I was all over the Green Ribbon proposal to plant more trees a couple months ago (here's an article I wrote for the Tacoma Sun in June).
So I heartily want to recommend to you the Todd Matthews story on Exit133 today about saving Tacoma's "urban arbor." It says more clearly than I did: that saving trees is also about saving old trees and urban trees (where they are needed most).
It's an interesting piece of reporting. Check it out!
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environment. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Paperless bills
I've been paying every bill online now for quite a while.
In my Firefox browser I have a bills folder with all the websites in it. I select "Open All in Tabs" and every one opens, waiting for me to go in, select a date, and pay the bill.
Recently though I've been actively trying to get as many of my financial stuff to email only. My phone bill, car payment, IRA statements, cable bill, credit card, plus a few more don't send me a paper bill anymore. They just go to my gmail account.
I seldom look at them anyway, since, as I said, once a month I just open all the websites and pay.
The coolest one so far has been opening a "Grow it Green" Savings Account at Columbia Bank. Surprisingly the savings account pays better than their Money Market account. That's because the account is email and web only for savings and for checking. Columbia doesn't pay for stamps for monthly statements, I get less mail, and I get a better savings rate. They also make a donation to Habitat for Humanity when you open one. Sweet.
Save some trees. Go paperless if you can.
In my Firefox browser I have a bills folder with all the websites in it. I select "Open All in Tabs" and every one opens, waiting for me to go in, select a date, and pay the bill.
Recently though I've been actively trying to get as many of my financial stuff to email only. My phone bill, car payment, IRA statements, cable bill, credit card, plus a few more don't send me a paper bill anymore. They just go to my gmail account.
I seldom look at them anyway, since, as I said, once a month I just open all the websites and pay.
The coolest one so far has been opening a "Grow it Green" Savings Account at Columbia Bank. Surprisingly the savings account pays better than their Money Market account. That's because the account is email and web only for savings and for checking. Columbia doesn't pay for stamps for monthly statements, I get less mail, and I get a better savings rate. They also make a donation to Habitat for Humanity when you open one. Sweet.
Save some trees. Go paperless if you can.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Plant a Tree
You can read over at the Tacoma Sun my argument for planting a new tree for every man, woman, and child in Tacoma.
One important point I didn't mention is that it is important in our business districts and downtown urban core that the City not plant saplings, but rather pay the extra cost--or mandate developers pay the extra cost--for trees that are 5 to 10 years old. It is on the busiest sidewalks where we need the shade most, and it is also very important to make sure that trees don't block signage for retail fronts. Planting older and taller trees would help on both counts.
And finally, planting trees is about more than just a City effort. Other agencies like the School District, Metro Parks, even the libraries, should be working for the same goal. A coordinator who can work with the hospitals, private schools and colleges, businesses and residences would really help get it going as well.
The One Million Trees NYC project is a great example of where the City is leading the way but it is still a community-wide effort between the public and private sphere.
One important point I didn't mention is that it is important in our business districts and downtown urban core that the City not plant saplings, but rather pay the extra cost--or mandate developers pay the extra cost--for trees that are 5 to 10 years old. It is on the busiest sidewalks where we need the shade most, and it is also very important to make sure that trees don't block signage for retail fronts. Planting older and taller trees would help on both counts.
And finally, planting trees is about more than just a City effort. Other agencies like the School District, Metro Parks, even the libraries, should be working for the same goal. A coordinator who can work with the hospitals, private schools and colleges, businesses and residences would really help get it going as well.
The One Million Trees NYC project is a great example of where the City is leading the way but it is still a community-wide effort between the public and private sphere.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Who's marketing the electric car?
When I got an e-mail out of the blue inviting me to a “Blogger’s Roundtable” with a Vice President at General Motors because he was “very interested in hearing my thoughts and questions,” I thought it was a joke. A joke, or perhaps some new version of the Nigerian e-mail scam asking for my help getting oil fortunes into the US.
But it was actually legit. Robert Lutz, the Vice Chairman of Product Development for GM, was in Seattle and he wanted to have an on-the-record conversation with some local bloggers. I was there because a public relations firm had found my blog after the Seattle Film Festival when I rode to the premiere in a new hybrid Yukon.
I didn’t know what exactly to expect when I arrived at Seattle's Edgewater Hotel for dinner. Half the attendees were car bloggers. They had sales figures for the 1969 Camaro, they knew production numbers, they cracked jokes I didn’t understand about the quality of British cars. They were gear heads. The other four bloggers were: husband and wife bloggers Chris and Ponzi Pirillo; Mike Davidson, President and CEO of Newsvine; and myself.
I spent a little while just trying to get a lay of the land. What exactly did GM want from this dinner? As I listened, it became clear they had two main goals: 1) to generate buzz about their new cars and 2) to get out the message that GM was going green. And both of these goals were intimately tied with a single vehicle--the Chevy Volt.
So. What is the Chevy Volt? It’s a plug-in electric car that GM calls an “extended range vehicle” rather than a hybrid. A single charge of its electric battery gives 40 miles of gas-free driving—a little more than the average American’s daily commute. After that, when the internal combustion engine kicks in, the engine will also recharge the battery. Alternating back and forth, the Volt will have a 600 mile range before needing to be recharged and refilled.
