Climate Cities
All Stories
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Public transit
For over two weeks I’ve been meaning to link to this post on public transit from Michael O’Hare and say something interesting about it. So as not to delay it indefinitely, I’m dropping the "say something interesting about it" requirement. Just go read it.
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California takes the lead
California is once again taking the lead: California Attorney General Jerry Brown has sued San Bernardino County, the largest in area in the contiguous USA and one of the fastest growing, for failing to account for greenhouse gases when updating its 25-year blueprint for growth. “It’s groundbreaking. California is just leading the way for other […]
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A new idea for how to transport the stuff in cars
I have never been a fan of hydrogen technology as a solution to the climate change problem. It would be great if we could power automobiles with hydrogen (generated, of course, with renewable energy), but how do you carry the hydrogen around in your car? Do you really want to be driving around on top of a tank full of compressed hydrogen? Can you say Hindenburg?
I just listened to a great segment on this week's Science Friday. The guest, Jerry Woodall, a professor at Purdue, has an interesting idea for how to carry hydrogen in a way that seems extremely safe to me.
The idea is that you carry around a bunch of aluminum. You react the aluminum with water, and that produces hydrogen, which would then be immediately burned. In the end, you're left with a tank full of aluminum oxide, which will be recycled back into aluminum (using, of course, renewable energy) at a recycling facility.
This seems like a great idea, one that makes me reconsider my skepticism towards hydrogen. But listen to the segment yourself. Also, check out the presentations on this site.
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Hy-Wire hydrogen car
BBC takes a closer look at the Hy-Wire, GM’s hydrogen fuel cell car. According to the incredulous host, it’s “the future.”
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Images of dense development
Just wanted to point out a great website, "Visualizing Density," a product of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (LILP). I'm not feeling like my usual prolix self today, so I'll let them do the talking:Sprawl is bad. Density is good. Americans need to stop spreading out and live closer together. Well ... that's the theory, anyway. But, as anyone who has tried to build compact development recently will tell you, if there's one thing Americans hate more than sprawl, it's density ... One reason people reject density is that they don't know much about it -- what it looks like, how to build it, or whether it's something they can call home. We have very rational ways of measuring density, but our perception of it is anything but rational.
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When vacations turn into work
If I was a real blogger, I would occasionally post little bits that didn't really have much to do with my principle concerns, but which I found illuminating or amusing, right?
I submit this, which just surfaced as I was clearing my desk: "The Tyranny of the 2nd Home."
It's even in the "Escapes" section.
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Schwarzenegger to California farmers: Considuh this a divorce
There’s a fair amount of debate on Gristmill about how much green cred to give the Governator — that A-list action hero of enlightened Republicanism. I don’t follow California politics closely enough to venture an opinion. But I do know that promoting a policy that will result in yet more suburban sprawl and evict small- […]
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Lots of good stuff north of the border
The Vancouver Sun has the scoop. First, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, just released a draft "eco-density" plan that sounds, at least to my ears, like exactly the right way to deal with the city's expected population increase: curbing sprawl by concentrating new housing in compact, transit-friendly neighborhoods:
