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Progress in the DOT leads to more biking and public transportation = more livable communities. This is an interview with Ray LaHood about the recent advances and obstacles in improving our public and alternative transportation systems. Portland is mentioned a few times for being great.

I think that progress in this area is crucial if we are ever going to solve our long term consumption problems. So much of they way we act is caused by how our communities are built. Urban compactness contributes to a more minimalist lifestyle because you don't need a car, and because you have access to so many different public services, you don't need to buy private ones for yourself. The whole reason we have an absurd overconsumption problem is because we have people living in the cheap, crappy sprawl we've built, all driving cars everywhere to the box stores and restaurant chains that sell them a whole bunch of shit that is poorly made and terrible for them and the environment. City dwellers aren't all models for how to live or how much to consume, but you make it easy for people to lead better lives when there are options for them to bike or take public transit to work as well as to secondhand clothing stores and good, healthy, bulk food markets. James Howard Kunstler's book The Geography of Nowhere is a great read on this topic, and his TED talk on the subject is great as well.

So, for those of us who would like to find ways for people to have ready alternatives to car transportation, the good news is that Oregonians, and to some extent Americans are driving less. What's interesting, as this article points out, is we don't really know why, and it doesn't seem to relate to gas prices. It may just be an aging demography. Do you think it's a sign that people are going green(er)?

Now this is very interesting, if not particularly surprising. The US military has begun pushing for the development of renewable energy sources that can be readily deployed in battlefield situations and remote locations where traditional fossil fuels are prohibitively scarce. Trucking fuel to outposts and encampments in Afghanistan can be dangerous: "...for every 24 fuel convoys that set out, one soldier or civilian engaged in fuel transport was killed. " It is also extremely expensive. The US military buys fuel for around $1 a gallon, but shipping that fuel can easily cost hundreds of dollars per gallon. Taking those transport costs into account, the high initial costs of investing in renewable energy are put into perspective. The US navy has begun to experiment with ships that run on electricity at lower speeds, as well as jets that use mixtures of conventional and bio-fuels. It is likely the "experts" say, that development of these technologies for military use will lead to more affordable civilian versions.

The Vietnamese army has been accused of illegally selling timber from Laos. This timber is then used to build furniture which is transported to Europe. While the EIA say that this trade is illegal, the company in question stated that they were following the laws of Laos.

The military essentially suddenly decided to use renewable energy out in the field, mostly in Afghanistan because transporting fuel is dangerous there. They used mostly civilian technology but the mass use should bring the cost down and with more scientists updating it the technology will also get better.

This relates to my critique of Walmart's claim that they're "working towards zero waste." I assumed no report would actually encompass the true effect of their product, but it seems like I was wrong. Granted, Walmart is not on the list of companies participating in the study, but they do sell products by some of the participating companies. "The term life cycle refers to the notion that a fair, holistic assessment requires the assessment of raw material production, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal including all intervening transportation steps necessary or caused by the product's existence. The sum of all those steps is the life cycle of the product. The concept also can be used to optimize the environmental performance of a single product."

Relates to next year's symposium on cities: here are some of the popular (and impressive, though unsurprising) approaches cities are taking to becoming more environmentally friendly. Many are rooted in energy concerns and transport, among a few other social equity issues. However almost all commonly share large-scale government investment approaches to creating spatially isolated things (exceptions include bike shares and Curitiba's bus system). Look to Masdar City for one that is fully designed as an environmentalist's paradise (cars are banned). But I would point out that such cities are incredibly expensive to build, and in this case, they're almost guaranteed to be built on the sale of oil. While I don't like to play a game of blood money blame, there is some irony. I'd like to see some cost-benefit analysis that address whether the costs, both monetary and external from the use of oil, really make these projects "better", or if they are more of a show than a practical reality. Curitiba in Brazil is one worth researching as well, if you're interested in cities. Also a design-centric city, Curitiba also tries to build off popular demand, and alongside their environmental wins they have a good list of social records to lay claim to as well. Unlike Portland's own MAX, they have a decent percentage of citizens who actually pay to ride the public transit (despite the fact that it also is run via a system where fare checkers are few and far between), and analysts have credited it to the civic pride generated by the aesthetic value and efficiency of the system. The demand there is a little more organic and if I remember right, the bus system actually uses a few private businesses who compete to provide optimal service. Government steps in to keep things relatively well organized - an interesting economic approach as well. Interesting government programs that combine solutions to poverty, waste, and education in one as well.

Cleveland has an interesting thing as well - low-income, private efforts to address problems locally and at a smaller scale. Theoretically, their approach could be used in a whole range of places, and addresses social concerns in Cleveland far better than something like a new green stadium would. It just requires people willing to set up systems like the one in the article (and funding - the systems they have were funded by another organization, not reliable in terms of expanding the scale of the project or keeping it going into the long term It is also a fairly fancy system - and costlier too. But the idea can be done cheaply). As we prepare to enter discussions on the symposium (meeting on the 10th! A week from today) I'm curious which approach people find more appealing.

So, is the era of freeway utopias finally over?  Well, not everywhere, but in some cases indeed they are coming down in a number of US cities. So, what seems to be the pattern connecting these once-icons of freedom that are now (or soon to be) gone, vs. those that are remaining (or expanding)?

A report from a waste stream analysis conducted in Arizona (cough cough situated research). Includes insights such as, "Feedback from small com- munity stakeholders suggests that mandating recycling in Arizona at this time could be counterproductive. It would require cities and towns with scant financial resources to initiate recycling programs having capital costs and transportation costs that, alone, make recycling economically burdensome."