The first Volts are targeted for release in November 2010, with about 10,000 vehicles produced the first year and possibly up to 60,000 vehicles the next. According to Lutz, extended range vehicles are the future, along with “mild hybrids, strong hybrids, and fuel cells.” He apparently liked hybrids and energy-efficient vehicles so much that at one point he referred to himself as “Carbon Footprint Bob.”
This is not to say that Greenpeace is going to praise him as one of their own. “There is a segment of the environmental movement that is in some sense against personal mobility,” he said at one point. Later he said, “If we had a car that eats CO2 and spews daisies out the tailpipe, we would still be criticized for killing insects on the windshield.”
Lutz, and the rest of the executives at the meeting, also spent some time discussing what they saw as contradictory federal regulations. On the one hand, one federal agency is mandating more strict safety standards and “practically want an armored car.” All those safety features add weight, however, making it harder for manufacturers to produce small lightweight (and thus more fuel efficient) cars, which is mandated by another federal agency.
At one point I asked whether the auto industry would skip over biofuel and go right to electric cars after some of the unintended problems with corn ethanol.
Lutz thought the best choice for an alternative fuel was cellulosic ethanol, a kind of ethanol fuel derived from garbage that would normally go into a landfill. With proper funding, “by 2012 it could replace 32% of the petroleum we use in this country,” he said. “It would cost $1.50 a gallon, and the nice thing is, we could buy the Camaros and the SUVs and the stuff we want.” (I thought the phrase “the stuff we want” in there was telling … )
I’m not sure if cellulosic ethanol is a pipe dream--certainly the alchemist who proposed a plant near Tacoma to create cellulosic ethanol (in just 3 minutes!) was a scam artist--but I did read later that GM has invested in Coskata, a company that aims to produce cellulosic ethanol at a high volume.
And then we got to the big topic (at least for me)--gas prices and gas tax. Someone (I don’t remember who) asked if the price of gas went down, would production of the Volt stop.
Lutz answered, “No, that would be the worst thing that could happen. People would want big SUV cars we couldn’t by law build. I’ve said for years, maybe 15 years, that trying to raise fleet fuel consumption rates without high gas prices is like trying to fighting obesity with low food prices.”
Falling gas prices would be the worst thing? And so I asked whether the US should have implemented a higher gas tax when fuel was cheaper. Lutz’s answer was very interesting and Chris Pirillo recorded it. It’s worth watching (at least the first few minutes) below.
I was very surprised. He argued that an 18 cent gas tax was a fool’s paradise that harmed the country in a number of ways, giving us some of the worst roads in the world (I’m guessing he means the developed world) and urban sprawl ... one solid development of "half acre single family ranch homes from sea to shining sea."
It’s interesting to contrast Lutz’s argument here to GM’s recent history. In 2006, GM offered to guarantee $1.99/gallon gas for a year if you bought some of their bigger gas-guzzling cars. (This year that’s actually been outdone by Chrysler, offering to guarantee $2.99/gallon gas for three years on certain vehicles.)
But maybe GM has learned a thing or two since then. When Mike Davidson asked, “What’s the worst thing about GM?” Lutz replied that they were going through a transition from mechanical to electrical cars with a dependence on trucks, sales of which have been particularly hurt by high gas prices.
In many ways, the difficulty of the transition is what I took away from the dinner. GM has experimented with electric cars before (as it happens, I sat next to Dave Barthmuss, the spokesman for GM who appeared in the movie Who Killed the Electric Car?). They need to make that transition “from mechanical to electrical” because of both consumer demand and legislation.
In the process, I think they also want to emerge with the brand of “The Green Car Maker” in the same way that Volvos have the safety brand and Lexus has the service brand. Laying the foundation for the green brand was what the blogger roundtable was about. Making sure the Volt is hailed as the best thing to happen to cars since the wheel is part of that too, and that involves starting the buzz now.
Along those lines, I asked if a transforming Volt would appear in next year’s Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (no kidding, that’s the name), Lutz was noncommittal, but I did get a large nod from another executive at the table. I believe they really do want this thing to go big.
I’ve been pretty critical of GM in the past on my blog, especially in 2006 during the $1.99 gas guarantee and when Hummers started showing up in Happy Meals. But I think Lutz’s vision of the auto’s future is right on: mild hybrids, strong hybrids, extended range vehicles, and fuel cells. Maybe it's no accident they are considering selling the Hummer brand (Lutz would not comment on Hummer or any GM brand at the dinner).
Will they actually grab the green brand? Will they not only grab the green brand but actually be green? We'll see how things look in late 2010 when the Volt's ready to come off the assembly line.
But I do think that one of the central arguments against GM in Who Killed the Electric Car?--that they didn't market the car effectively because they didn't actually want the car to sell--is definitely not true this time. They're working very very hard to make the Volt a success, and they're starting 29 months early.
But it was actually legit. Robert Lutz, the Vice Chairman of Product Development for GM, was in Seattle and he wanted to have an on-the-record conversation with some local bloggers. I was there because a public relations firm had found my blog after the Seattle Film Festival when I rode to the premiere in a new hybrid Yukon.
I didn’t know what exactly to expect when I arrived at Seattle's Edgewater Hotel for dinner. Half the attendees were car bloggers. They had sales figures for the 1969 Camaro, they knew production numbers, they cracked jokes I didn’t understand about the quality of British cars. They were gear heads. The other four bloggers were: husband and wife bloggers Chris and Ponzi Pirillo; Mike Davidson, President and CEO of Newsvine; and myself.
I spent a little while just trying to get a lay of the land. What exactly did GM want from this dinner? As I listened, it became clear they had two main goals: 1) to generate buzz about their new cars and 2) to get out the message that GM was going green. And both of these goals were intimately tied with a single vehicle--the Chevy Volt.
So. What is the Chevy Volt? It’s a plug-in electric car that GM calls an “extended range vehicle” rather than a hybrid. A single charge of its electric battery gives 40 miles of gas-free driving—a little more than the average American’s daily commute. After that, when the internal combustion engine kicks in, the engine will also recharge the battery. Alternating back and forth, the Volt will have a 600 mile range before needing to be recharged and refilled.
The first Volts are targeted for release in November 2010, with about 10,000 vehicles produced the first year and possibly up to 60,000 vehicles the next. According to Lutz, extended range vehicles are the future, along with “mild hybrids, strong hybrids, and fuel cells.” He apparently liked hybrids and energy-efficient vehicles so much that at one point he referred to himself as “Carbon Footprint Bob.”
This is not to say that Greenpeace is going to praise him as one of their own. “There is a segment of the environmental movement that is in some sense against personal mobility,” he said at one point. Later he said, “If we had a car that eats CO2 and spews daisies out the tailpipe, we would still be criticized for killing insects on the windshield.”
Lutz, and the rest of the executives at the meeting, also spent some time discussing what they saw as contradictory federal regulations. On the one hand, one federal agency is mandating more strict safety standards and “practically want an armored car.” All those safety features add weight, however, making it harder for manufacturers to produce small lightweight (and thus more fuel efficient) cars, which is mandated by another federal agency.
At one point I asked whether the auto industry would skip over biofuel and go right to electric cars after some of the unintended problems with corn ethanol.
Lutz thought the best choice for an alternative fuel was cellulosic ethanol, a kind of ethanol fuel derived from garbage that would normally go into a landfill. With proper funding, “by 2012 it could replace 32% of the petroleum we use in this country,” he said. “It would cost $1.50 a gallon, and the nice thing is, we could buy the Camaros and the SUVs and the stuff we want.” (I thought the phrase “the stuff we want” in there was telling … )
I’m not sure if cellulosic ethanol is a pipe dream--certainly the alchemist who proposed a plant near Tacoma to create cellulosic ethanol (in just 3 minutes!) was a scam artist--but I did read later that GM has invested in Coskata, a company that aims to produce cellulosic ethanol at a high volume.
And then we got to the big topic (at least for me)--gas prices and gas tax. Someone (I don’t remember who) asked if the price of gas went down, would production of the Volt stop.
Lutz answered, “No, that would be the worst thing that could happen. People would want big SUV cars we couldn’t by law build. I’ve said for years, maybe 15 years, that trying to raise fleet fuel consumption rates without high gas prices is like trying to fighting obesity with low food prices.”
Falling gas prices would be the worst thing? And so I asked whether the US should have implemented a higher gas tax when fuel was cheaper. Lutz’s answer was very interesting and Chris Pirillo recorded it. It’s worth watching (at least the first few minutes) below.
I was very surprised. He argued that an 18 cent gas tax was a fool’s paradise that harmed the country in a number of ways, giving us some of the worst roads in the world (I’m guessing he means the developed world) and urban sprawl ... one solid development of "half acre single family ranch homes from sea to shining sea."
It’s interesting to contrast Lutz’s argument here to GM’s recent history. In 2006, GM offered to guarantee $1.99/gallon gas for a year if you bought some of their bigger gas-guzzling cars. (This year that’s actually been outdone by Chrysler, offering to guarantee $2.99/gallon gas for three years on certain vehicles.)
But maybe GM has learned a thing or two since then. When Mike Davidson asked, “What’s the worst thing about GM?” Lutz replied that they were going through a transition from mechanical to electrical cars with a dependence on trucks, sales of which have been particularly hurt by high gas prices.
In many ways, the difficulty of the transition is what I took away from the dinner. GM has experimented with electric cars before (as it happens, I sat next to Dave Barthmuss, the spokesman for GM who appeared in the movie Who Killed the Electric Car?). They need to make that transition “from mechanical to electrical” because of both consumer demand and legislation.
In the process, I think they also want to emerge with the brand of “The Green Car Maker” in the same way that Volvos have the safety brand and Lexus has the service brand. Laying the foundation for the green brand was what the blogger roundtable was about. Making sure the Volt is hailed as the best thing to happen to cars since the wheel is part of that too, and that involves starting the buzz now.
