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Talking Weather, Post Chitchat
Talking about the weather has always been a favorite American pastime. But recent extreme weather events seem to have propelled us into a post chitchat era. With droughts, heat waves, dust storms, tornadoes, wildfires, and floods dominating the headlines, many folks are starting to talk about the weather with a sense of mystification—if not dread. And some are even beginning to connect the dots between extreme weather and scientific warnings...Read more » -
Decriminalize Green, Affordable Car Insurance
Imagine if state law made it difficult for pizza joints to sell by the slice. You’d have to buy and eat a lot of pizza when you got a hankering. Either that, or you’d have to give up pizza entirely. By-the-slice pizza lets light eaters save money. The car insurance market today is like an alternate reality where no pizza joints sell by the slice. You have to buy a...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 7/8/11
Eric dP: By far the coolest thing I read this week was Craig Welch's front page coverage of the latest wolf pack documented in Washington, this time in the Teanaway region. Several years ago I was driving over Blewett Pass one night, not far away, when I had to skid to a stop to avoid hitting an animal crossing the highway. For a few seconds my headlights illuminated this big rangy husky-looking... what was it? My wife insisted it was someone's dog on the loose, but it looked exactly like a wolf. I'm going to take this opportunity to say it now: she was wrong, and I was right. The Seattle Times also had a good profile of local activist Elizabeth Campbell by reporter Lynn Thompson. There are plenty of things Campbell and I disagree about, but it seems to me that great places need people like Campbell who aren't willing to go along easily with what leaders want.
Eric dP: By far the coolest thing I read this week was Craig Welch’s front page coverage of the latest wolf pack documented in Washington, this time in the Teanaway region. Several years ago I was driving over Blewett Pass one night, not far away, when I had to skid to a stop to avoid hitting an animal crossing the highway. For a few seconds my headlights illuminated this big...Read more » -
British Columbians (Heart) Their Carbon Tax
On the eve of a scheduled rate increase, polling released yesterday by Pembina Institute shows that, three year’s since its implementation, British Columbia residents like their province’s carbon tax shift. As the Vancouver Sun reports, the government was motivated, in particular, by a catastrophic expansion of pine beetle infestations in BC’s Interior forests fueled by increasing temperatures. The policy was designed to help meet the province’s goals to significantly reduce...Read more » -
The Shareable Food Movement Meets the Law
The Health Department didn’t show up when I made dinner for my neighbors last night. Fortunately, our health and safety laws don’t usually dictate how we prepare food in our personal and private realms. But humans have a natural tendency, an urge to feed each other, and the shareable food movement is taking that to new levels—levels that bring up some legal curiosities.Read more » -
Weekend Reading 7/1/11
Clark The Onion gives a sage warning about the dangers of wind power. Switzerland is getting big into traffic calming---which served as fodder for a somewhat annoying "debate" in The New York Times opinion pages. I confess that 350-word opinion essays don't do much for me anymore...but perhaps others like that sort of thing more than I do.
Clark The Onion gives a sage warning about the dangers of wind power. Switzerland is getting big into traffic calming—which served as fodder for a somewhat annoying “debate” in The New York Times opinion pages. I confess that 350-word opinion essays don’t do much for me anymore…but perhaps others like that sort of thing more than I do.Read more » -
Why You Can’t Stop the White Pages
What could be more annoying than the dull thud of another unwanted phone book on your doorstep? Printed phone directories are as outdated as, well, rotary phones — and these days they amount to little more than waste for the majority of phone customers. That’s why cities like Seattle and San Francisco have recently passed legislation letting residents opt in or opt out of automatic Yellow Pages deliveries. Yet neither...Read more » -
Steps Toward Stormwater Solutions
For years Washington’s leaders have fingered stormwater runoff as Puget Sound enemy No. 1. Now the state has real data to back the charges, and decision makers will be able to use this information to better inform regulatory and policy decisions. Right now the state Department of Ecology is working on a draft plan for new stormwater rules, and the Puget Sound Partnership, the agency spearheading the restoration of Washington’s...Read more » -
Legalize Personal Car-Sharing
What if a stupendously enormous business opportunity were hiding in plain sight before our eyes? What if this same business opportunity would bring gigantic environmental and social dividends? And what if all that was required to unleash these benefits was a simple legal reform? Personal car sharing is such a business opportunity: a chance to trim emissions, crashes, and fuel costs, all while generating a profit for car owners and...Read more » -
Weekend Reading 6/17/11
Alan: One book: I finally got around to reading Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods this week. Inspiring stories, although I found the empirical evidence less robust than I had been expecting. The widely discussed phenomenon of "nature-deficit disorder" that he describes is really just a hypothesis at this point.
Alan: One book: I finally got around to reading Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods this week. Inspiring stories, although I found the empirical evidence less robust than I had been expecting. The widely discussed phenomenon of “nature-deficit disorder” that he describes is really just a hypothesis at this point.Read more »
