Search Results

Roger’s post on car crashes a few weeks back got me to thinking:  what are the local car crash trends looking like, in an era of expensive gas? And as it turns out, the trends are looking good!!  The state of Washington recently released fatality statistics for 2008, and their figures show a sharp dip in fatality rates in the past few years.  As the chart to the right shows,...

The Oregonian had an informative story this weekend about the prospects for converting the Boardman coal-fired power plant to burn “biomass” from plants. Many utilities are looking at replacing some fraction of their coal with plant material as a way of reducing emissions, but few have proposed anything on the ambitious scale that Portland General Electric is considering. (The utility recently announced that it would seek to either shut down...

For years, environmentalists have touted “low-impact development”—letting soil and vegetation soak up heavy rains, rather than channeling storm runoff into gutters and sewers—as the best solution for stormwater. But as it turns out, LID has picked up a whole host of new fans: smart economists, developers, builders, and government regulators are now singing LID’s praises as well. The fundamental principle of low-impact development is that it’s better—both for people’s pocketbooks...

Vancouver’s greenhouse gas inventory recently completed by the sustainability office. Notwithstanding the methodological complexities that are inherent to this kind of work, it’s a nicely done project (very comparable to the good work done in Seattle’s recent inventory). Vancouver’s headline message: Vancouver is proof that cities can be vibrant, growing and prosperous while also taking meaningful action on climate change. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have already been reduced to 1990 levels...

A boycott in Montgomery, Alabama; a march on Washington; “I Have a Dream;” a bridge in Selma; a Nobel Prize; a balcony in Memphis—the flaming arc of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life is now inscribed in American mythology. But in December 1955, when King was an unknown 26-year-old Baptist minister first thrust into leadership, the issue at hand—the particular cause—in Montgomery was African Americans’ right to sit with equal dignity...

French film-maker Jacques Tati was known for his unique portrayal of the humor and folly of modern technology. His most well known films feature the misadventures of Hulot, a character that is part Mr. Bean and part Inspector Clouseau.  One target of Tati’s critical humor was the automobile.  Here is a priceless clip from his 1971 film Trafic in which Hulot (played by Tati) is an automobile inventor on his...

On January 4, Seattle inaugurated a new, ultra-green mayor, which got me thinking comparatively. Which of the three largest Cascadian cities is the greenest? Not in plans and intentions and declarations but in facts? I recently pored over data from the Cascadia Scorecard and other sources. The answer? No contest: Vancouver, BC. It’s not so much Vancouver’s new rail transit line under downtown that goes to the airport (which Seattle...

There’s little disagreement that pollution from coal plants is bad: unsightly at best and toxic at worst. That’s why state regulators are trying to cut emissions from the two coal plants operating in Centralia, Washington and Boardman, Oregon. But the two states do have different expectations for how effectively the coal plants can curb their pollution. Some (admittedly back-of-the-napkin) math reveals that—once the plants meet their final goals—Washington’s proposed agreement...

Funding for energy saving retrofits in Northwest states are getting entangled in the complexities of the Davis-Bacon Act (DBA), well-intentioned legislation passed by Congress in 1931, and amended over subsequent years, to ensure decent wages for workers on publicly-funded projects. But the DBA’s good intentions are creating some problems that might smother job growth in the energy efficiency field. Higher hourly wage requirements and additional reporting are inflating costs, tipping some...

Looking at unemployment trends today, I found brand new numbers on unemployment by city as of November. As usual, British Columbia’s statistics agency was quicker to release its numbers. So now we can get a picture of how the Great Recession is shaking out, one year after it was acknowledged as underway—and eleven months after federal stimulus spending was approved in Washington, DC. Unemployment is a key Cascadia Scorecard economy...