Along those lines, I asked if a transforming Volt would appear in next year’s Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (no kidding, that’s the name), Lutz was noncommittal, but I did get a large nod from another executive at the table. I believe they really do want this thing to go big.
I’ve been pretty critical of GM in the past on my blog, especially in 2006 during the $1.99 gas guarantee and when Hummers started showing up in Happy Meals. But I think Lutz’s vision of the auto’s future is right on: mild hybrids, strong hybrids, extended range vehicles, and fuel cells. Maybe it's no accident they are considering selling the Hummer brand (Lutz would not comment on Hummer or any GM brand at the dinner).
Will they actually grab the green brand? Will they not only grab the green brand but actually be green? We'll see how things look in late 2010 when the Volt's ready to come off the assembly line.
But I do think that one of the central arguments against GM in Who Killed the Electric Car?--that they didn't market the car effectively because they didn't actually want the car to sell--is definitely not true this time. They're working very very hard to make the Volt a success, and they're starting 29 months early.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
GM VP Bob Lutz on the gas tax
As I mentioned before, last week I went to a "blogger's roundtable" with Bob Lutz, the Vice President of Global Product Development at General Motors. I asked him whether we should have had a higher federal gax tax.
One of the bloggers at the table managed to get the last part of my question and then Bob Lutz's answer.
The video is six minutes long, but the first couple minutes are the most interesting. Keep in mind as you watch this who the speaker is.
Jamie at Thrice All American, Erik at the Tacoma Urbanist ... this is right up your alley. Thoughts?
I'm still working on my write-up of the night. But this is one of the highlights.
One of the bloggers at the table managed to get the last part of my question and then Bob Lutz's answer.
The video is six minutes long, but the first couple minutes are the most interesting. Keep in mind as you watch this who the speaker is.
Jamie at Thrice All American, Erik at the Tacoma Urbanist ... this is right up your alley. Thoughts?
I'm still working on my write-up of the night. But this is one of the highlights.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
My Dinner with Bob Lutz
So. I had dinner tonight at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle with four General Motors executives--including Vice Chairman of Global Product Development Robert Lutz--and seven other bloggers as part of a "blogger's roundtable" set up by GM.
Now there is a perfectly legitimate question to ask at this point. "What exactly, Erik, were you doing in a room with bigwig executives of GM?" I wish I fully knew the answer.
Apparently I was spotted thanks to a post on ZestyEnterprise, when we went together to the Seattle Film Festival Opening Night in a hybrid GM Yukon. And I guess I've written enough about transit/energy/the environment that I got invited to the dinner.
Interestingly, when I got there I discovered that most of the other bloggers there were "gearheads" who ran car blogs or social networking sites about cars. So while they were talking about the 1969 sales of the Camaro, I was asking about the national gas tax, recycling cars, corn ethanol, and movies. (Specifically Transformers, which featured transforming GM cars, and Who Killed the Electric Car?)
I'm still trying to put my thoughts together on the night, my questions, his answers, and what exactly it is I want to write about it all. So I think I'll leave it at that for now. But it was a fascinating dinner and everything was entirely on the record, so you can bet I'll be getting something up soon.
Now there is a perfectly legitimate question to ask at this point. "What exactly, Erik, were you doing in a room with bigwig executives of GM?" I wish I fully knew the answer.
Apparently I was spotted thanks to a post on ZestyEnterprise, when we went together to the Seattle Film Festival Opening Night in a hybrid GM Yukon. And I guess I've written enough about transit/energy/the environment that I got invited to the dinner.
Interestingly, when I got there I discovered that most of the other bloggers there were "gearheads" who ran car blogs or social networking sites about cars. So while they were talking about the 1969 sales of the Camaro, I was asking about the national gas tax, recycling cars, corn ethanol, and movies. (Specifically Transformers, which featured transforming GM cars, and Who Killed the Electric Car?)
I'm still trying to put my thoughts together on the night, my questions, his answers, and what exactly it is I want to write about it all. So I think I'll leave it at that for now. But it was a fascinating dinner and everything was entirely on the record, so you can bet I'll be getting something up soon.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Less time in the car
According to the Department of Transportation, the US as a whole drove 11 billion less miles in March 2008 than it did in March 2007, the sharpest yearly drop ever.
To help put that in perspective, that's 36 less miles driven per person. If you figure a (high) average miles per gallon and guestimate March's price at $3.50/gallon, that's about $1.5 billion we didn't spent on gas (collectively).
To help put that in perspective, that's 36 less miles driven per person. If you figure a (high) average miles per gallon and guestimate March's price at $3.50/gallon, that's about $1.5 billion we didn't spent on gas (collectively).
Monday, May 12, 2008
200,000 Trees for Tacoma?
When I was in New York City I was impressed by the effort they were putting out to plant more trees--1 million trees to be precise. Their goal is 1,000,000 trees in the next 10 years.
I mentioned the program in a comment thread over at Exit133 about a big tree that fell down over the weekend in the Stadium District and suggested that Tacoma should consider something similar. We've lost a lot of trees to age and development and storms and I think that we should have a systematic effort to replant.
Turns out, it's being looked in to. Fellow blogger Tacoma Chickadee let me know that Tacoma's Green Ribbon Committee has as a draft recommendation that the City plant 200,000 trees, among some other ideas.
