Many energy companies, as well as the Bush administration, are very fond of telling us that renewable energy may be an option...20 or 40 years from now. Much of the rest of the world, however, is not adhering to this timetable. Wind power already supplies 5 percent of Europe's residential electricity demand, and wind and solar energy generating capacity worldwide are skyrocketing.

Europe

Sierra Club Regional Representative

Our local national forests, so often taken for granted, are in trouble. As people build more and more houses, businesses, and roads around and even on the forests, wildlife and their habitat continue to decline. Increasing numbers of motorcycles in the back country and commercial demands to slice the forests with highways, power lines, and even hydroelectric dams complete the picture of forests in crisis.

The proposed Las Lomas 5,800-home housing development in northern Los Angeles County has been blocked by Los Angeles and Santa Clarita officials.

The year began with news dominated by reports of death and destruction following the massive Indonesian earthquake. At first the death toll was counted in the thousands, then the tens of thousands, then over a hundred thousand. By some reports the dead and missing now number over a quarter million. So many lives gone so quickly, and not due to an act of humanity, but the raw force of nature. The reports tell that many of the victims were initially drawn to the shore, standing in wonderment as the water receded, then were swept away as the waves flooded in.