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Umbra on shaving, part two

Dear Umbra, I just read your response about men’s shaving, but what about women? I don’t see many women shaving with straight razors, plus we have the depilatory cream and waxing options too. What’s our best option, especially for those of us who just hate dealing with it, but must? CatherineAppleton, Wis. Dearest Catherine, Although […]

Nuclear and drilling: whatever happened to NIMBY?

Today's LA Times headline should be no surprise by now: "Nuclear Industry Lays Foundation for Comeback." However, here's the opening paragraph:

CLINTON, Ill. -- Along the streets of this economically depressed farming town, optimism is running high that a proposed nuclear power plant could bring in new jobs, give a boost to local retailers and increase taxes for schools.

While the risks of a nuclear plant in your backyard are high, the benefits are great too. I personally know that Perry, Ohio has the nicest high school and athletic facilities around because of the revenue it got from the nuclear facility there.

Drilling in the Arctic Refuge also enjoys popular support from Alaskans.

If we are going to oppose these measures, what can be done to convince the people who will see the most benefits from such projects that it really isn't a good idea? We are facing an uphill battle when rebate checks or increases in school funding are so concentrated and have such a large impact on a small number of people.

Literally!

One of the charges leveled against New Urbanism and the idea of planned development in general is that it tries to sculpt cities in a way that the planners feel is appropriate, with little regard to what the people actually living in the cities might think. Ideally, perfectly informed people would express their preferences through a perfectly informed housing market, price signals would be sent and received, and the "correct" amount of "greenness" or sustainability or whatever would be determined by how much people were willing to pay for such things.

Of course, no such situation exists, in the housing or any other market. One part of the housing and development market that just screams "externality" is the issue of blight. Clusters of abandoned property are often seen as unrecoverable by the private sector, unless you're Donald Trump and have a lot of money to sink into it. I was at a lecture earlier this spring with a speaker (can't remember the name -- he worked in Trenton, NJ) who said that on half the property in Trenton, if you put a $100,000 house on the lot the property is still worth less than than that, usually around $75,000. I don't remember specifically that blight was the force at work there, but there are significant impacts on a lot when everything around it is abandoned; National Vacant Properties Campaign has some good statistics on the matter.

So, in a case of extreme blight we have a market failure on our hands. As long as government intervention is necessary anyway, why not let the "sculptors" go to town (!) and do some things that the free market doesn't do that well on its own, like plan for the long term and make things renewable? (Besides the fact that it's much, much easier said than done, that is.)

Can the moon provide infinite clean, cheap energy?

Ok, since no one else has been brave enough to post this one ... from Wired re: Chip Proser's new documentary, Gaia Selene:

The moon, the film argues, will provide the Earth with infinite clean, cheap energy. Our ailing globe will stabilize. Wealth and good fortune will spread throughout the planetary system.

Not sold yet? Nibble on this:

Gaia Selene begins by building a picture of an Earth on the verge of environmental collapse. Global demand for energy is spiking. Nukes (too dangerous) and fossil fuels (dirty and limited) are problematic. With no earthly solution on the horizon, Gaia Selene insists we look to space, where we'll find two sources of cheap, clean energy.

And once we establish our moon base, we'll head out to explore the galaxy using our no-energy-required solar sails!

Luna, here I come! Who's with me?

An interview with activists at the Prison Moratorium Project

Khaleaph Luis (left) and Prince S. Say “criminal justice” and very few people think of the environment. But in reality, there’s a complicated relationship between the work of environmentalists, who are trying to encourage a more responsible attitude toward our planet and everything on it, and those moving in and out of the prison-industrial complex, […]

Green Living and Paper or Plastic give shoppers cause — and pause

Food for thought. I found out not too long ago that I am a LOHAS. Or, I should say, I found out that a gaggle of people I’ve never met think I am a LOHAS. These initials, as you may well know, stand for “lifestyles of health and sustainability.” We LOHAS shoppers are, according to […]

The question of whether to buy locally grown food is not as clear as it might appear.

When shopping for food, how important is it to buy local? This question isn't rhetorical: I no longer know quite what to think about this. Obviously, transporting food long distances requires fossil fuels and creates air pollution, among other ills. So all else being equal, it's better to buy local. But how much better, I'm just not sure.

Studies such as this one (reported on here by the BBC, blogged about here) suggest that, in terms of net environmental impact, it's even more important to buy local than to buy organic. The authors of the study didn't look at human health issues, but did attempt to quantify all sorts of environmental "externalities" -- i.e., costs not borne by the consumer -- resulting from food production. And they found that transportating food was far and away the largest component of external environmental costs. In other words, the closer to home the food is grown, the better it is for the planet.

Arid Extra Dry

Desertification will be big bummer for hundreds of thousands worldwide Hundreds of thousands of people — some of them the world’s poorest — will be displaced in the next 30 years as the globe’s deserts expand, according to the latest report from the U.N.’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Climate change is likely to intensify droughts, heat […]

Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Obrador’s Heaven

Ambitious new bus rapid-transit system hits the road in Mexico City Mexico City mayor and popular presidential hopeful Andrés Manuel López Obrador hopes to clear some of his city’s legendary smog and gridlock with an ambitious pilot transport project — a bus system with a hint o’ subway. Eighty new low-emission Volvo jumbo buses have […]

We Love to Fly, and It Blows

British aviation industry promises to do better at curbing emissions Stung by new revelations that it is failing to meet its targeted reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, the European Union is looking around for new scapego… er, strategies. Of late, its bureaucratic gaze has fallen upon the aviation industry, with visions of fuel taxes dancing in […]