According to the time line on the website, the final recommendations should be put in front of the City Council in June.
I'm on board. Go trees!
I mentioned the program in a comment thread over at Exit133 about a big tree that fell down over the weekend in the Stadium District and suggested that Tacoma should consider something similar. We've lost a lot of trees to age and development and storms and I think that we should have a systematic effort to replant.
Turns out, it's being looked in to. Fellow blogger Tacoma Chickadee let me know that Tacoma's Green Ribbon Committee has as a draft recommendation that the City plant 200,000 trees, among some other ideas.
According to the time line on the website, the final recommendations should be put in front of the City Council in June.
I'm on board. Go trees!
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Cradle to Cradle
I found a great article in the most recent "Vanity Fair" about William McDonough who believes in a "Cradle to Cradle" philosophy. He doesn't like that the legislation that has resulted from the environmental movement only seeks to make things "less bad" rather than actually good.
As an architect, one of his most important buildings was at Oberlin College. The building puts out more energy than it uses. It is also built so that the entire building can be disassembled (not destroyed) and its elements used again in more buildings.
Here's a better explanation of his ideal:
He wants to "make a five-year car that allows for industry to transform the technology at high speed toward the Cradle to Cradle concept. The five-year car is a car whose material are all coherent and tagged. In fact, all materials in the car have 'passports.' So we know where they come from, and we know where they're going--back to the automakers--after five years of utility, so the car could be recycled and updated with the latest in safety and efficiency ... They keep making cars out of the same stuff."
The "Cradle to Cradle" ideal promotes growth and jobs because it's goal is that each product has zero waste. Waste=Food is his mantra, because if you build it right, all waste can become the food for something else.
It's a very good kind of environmentalism.
As an architect, one of his most important buildings was at Oberlin College. The building puts out more energy than it uses. It is also built so that the entire building can be disassembled (not destroyed) and its elements used again in more buildings.
Here's a better explanation of his ideal:
He wants to "make a five-year car that allows for industry to transform the technology at high speed toward the Cradle to Cradle concept. The five-year car is a car whose material are all coherent and tagged. In fact, all materials in the car have 'passports.' So we know where they come from, and we know where they're going--back to the automakers--after five years of utility, so the car could be recycled and updated with the latest in safety and efficiency ... They keep making cars out of the same stuff."
The "Cradle to Cradle" ideal promotes growth and jobs because it's goal is that each product has zero waste. Waste=Food is his mantra, because if you build it right, all waste can become the food for something else.
It's a very good kind of environmentalism.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
How is rail like a freeway system?
RBD over at 5views has an argument against rail as a way to save greenhouse gases. There are sound parts to the argument that are worth investigating like whether it's better to get 1% of commuters onto rail or into hybrid cars (assuming you get to choose) and the benefits of congestion pricing (probably not RBD's favorite part of the report). That said, I do want to make one point here that I made on his blog as well. Please allow me to cut and paste ...
I feel like a lot of anti-mass transit arguments are almost predicated on the belief that there is something natural about the freeway and getting people off the freeway is unnatural.
But the freeways were built for moving troops across the country, not for moving people between Tacoma and Seattle, or other shorter distances. (In fact, the official title of the Interstate system is the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.") It just happened to have that effect.
In total, if you adjust for inflation the cost of the Interstate and Defense Highways system is about $425 billion dollars. That is a crazy crazy amount of money. The only reason anyone was willing to pay for it was because it was considered necessary to national security.
In many ways, I believe the success of the highway system speaks to what could become of a well-developed and well-funded rail system. We pushed billions and billions of dollars of public money into an infrastructure that then spurred even more billions of dollars in private growth (would the automobile industry be what it is without the freeways? Of course not).
What I wouldn't give if last year's TGV rail speed record was broken in the US instead of France ... think of the products we could create and then sell ...
So how is rail different? Why not spend billions of dollars on a transportation infrastructure that will most likely eventually create more innovative technologies that will then end up generating more money back then we spent in the first place (not to mention providing better transit options in and between major cities? It's what happened with highways. Why shouldn't we expect the same thing with rail system too?
I feel like a lot of anti-mass transit arguments are almost predicated on the belief that there is something natural about the freeway and getting people off the freeway is unnatural.
But the freeways were built for moving troops across the country, not for moving people between Tacoma and Seattle, or other shorter distances. (In fact, the official title of the Interstate system is the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.") It just happened to have that effect.
In total, if you adjust for inflation the cost of the Interstate and Defense Highways system is about $425 billion dollars. That is a crazy crazy amount of money. The only reason anyone was willing to pay for it was because it was considered necessary to national security.
In many ways, I believe the success of the highway system speaks to what could become of a well-developed and well-funded rail system. We pushed billions and billions of dollars of public money into an infrastructure that then spurred even more billions of dollars in private growth (would the automobile industry be what it is without the freeways? Of course not).
What I wouldn't give if last year's TGV rail speed record was broken in the US instead of France ... think of the products we could create and then sell ...
