The Biodiversity and Ecosystems Committee is continuing to focus on 1) reducing use for artificial turf and 2) restoring native plants and our urban forest. Join this call to learn about and help us with this work.

Meeting to be held via Zoom. Please click here to register.

Palisades Earth Day & Veg Fest returns to the Village Green April 19. Plants, food, music, healing activities, and real climate solutions.

Join Resilient Palisades for a joyful, family friendly Earth Day celebration featuring:

• A large native plant sale led by one of our longtime plant leaders

• A wide selection of vegan food vendors

• Face painting and creative activities for kids

• Healing and hands on nature activities for all ages

• Zero waste and composting demonstrations

• Music and community connection

Click here to learn more and RSVP.

From ecosystems of the past to today’s environmental challenges, Earth Day Festival invites visitors of all ages to explore the planet’s past, present, and future in meaningful and captivating ways.

As part of Earth Day Festival, NHM presents Green Screen: Our Planet on Film, a series of free film screenings in the Commons Theater.

Through documentary film and post-screening conversation, Green Screen explores diverse ecosystems, environmental histories, and urgent challenges facing our planet today–offering moments of reflection and dialogue within a full day of celebration.

To learn more and get tickets click here.

The City of Beverly Hills will celebrate its 23rd Annual Earth Day event at its B.H. Farmer’s Market on Sunday, April 19. Explore a variety of environmental booths, enjoy kids' activities, recycle electronics, and bring items to be repaired at the Repair Cafe. There will also be a free compost giveaway, community paper shredding, and a clothing swap, as well as 20+ vendors and information about Beverly Hills’ sustainability efforts! Scheduled for Sunday, April 19 from 9 am to 1 pm at the Beverly Hills Farmer’s Market, 9300 Civic Center Dr., between Third Street and Santa Monica Boulevard.

Click here to learn more!

This program highlights how a once compacted patch of dirt at the library has been transformed into living soil that now supports pollinators, native plants, and urban biodiversity. It’s a small but meaningful example of how community spaces can contribute to climate resilience and ecological restoration. There will be a special presentation of “Bring Back the Pollinators”.

To learn more and register click here.

This springtime community tradition is a free, family-friendly event that will include kids’ activities, live music, food vendors, giveaways, raffles, and more. A variety of non-profit and environmentally focused exhibitors will be participating in the event. With the growing availability and variety of electric vehicles, EV Advocates of Ventura County will host an electric vehicle display where EV owners will display their vehicles and be available to answer your questions and provide first-hand experience and insight into EV ownership.

The City’s waste hauler, Athens Services, will be available to answer questions about trash, recycling, and organics services and will be giving away free compost!

Kids’ activities will include a bicycle safety course and helmet giveaway, recycled arts/crafts activities, face painting, recycling games, and more.

Location is the Thousand Oaks Community Center (next to the T.O. High School), 2525 N. Moorpark Rd., Thousand Oaks. Runs from 10 am to 2 pm.

Click here to learn more!

This is a special cleanup that will celebrate Mother Earth. They will also be hosting a Tree Planting as part of the stewardship activities. We will follow up with a sustainability fair with other environmental organizations in the Inland Empire. It will end with a fun raffle with AirPods being the main prize! They are hosting an opportunity drawing with tickets at a suggested donation of $5 each or 5 tickets for $20.

To learn more and register click here.

FoLAR is proud to be joined by the California Native Plant Society, Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society for a celebration of community, stewardship and our planet. There will be food trucks, a litter cleanup, and community partners on-site to connect you with the broader world of local conservation.

As usual, volunteers will also get their hands in the soil pulling invasive species and planting natives, roll seedballs to scatter across the Basin, and explore the ecosystem on a guided nature walk around the Nature Reserve, binoculars provided!

To register click here.

The Water and Energy Committee meets on the third Friday of the month at 3:30pm.

Join us to learn about water conservation and the clean energy transition in Los Angeles and how you can help make these systems more sustainable and resilient.

Meeting via Zoom. No registration required - click here to join: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82390645850

California’s chaparral ecosystem is adapted to periodic fire, but hotter droughts and more frequent burns are testing its resilience and are leading to losses in diversity. Drawing on research from the Santa Monica Mountains, this talk by expert Dr. Anna Jacobsen examines how these combined stresses are reshaping chaparral ecosystems.

To learn more and register click here.

Meet up for the L.A. Climate Week closing ceremony to reconnect with all those you met this week! Let’s keep up the connections and work together to make L.A., and Southern California in general, more climate-healthy!

To register click here.

The Urban Agriculture Network is a US-based group focused on urban food system issues, sharing insights across cities — because food is a climate issue.

We Zoom on third Wednesdays from 1-2 PM Pacific time. To register click here.

Tour of Athens Services Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in the City of Irwindale, providing waste services to millions of residents in Greater Los Angeles. Tour hosted by Los Angeles Climate Reality Project and Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance.

Please click here to learn more and RSVP.

Celebrate Earth Sunday at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Santa Monica’s annual Green Living Fair + Veggie Potluck April 12 from 12:30 to 3 p.m. Learn about sustainable gardening, vegan food, saving energy and water, getting around, and protecting our Earth. Bring a Vegan Potluck dish to share! Located at Forbes Hall, 1260 18th Street, Santa Monica, CA

Click here to learn more.

Charles Miller, LA Climate Reality’s Chapter Chair, will lead a tour of the Westwood Greenway, organized by the Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance.

Learn how this special park captures stormwater, supports biodiversity, and builds climate resilience. Stick around afterward to help steward the Westwood Neighborhood Greenway by removing invasive plants and making room for native plants to thrive.

From about 11 to 12:30, we'll tour the Westwood Greenway to learn more about how it was created, how it helps prevent water pollution, and what native plants have been restored at the site.

From about 12:30 to 2, we'll clear out invasive non-native plants to help the greenway thrive. We'll be divided into teams with tasks for all levels of physical ability, and no prior experience is needed.

Feel free to drop in whenever you like, and you do not have to stay the whole time.

Click here to RSVP.

A FREE, family-friendly Community Food Festival celebrating sustainability and plant-powered living as part of LA Climate Week. Enjoy a sustainable festival with plant-based food court, food trucks, free food samples, eco-friendly vendors, live entertainment, prize drawings, and Planet Heroes, a family fun zone. All day at Fiesta Hall in Plummer Park connect with local changemakers and community organizations, hear from impactful sustainability speakers, take part in climate action and food policy discussions to shape a greener West Hollywood and cities in LA County.

Register here: http://fooddayfestival.eventbrite.com/

During LA Climate Week join SFLA at Tower 20 in Santa Monica from 10AM-12PM! The cleanup will be co-hosted with The LMU Outdoor & Adventure Recreation (OAR) program that supports a range of student clubs, including LMU Surfrider, and offers students the opportunity to get off campus and explore the great outdoors in Los Angeles and beyond!

All cleanup equipment is provided- including gloves, grabbers, reusable trash bags, sunscreen, and a water refill station- just remember to bring a reusable water bottle!

To register click here.

Over 50 Green Exhibitors, Earth-friendly Arts and Crafts, tours of the L.A. County Sanitation facilities, Live Music and Dance, Face Painting, Magic Shows, Food Trucks, etc. will be just some of the highlights of the Earth Day Celebration in Whittier on April 11 from 10 am to 2 pm.

Location is 1955 Workman Mill Road, and it’s free! Event parking is off-site at 13181 and 13191 Crossroads Parkway North and shuttle service will be provided to transport guests to/from the parking lot and festival.

Tours of the San Jose Creek Water Reclamation Plant will run every 30 minutes from 10:30 am until 1:30 pm. Tours of the Puente Hills Materials Recovery Facility will run at 10:15 am, 11:30 am, and 12:45 pm.

Click here to learn more.

Los Angeles faces twin crises — a housing shortage and a climate emergency — and the solutions are more intertwined than our policy conversations typically reflect. This panel brings them together.

The panelists will discuss how land use in Los Angeles impacts our ability to address climate change. Where we build housing, how densely, and how close to transit are among the most consequential decisions our region makes for its carbon future. Compact, infill development reduces vehicle miles traveled, limits the urban sprawl that devours habitat at the region’s edges, and concentrates investment in communities that already have infrastructure and opportunity.

Panelists

• Nancy Barba, Portfolio Director at Frontier Energy

• Loraine Lundquist, Ph.D., Board Consultant on clean energy and air quality to LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell at the South Coast AQMD, City of LA Rent Adjustment Commissioner, and Board Chair of LA Forward

• Stephanie Pincetl, Ph.D., Founding Director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities and Professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

• Chris Rhie (Moderator), Founder and Principal of Rhie Planning LLC and Co-Founder of Urban Environmentalists Los Angeles

Climate activist and organizer Zan Dubin, former Los Angeles Times staff reporter, will breakdown the media strategies she used to achieve recent climate victories involving Disneyland and the Dodgers. Zan will deliver concrete, actionable tools and tips to help attendees achieve success. Through media outreach, Zan got Disneyland to pledge to electrify its polluting gas-powered Autopia ride, obtaining headlines globally. Zan brought unprecedented U.S. media attention to sportswashing by organizing the first national protest against sportswashing in U.S. history.

Guest Speaker: Award-winning journalist and media strategist Tracy Wholf, former senior coordinating producer, climate coverage, CBS News.

Who should attend: Climate activists and anyone who wants to enhance their strategic organizing skills, generally, and learn from-the-trenches media tools to boost campaign or client success.

To register click here.

