Daily Score Blog

Splashed all over page one today: the US economy shows strong growth. (And by "economy", of course, the media actually mean GDP plain and simple.) But do the GDP numbers lie?

Readers of this blog probably know we're a bit touchy on this subject. Today, I'll spare you my ranting and pull a quote from Ezra Klein at Tapped:

,,,macro data tells you very little about the economic experience of most folks, which accounts for the massive disconnect between how the Bush administration and the media seem to think the economy is doing (tubularly!) and the 63% of the public who think the situation fair or poor. For some more indicative numbers, head over to the Wall Street Journal, where you learn that wages and salaries grew only 0.7% over this period, while prices for U.S. consumers rose 2.7%. The labor market, which has tightened up, is seeing a weird combination of low unemployment without corresponding wage growth.

That just about gets it right.

This is week ten of the car-less in Seattle experiment (go here) and I want to talk about one of the greatest fears car-lessness unleashes for parents. But first, some big news:

My wife Amy and I decided—with the support of all three of our children—to remain without a car for at least a full year. That’s right: family of five; busy schedule of work, school, and extracurricular activities; and no car of our own.

The earliest we’ll allow ourselves to consider purchasing a vehicle would be February 19, 2007—one year after the end of our old Volvo.

The kids’ support, I’ll admit, was bought and paid for. We bribed middle-schoolers Peter and Kathryn with cell phones, and we offered to help pay for highschooler Gary’s existing phone.

In our defense, though, this bribe was also an investment in safety and independence. Amy and I want our younger kids, like their older brother, to be able to go places by themselves, by foot, bike, transit, carpool, whatever. Now that we’re all equipped with phones, we’ll be able to keep track of each other better, along the lines described in this New York Times article. (And we can easily afford the phones out of the savings from not owning a car.)

Now, what’s the parental fear of car-lessness that I'm referring to?

Pesky non-native invaders they may be, but the European Starling may have human-like powers of linguistic communication. According to new research, starlings have the ability to recognize recursive grammar--the insertion of an explanatory clause in the middle of sentence--though in the form of warbles or rattles, rather than words. This is sort of a big deal because recursive grammar was, until recently, believed to occur solely in human languages.

In fact, it was supposed to be one of the distinctive features of Homo sapiens' intellect. Now it turns out we're not as different from the aptly named Sturnus vulgaris as we'd thought. To me, that's one of the fascinating aspects of biology: it often reveals that we are less unique than we think--and more deeply embedded in a wildly complex web of living things.

Like many environmentalists, I tend to think that gasoline prices -- even at today's wallet-rending heights -- are still too low. 

[Picture me ducking under my desk right now, trying to avoid rocks that angry consumers are aiming my way.]

Here's what I mean.  Petroleum has lots of so-called "external" costs -- costs that are borne not by the consumer, but by society at large. Whenever I burn a gallon of gas in my car, for example, I'm creating pollution and climate-warming emissions; fostering overseas military entanglements; increasing the risk of oil spills and pipeline leaks; siphoning money from the local economy into the bank accounts of unsavory oil magnates; yadayada.  Each of those factors carries a cost -- sometimes intangible, often hard to quantify, but real nonetheless. 

If I had to pay those costs at the pump -- through higher taxes, for example -- I'd wind up buying less gas, while also (at least potentially) providing more funding for solutions to the problems I'm creating.

But here's the funny thing; it seems to me that as the market price of gas rises, the "external costs" could rise too.  That is, the more expensive gas gets, the higher the gas tax should be.

Here's why.

(This post is part of a series.)

Apropos of this post, it looks like the Seattle city council has authorized a look at using transit and street grid improvements to replace the waterfront Alaskan Way Viaduct through downtown.

Press release excerpts follow:

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 neighborhood -- it's what we did before we had kids -- we've become pretty habituated to commuting by car.

I’m under no illusion that carpooling makes our commute benign. Each year, the family commute adds more than a ton and a half of climate-warming CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.  It also pollutes the region’s air with carbon monoxide and smog-forming compounds; congests the streets, increasing the public pressure for new highways; imposes extra crash risk on ourselves, as well as the people who share the roads with us; and saps hundreds of dollars a year from our family budget to pay for oil imports.

So Alan’s experiment in car-free living, plus the realization that downtown Seattle will probably need a major transit boost in the coming years, has gotten me wondering:  what would it take to coax our family onto the bus?

Even though we like to think of ourselves as environmentally conscious, our family's decision will probably come down to three basic factors:  time, money, and convenience.

First, let’s talk about the money.

In today's edition of TIDEPOOL:

Today's top story highlights some good news from Montana: Logging companies and environmental organizations announce a compromise land-use plan for 3.3 million acres of national forest.

And an article that will interest British Columbians: Native Vancouver Islander Patrick Moore has risen to new heights. Moore, a founder of Greenpeace and, more recently, the scourge of many forest activists, is now partnering with ex-EPA head Christine Todd Whitman to lead a PR campaign for the nuclear energy industry. The announcement comes with the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Perhaps not the best timing? You'd think such seasoned flacks would know better.

Other news from Canada for those interested in sprawl and urban planning: Jane Jacobs, author of the influential book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, has died at the age of 89 in Toronto. The Nation recently ran a thoughtful essay by Rebecca Solnit on the legacies of Jacobs, Rachel Carson and Betty Friedan. I highly recommend it.