So how is rail different? Why not spend billions of dollars on a transportation infrastructure that will most likely eventually create more innovative technologies that will then end up generating more money back then we spent in the first place (not to mention providing better transit options in and between major cities? It's what happened with highways. Why shouldn't we expect the same thing with rail system too?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Growing Public Transportation
According to some recent research, we have more people using public transit than anytime in the last 50 years. Keep it up! From the study:
Interestingly, Sound Transit's ridership growth increased 12% from 2006 to 2007 in comparison to the national average growth of 2%. Here's their press release. That's a good frame for consideration of a November ballot initiative for Sound Transit.
Public transportation use is up 32% since 1995, a figure that is more than double the growth rate of the population (15%) and up substantially over the growth rate for the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on US highways (24%) for that same period.
Interestingly, Sound Transit's ridership growth increased 12% from 2006 to 2007 in comparison to the national average growth of 2%. Here's their press release. That's a good frame for consideration of a November ballot initiative for Sound Transit.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
On Biodiversity
Thomas Friedman has his last column today until April, as he'll be working on a book about energy and the environment (his first since The World is Flat).
His column is on biodiversity, and says that we are living in a "Noah Age" where we are suddenly left with two animals left that preserve species. 150 species are going extinct every day is the estimate, and also by our hand.
Biodiversity is a funny concept for me. Can you ever have enough? How do you know what's just right? What is a single species of sea turtle worth?
I understand that if a forest is made up of just one kind of tree, then that forest is going to be very weak, because a single virus could kill it, which a forest made of up of a lot of different kinds of trees will be stronger.
But at the same time, what does it mean if we lose a sea-turtle species in China? Callously speaking, not much in the long run.
The best argument for preserving species, even a random species of Chinese sea turtles, is that ecosystems are fragile delicate things that evolved over millions of years. Really, they co-evolved. Species evolved together and the natural ecosystems around the world are a result of their co-evolutions.
Easter Island is the best historical warning: it used to be lush with vegetation, animal life, and natural resources. Its inhabitants, through overuse, destroyed the ecosystem and had nowhere else to turn, no way to recreate their environment. The island is now covered with grassland where there used to be great forests.
The society collapsed, nearly entirely because of environmental degradation. (Here's Wikipedia's entry on the subject).
His column is on biodiversity, and says that we are living in a "Noah Age" where we are suddenly left with two animals left that preserve species. 150 species are going extinct every day is the estimate, and also by our hand.
Biodiversity is a funny concept for me. Can you ever have enough? How do you know what's just right? What is a single species of sea turtle worth?
I understand that if a forest is made up of just one kind of tree, then that forest is going to be very weak, because a single virus could kill it, which a forest made of up of a lot of different kinds of trees will be stronger.
But at the same time, what does it mean if we lose a sea-turtle species in China? Callously speaking, not much in the long run.
The best argument for preserving species, even a random species of Chinese sea turtles, is that ecosystems are fragile delicate things that evolved over millions of years. Really, they co-evolved. Species evolved together and the natural ecosystems around the world are a result of their co-evolutions.
Easter Island is the best historical warning: it used to be lush with vegetation, animal life, and natural resources. Its inhabitants, through overuse, destroyed the ecosystem and had nowhere else to turn, no way to recreate their environment. The island is now covered with grassland where there used to be great forests.
The society collapsed, nearly entirely because of environmental degradation. (Here's Wikipedia's entry on the subject).
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Will Washington Keep Rolling?
After the resounding defeat of Prop 1 right now, there's some big questions on the future of mass transit in the Puget Sound region.
I voted for it, reluctantly. But I'm not totally sorry to see it go.
Here's a few general thoughts I have.
John Ladenburg says that it will take them 2 years--Nov 2009--to get a plan back onto the table. I say, wait till November 2010. The Seattle to the Airport light rail route is supposed to open in December of 2009. And having that much rail actually working is going to start changing people's minds about expanding it further.
Sound Transit was critiqued by a lot of people ... but then people started riding express buses and using the commuter rail, and parking at the Dome and taking the Link into Tacoma. Once light rail to the airport is up and running, a pitch to add more light rail gets even stronger.
Also, by 2010 maybe Tacoma will have begun work on its streetcar system ... The more people see transit, the more they will be able to picture themselves using it, and they'll want to fill in the gap.
And finally, three years will give us time to switch Washington from its current sales-tax based system to income tax, which would help business and help the poor all at the same time. That will make adding 6/10ths to sales tax a little easier to swallow.
I voted for it, reluctantly. But I'm not totally sorry to see it go.
Here's a few general thoughts I have.
John Ladenburg says that it will take them 2 years--Nov 2009--to get a plan back onto the table. I say, wait till November 2010. The Seattle to the Airport light rail route is supposed to open in December of 2009. And having that much rail actually working is going to start changing people's minds about expanding it further.
Sound Transit was critiqued by a lot of people ... but then people started riding express buses and using the commuter rail, and parking at the Dome and taking the Link into Tacoma. Once light rail to the airport is up and running, a pitch to add more light rail gets even stronger.
Also, by 2010 maybe Tacoma will have begun work on its streetcar system ... The more people see transit, the more they will be able to picture themselves using it, and they'll want to fill in the gap.
And finally, three years will give us time to switch Washington from its current sales-tax based system to income tax, which would help business and help the poor all at the same time. That will make adding 6/10ths to sales tax a little easier to swallow.
Sunday, November 04, 2007
How to get to Mars and back
There was some interesting information published recently about the Puget Sound's transit situation. One of them was cited in the papers regularly, and it's great to see. This is from the PI:
The number of new vehicles added each year to King County roads fell dramatically during that same period, from an average of 33,000 per year between 1980 and 1990 to just 11,000 per year between 2000 and 2006, according to calculations based on figures provided by the state Department of Licensing (DOL) in February.
That's pretty awesome information. Will that make people in Seattle more like to support Prop 1? I wonder. I have a feeling that their support is going to be pretty crucial to whether it's going to pass or not this Tuesday.
The other good piece of news is that the number of daily vehicle miles has stayed rather constant these last two years (this from the Puget Sound Regional Council). 80.1 million daily vehicle miles in 2004. 80.6 million miles in 2005. 81.5 million miles in 2006. Those are very small increments, less than 1% growth of vehicle miles per year.
But the problem is we're talking about 81,500,000 miles driven per work day in the Puget Sound region alone. That is the equivalent of Puget Sound drivers going from the Earth to Mars and back every work day. And even then we still have enough miles left over that we can do 25 round trips from the Earth to the Moon. Every work day.
That's what 81,500,000 million miles looks like.
Put it another way. Let's say the average car here gets 25 miles per gallon (they don't). And let's say gas is $3.00 per gallon (it's higher). The Puget Sound is spending $9.78 million dollars on gas every work day.
Or put it this way. Let's say that the typical driver averages 55 miles per hour (they go far slower most likely, counting the time they spend on surface streets). The Puget Sound then spends 1.48 million hours every work day.
Getting to Mars and back takes a long time I guess ...
The number of new vehicles added each year to King County roads fell dramatically during that same period, from an average of 33,000 per year between 1980 and 1990 to just 11,000 per year between 2000 and 2006, according to calculations based on figures provided by the state Department of Licensing (DOL) in February.
That's pretty awesome information. Will that make people in Seattle more like to support Prop 1? I wonder. I have a feeling that their support is going to be pretty crucial to whether it's going to pass or not this Tuesday.
The other good piece of news is that the number of daily vehicle miles has stayed rather constant these last two years (this from the Puget Sound Regional Council). 80.1 million daily vehicle miles in 2004. 80.6 million miles in 2005. 81.5 million miles in 2006. Those are very small increments, less than 1% growth of vehicle miles per year.
But the problem is we're talking about 81,500,000 miles driven per work day in the Puget Sound region alone. That is the equivalent of Puget Sound drivers going from the Earth to Mars and back every work day. And even then we still have enough miles left over that we can do 25 round trips from the Earth to the Moon. Every work day.
That's what 81,500,000 million miles looks like.
Put it another way. Let's say the average car here gets 25 miles per gallon (they don't). And let's say gas is $3.00 per gallon (it's higher). The Puget Sound is spending $9.78 million dollars on gas every work day.
Or put it this way. Let's say that the typical driver averages 55 miles per hour (they go far slower most likely, counting the time they spend on surface streets). The Puget Sound then spends 1.48 million hours every work day.
Getting to Mars and back takes a long time I guess ...
Friday, October 12, 2007
Gore Now Has Right-side Bookend
An Academy Award on the left, and a Nobel Prize on the right. Voila! Two good bookends.
I was a skeptic of An Inconvenient Truth before I actually sat down and watched it. I left feeling quite impressed. I know some are going to hate that he got this award. But I would point out that it's not like he was given a Nobel for making a movie. He has been fighting against pollution and climate change for a very long time.
And when we have a Northwest Passage for the first time in human history, it's a reason to start being a tad concerned.
I was a skeptic of An Inconvenient Truth before I actually sat down and watched it. I left feeling quite impressed. I know some are going to hate that he got this award. But I would point out that it's not like he was given a Nobel for making a movie. He has been fighting against pollution and climate change for a very long time.
And when we have a Northwest Passage for the first time in human history, it's a reason to start being a tad concerned.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Put School of Maritime Sciences on the Foss
So with the success of the School of the Arts, I've heard talk every so often about creating another magnet high school in downtown Tacoma: a High Tech High. I've also heard that Tacoma doesn't have the tech industry to support it the same way that we have the art world to support SOTA.
Well, here's my idea: locate Tacoma's High Tech High in two buildings: The Foss Waterway Seaport and the Urban Waters facility. Students would learn about hard sciences with a focus on marine biology, marine chemistry, meteorology, climatology ... and they could work with researchers in those fields at both institutes. They could add nautical science credits through piloting a small boat the school would run for research in Commencement Bay. And classrooms could still teach them calculus/web programming and other "tech" stuff.
The school could even go so far as to operate a small skiff to cross the Foss between classes, allowing students to go between the buildings freely. If it stopped off at 15th & Dock Street, Tacoma workers on the Foss might appreciate the connection to downtown.
