatch Institute Paper #164, December 2002.
* The Larsen B Ice Shelf broke up in 2002 causing nearby glaciers to speed up in their course to the sea. http://www.terranature.org/globalWarmingLarsen.htm http://www.climatehotmap.org/antarctica.html http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fcons.asp   Ice Shelf disintegration has not yet affected the Ross Ice Shelf, but scientists fear that it may.

Emissions trading system (Section 33)
* U.S. legislators indeed hope that if a federal-level greenhouse gas bill is passed, emissions trading credits might be exchanged with the global system under the Kyoto Protocol. It should be noted that the terms of the Kyoto Protocol exclude non-ratifying countries from the trading agreements. [Need cite]

Chapter 6

Poverty (Section 1)
6.9 billion world population is the 2010 population, as projected by United Nations.
* “In addressing poverty, development projects have often failed because they neglected the environment, just as environmental projects have often failed because they neglected development.” James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, p. 132.
* In repeated examples in Ecology of Fear, Mike Davis calls our attention to the plight of Los Angeles’ poor.
* In The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs makes the distinction between three degrees of poverty: Extreme poverty, where people's basic needs for survival (food, health care, safe drinking water and sanitation, education, perhaps rudimentary shelter and basic articles of clothing such as shoes) are not met; Moderate poverty, where basic needs are met, but just barely; and Relative poverty, where household income is below a percentage of national income, and thus people are lacking access to cultural goods, entertainment, recreation, quality health care, education and social mobility.   (Paraphrased from Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty, p.20). Thus Mike Davis in L.A. is talking about the Relatively poor, or Moderate poverty on occasion, while most of Sachs’ comments (and perhaps those of the Catholic Church as well) address world citizens suffering Absolute poverty.
* “A more responsible approach to population issues is the promotion of ‘authentic development,’ which represents a balanced view of human progress and includes respect for nature and social well-being. Development policies that seek to reduce poverty with an emphasis on improved education and social conditions for women are far more effective than usual population reduction programs and far more respectful of women’s dignity.” U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Global Climate Change: A plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good,” June 15, 2001 (source link accessed 1/8/05).
* “A child born in a wealthy country is likely to consume, waste and pollute more in his lifetime than 50 children born in developing nations.” George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, UK, quoted in Guy Dauncey, Stormy Weather, p.25
* Consumption of world resources is calculated from “Ecological Footprint of Nations, 2004”, United Nations (source link accessed 3/14/05). “… the United States has the world's largest Footprint at 9.57 hectares (23.7 acres) per person - a sustainable Footprint would be 1.88 hectares (4.6 acres)”
* ‘It is manifestly unjust that a privileged few should continue to accumulate excess goods, squandering available resources, while masses of people are living in conditions of misery at the very lowest level of subsistence. Today, the dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness -- both individual and collective -- are contrary to the order of creation, an order which is characterized by mutual interdependence.’ Message of Pope John Paul II for the 1990 World Day of Peace on the theme "Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation". 8 December 1989

Olmstead (Section 2)
* “Olmstead took a long-term view of landscape construction and development. Unlike a building, a landscape is never ‘finished’ after construction; it grows and changes, season by season, year by year. … At Central Park, Olmstead had envisioned a design that had to be implemented over several decades after the initial construction. And the forest at Biltmore would mature well beyond his own lifetime …. Our short individual and collective memories present a major human conundrum. How can human communities manage landscape change that takes place over a hundred years or more, when people’s perceptions and priorities change from generation to generation, or even from election to election? What one generation starts, another may overturn or fail to finish. Humans may not have the right ‘attention span’ to manage environmental change, and this may be the species’s fatal flaw.” From “Constructing Nature: The Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted” by Anne Whiston Sprin, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, William Cronon, editor. p. 102, 110.
* Olmstead sons design for Seattle (source link)
* In 1973 a plan called the Centers Concept identified “centers” or pockets of urban activity throughout the greater LA area. James Rojas in the 2005 GardenLAB forum included both Olmsted and Centers Concept ideas in his exhibit, where he envisioned clusters of urban activities surrounded by open space and connected by rapid public transit.

