Daily Score Blog

Except there's this:  the current plans for the tunnel and aerial rebuild already assume that the city can make do without the Viaduct for three to four years.  That's how long it will take between the moment the existing structure is closed for demolition, and the new one is open for traffic.

Now, I've heard plenty of people argue that traffic will come to a standstill if the Viaduct is replaced by a surface boulevard.  But I've never heard anyone from the city or state admit that their prefered options will do the exact same thing, for at least three years.

So either: a) transportation officials aren't being up-front about this -- and the replacement options have a hidden downside that nobody's talking about publicly; or b) they don't think it's really all that much of a problem, and that they'll cobble together some combination of transit incentives and surface street improvements that will keep traffic flowing.  And if it's the latter, then, goodness gracious, if it can work for 3 years, then why not 10, or 20, or longer?

A fascinating (and alarming) new way to learn about climate change while procrastinating at work: Flood Maps.

Using elevation data in combination with Google's map technology, you can create a visual depiction of rising sea levels right in your own neighborhood. Start at 7 meters and work your way up to 14. Truly, it's amazing. The satellite "photo" at left is what downtown Seattle would look like with a 7 meter rise in sea levels: adieu Georgetown, Harbor Island, Interbay, and SoDo. I copped this one from Alex over at WorldChanging.

Also at WorldChanging, Jamais Cascio has a good post on Flood Maps and the science of rising sea levels.

How much of a pay cut would you be willing to accept to take a more satisfying job?

Via Kevin Drum, I see that UBC professors John Helliwell and Haifang Huang have tried to put a number on how much different kinds of job satisfaction are worth in cold, hard cash.  The results (cribbed from this summary at MSNBC):

• Increased trust in your employer is worth a 36 percent pay raise.
• A greater variety of projects is worth a 21 percent pay hike.
• Having a position that requires skill worth 19 percent more pay.
• Having enough time to finish your work is worth 11 percent more pay.

Based on this, then, you'd be happier overall taking a 20 percent pay cut to work at a place where you trust your employers more; but you're better off in sticking with a somewhat harried job than taking that same pay cut to work at a more measured pace.  Of course, this somewhat contradicts this earlier post on a study that found, among other things, that working on a job where there's pressure to work quickly is just about the least satisfying thing you can do with your time.

It's also worth noting that increased pay doesn't do all that much for your happiness: a pay raise of $100,000 only begins to approach the wellbeing people typically derive from a stable marriage. This suggests that a slightly slower pace of work probably only does a little bit for your wellbeing.  Still, every little bit helps.

The President famously said in his State of the Union address that the United States is "addicted to oil." We couldn't agree more. Today, his administration issued its treatment plan: abuse oil a tiny bit more slowly, eventually, as the New York Times reports.

The "treatment plan" I'm refering to is the US Department of Transportation's new CAFE standards for light trucks. The department heralded the new standards as the largest boost in efficiency in decades, which is true -- because the standards have been stagnant for decades.

So an 11 percent increase over the next five years, is something. It's more than lipstick on a pig.

But how much more?

The market for electronics just got a little fairer. Starting January 2009, my fellow Washington residents will no longer be unfairly punished for my penchant for electoxics (you know – toxic electronics – like it?). That’s because the Washington State legislature just passed the most advanced producer responsibility law in the United States - ESSB 6428 – the Electronic Waste Recycling bill.

The bill basically says, “You can make and sell toxic electronic products, and you can buy them, but Washington's taxpayers are no longer going to foot the bill for cleaning up your mess.” Put more diplomatically, it establishes a “shared responsibility” model, where those who enjoy the benefits of the transaction (the producer and buyer) are those who pay for its negative impacts. Or, as dad used to say, “You gotta pay to play.” Or mom, more to the point, "Go clean your room."

This is how the Washington program will work:

Six weeks ago, my 18-year-old son slammed our 19-year-old Volvo stationwagon into the rear of a high-clearance pickup. All the people were fine. So was the pickup.

But the Volvo wasn't, as you can see in this photo. Repairing It would have cost many times the Blue Book value. So we accepted the insurance company's check for $594 and bid farewell to the family car.

Happenstance thus made us car free. But we decided to stay that way . . . at least for a little while. OK, actually, it's more of an experiment, to see whether a middle-class family of five can live a contented life in Cascadia's largest city without owning their own car.

Why are we doing this? Cost, conscience, and capability.

