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Do they ever really work?

This Treehugger post on a Toronto bikeshare service reminded me of my hazy days in Missoula, MT. (The weather was plenty clear, mind you ...)

While I was there, a bikeshare service called Freecycles was launched with great fanfare, flooding the streets with clunky green refurbished bikes -- free to use for anyone! For a while they were an iconic sight around town. Of course, I never rode one, and didn't know anybody who did, except as a novelty. Then there were fewer, and fewer, and then the program disappeared with a whimper.

And it's not a surprise, I guess. Who exactly is supposed to be the target user for bikeshare services?

Umbra on shaving

Dear Umbra, Every morning when I shave, I stare in the mirror and wonder if my razor is the best choice for the environment. I realize the easy answer is to let the beard grow. Except the problem is, lots of today’s environmentalists are quietly waging their struggles in modern offices, where beards do not […]

Ask Not for Whom the Toll Jells

U.K. transport secretary wants new tax on motorists U.K. Transport Secretary Alistair Darling wants to prevent “L.A.-style gridlock” on England’s major motorways. (With the U.K.’s tough gun-control laws, that shouldn’t be a problem, right?) He’s trying to drum up public support for “road pricing,” a tax of up to $2 per mile on drivers who […]

There’s No Place Like Foam

“Coffee-cup home” showcases wood-free construction Nancy Hall was looking for a forest-neutral way to construct a house on her 20 already-logged-over acres in Quilcene, Wash. She considered other darlings of the alternative-materials scene, but in the end chose Rastra — blocks of insulated concrete foam. And how do you Rastra, mon? Take recycled polystyrene coffee […]

Cities on a Hill

Fifty mayors from around world sign environmental accord Marking the culmination of World Environment Day festivities in San Francisco, 50 mayors from cities the world over yesterday signed a set of environmental accords some are calling a “municipal Kyoto.” Among the 21 commitments therein are increasing clean-energy use, reducing waste sent to landfills, adding affordable […]

Satellite images reveal humankind’s impact on earth.

A new photo atlas released by the United Nations Environment Program illustrates, in no uncertain terms, humanity's impact on the planet. We're talking 300-some pages of salacious satellite images documenting rampant deforestation, retreating glaciers, and massive urban sprawl (a la the images of Las Vegas, Nev., at left, in 1973 and 2000 respectively) in before-and-after photo spreads that put even the most trashy of gossip rags to shame. Sadly, however, I fear more people will see the aforementioned mags than this atlas. Plus, everyone knows before-and-after pics are always doctored. Nice try, U.N.

Eric Britton, sustainable-development booster, answers questions

Eric Britton. What work do you do? I earn my living and pay the rent as an international adviser, consultant, and team builder for public- and private-sector organizations that have accepted that they need new thinking in the face of this uncomfortable concept that some call “sustainable development.” That takes about half my time. For […]

Why can’t we change our oil-sucking land-use preferences?

The other day I expressed disappointment at Kevin Drum's fifth peak oil post -- the one where he lays out his recommendations for oil policy. In my inimitably oblique and unfocused way, I was simply trying to say that I wish he'd been more imaginative.

If nothing else, peak oil is going to be a major inflection point in our collective history. It's a sharp turn in the road, and we can't see clearly around the bend. The stakes are huge, and call for a commensurate greatness of mind and expansiveness of thought.

What Drum did is basically gather the conventional wisdom in one place, without considering at all the myriad ways that the CW might be constricted and warped by the vested interests of society's current power brokers. Nor did he deign to consider things that might seem, in the current sociopolitical scene, impossible, or at least out on the fringe.

One example: U.S. suburbia, as Kunstler never tires of telling us, is built on cheap oil. It takes lots of oil to transport goods around the world to a Wal-Mart, and lots of oil for suburbanites to drive back and forth to it bazillions of times. The dominant land-use paradigm in this country is oil-sucking. If oil's running out, it's got to change, right?

Drum doesn't bother to mention the many innovative thinkers out there pondering how we can make cities greener and more attractive (the very subject of World Environment Day). He doesn't consider how we might refashion our remaining farm land and open spaces in more ecologically friendly fashion. He doesn't consider how we might encourage people to buy locally grown food and locally made goods.

Instead, we get this extraordinarily banal post on why people don't like mixed-use developments. (See also the Atrios post that preceded it and the Jim Henley post responding to it.)

It's late, so I'll just make two brief points:

Views on global warming from across the pond.

Despite some pretty outlandish views from some of the correspondents, among them the idea that global warming is a result of the sun getting hotter, the BBC program (programme?) Talking Point had a pretty good rundown yesterday of oft-discussed topics in the global warming dialogue. The host is Robin Lustig, and his guest was Professor Martin Parry of the IPCC. Among the topics discussed:

Will individual actions stop climate change?

Between the Urban Environment Accords signed by over 60 mayors at the World Environment Day conference, Arnold Schwarzenegger's pledge to reduce California's GHG emissions, 158 other mayors pledging to reduce their cities' emissions, and carbon-neutral driving, gift-giving, and rocking becoming popular (well, maybe not popular), could it be that sub-national groups of people or even individuals are going to take a leading role in combating soaring emissions?

The answer, of course, is still up in the (hot) air. Obviously if everyone in the world made all of their actions carbon neutral, we'd be all set. But is it reasonable to assume that everyone who has the means (or the disposable income) to afford a climate neutral lifestyle will do so? A shift in climate that's a long way off may never be enough to get anybody "fired up," and many people may be deterred by the fact that even if they eliminate all their own carbon emissions, it won't even put a dent in the several gigatons the world emits.

Hope below the fold ...