Last week, I pulled the bag of dried mushrooms out of the pantry and opened it, trying to figure out a way to use such a large quantity of candy caps.

Do you ever take your dog to the Albany Bulb? If yes, you want to read this--A local resident sends along news that our neighbors in Albany are contemplating new leash laws that would basically ban dogs from the beach at the Albany Bulb and would require leashes on dogs everywhere but deep into the area. 

Friday afternoon, an email from an upset Oakland resident landed in our mailbox that said:

You're probably thinking, “I didn't know we had olive groves in Oakland.” 

And we don't ... per se. But the trees are everywhere. Once you can recognize their distinctive gray-green silhouette, it's just a slight shift in awareness to start to see them everywhere you go. 

After the U.N Climate talks in Cancun last month brought the world no closer to a strong inter-governmental climate agreement than the Copenhagen meeting did a year earlier, leaders in the climate justice movement are saying this: It is up to communities to lead the way. This mantra is gaining steam.

Intentionally set in the parking lot of Giant Burger Restaurant, and located merely 100 feet away from t

(Editor's note: Our continuing series that looks at Oakland Local's picks for people/organizations to watch in 2011. See all profiles in this series.)

Christoper Shein is the Bay Area's resident permaculture design guru and for the last 10 years, he has taught the Permaculture Design class at Merritt Community College’s Landscape Horticulture Department, inspiring hundreds of students to build new gardens and integrate permaculture's principles of sustainability into surrounding landscapes.

Shein just signed a contract with Timber Press to write a permaculture gardening book in 2011, with the working title of "The Edible Gardener's Guide to Permaculture."

“’Going local’ is a powerful strategy to help repair our fractured world—our ecosystems, our societies and our selves. Far from the old institutions of power, people are starting to forge a very different future...” So says The Economics of Happiness, a new documentary about the economic localization movement.

The Center for Investigative Reporting invites you to a Bay Area film premiere of "DIRTY BUSINESS 'Clean Coal' and the Battle for Our Energy Future."

Have a tree you need to dispose of? The city's Holiday Tree Cycling Curbside Pickups are scheduled for Jan. 3-14.

The city says residents should place their clean, green holiday tree at the curb, next to your green yard trimmings cart on your regularly scheduled yard trimmings collection day.

Margaret Gordon, co-founder of the nonprofit West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, is one of 10 recipients of the highly coveted “Purpose Award.”  Her share of the prize is $100,000.

Scheduled to end in 2010, the prizes have been awarded by Civic Ventures since 2005 to honor “social entrepreneurs over 60 who, in their encore careers, are using their impact on society’s biggest challenges.”  The prizes “call attention to the wealth of experience and vision of boomers who are often overlooked in our youth-oriented culture.”