PLASE system (Section 2)
* A staggering number of individual light rail lines are currently in various stages of proposal in the Los Angeles area. For LA citizens, living in a city with minimal mass-transit, this will come as a surprise. Metro Red, Blue, Green, Gold and Orange lines are operational, or under construction as of 2005, yet because of urban sprawl and the fact that the system doesn’t adequately cover area destinations, these lines are underused. A Metro Silver Line is proposed, in the Dodger Stadium area, from Vermont/Santa Monica and Silver Lake, through Union Station, out to El Monte Metrolink. per www.metrosilverline.com accessed March 25, 2005. An Expo line from Union Station, down through Exposition park and up the Exposition Blvd easement to Robertson/Venice was proposed as of 2005. An Expo extension out to Santa Monica would follow the existing easement, and while it has citizen supporters, it is not yet included in city plans. per www.friends4expo.org accessed March 25, 2005. The vision of LA City Councilman and MTA Director Tom LaBonge includes a rail system through West LA from Santa Monica to UCLA per “LA City Councilman and MTA Director Tom LaBonge Offers a Bullish Agenda for Rail” per Metro Investment Report Dec-Jan 2005 (source link accessed March 25, 2005). A rail line to the North and West Valley, to Westchester via LAX airport, and rail service along the I-405 freeway corridor between LAX and the San Fernando Valley are among projects pursued by The Transit Coalition. Thus the vision of fictional character Ben, of a “comprehensive system” is not too far from reality. The important difference is that city politicians do not dare use any term like “comprehensive system” for fear the citizenry would balk at the price tag. The bus lines and jitneys connecting with light rail are also part of the vision of Councilman Tom LaBonge.
* LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, elected 2005, made campaign promises to begin such plans. (ref)

Parks (Section 2)
* “Nearly 67% of the kids in Los Angeles do not live within walking distance of a park, ballfield, or playground. And the fact is that many of these children also are at a higher risk of developing a chronic illness such as diabetes, asthma, or obesity. The Trust for Public Land is working hard to attack this special problem.” www.tpl.org accessed 4/14/05

Depression Real Estate (Section 5)
* The abandonment and boarding up of luxury homes was common during the Depression of the 1930’s.

Lares details (Section 5)
* Jana’s outdoor classroom: Rosemary Gladstar, renowned herbalist, has such an outdoor classroom at her garden at Sage Mountain. Photos of Rosemary Gladstar’s garden are featured in Shatoiya and Richard de la Tour’s The Herbalist’s Garden

Education / Lauren’s Lecture (Section 7)
* Greener back to schools: http://www.newdream.org/make/bts/index.php accessed March 12, 2005
* See the real Lauren’s children’s booklist
* California Student Sustainability Coalition http://sustainabilitycoalition.org accessed August 3, 2005

Computers (Section 9)
* Recyclable computer parts are currently fiction, however scientists are trying. In “Scientists Make Phone That Turns Into a Sunflower” a disposable cell phone cover is made from “a polymer that looks like any other plastic, but which degrades into soil when discarded.” It contains a sunflower seed which is supposed to sprout as the cover degrades. (source link accessed 4/30/05) JP’s note: I’m not sure I’d like this in my organic garden, as the particulate upon degradation does not sound healthful, however it is a step in a positive direction. Now, if only we could stop thinking of the gadgets as disposable commodities.
* Wealth of selection quote is from Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. Atlas Shrugged is often touted as a capitalist manifesto, but what if Rand had included Hawken’s human and natural capital in her characters’ accounting systems?
* Filling our lives with meaning as contrasted with filling our lives with consumer goods is the subject of Bill McKibben’s book $100 Holiday. Although McKibben uses the Christmas Holiday as his specific example, the concept can be much more broadly applied.

