Night on the Town

I went to see Ed Bagley Jr. last night. It was actually a monumental event. For twenty-five years, if I wanted to do something in the evening, I had to go alone or call a girl friend. It was the first time my husband and I did something together in the evening on a weekday. That was nice.

Ed Bagley Jr you're asking. Both my husband and I are interested in environmental issues. We are certainly not hard-core environmentalist, as I've mentioned before. The talk was sponsored by the Discovery Center which promotes the love of science.

I was a bit concerned Ed Bagley Jr had become a caricature of himself. The green geek riding along the Los Angeles roads on his bicycle oblivious to the realities of city living. I actually found him to be passionate, which I knew, incredibly informed on all aspects of the environmental world and surprisingly apolitical.

This man has been in the environmental game for a long time and has learned to handle himself deftly in a crowd. He was speaking to the choir, but I got the feeling he would have been equally adept with group of coal burning utility owners.

For example, he didn't spend a lot of time talking about the climate change. Instead, he focused on the age-old concerns of water and air pollution. Remember those.

He wasn't all doom and gloom. He stated we were making lots of headway in these areas. For example, Los Angeles has four times as many cars on the road as it did in the 1970's, but one-half the pollution. That's progress. He also discussed the rivers that have been cleaned up in the twenty-five years, without negating the work that still needs to be done.