Daily Score Blog

I'm a day late on this, but the Seattle P-I had an interesting series on Seattle's ailing urban forests. The principal threat is the rapid spread of invasive species, which essentially throttle standing trees and smother healthy new growth:

"At first glance, the most prolific tree-killers seem pleasant enough, aesthetically speaking -- a splash of green on a bare tree trunk, a burst of pretty flowers on the ground. But tendrils of ivy, morning glory and clematis quickly spread up into the tree canopies, starving the trees by cloaking their leaves and blocking photosynthesis. Their weight breaks branches and bends tree tops, stunting growth. Blackberry thickets smother ferns and saplings."

Folks at the Seattle Urban Nature Project, along with scores of other groups, are in the frontlines of the battle against the aliens. Without their dedication, the city's forests and parks would likely succumb to the greedy monoculture of ivy and blackberry that is already in evidence nearly everywhere. So as a nature-loving city-dweller I'm happy about the much-needed efforts to restore the ecology closest to us.

But the more I read, the more the series also raised some interesting questions--for me, anyway--about how we treat conservation priorities. How do we sort out competing environmental goods, such as increasing urban density and preserving an urban forest canopy? Is urban ecology really the best use of our resources?

UPDATE: I apparently got much of this post wrong.  See this followup post for more details.

This article from the libertarian-leaning Northwest Meridian applauds the Brookings Institution's Margy Waller -- who advocates for big-government programs to subsidize car ownership for people at or near the poverty line.

Strange bedfellows indeed.  The small-government Meridian presumably likes the idea because they feel that transit is expensive, big-government meddling.  Waller welcomes support from all corners, since as she says in this Washington Monthly article:

"[P]oor central-city residents find themselves living further and further away from economic opportunities. Evelyn Blumenberg, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, found that car-driving residents of the Watts section of Los Angeles have access to an astounding 59 times as many jobs as their neighbors dependent on public transit. Even more isolated are the car-less low-income families that now live in the suburbs--nearly half of all metropolitan poor."

Now, somewhat to my surprise, I find Waller's argument on this point fairly convincing:  the fact that many poor folks don't have car really does seem to make it hard for them to find a job.  So, despite my general belief that automobiles are already too heavily subsidized, extending car ownership to the poor and near-poor seems like it could have some substantial benefits in raising their economic prospects.

But my support for Waller's ideas only goes so far.  In fact, I think some are downright nutty.

Three stories around Cascadia mark the spread of biofuels: biomass for heating schools, biodiesel for heating homes, and a new cross-border biodiesel project for trucks.

Brush fires in the school
The AP recently reported on a Forest Service program, Fuels for Schools, that sends the slashed brush and limbs from forest thinning to heat schools in several states including Idaho and Montana. Replacing oil furnaces, biofuels reduce cost, air pollution, and dependence on foreign oil. I'm all for finding new uses for waste products. But is this really a good idea?