Weedpatch school (Section 9)
* Jerry Stanley, Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp

Lares details (Section 10)
* Chickens in a Permaculture rotation is a design detailed by Linda Woodrow in The Peramculture Home Garden, a well-written book that includes orchard rotation schedules and other valued details.
* Raising chickens in the city is the subject of an extensive webpage by Katy Skinner http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/thecitychicken/
* Steve’s recycled building materials:
Habitat for Humanity runs two Builder's Surplus Stores in the greater LA area, where you can contribute or purchase surplus or gently used timber, fixtures, flooring, small construction tools, etc.  Habitat for Humanity South Bay/Long Beach Home Improvement Store, 17700 South Figueroa Street, Gardena, California 90248 and San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore, 770 North Fair Oaks, Pasadena, California 91103

Lori’s projects (Section 11)
* CDM registered hydroelectric project in Rio Blanco: The actual date of this project was 2005; the date was changed to suit the fictional timeline. http://cdm.unfccc.int/Projects/registered.html
* wind power conference in Denver: The actual date of this conference was 2005; the date was changed to suit the fictional timeline. http://www.awea.org/wp05.html

Johannesburg WSSD 2002 (Section 12 & 13)
*Tom Bigg, IIED, in "The World Summit on Sustainable Development: Was It Worthwhile?" (pdf) indicates that World Summits may have outlived their usefulness in pursuing sustainability goals, asserting that in Johannesburg 2002 the meetings of NGOs, businesses and other interested parties were more effective toward solving world issues than the Summit meeting of heads of state.  Therefore, for purposes of fiction, post-2002 sustainability meetings are "WCSD" world conferences, rather than WSSD world summits, projecting forward the side-session portions of the negotiations.
* “diversity of representation”, “breadth of issues” Tom Bigg, IIED, "The World Summit on Sustainable Development: Was It Worthwhile?" pdf
* WEHAB, Water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity, were issues raised as a set at Johannesburg, but the implied umbrella nature of this grouping was not embraced by the Conference. Tom Bigg, IIED, "The World Summit on Sustainable Development: Was It Worthwhile?" pdf

Community Land Trusts (Section 18)
* Community Land Trusts are membership organizations which acquire land for community residences. Learn more about them through the Institute for Community Economics, “The Community Land Trust Model” www.iceclt.org/clt/cltmodel.html accessed 3/16/05

PLASE Park Cisterns (Section 19)
* Treepeople installed a 110,000 gallon cistern under a T-ball field at the Open Charter Elementary School in the Westchester area of Los Angeles. This website includes photos. accessed 7/30/05
* The new main branch of the Santa Monica Public Library will include a 200,000 gallon cistern. accessed 7/30/05

Lares gardens (Section 20)
* Mandala garden layout: Vegetable rotations integrating seasonal ripening and using chickens as part of the ecological system are detailed in Linda Woodrow’s The Permaculture Home Garden.
* For photographs of what the children’s area might look like, browse Bunny Guinness, Creating a Family Garden
* The National Wildlife Federation has a program for backyard wildlife habitats. (link)
* Cornell University coordinates an annual backyard bird count. http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/

Tidepools and Sea Level Rise (Section 23)
* The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects sea level rise of as much as 34.6 inches by 2100. This measure has been extrapolated backward for the purpose of fiction resulting in a 4.69 inch ratable increase by the year 2015. (source link accessed March 15, 2005)
* For a beautiful description of tidepool interconnection with the oceans, see Holling Clancy Holling’s children’s classic Pagoo, the beautifully illustrated story of a hermit crab.

Greywater (Section 25)
* Yes you can use greywater on fruit trees, if you know what you are doing. For safety, the greywater should not touch the edible portions of the fruit. Thus non-spraying style drip irrigation with greywater would work safely on the plants named. To maintain strictest safety margins, greywater should not be used on edible portions, for instance, hosing down lettuce leaves. Greywater should not be stored. An excellent online discussion of greywater is at Oasis Designs accessed 7/30/05

Consumerism, Al’s lecture (Section 29)
* Appliance space in cabinets: in loving memory of Charlotte K. Vana.
* Moral leadership quotation: from National Religious Partnership for the Environment, “Earth’s Climate Embraces Us All: A Plea from Religion and Science for Action of Global Climate Change,” 2004
* China: China has plans to build wind farms offshore by 2020-2030, per CNN article - accessed 5/30/05. In Solution #88 of his book Stormy Weather: 101Solutions to Global Climate Change, Guy Dauncey shows calculations of the renewable energy potential of China with respect to Hydro, Micro-hydro, Tidal and Geothermal, Wind, Biomass and Biogass, and Solar. Dauncey calculates that for the year 2020 China’s electricity needs will be 362GW while possible renewable energy could yield 1328GW.

