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Get On The Bus
What would it take to get me out of my car? I mean that as a serious question, not a rhetorical one. Unique among my colleagues, I’m a car commuter. Well, really, I carpool. My wife and I both work in downtown Seattle, and we’ve chosen to put our two daughters in a daycare that’s close to our offices. So, even though bus commuting is definitely an option in my...Read more » -
Biodiesel: The Slippery Facts
Biodiesel—essentially, a clean-burning vegetable-based oil that can be substituted for ordinary petroleum diesel—is getting a lot of press these days. That’s not too surprising: aternatives to oil tend to get a lot of attention when fuel prices are rising, which they’re certainly doing right now. Perhaps the biggest piece or recent policy news is Washington state’s new renewable fuels standard, passed just last month, that mandates that 2 percent of...Read more » -
Transportation in a Cap & Trade System
A cap on greenhouse gas emissions doesn’t mean much unless transportation is included. Here’s how to do it.Read more » -
Why Bikes Are a Sustainable Wonder
Two-wheeling ranks as the most energy-efficient form of travel, especially for short trips–and makes you healthier.Read more » -
Pay-As-You-Drive Car Insurance
One of the best solutions for rewarding motorists for driving less and making insurance more equitable.Read more » -
Fact Sheet: Seven Wonders for a Cool Planet
What’s the most energy efficient vehicle ever devised? How many calories of energy does it take to grow and ship lettuce? And other quick facts about climate solutions from Sightline’s new book, Seven Wonders.Read more » -
Who’s responsible for the trash? Part II
British Columbia embraced a concept called “product stewardship” in 1993, and has developed the most comprehensive list of products subject to such stewardship systems of any state or province in North America.Read more » -
Hybrid Hype: Incentives Gone Wild
Hybrid cars are good for us, right? So policymakers should provide incentives—things like tax breaks, access to HOV lanes, and free parking for hybrid drivers. Well, not so fast, says a great article in today’s Washington Post. [Free registration req’d.] There’s growing reason to believe that those incentives for hybrids will make things worse—actually generating more gasoline use, not less. That’s because many of the incentives confuse the means for...Read more » -
Principles of the State of the Union Address
I hadn’t intended to join the cacaphony of bloggers and pundits who are Monday-morning-quarterbacking the State of the Union address. But Sightline’s all-star board member, Laura Retzler, asked a great question last night that I’ve been puzzling over since: what’s Sightline’s take on Bush’s plan to end the nation’s addiction to oil? It later occurred to me—too late to answer Laura—that my reply should have been rather obvious to me....Read more » -
Of Green Mayors and Red Queens
Not much new here, really, but still worth noting: from the Seattle P-I, "Seattle sets own Kyoto goals for emissions." To me, the thing that’s most noteworthy is the admission that, if greenhouse gas emissions are really going to fall in a city like Seattle, a lot of the reduction will have to come from the transportation sector. Seattle’s electricity is already, at least nominally, climate-neutral. Some gains can probably...Read more »