Supermarket Strike May Hit LA; Ralphs Will Close For Duration

The United Food and Commercial Workers union - which represents workers at Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons stores - have given a required 72 hour notice to cancel an existing contract and could walk off the job Sunday night.

The supermarkets and union officials continue to negotiate with the hope of averting a strike.  A spokesperson for Ralphs told Sign On San Diego that should the workers strike, the chain will close all stores for business for an undefined period.

The Los Angeles Times notes that the last major supermarket job action lasted 141 days, back in 2003. At that time the now defunct HOWS boutique supermarket chain, which was not part of the strike, claims it made significant profits from sales driven by customers not willing to cross picket lines.

I Want My Carbon Offsets!

Saturday night is something called Earth Hour where we are all encouraged to turn off the lights for an hour to apparently "make a statement."

I was invited to an Earth Hour party and today on my cell phone got an SMS via Evite that the party was cancelled.  If a Google search generates 7 grams of  CO2 how much does an Earth Hour party evite times 100 guests including invitation, responses, reminders and cancellation?

When I'm working, writing, on the computer, etc. - event at the office - I prefer minimal light.  At home while blogging I typically only see by the light of the computer monitor and turn on and off lights as I pass through rooms.  I bet doing that everyday saves a lot more energy than one Earth Hour party!

I also walk to work everday, generally driving my car at most two to three times a week.  I last filled up the tank on March 8th and I have about a third of a tank left (mainly due to two business related trips to the Westside/South Bay earlier in the month and a trip to Gardena for a memorial service last weekend). Even when I do drive, mostly on the weekends, it's almost always patronizing businesses in my zip code.

I also use cloth grocery bags.  I got started on that shopping at HOWS but my collection now includes Ralphs, Walgreens and Superior Produce Market. I keep enough of them in the car, buy extras when I need and always chastise the checkers "Yes I want you to use the cloth bag and not the plastic or paper."

So all of these things are helping the environment and saving me money, time, hassles, etc.

Don't make a "statement" by going to a party to be cool.  Make a statement by living your life.  Ed Begley, Jr. is one of the few environmental activists who actually practices what he preaches.


Which leads me to the conclusion - why must we have the government force us to do these things?

Who do I send my invoice for my carbon offsets to?