Seattle
-
![]()
![]()
Walking: A simple focus for the Smart Growth movement
I expected to hear a lot more about sexy green urban design projects at the New Partners in Smart Growth conference in Seattle last week. I expected more sleek design and big new developments akin to Dockside Green in Victoria, British Columbia, or Vancouver’s Olympic Village. Maybe American urban planners are better at keeping it […]
-
![]()
![]()
My whiz-bang light rail is your pain in the asphalt
Seattle light rail. Photo courtesy LeeLeFever via Flickr One train, two views: Getting to the airport from Seattle’s north side — its wealthier, whiter half — on public transit first involves a bus ride downtown. From there, as of two months ago, you can take a new light-rail line, instead of another bus, to Sea-Tac […]
-
![]()
![]()
A Seattle chef proves that traditional sushi and healthy oceans go hand-in-chopstick
Scallop and dungeness crab salad wrapped in prosciutto topped with lumpfish caviar and avocado: A Hajime creation. Photo by Phu Son Nguyen of sushiday.comGrowing up in small-town Montana, two things just made no sense: vegetarians and sushi. Why eat tofu, or raw fish, when you could just as easily have a big juicy steak? Coming […]
-
![]()
![]()
Why America’s greenest mayor got no love
Seattle Times environmental reporter Craig Welch profiles one of the more puzzling characters in recent urban politics, Seattle’s now-former mayor, Greg Nickels. The piece treads some of the same ground as my profile of Nickels last month: after demonstrating national leadership in rallying mayors on climate change, Nickels received no political credit back home. Seattle, […]
-
Top Obama admin. officials tout clean energy in Seattle
SEATTLE — You could tell by the way Obama administration officials pep-talked a roomful of clean-energy businesspeople today that the White House realizes it hasn’t convinced Americans that “tackling climate change = ending the recession.” Again and again EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Energy Undersecretary Kristina Johnson pounded on the jobs issue at a pre-Copenhagen […]
-
![]()
![]()
America’s greenest mayor, laid off and looking on
Greg Nickels. It was a dark, dreary, drizzly November morning in Seattle when I visited Greg Nickels, the city’s lame-duck mayor and an influential national voice on the need for climate action over the last decade. Outside the LEED Gold-certified City Hall, a gray murk hung in the air, nearly obscuring Elliott Bay five blocks […]
-
![]()
![]()
Learning how to count to 350
Cross-posted from TomDispatch. Next month, at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the wealthy nations that produce most of the excess carbon in our atmosphere will almost certainly fail to embrace measures adequate to ward off the devastation of our planet by heat and chaotic weather. Their leaders will probably promise us teaspoons with which […]
-
![]()
![]()
U.N. chief will pressure senators on climate bill
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a press conference in Seattle (Oct. 26, 2009).Jon Hiskes / GristAs the U.S. Senate begins work on a climate and energy bill this week, senators shouldn’t be surprised if they get a phone call from the guy who counts every person on Earth as a member of his constituency. Ban […]
-
![]()
![]()
Friday music blogging: Here We Go Magic
Here We Go Magic is the new project from Seattle singer-songwriter Luke Temple. It is quite a departure from his previous albums under his own name, which were folky, hummable affairs. HWGM, on the other hand, is like krautrock meets Graceland meets Bon Iver meets … a really big bong. Drony, pulsating, ethereal, gorgeous, occasionally […]
