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On a Wing and a Mayor

U.S. mayors form coalition to fight climate change, one city at a time A bipartisan coalition of 132 U.S. mayors — led by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (D), and recently joined by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) — has issued a high-profile rebuke of Bush administration inaction on climate change. The leaders have […]

Neva Goodwin, ecological economist, answers questions

Neva Goodwin. What work do you do? I’m an economist, and codirector of the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University. How does it relate to the environment? My overall goal is to affect what people are taught when they take economics courses, and to change the kind of economics that’s subsequently in people’s […]

Umbra on letter-writing campaigns

Dear Umbra, I just switched to all-natural cleaning products (Seventh Generation, it’s great!) and I wanted my switch to have the most impact possible. I was thinking about sending emails to the companies whose cleaning products I had previously used, telling them why I switched, describing the nasty effects of their products, and encouraging them […]

It’s cool.

I went to the grand opening of the Ballard branch of the Seattle Public Library this afternoon (the old Ballard branch, a boxy, ugly blight, was replaced by a brand new one two blocks from my townhouse, oh happy day). It was a madhouse, with screaming, apple-juice-stained kids everywhere (I brought three myself), long lines at the desk, Bavarian folk music coming from one room and a chamber trio playing in another ... we had to flee fairly quickly.

However!

Although that other branch gets all the attention, the Ballard building is just awesome. A full list of its environmental features can be found here, but the coolest are the green roof, which visitors can look at through a periscope (!), the "notch and tab" furniture, each piece of which is cut from single sheet of laminated wood and fitted together (with a very hip modern aesthetic), and the solar panels. And check this out:

Rooftop scientific devices that measure wind speed and direction, sunlight and the sound of rain. The artwork - LED (light-emitting diode) displays and an audio composition of Ballard-area sounds - is derived from the weather data.

Art and music derived directly from the surrounding environmental conditions. Now that's cool.

(More from the Seattle Times.)

The moms are organizing. Go join them!

I would be remiss not to mention that the idea -- mothers organizing on behalf of the environment -- started by this story and continued in this discussion thread has found a home at the Green Life google group.

All you moms, head over there and see if you can chip in. And keep us posted!

 

Bill McDonough, movies, websites, heroes

As my unseemly gushing has no doubt made clear, I heart Bill McDonough. Someone (I forget who) pointed me a while back to this video, on a very cool site called BigPicture.tv, which is packed to the gills with short videos of nifty activists.

I couldn't get it to work the first time -- despite attempts on three different browsers -- but Alex linked to it again today, which prompted me to give it another go and what do you know, magically it worked.

So anyway, if you can get it working, it's short but worth watching, about how he envisions cities meshing with ecosystems.

Stats on the biggest kid on the Asian block.

Our fascination with China around these parts is well-known. However, we're not so fascinated that we want to read long, number-filled reports about it. I mean, it's Friday fer chrissake.

So, we let Joel Makower do that work for us. He waded through WorldWatch's just-released "Vital Signs 2," a compendium of info on worldwide environmental trends, and found lots of tasty (and, okay, some terrifying) tidbits on the world's fastest growing big economy. Read his summary and be enlightened.

Here's a taste, from WW:

Weekend reading

The Senate Energy Committee released some of the titles of their draft energy legislation today. So what are you waiting for? Start reading!

Are greens jumping the gun by bashing GE’s new ecomagination?

Over on TomPaine.com today, Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch takes on GE's "ecomagination." Frank makes some compelling arguments -- similar to comments made on gristmill earlier in the week -- as to why this is just a bunch of greenwashing.

As strange as it makes me feel to ask this question, I'll do it. Aren't we jumping the gun here, gang? Shouldn't we want a polluting corporation to have an "Extreme Makeover"? Or are we saying "Mission Impossible" to any attempts to change because of past environmental sins?

Call me naive (and you probably will in the comments), but it seems like we have to actually give GE a chance to fulfill their "ecomagination." So what do you think? Extreme makeover or mission impossible?

(I'll admit they are not off to a good start with this appropriation rider shenanigans.)

Better Latte Than Never

Eco-friendly coffee could save El Salvador’s dwindling wildlife Environmental groups are working to help El Salvador’s coffee farmers achieve green certification so that they can survive in a volatile worldwide market — and the wildlife that finds refuge on their farms can survive as well. The country’s native ecosystems have been almost entirely wiped out, […]