Climate Cities

A visit to Iceland spurs dreams of a hydrogen future

The loneliness of the long-distance rider. I have seen the future, and it works. The 111 bus rolls quietly up to the Mjodd terminal in eastern Reykjavik at 11:19 a.m., and I climb aboard. For 45 minutes, we cruise through the suburbs and then to the central square downtown, picking up and discharging eight passengers […]

These Aren’t the Hybrids You’re Looking for

Newer hybrids emphasize engine muscle instead of fuel efficiency Some of the newest hybrid car models are not notably more fuel-efficient than their conventional brethren, but still qualify buyers for a “clean fuels” tax credit, causing greens no end of mixed feelings. In the case of the Honda Accord, the 2005 hybrid model uses electric-motor […]

Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Obrador’s Heaven

Ambitious new bus rapid-transit system hits the road in Mexico City Mexico City mayor and popular presidential hopeful Andrés Manuel López Obrador hopes to clear some of his city’s legendary smog and gridlock with an ambitious pilot transport project — a bus system with a hint o’ subway. Eighty new low-emission Volvo jumbo buses have […]

Al Norman, anti-Wal-Mart activist, answers questions

Al Norman. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I’m founder of Sprawl-Busters. What does your organization do? We help community groups fight off big-box sprawl — strategize their battles, understand key objectives, and develop a game plan. What, in a perfect world, would constitute “mission accomplished”? Getting people to stop shopping at these giant […]

Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

San Francisco named most sustainable city; Houston least San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Berkeley, Calif., and Seattle took the top four spots in a new ranking of 25 U.S. cities based on sustainability practices. Bay Area green group SustainLane created the list after scrutinizing the metropolises based on 12 criteria, including air quality, transportation, green building, […]

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?

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 […]

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:

Choosing the healthiest place to raise your kids can be a complicated matter

Two new reports in British medical journals suggest that choosing the right place to raise your children can have a major impact on their health and well-being.

"Duh," you say. But let's look at the details.

One study says living within 650 feet of a power line may significantly increase a child's likelihood of developing leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer. It's a question that's been debated for a while now, and some researchers say the link is still weak.

Another study says exposure to aircraft noise may impair reading comprehension, while road traffic noise may actually improve (!) memory recall abilities in schoolchildren. However, a combination of both aircraft noise and traffic noise was associated with additional stress and a reduced quality of life.

So, to recap: living near power lines = bad; living near a busy airport = bad; living near a busy road = good (?); living on busy road near airport = bad.

Below the fold, tips on finding environmentally friendly communities: