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Obama says will move immediately on international climate pact

Prior to his weekend wins in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Barack Obama promised to begin developing the U.S. position on an international pact to halt global warming now, instead of waiting until 2009. “I’ve been in conversations with former Vice President [Al] Gore repeatedly, and his recommendation, which I think is […]

Have you been naughty with your light bulbs? You need some good old command and control.

The so-called incandescent light bulb ban (not actually a ban) included as part of the recent energy bill has prompted a low-level but consistent set of complaints that deserve further consideration, because they betray a fair amount of confusion about which policy tools to break out for which issues.

On the right, the reaction to the new lighting efficiency standard has ranged from hysterical whining to hysterical snark. But even on the left, it's fairly common to run across the high-minded opinion that finicky legislation like the lighting efficiency standard only wastes time and stirs up needless recrimination. Instead we should set a price on carbon, and let the market sort out the rest.

It's an excellent theory, one that I subscribe to under most circumstances, but sometimes command and control really is just the thing. The math on light bulbs is pretty easy to run. Follow along if you're interested, or just skip the next two paragraphs.

Outlook not good for air quality at Delhi-hosted games

Think the air quality at this summer’s 2008 Beijing Olympics is going to be bad? When New Delhi hosts the 2010 Commonwealth Games, it’ll probably be even worse.

Umbra on staying positive

Dear Umbra, I am a new but faithful reader of your excellent column. I’ve learned a lot, but one thing I’ve noticed is that there never seems to be an upside to the answers. Now, this may be just because the reality sucks so much, but it depresses the hell out of me and makes […]

Date set for presidential debate on scientific issues

Organizers of a proposed presidential debate on science and technology have set a date and place: April 18, in Philadelphia, just before the Pennsylvania primary. All four viable presidential candidates have been invited. Will they show up to debate the United States’ paltry investment in energy research, the necessity of taxing fossil-fuel use, and more? […]

OSHA looks the other way while poultry giants abuse workers

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. In an excellent muckraking report which underlines the importance of metropolitan newspapers, The Charlotte Observer has shined a bright light into one of the murkiest corners of our food system: poultry-packing factories. The report focuses on North Carolina-based House of Raeford, the […]

G7 countries call for clean-technology fund for developing nations

The Group of Seven richest nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the U.S. — have called for investment in a multibillion-dollar fund to provide climate-change-fightin’ clean technology to developing countries.

The green take on Super-Duper Tuesday, sell-off of oil leases in polar-bear habitat sets record, and

Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Curb Uranium Enthusiasm Super Troopers Troop On Missing in Auction Shelling It Out The Fellowship of the Ping A Shock to the Systems Unhappy Campers Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: Boogie Woogie Google Boy Sell Abrasions

Recycle your jeans at Aéropostale

While hiding from Seattle’s rainy grayness yesterday, I happened upon an interesting window display at teeny-bop-shop Aéropostale. In bright green letters, the sign urged passersby to recycle their denim as part of the store’s Teens for Jeans campaign. The project aims to give gently used jeans to homeless teens across the country — and Aéropostale […]

A poet takes the measure of Portland — on foot

Starting early this century, poet and professor David Oates set out to walk the boundary line that Oregon drew around the city of Portland decades ago to concentrate its development and discourage sprawl. What is today called "the New Urbanism" is not new in Portland: it's been part of the political process since l973.

As Oates writes in a forward to a book he recently published about his adopted state's experiment in urban utopianism:

We hope to grow in, and in some places, up. To get richer in connections and cleverness -- to get deeper -- instead of wider, flatter, and shallower.

That simplicity of language and depth of thought is part of the charm of City Limits: Walking Portland's Boundary. Like Thoreau, to whom Oates alludes in his first chapter -- titled "Where I Walked, What I Walked For" -- Oates has a knack for linking a bold action, such as walking over 250 miles around the city, to a self-deprecating description.

Oates lightly mocks himself for getting lost, for his fear of dog attacks in redneck neighborhoods, and even for his own occasional tendency to stereotype people. This willingness to reveal his flaws helps the reader trust Oates' discussion of the issues raised by Portland's boundary (known as the UGB, or Urban Growth Boundary). Oates also dares include in his book brief essays from others, including philosopher/writer Kathleen Deen Moore and winemaker Eric Lemelson, as well as a planner, a landscape architect, and even a developer -- the sort of voices not usually heard in "environmental" books.

Most surprising of all, on his walks Oates occasionally encounters legendary figures -- such as John Muir, Paul Shepherd, Italo Calvino -- who just happen to have inspired Oates. These ghostly figures turn out to be quite chatty, and yet utterly themselves, giving the book a jolt of originality to match its open-mindedness. Each encounter with these ghosts has a wistful quality; one can tell that Oates hates to see them go.

Calvino especially inspires, with his discussion of the city of the labyrinthian spiral, the city of multiple desires, the city "that fades before your eyes," he tells Oates. "Like all of Portland's inhabitants, you follow zigzag lines from one street to another ... all the rest of the city is invisible. Your footsteps follow not what is outside the eyes, but what is within, buried, erased."

It's a wonderful, original, eye-opening book. Although sometimes the multiple introductions and voices give it a patchwork quilt quality, in the end the book resembles the city Oates obviously adores: vibrantly alive, defiantly progressive, fearlessly contentious. For Grist, Oates kindly agreed to answer a few questions about Portland and its attempts to control its development: