I point this out not because I'm in favor of it, but because I think it's a trend worth watching: the Klamath Falls, Ore., newspaper, The Herald and News is reporting on a project to use biomass--namely, thinned trees--to generate electricity. Here's what the article has to say about the greenhouse gas effects of the project: A major wildfire would release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. But the controlled use of that same wood for lumber or electrical production would be positive in terms of "greenhouse gas" emissions. Future fires would not release the same amount of carbon …

Blogger Kevin Drum at The Washington Monthly has a well-written, informative, and balanced set of posts of the so-called "Peak Oil" theory -- the idea that, while the world may not be running out of oil, exactly, we may be fairly close to the practical limit of how much oil can be squeezed out of the ground in any given year.  After the peak, goes the theory, oil production gradually declines, no matter how high the price might go.  (By the way, oil production in the United States peaked in 1970.  Even with new production in Alaska and the Gulf …

This New York Times article from last Saturday echoed news that has been popping up all over recently. The headline sums it up: "America's Love Affair With S.U.V.'s Begins to Cool." Higher gas prices are apparently starting to shift people's car-buying patterns -- which seems to have caught most auto-industry execs by surprise, though it should hardly come as a shock to economists who (quite naturally) expect that price changes will eventually change people's behavior. But what stuck out at me was this quote from a former SUV aficionado: "I never wanted a car before -- never," said Tamika Cooks, …

From the Christian Science Monitor, evidence that consumers are beginning to think about gas prices as they make new vehicle purchases: Last month, 49 percent of new-car buyers, the highest level ever, had changed their mind or were thinking strongly about buying a vehicle they would not have considered because of gas prices, according to a survey by Harris Interactive and Kelley Blue Book. Over the short term, rising gas prices only affect consumption a little bit, because people have only so much flexibility to change their driving habits. Over the long term, though, people start making more fundamental changes …

Ok, that's a dumb headline. But the problem itself -- whether to diaper my babies with cloth or disposables -- was one I spent a bit of time agonizing over. But perhaps I shouldn't have. A new study commissioned by the British Environment Agency (reported on here and here) suggests there's almost no difference between the two, at least in terms of environmental impacts. Which is roughly the same answer that this 1992 study, at the website of our friends at the Institute for Lifecycle Energy Analysis, came to. The British study made some suggestions for ways that both disposables …

A reader of the Cascadia Scorecard Weblog had this question: What do we think about this piece of advice from the May-June Sierra Club magazine's "Hey Mr. Green" column? Hey Mr. Green, What's best for the environment, continuing to drive my perfectly fine 1990 Honda Accord, or trading it in for a new gas-sipping Prius? -- Heath in Los Angeles Well, Mr. Green hates to say this because you might be bonded to your trusty old Accord, but she burns twice the petrol and wheezes out twice the global-warming gas of a Prius or similar hybrid model. Being a conscientious …

It's a rare treat to read a dry, technical report and--almost by accident--learn something surprising, counterintuitive, useful, and (at least to me) genuinely new. Which is exactly what happened when I read this paper (beware, PDF) by Todd Litman at the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute. The upshot: Raising vehicle fuel-economy standards, which always seemed to me like a good idea, may actually be counterproductive, even if they're truly successful at reducing the amount of gasoline the average vehicle consumes per mile. Now, I'd long heard the argument that current fuel economy standards (also known as Corporate Average Fuel Economy or …

Via Planetizen News, evidence that the impossible is finally catching on: According to Governing magazine, more and more jurisdictions in the US and Europe are making drivers pay to use roads when they're congested. And remarkably, the politicians responsible for instituting the tolls don't seem to be paying much of a political price. London's experiment is perhaps the most famous: The city now charges drivers about $10 to drive into the city center between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on weekdays. Some pundits predicted that the policy would spark a commuter rebellion. Instead... Rather than revolting, drivers did one of …

Well, from the LA Times, at least.  The paper's had a series of guest editorials about traffic, transit and urban planning -- specifically, how sprawling, congested LA can get itself out of the fix it's put itself into over the last 60 years or so.  The LA area is surprisingly dense, but the population is spread out fairly uniformly over a large area -- which makes it very hard to service the region cost-effectively using transit.  At the same time, building new roads has become both exhorbitantly expensive and politically unpalatable. Sounds a little like much of the rest of …

Every time I post something about biofuels (such as ethanol and biodiesel), it gets, shall we say, spirited comments. Passions run hot on both sides, with opinions split between those who think that biofuels are one of the most promising solutions to America's petroleum dependence and a great way of reducing climate-warming emissions, and those who think that that biofuels are mostly a costly and wasteful distraction. What do I think? I posted a longer post on that subject on the Cascadia Scorecard Weblog. Here's a Cliff Notes version. Corn ethanol's chief critic says that it's a waste of energy …