With the mortgage market meltdown and the increased costs of commuting, there are those who — somewhat gleefully, it seems — predict that the decades-long flight to ever-further flung suburbs is rapidly and painfully coming to a close. From Business Week online:

The suburban landscape has been marred by foreclosures and half-built communities abandoned in the subprime aftermath. But James Howard Kunstler, author of a dozen books, including The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape, thinks there’s a bigger threat to those far-flung neighborhoods: the scarcity of oil. As Kunstler sees it, oil wells are running dry and the era of cheap fuel is over. Given the supply constraints, he says the U.S. will have to rethink suburban sprawl, bringing an end to strip malls, big-box stores, and other trappings of the automotive era. Kunstler, 59, predicts a return to towns and cities centered around a retail hub—not unlike his hometown of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. But the shift to this new paradigm, he says, will be painful.

Here’s the rest.

In a sizzling piece that’s No. 1 on the New York Times Web site, columnist Thomas Friedman rips into the idea of dumping the gallon federal tax on gasoline:

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”

Here’s the rest.

Google Maps now has a nifty service called Google Transit, which allows you to figure out a public transportation route in many U.S. and a few international cities. Sacramento’s Regional Transit is among the participants, along with the public transit systems in Detroit, Milwaukee and even Rio Vista!

And it’s in real time. Check out this info, pulled just a couple minutes ago asking for public transit help getting from Cal Expo to SMUD:

$2.25 (vs. $3.20 driving!) Public transit

Travel time: about 35 minsShowing Trip 1

	Walk to Exposition BLVD & Heritage LN About 1 min
	Walk to Exposition BLVD & Heritage LN About 1 min « Previous Zoom in Trip overview Next »
	Bus - 68 - 44th ST - Direction: To Florin Mall Service run by Sacramento Regional Transit
	3:47pm	Depart Exposition BLVD & Heritage LN (Stop ID: 2646)
		14 mins
	4:01pm	Arrive 29th ST & R ST (Stop ID: 9811)

Bus - 68 - 44th ST - Direction: To Florin Mall Service run by Sacramento Regional Transit 3:47pm Depart Exposition BLVD & Heritage LN (Stop ID: 2646) 4:01pm Arrive 29th ST & R ST (Stop ID: 9811)

« Previous

Zoom in Trip overview

Next »

Light rail - Gold - Folsom - Amtrak - Direction: OB Folsom 12 mins to make transfer 4:13pm Depart 29th Street Light Rail (Stop ID: 7051) 4:17pm Arrive 59th Street Light Rail (Stop ID: 7054)

« Previous

Zoom in Trip overview

Next »

Walk to 6201 S St
About 4 mins

Sen John McCain recommends scrapping the gasoline tax to give Americans some relief during the summer driving season.

“The effect of this ‘gas tax holiday’ will be an immediate economic stimulus — taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every time you fill up,” McCain wrote in a fundraising e-mail to campaign supporters on April 17. “And because the cost of gas affects the price of food, packaging and just about everything else, this immediate step will spread economic relief to every family in America.”

The online magazine Salon ran a story today about McCain’s proposal. For an expert opinion/rebuttal, Salon interviewed  UC Davis economics professor Christopher Knittel. Knittel’s research has shown that the escalation in gas prices the last four years has prompted some Americans to buy more fuel-efficient cars.

“Politically it’s a great idea for McCain,” Knittel said. ”It hits on two main issues: Gas prices are high and he’s also lowering taxes. For the economy and for society at large,  it’s a terrible idea.

“The U.S. is just now starting to get on board with the idea that we need to fight climate change, and this is just reversing that fight,” Knittel said. “Basically we’re going to reduce the price of gasoline, which means consumers are going to respond by either driving more in the short term or changing how they make vehicle purchases and buying less fuel-efficient cars, because fuel efficiency won’t be as important.”

In the first quarter of 2008, Knittel said, California experienced its first reduction in gasoline consumption in 16 years. While noting that ”nobody ever got elected on a platform of raising gas taxes, Knittel said the “cap and trade” system that Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton favor is essentially a tax on greenhouse gas emissions. 

“I believe that’s the right decision,” Knittel said. “I’m always afraid to tell people that’s what they’re effectively doing, because I think that politically they’re being smart in not calling it a tax but adopting a system that acts very similar to a tax.”

Read the full story here.

 

Australia is experiencing a withering drought. As world food prices soar, a New York Times article raises the question of whether decreased rice production Down Under is related to global warming.

The drought’s effect on rice has produced the greatest impact on the rest of the world, so far. It is one factor contributing to skyrocketing prices, and many scientists believe it is among the earliest signs that a warming planet is starting to affect food production.

The Deniliquin mill once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the closure of the mill last December.

The article continues:

The global agricultural crisis is threatening to become political, pitting the United States and other developed countries against the developing world over the need for affordable food versus the need for renewable energy. Many poorer nations worry that subsidies from rich countries to support biofuels, which turn food, like corn, into fuel, are pushing up the price of staples.

Click here to read more.

350 of Sacramento’s movers and shakers are on a power trip this week - green power, that is. Hoping to get a chunk of federal greenbacks for local projects, the group is focused on clean/green technology and flood control.

The team, like the dozen others, will meet with the Sacramento congressional delegation, California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and other congressional and Bush administration leaders in search of federal dollars and specific legislation benefiting the region.

The key issues are all focused variously on the health of the environment and the people in it.

Among the larger teams are those focused on flood control, transportation, clean technology and health care issues – the four leading topics of the chamber’s 38th annual lobbying trip.

The group is staying at the Mayflower Hotel, recently made famous by the sexcapades of former New York governor, Elliot Spitzer.

[Read the juicy details here.]

Golf Digest magazine caters to equipment geeks who desperately want to lower their scores, either by switching to the hottest new ball or following a short-game tip from Tiger Woods. But this month’s cover featured the headline “The Most Important Article We’ve Ever Published.”

A look inside revealed a 30-page series of articles built around the same question - “How Green is Golf?” It’s actually a good question, seeing how much water golf courses require to maintain. The author, John Barton, talked to seven individuals - an environmentalist, a golf-course architect, a grass expert, and others. If you have the time or inclination, it’s a good read.

In the introduction, Barton writes:

As global warming increases, and common sense prevails, and the leaders of commerce and industry realize there’s a buck to be made by being green-minded (or, more often, pretending to be), environmentalism is going to have large, growing and profound effects on all of our lives. What does this mean for golf? Like the fur coat and the SUV, the “Augusta look” — freakishly green wall-to-wall grass on a life-support system of too much water and toxic chemicals, greens running at virtually unplayable speeds, ornamental flowers all over the place — will become less admired, and even stigmatized. It works for the Masters, but that’s just one week a year at an extremely wealthy private club that gets very little play (there are only 300 members, and the course is closed all summer). It doesn’t work — and isn’t desirable — at most other places. The aspiration — obsession — to be like Augusta has probably always had less to do with the needs and wants of golfers, who know that the game is all about taking the rough with the smooth, and more to do with the egos of golf-course owners, tournament directors and people who sit on greens committees.

Las Vegas is experiencing a water crisis of major proportions, and its 126 golf courses aren’t helping matters. Golf courses use an average of 300,000 gallons of water per day, according to one report.

 

 

In another sign that the Earth’s air conditioner is breaking down, a huge Antarctic ice shelf is breaking up.

Glaciologist Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado was monitoring satellite images of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and spotted a huge iceberg measuring 25 miles by 1.5 miles that appeared to have broken away from the shelf.

Scambos alerted colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) that it looked like the entire ice shelf — about 6,180 square miles (about the size of Northern Ireland)— was at risk of collapsing.

Once again, all the dire predictions we’ve heard have turned out to be a bit rosy.

“I didn’t expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread — we’ll know in the next few days and weeks what its fate will be.”

The polar regions are warming up a lot faster than Earth’s mid-section.

The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere; temperature records show that the region has warmed by over 37 degrees Fahrenheit during the past 50 years — several times the global average and only matched in Alaska.

[Read the chilling details here.]

You’ve probably already heard that the NCAA men’s basketball tournament costs our economy millions of dollars each year in lost work time.

But there’s a new twist to March Madness in this age of all things green.

There’s actually a Web site - www.greenbrackets.com - that encourages basketball fans to pull for schools that signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment.  

For instance, Duke is a green school. USC is not. Oregon is green (surprise). Notre Dame is not (amen). Memphis is green, and not because it pays its players.

But the folks at greenbrackets.com could use a little more hoops seasoning. They write:

College basketball’s elites like Duke, Syracuse and Florida are also leaders in the fight to strengthen our economy, make America more secure and reverse global warming.

Neither Syracuse nor Florida qualified for this year’s 64-team tournament. Read more.

 

 

With St. Patrick’s Day just around the corner, Slate’s Green Lantern ponders a question of great import to beer drinkers. And no, it’s not “tastes great or less filling?”

Which is more eco-friendly, cans or bottles?

Manufacturing a 12-ounce aluminum can is twice as energy-intensive as making a similarly sized glass bottle: 2.07 kilowatt hours of electricity for the can vs. 1.09 kilowatt hours for the bottle.

But the best solution is to install a tap in your home. Read the full article - and feel free to skip the final part about puke being biodegradable.