Climate Cities

A three-pronged approach to getting off oil for transportation

This is the third in a series on how we can build an energy future based on our best science and no longer critically dependent upon exhaustible and polluting fossil fuels. Getting off oil: a three-pronged approach Oil is not “evil,” it’s an undervalued resource that has been squandered on tasks that could be much […]

Amtrak struggles to meet demand as ridership soars

As commuters continue to look for alternatives to high gas prices, increasing numbers are choo-choo-choosing Amtrak. A record 28 million passengers are expected to ride the train this fiscal year compared to 25.8 million last year. The House and Senate have passed bills that could boost Amtrak’s funding by 33 percent, which has Amtrak prez […]

Brownstein on land use

It’s time to link climate and energy policy to land-use policy. We won’t be able to reduce emissions and escape fossil fuels if we keep building communities that require massive amounts of driving. That’s practically a truism among greens, but I’m not sure it’s really entered the political bloodstream, so it’s nice to see a […]

Greyhound and other intercity buses gain popularity

High gas prices are helping Greyhound and other intercity buses shun their loser-cruiser reputation. Ridership on the U.S. intercity bus system fell by a third between 1960 and 1980, by half again by 2006 — but jumped 13 percent in the past two years. “People are starting to feel good about stepping aboard a bus,” […]

First statewide green-building standards adopted by California, natch

Photo: Patrick Dirden California has adopted the nation’s first statewide green-building standards in what is, according to ever-punny Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, “literally a groundbreaking move.” The new California Green Buildings Standards Code requires builders to reduce energy use by 15 percent beyond current standards, target a 50 percent reduction in water used for landscaping, and […]

Nashville mayor stumps for public transit

Here’s Mayor Karl Dean of Nashville, Tenn., on MayorTV talking in almost jarringly common sense terms about the challenges facing cities and the solutions — public transit, diversity, economic development — that can overcome them: Good stuff.

RoofKrete makes thin flexible ferrocement that is also vapor barrier

I recently stumbled across a green builders' discussion of a product called RoofKrete, which claims to be a form of semi-flexible ferrocement that can be sturdy and self-supporting in shells as thin as a quarter inch. An additive to the cement makes it a vapor barrier as well, rated to last over 100 years and expected to last much longer than that.

The obvious use for RoofKrete, and the major market at which it is currently aimed, is repairing failed flat roofs and constructing long-lasting, low maintenance new ones. But the reason it caught my eye was the potential for green buildings.

How transportation wonks can make your city rank

Here's an interesting ranking. For each major U.S. city, the list-happy editors at Men's Health calculated the negative effects of driving. They aggregated scores on transit ridership, air pollution, fuel consumption, and driving miles. (Presumably, the data are for metropolitan areas, not city limits.) Northwest cities do exceptionally well: Seattle ranks number one, Portland ranks third, and Spokane is eighth.

Men's Health doesn't appear to include a methodology on the web, but I'll take a stab at the explanation. First, a minor point. Seattle and Portland benefit from a felicitous geographic situation: prevailing westerly winds tend to keep our air some of the cleanest in the country, so we do relatively well on air pollution scores. Second and more importantly, the list illustrates that urban areas control their own destinies. Smart policy matters, even if it's relatively small-caliber.

Urban homesteading in Washington, D.C.

Today's slow yet steady movement towards sustainable foods has a decidedly urban feel to it.

This morning, sitting at my backyard patio table and drinking my morning coffee, I looked appreciatively out into my backyard and took a satisfying breath. The highway behind my house roared with the morning rush hour traffic, the high rise apartments across the street were bustling with people hurrying off to school and work, and I was sitting in my own piece of urban heaven. In the past three months, my small yet robust rhombus-shaped backyard has turned into a garden oasis rarely found in even the fertile soils of rural areas. Three raised beds and several fence-side beds later, I was staring at the most satisfying seeds I had ever sowed -- and all of this in the middle of Washington, D.C.

The human-scale, renewable, domestic power systems reviving rural Austrian economies

Listen Play “Lonely Goatherd,” from The Sound of Music On a sunny Saturday afternoon in Salzburg, we took a field trip to a few examples of biomass in rural Austria. The country is over 40 percent forested, and over half of the forest is owned by small farmers with less than 40 hectares (just under […]