I feel really fortunate to live in Oakland. It's a place that has challenges, but it's also a place that exhibits a remarkable resilience and ability to come together to solve its problems.

Like last Saturday, when in honor of Earth Day, I joined about 20 other people to wade around in Arroyo Viejo Creek in East Oakland to clean out the accumulated trash from the rainy season. I love working with other people to make a tangible difference in a particular place.

You could say that cleaning up a little section of creek doesn't make a difference to the whole planet. And maybe it doesn't, but I know there's a little less plastic going out to the ocean. And when you think about how much the young people learned about their responsibility to the environment, the simple act of working together to clean up a creek could make a huge difference.

Some Earth Day activities happened last weekend, but there's still time to get involved. Oakland Local points to the Communities for a Better Environment event in East Oakland and the Sustainable Peralta conference Ideas for Action at Laney College. San Francisco is hosting a huge celebration on April 23 at Civic Center Plaza. You can also find about a billion more ways to get involved at the main Earth Day site A Billion Acts of Green.

So find a way get involved and make your neighborhood a little greener.

One other thing: Nothing will convince you faster that we should ban plastic bags than cleaning up an urban creek. Any politician that thinks otherwise should spend a day cleaning up one of their local creeks.