Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns resigns

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns is resigning, President Bush announced today. He is expected to run as a Republican for an...

Bikeways pay for themselves

A decade ago, we wrote that the bicycle is one of the world's seven everyday wonders because it's so simple, effective, affordable, and pollution-free. To that list, we might have added "enriching."

Bicycling for transportation pumps money into local economies. Bikes are wheels of fortune. (Thanks to Flickr photographer hanbyholems for the picture to the right.) If your community spends money building bikeways, you and your neighbors will cycle more. Your cycling will put extra money in the local economy. (I'll explain how in a moment.) The extra money will make the community rich enough to pay for more bikeways. More bikeways will induce more cycling, and the virtuous circle will continue.

Let's break the process into steps.

Building bikeways costs money.

Bikeways are cheap, especially compared to roads and trains, but they're not free. In the Puget Sound area, construction can easily cost more than $1 million per mile for a new trail or lane -- not counting land. Seattle's 10-year Bicycle Master Plan sketches a citywide network of cycling routes estimated to cost about $240 million. Retrofitting all of Cascadia's communities for Bicycle Respect -- integrated systems of separate, signaled bikeways as found in parts of northern Europe -- would cost billions of dollars. (Sort of like RTID/ST and Pacific Gateway.)

We have plenty of solutions at hand beyond technology

Today the dominant view of global warming is that it's a technical problem. The burning of fossil fuels -- often regarded as the lifeblood of modern economies -- puts greenhouse gases into the air, mainly carbon dioxide, trapping more solar energy, which heats the planet and alters weather patterns. Methane and nitrous oxide also contribute. The solution is defined as reducing greenhouse gas emissions (pollution). The political, social, and moral campaign is directed at technological change, and at using our technology less.

But if everyone stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, global warming will continue for decades. We don't have an economical technology for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Limiting ourselves to technology-focused solutions doesn't give us much leverage. It gives us an agenda of "let's wreck the world slower."

There is another side to global warming, one that existing scientific panels are ill-equipped to recognize and that existing institutions are ill-equipped to act on. Global warming is not just an atmospheric pollution problem caused by fossil fuel burning. It is also the result of changes in basic biospheric processes. Let's look at some examples.

A strategy for a no-nuclear, low-carbon, highly efficient, sustainable energy future

This came my way several weeks ago, but I ran across it again while hacking my way through my inbox...

Hastings Makes Less Waste?

Central Nebraska town wins greenest city in America contest We say “greenest city in America,” and you say — Portland?...

USDA secretary resigns; industrial-corn man takes charge

Big doings at the USDA yesterday: Mike Johanns, the reliably pro-agribiz former governor of Nebraska, resigned from his post as...

Now’s the time to speak up

Can an Armani-clad gal from the big city be the champion of the good farmer?

After giving two thumbs up to the House Agriculture Committee's farm bill last Thursday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi's rise to rural populist hero-status seems as likely as old Bessie having twins. Said Pelosi:

... the bill represents a critical first step toward reform by eliminating payments to millionaires, closing loopholes that permit evasion of payment limits, and promoting our nation's family farmers.

But Pelosi still has a chance to emerge as the defender of real farm bill reform. And why shouldn't she? After all, the farm bill is about food and taking care of the land. It impacts all of us whether you live in Schuyler, Nebraska or San Francisco.

How the nation’s breadbasket is poisoning its own water supply

In late September, the corn and soybean fields of the lower Missouri River floodplain are a lovely dull brown, nearly...

How legislators can help the rural

In a recent trip through the small town of Walthill, Nebraska, the phrase "rural revitalization" took on a whole new meaning. In this case, it was the lack of any kind of prosperity that made it obvious to me why rural communities are in need of revitalization. Main Street looked painfully deserted, with two recent arsons adding fresh scars to the once-active storefronts. As we drove around the residential area, most houses looked to be in some state of disrepair -- so much so that it was difficult to really tell which were homes and which had already been abandoned. If ever there was a town that needed some life breathed back into it, this was it.