CLCV Chief Executive Officer Sarah Rose addresses the attendees of the June 27 CLCV Environmental Leadership Awards in San Francisco:

As this is June and the end of the school year for most students, I was proud to attend the promotion ceremony for my oldest daughter from elementary school. Next year she enters middle school, and then a few more years and she’ll be off to high school as a member of the graduating class of 2020.  Read More >

"But they're so convenient." Really?

[Updated May 30, 2013: Today the California state senate failed to pass SB 405, the statewide plastic bag ban. The bill's author, Senator Alex Padilla, vowed to bring it back and convince fellow lawmakers to support it next year].

The main, lame argument I hear in favor of the ubiquitous single-use plastic bag is that it's convenient. And that it's difficult to remember to bring your own reusable bags when you're out shopping. Even the most responsible environmentalists among us have occasionally arrived at the grocery store and realized we've forgotten our trusty reusable bag (you know, the ones with the logo of our favorite public radio station proudly displayed) and had to juggle a few items on the way home on our bikes or in our electric or biodiesel cars.

But compare that minor inconvenience to the mess caused by millions of plastic bags littered throughout our communities and scoring free attendance to a popular trash conference known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Read More >

Today CLCV released its annual California Environmental Scorecard, just days before the November 2012 General Election. The record of the votes (available at www.ecovote.org/scorecard/) reveals how members of the state legislature and Governor Jerry Brown performed on the most important environmental and public health bills in the 2012 legislative session. Read More >

It's time for the state of California to follow the lead of more than 50 of our cities and dump the plastic bag.

Named by Guinness World Records as "the most ubiquitous consumer item in the world," single-use plastic bags are a leading source of pollution worldwide, including in California. Californians use and throw away 12 billion (yes, that's billion with a "b") of these bags each year with devastating consequences for marine life. Read More >