So that's my idea. High Tech High with the hard sciences and technology right there on the Foss. Urban Waters, the Port, The Foss Waterway Seaport (AKA Maritime Museum), the new Puget Sound Partnership (see Exit133) that the State will locate there all could be augmented by a Tacoma School of Maritime Sciences.
We have SOTA. Let's add SOMS.
Well, here's my idea: locate Tacoma's High Tech High in two buildings: The Foss Waterway Seaport and the Urban Waters facility. Students would learn about hard sciences with a focus on marine biology, marine chemistry, meteorology, climatology ... and they could work with researchers in those fields at both institutes. They could add nautical science credits through piloting a small boat the school would run for research in Commencement Bay. And classrooms could still teach them calculus/web programming and other "tech" stuff.
The school could even go so far as to operate a small skiff to cross the Foss between classes, allowing students to go between the buildings freely. If it stopped off at 15th & Dock Street, Tacoma workers on the Foss might appreciate the connection to downtown.
So that's my idea. High Tech High with the hard sciences and technology right there on the Foss. Urban Waters, the Port, The Foss Waterway Seaport (AKA Maritime Museum), the new Puget Sound Partnership (see Exit133) that the State will locate there all could be augmented by a Tacoma School of Maritime Sciences.
We have SOTA. Let's add SOMS.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Q&A with Al Gore
I thought this was a very interesting exchange:
Among the current crop of candidates, who has the strongest position on global warming?
Among the current crop of candidates, who has the strongest position on global warming?
Gore: I don’t think anyone has given it the emphasis that it should have. But [Connecticut senator] Chris Dodd deserves credit for proposing a CO2 tax—I’m convinced that we should eliminate the payroll tax and replace it dollar for dollar with a CO2 tax.
...
Are any Republican candidates good on the issue?
Gore: No. John McCain was strong on the climate crisis in the past, before he got swept up in the effort to court the base voters of his party. Mike Bloomberg has had a responsible position on the issue, but he’s no longer a Republican.
I was critical of Gore last summer for not advocating for a gas tax in his film An Inconvenient Truth. I am glad to see him take a stand on an even more comprehensive tax solution.Sunday, August 19, 2007
20,000 Leagues
This afternoon my trusty steed passed 20,000 miles on my trip back from the Lake. That's 20,000 miles after 3 years and 5 days of driving (I got my Elantra in August of 2004), an average of 6,666 miles per year.
But for the first two years when I worked at the Grand and seldom drove to work, I only put 6,000 miles on the car each year. So that means commuting to Bellarmine (all 3.2 miles to work according Google Maps) accounts for an extra 2,000 miles a year. Considering the relatively short distance, those miles still add up. I'm glad it wasn't a job in Seattle.
Monday, July 16, 2007
I thought Democrats liked the environment
Upsetting news from New York today.
Mayor Bloomberg's proposal to overhaul New York City traffic was besieged in the State Senate by Democrats who, en masse, decided they would oppose the measure.
From the NYT:
It taxes rich people, which you like; it helps the environment, which you like; it's awesome, which you should also like. But the idea came from an ex-Republican, which you don't like. Why is it that Arnold and Bloomberg are greener than all of you in the New York State Senate? Why is it a Republican governor in Florida is on the bandwagon and you're not?
Oh, right. You don't like Bloomberg. That's just dumb.
Mayor Bloomberg's proposal to overhaul New York City traffic was besieged in the State Senate by Democrats who, en masse, decided they would oppose the measure.
From the NYT:
In a tense meeting on Monday, testy exchanges erupted between the mayor and the Democratic state senators he was trying to win over. At one point, according to several people present, Mr. Bloomberg told the senators that his administration had sent plenty of information about his plan in the mail, and that it was not his fault if they had not read it.
...So angered were Democrats that they decided to vote as a bloc to defeat the measure, and there were not nearly enough votes among the Republican senators for it to pass.
Guys. Congestion pricing for a city the size of New York makes a lot of sense and will be an incredible boon to the environment as it gets more people out of their cars and onto mass transit. I can understand that there might be concern about how the measure would affect poor families but, let's face it, if you live in the New York metropolis region and commute to Manhattan in a car, you're probably not poor.
It taxes rich people, which you like; it helps the environment, which you like; it's awesome, which you should also like. But the idea came from an ex-Republican, which you don't like. Why is it that Arnold and Bloomberg are greener than all of you in the New York State Senate? Why is it a Republican governor in Florida is on the bandwagon and you're not?
Oh, right. You don't like Bloomberg. That's just dumb.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Carleton and the Environment
Carleton has long been into worrying about energy and pollution. Apparently they and St. Olaf compete for a week in the spring to see who can save more energy than the other school. Students will camp in the Arb, classes are taught with the windows open and the lights off, they really get into it. Carleton even built a windmill to produce energy (St. Olaf later followed suit).Their conservation has spread to Reunion weekend. Everything we used to each lunch of dinner with either recyclable or compostable, including our silverware which was called spudware because it was made from potatoes. No foolin'. We used potato cutlery (suprisingly strong, by the way).
So thanks for introducing me to Spudware, Carleton. Your biodegradable cutlery was very fun.
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