REGISTER FOR Zoom LINK - Click Here

Help us get the word out about the climate crisis and the great work the chapter is doing to address it.

The Marketing & Communications Committee manages the website, newsletter, and social media accounts for the chapter.

This will be a chance for you to meet the rest of the team, get updates, and work together to develop our marketing strategy.

We welcome new and returning volunteers to help generate ideas, increase our capacity, and share the workload. Experienced marketing and creatives folks are welcome, but no experience is necessary. If you want to help but can't make the meeting, please reach out to us via the contact form.

Click here to register for the Zoom meeting.

Follow us on social media: LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Bluesky

Join USGBC California’s Building Decarb committee for a special meeting celebrating product innovations that advance the capability of heat pumps — part of California Heat Pump Week!

Three of the panelists are current participants or recent alumni from USGBC-CA’s Net Zero Accelerator, which speeds the development and commercialization of start ups with sustainable innovations. NZA has supported over a hundred early stage companies in 11 cohorts since 2019.

The fourth panelist shifts the discussion from product innovations to the perspective of an engineer working to deploy heat pumps across hundreds of buildings on 23 campuses in their statewide enterprise: the California State University system.

Panelists for this discussion are:

• Samantha Lamos of Gradient Comfort, which won a New York City design competition to enable affordable retrofits in high rise multifamily housing. Their 120 volt window heat pumps install in under 30 minutes.

• Jane Melia of Harvest Thermal, an air to water heat pump which stores hot water in a tank that is used for both potable domestic hot water as well as space heating and cooling.

• Jordan Sotudeh of Venaera, which targets retrofits for larger buildings with package units. Venaera’s independent, swappable modules increase flexibility of installation, and simplify maintenance.

• Rachel Patterson, University Engineer for the California State University Chancellor’ Office, will talk about deploying heat pumps at scale across an enterprise.

Click here to register for this free event.

The City of Glendale invites you to celebrate Earth Day Fair! Join to embrace climate resiliency, celebrate environmental stewardship, deepen our understanding of our planet, and actively engage in sustainable practices. The Fair will take place at the south end of the park, where picnic tables are available for attendees to enjoy.

To learn more click here.

Kuruvungna Springs, also known as the Gabrieleno Tongva Springs, is a sacred site that supported and continues to support the thriving Tongva people.

The site welcomes visitors and volunteers on the first Saturday of each month between 10am and 3pm to see and sustain this sacred space. Volunteers are generally asked to assist in gardening and landscaping initiatives, so bring your own gloves and gardening tools if you can.

Please join fellow members of LA Climate Reality in accepting this gracious invitation and actively engaging in the maintenance and upkeep of this beautiful indigenous space. LA Climate Reality co-chair Andy Hattala plans to be there between 10am and 12pm.

Click here to learn more about Kuruvungna Springs.

Climate Reality OC has teamed up with Sean Armstrong of Redwood Energy to explore the feasibility 👍👍 and affordability 💲💲 of electrifying your home! The next episode of the Ask Sean Show is coming up Monday, March 30th at 5:30 pm PT Via Zoom.

This episode features a challenging retrofit: the household is seeking to fully electrify without upgrading their 60-amp main breaker panel! Until recently, most thought this was infeasible. But Sean's team at Redwood Energy and NBI surveyed tens of thousands of CA homes and found that 50 percent of households never exceed 34 amps.

This episode will feature high-efficiency, low-power appliances for space heating, cooling, water heating, cooking, laundry, and more. We'll talk circuit splitters and sharers, smart panels, and more. Join us, and bring your questions.

Click here to register for the Zoom link.

Rebuilding & Retrofitting for Resilient, Clean Energy Buildings

Our March 29 guest will be Ben Stapleton, Chief Executive Officer for USGBC California. His development and delivery of a portfolio of community engagement and education focused programming have centered on climate justice, high-performance buildings, occupant health, corporate sustainability, and regional resilience, fostering a sense of connection and shared purpose. 

USGBC-CA’s mission is to leverage the built environment to make California a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable place for all. Ben served on the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire Safe Recovery following the 2025 LA fires. USGBC-CA has produced a guide to sustainable and resilient rebuilding for communities impacted by the fires and has led or participated in numerous wildfire prevention and rebuilding workshops, trainings, and events.

USGBC-CA also works on building decarbonization, with a focus on improving existing buildings. Last year, the organization launched the California Building Performance Hub, a website that helps building owners and managers to understand how to measure the energy use and emissions from their buildings and strategically decarbonize their buildings, while also providing resources about building decarbonization policy to municipalities and other stakeholders.

Previously, Ben launched and then managed the internationally recognized regional epicenter for sustainability in Downtown L.A., the La Kretz Innovation Campus, while leading operations, finance, and major program initiatives for the LA Cleantech Incubator (LACI).

Meeting to be held via Zoom. Please click here to register.