A year ago, Seattle Mayor Gregg Nickels assembled a “Green Ribbon Commission” to advise him on how to keep his trend-setting Kyoto pledge.

Last week, the commission released its report.

The global significance and political symbolism of the event have drawn much well-earned comment. The report itself has not.

How is it? Superb. I’m in love.

It’s well researched, innovative, and (mostly) courageous.

(Full disclosure: the commission is also full of friends and even funders of Northwest Environment Watch. Click through the break, and you'll see I’m not just sucking up.)

I while back I mentioned that Stockholm, Sweden was starting a short-term trial of congestion pricing -- essentially, making drivers pay to enter downtown. London instituted a similar system in 2003, which has proven unexpectedly popular: it's reduced traffic by 15 percent, which has boosting downtown driving speeds. Stockholm's experiment seemed like it was off to a much rockier start -- the city was far less congested than London, and the charges were, if anything, even less popular with commuters.

So it may come as something of a surprise that Stockholm's trial has been greeted with less opposition than predicted:

On the first day the overall number of cars travelling to and from the city centre was down by 25%... Many of Sweden’s most skeptical media suddenly changed their view. Those who were expecting chaos suddenly found themselves reporting on the success of the charge, with one tabloid even running the headline “City reclaimed!”

There's no guarantee that voters will choose to continue the experiment.  But the early success should be food for thought for any city looking to reduce congestion without expanding road space.

I have PowerPoint envy.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to see Al Gore's presentation on climate change. A remarkably thorough-going look at the consquences, Gore somehow managed to be simultaneously panic-inducing and inspiring. Not only was his slideshow easily the best slideshow I've ever seen on this, or any other, subject, but Gore himself was a study in mastery--at once funny and earnest, erudite and thundering. (Where was this guy during the 2000 campaign?) If you ever have a chance to see him speak on global warming, drop what you're doing and run, don't walk.

Trying to recap his talk in a blog post would be an exercise in futility. You know the drill by now anyway: collapsing ice sheets, shrinking glaciers, spreading diseases, hurricanes, and floods. The punishment that climate change promises to inflict is downright biblical in scale--a punishment that will fall especially hard on the poorest and weakest on earth. And so it was good to hear Gore's booming declaration that arresting climate change is not a political issue, but a basic moral one.

Gore was here in Seattle, you may know, because of mayor Greg Nickels' pledge to bring Seattle into compliance with Kyoto--a pledge that 218 other cities have joined. Today marked the release of the city's Green Ribbon Commission report that details how Seattle will get there. Media coverage here and here.

I'll wrap up with a quote that Gore included as a spur to decisionmakers today. This is Winston Churchill as the gathering forces of facism were darkening Europe:

"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences.”

Update 3/24/06, 2pm: An alert reader informs me that Lawrence, Kansas joined Seattle's Kyoto pledge today, bringing the total number of cities to 219. (Incidentally, nearly 44 million Americans live in cities that have pledged to meet Kyoto's standards.)

Here's a bit of good news:  I was trolling through EPA's Toxics Release Inventory for some data on pollution trends, and came across this for King County, Washington, the home county of Seattle.

The upshot: since reporting requirements began in 1988, toxic air emissions from major facilities in King County have fallen by almost 90 percent.

Mind you, this isn't the complete story.  Not all facilities that pollute have to file reports with the EPA. Also, not all chemicals are covered in this graph -- some compounds have been added since 1988, and some potentially hazardous compounds aren't covered by reporting requirements. Plus, this doesn't cover emissions from cars, trucks, or other mobile sources. 

And the King County's pollution decline may be less impressive than it seems at first blush. Some of the decline may have been the result of "outsourcing" pollution to other parts of the state, or other parts of the world.  And perhaps most importantly, this line represents the total volume of pollution, not its total toxicity.  The toxicity might have fallen more slowly (or quickly, for that matter) than the volume -- but that's much harder to figure out.

Still, despite all those caveats, it's a pretty impressive feat, no?  Fifteen years of "sunshine" -- in which major facilities are required to face public scrutiny for how much they pollute -- and they manage to cut the annual volume of pollution to a tenth of its former level, even as the county's population and economy grew rapidly.  This gives me hope, and some confidence that  even further reductions in pollution are possible, if not inevitable. As the song goes:  "Please don't take my sunshine away."