LA Water (Section 30)
* In fiscal Year 2003-04, only 14% of LA’s water supply came from groundwater (and groundwater supplies are recharged with imported water). 33% of the supply that year came from the Sierra Nevadas via the Owens River Valley and the Los Angeles Aqueduct project. The remaining 53% came from the Metropolitan Water District (28% of the MWD supply came from the Colorado River, and 15% of MWD supply came from the Sierra Nevada). (source: pdf of a July 13, 2004 MWD Board Meeting). As the Owens Valley Supply cannot increase, nor can the groundwater, any future increase in LA demand will have to come from MWD or other sources such as conservation and desalinization.
* Snowpack and watershed information is from Union of Concerned Scientists “Climate Change in California: Choosing our Future” PDF, circa 2004

Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) (Section 31)
* The American Wind Energy Association would like to see RPS requiring growing shares of renewables by 2020. “Wind Power Outlook 2004,” American Wind Energy Association, PDF.
* President Carter had solar panels installed on the White House. President Regan had them removed. (source link accessed March 26, 2005)
* States listed for Ari’s travels have the greatest potential for development of these energy fields. California would be on both the solar and the wind power lists. “Our Solar Power: U.S. Photovoltaics Industry Roadmap Through 2030 and Beyond,” PDF, Sept 2004 and “Wind Power Outlook 2004,” American Wind Energy Association, PDF.

LA adolescence (Section 32)
* “The most permanent boomtown in American history, Los Angeles has always been ‘the Great Gatsby of American cities.’” Mike Davis, City of Quartz.
* “When an adolescent sense of immortality and values of speed, novelty and endless growth define a whole civilization, I think we are close to its demise and the birth of a new cultural paradigm. Watch it slowly unfold.” David Holmgren, Permaculture: Pathways and Principles Beyond Sustainability, p. 200.

Solar across the deserts (Section 33)
* While fully acknowledging the progress made by the solar industry, solar fields carpeting the desert, as the Tuscon Electric Power’s solar field in Springerville, AZ, do not seem to be in the interest of natural capital and sustainable development. photographed at p.12 of “Our Solar Power: U.S. Photovoltaics Industry Roadmap Through 2030 and Beyond,” PDF, Sept 2004

§ New York skyscraper solar sheeting is described at Lori’s projects, above.

* Rooftop solar on Moscone Center (source link accessed 8/3/05).  Staples Center information is per Green Building News, Aug. 2000, (source link accessed 8/3/05).
* What fictional character Ari calls “big think” is called ‘giantism’ by Holmgren p. 190 “Use small and slow solutions.” Permaculture Design Principle, David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles and PAthways Beyond Sustainability.
* “Efficiency gains from distributed energy come from three sources. First, transmission and distribution line losses (about 5 percent) are reduced because the energy is generally used near the source. Second, the co-location with consumption makes it more feasible to use waste heat, displacing otherwise needed natural gas or electricity for heating purposes. And third, the co-location with consumption allows for the integration of on-site energy efficiency and generating capabilities.” From the Bush Administration’s energy policy. National Energy Policy Development Group, “National Energy Policy,” Chapter Six, “Nature’s Power.”
* A solar array to cover the electrical needs of a typical home in Maine needs only 25% more roof space than one in LA. Per “Our Solar Power: U.S. Photovoltaics Industry Roadmap Through 2030 and Beyond,” PDF, Sept 2004

Photo credits STAR Light Rail Transit by Alex Allied, Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia; Cockerel by Ray Doherty, Clare, Ireland Eire; Solar Power by Johan Bolhuis, The Netherlands; gardens of the Path to Freedom urban homestead, Pasadena, CA, photo by the author; Chilling Out by Cheryl Empey, Seabrook, TX.