Here's one problem that should be relatively easy to fix:  appliances that use power even when they're not in use.  The Economist has a nice summary of the problem:

Strange though it seems, a typical microwave oven consumes more electricity powering its digital clock than it does heating food. For while heating food requires more than 100 times as much power as running the clock, most microwave ovens stand idle—in “standby” mode—more than 99% of the time.

Apparently, somewhere between 5 and 13 percent of residential power is consumed by appliances that nobody is actually using.  Hmph.

Now, the most interesting thing here is that different brands and models of the same kinds of appliance use wildly different amounts of power in standby mode.  One compact disc player may draw 1 watt while idling; another might draw 30.  Manufacturers have little incentive to improve the situation on their own, since they don't pay the power bills; and while energy wonks are well aware of the problem, few consumers pay much attention.

The solution here -- dare I even say it -- seems to be government intervention.  In 2004, California passed a law that imposed limits on standby power consumption. It took effect in January, so that (according to the Economist) "it is now illegal in California to sell a television or DVD player that consumes more than three watts in standby mode." Seems like a pretty reasonable solution to me -- I'll be very interested to see if it works.

(Hat tip to Maarten.)

Solid article in the Seattle Times today on the rising building height limits in downtown Seattle. 

It even includes a brief historical note on the 1989 voter-approved height cap following the construction of the super-tall and hideous Columbia Tower. Seattle's thinking on downtown density has changed quite a bit since then. Instead of constricting development, most are enthusiastic about new development in the city's core--development that is revivifying once-dormant neighborhoods.

Seattleites have change their minds partly because of the dawning realization that downtown density is good environmental policy. It's a superbly efficient use of land (among many other environmental benefits). Over the last two decades, residents watched sprawl devour the Cascade foothills and lowland farms and realized that the salvation for natural spaces was partly in the city.

The article does include once curious bit:

There's scant evidence, however, that the changes would curb sprawl over the next 20 years by pulling more people downtown. Under current or proposed zoning, city studies project about 10,000 new households downtown and 29,000 new jobs in that period. [Emphasis mine.]

That's a non-trivial number of households and jobs, but it's odd--at the least--that city growth projections are the same with or without the height increase.

What's going on here? Are the projections mistaken? Or is the height zoning change just a matter of aesthetics, not a substantive policy to increase downtown density?

 President Bush recently tapped Idaho's governor, Dirk Kempthorne, to head the US Department of the Interior, making Kempthorne the highest ranking US official of Cascadian extraction. (Kempthorne was raised in Washington, but he's made his 20 year political career in Idaho.) As secretary of the interior he'll oversee some of the most critical aspects of Cascadia's future: everything from energy security to wildlife management to funding for national parks and forests.

No comments from me (for now), but I though it worth pointing to a handful of the better newspaper articles on Kempthorne's appointment...

More Charm Than Substance, LA Times.

A Collaborative Conservative, Christian Science Monitor.

Bad, Eugene-Register Guard.

Not Bad, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Remember that thing about the ivory-billed woodpecker -- alive in the swamps of Arkansas -- not extinct after all? Well, maybe not so much.

In a new article in the journal Science, renown bird expert David Allen Sibley says that the evidence is insufficient and that the famous video of the bird is actually the rather common pileated woodpecker. Sibley joins Kenn Kaufman and a number of other bird experts in his assessment. In the surprisingly fractious world of birders, I'm sure the debate is far from over, but I'm ready to conclude that the ivory-billed has gone the way of the dodo.

When I blogged about the rediscovery last spring, I quoted a NY Times article on the importance of bread-and-butter conservation. The author argued, "The reason for the astonishing re-emergence of a mysterious bird is as mundane as can be. It is habitat preservation, achieved by hard, tedious work, like lobbying, legislating and fund-raising."

That point is worth remembering. Habitat preservation is not usually the sexiest environmental work there is. There's no technological silver bullet that promises to save the day. And it's aligned against some of the most powerful forces of our times, like road-building and suburban sprawl. But when we don't do it -- when we don't put safety first in our land-use decisions -- we rob ourselves (and our children) of the natural beauty and diversity that we inherited.

In Washington, the PI editorial board stands up for Plan B.

"The Washington State Board of Pharmacy is considering a policy to outline if and when pharmacists could refuse to fill prescriptions due to their personal moral, religious or ethical objections. Here's our suggestion: never."

In Washington, DC, Washington's US Senator Patty Murray does too.