And more on the front page of Tidepool: Celebrate grassroots environmental heroes. Meet an evangelical organic farmer who preaches that industrial agriculture is a sin. And find out why old folks will revolutionize public transit and urban density.

PS: You career do-gooders might appreciate this commentary on economic security from the LA Times: Maude, Meet Harold.

Always more than enough news to fill up your cubicle hours at Tidepool. Drop me a note at editor@tidepool.org.

Editor's Note: Dan Petegorsky is executive director of Oregon's Western States Center, which aims to build a progressive movement for social, economic, racial and environmental justice in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and Alaska. Sightline asked him to reflect on the roots of current immigration debates.

Why has immigration across our southern border become such a lightning rod issue?

To understand the causes, we need to step aside from the inflammatory rhetoric of the current policy debates.

I’m increasingly convinced that above all else, focusing public attention on Latino workers has two fundamental purposes and they’re both political. First, focusing attention on undocumented immigrants polarizes debate, which benefits electoral candidates of the far right. Second, it divides low-income workers who have similar economic and social interests, preventing cross-racial solidarity and the emergence of a viable low-income political coalition.

This scape-goating is a political tactic as old as the hills. In the past, industrialist union busters pitted workers against one another by using charged racist propaganda, targeting ethnic and religious minorities as well. In the crude words of one of the bosses’ paid thugs, “You ties in the niggers with the Jews, den you call the Jews Communists. That gets ‘em.” [from Diane McWhorter’s Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama). In the West, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 targeted workers whose labor was essential in the enormous expansion during the Gold Rush and in construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.

This is apropos of nothing, really, but insanely interesting nonetheless:  a Census website that lets you track commuting trips in mind-boggling detail.  It's potentially a huge boon for transportation planners -- especially for identifying places where transit improvements could be most effective. But more than anything else, I've found it to be a great way to waste a morning.

Good day from your Tidepool news editor.

In today's edition: The papers mark the occasion of Earth Day with a number of stories exploring the angles of climate change and energy consumption. For today's top Tidepool story, New York Times science reporter Andrew Revkin unpacks the media's sudden acknowledgement of climate change in one handy article. (Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal's editors snipe at environmentalists' ongoing alarm-bells.) Closer to home, President Bush spent his Earth Day in California biking Napa Valley and repeating his endorsement of hydrogen cars as the answer to our energy addictions.

On Tidepool's front page today, I recommend a big-picture commentary from The Tyee by Vancouver Islander Matt Price, one of BC's most strategic environmental thinkers (and do-ers), in my opinion. His assessment of environmental politics in Canada should provoke conversation on both sides of the border.

And lastly, a few stories in Tidepool's economy section speak to the greening of major retailers. This hit home for me this weekend. Working for a nonprofit, as you may empathize, I'm on a tight budget. But I really could use a table and chair for my deck to enjoy the summer sun (well, perhaps, the dawn, as I put together the day's Tidepool at 5AM). To my amazement, I discovered a certain big-box, discount store offers patio furniture called "Tofino." You guessed it: Made over at Clayoquot Sound and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council--and cheap to boot! I'm not offering free advertising. So if you want my bargain tip, email me--and tell me what you think of Tidepool while you're at it. --Kristin, editor@tidepool.org

In honor of Earth Day, here's a thought-provoking piece on why--in the year 2006--nature writing needs a reality check.

It's called "13 Ways of Seeing Nature in LA" and the author is Jenny Price, a nature writer based in Los Angeles, a fact that often inspires disbelief among her friends. In fact, she argues, LA is the best place to tackle the sort of stories about the earth that she feels need to be told.

In the past twenty-five years, the venerable American literature of nature writing has become distressingly marginal. . . the core trouble is that nature writers have given us endless paeans to the wonders of wildness since Thoreau fled to Walden Pond, but need to tell us far more about our everyday lives in the places we actually live.

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 the diesel sold in the state must be biodiesel by the end of 2008.

That got me to thinking -- why just 2 percent?  Couldn't we do better than that?

Well, maybe so.  But perhaps not by a whole lot.

Today's notes from your Tidepool editor:
Two strong stories today on air and ocean pollution affecting our region in the Seattle Times. Also a journal piece in the New York Times on the Satsop nuclear plant. In BC, the Gitga'at First Nation of Hartley Bay gets a fly-in visit and an "award" from Premier Gordon Campbell for rescuing passengers from the Queen of the North -- but all they really want is the lingering oil slick cleaned up. And more on my latest obsession -- green hunters -- this time, from Southern Oregon.

And on Tidepool's front page, a long piece on the Albertan oil rush, and an investigative report reveals the recent oil spill on Alaska's North Slope went undetected for days. Also, why are Alaska's senators meddling in that media-drenched Cape Cod wind farm? You need an energy news fix? We got it.

Have a great Earth Day. And in breathless anticipation of Arbor Day ... have you seen "It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown"? (It's on DVD--were you a kid in the 70s? Then you'll like it.) I always welcome your contributions and comments.

PS: The ripTIDE will be late today due to server maintenance.

(I'm Kristin, Tidepool's editor. I'll be offering up some "cliff notes" to important Northwest news stories every morning, along with the daily edition of Cascadia's sustainability news source.)

In Tidepool today, the Salem Statesmen Journal reports on new efforts to clean up the Willamette--it's ranked no. 3 in American Rivers' annual endangered rivers report. (The Boise River is at no. 6, which I picked up from the Idaho Statesman in yesterday's Tidepool.) Meanwhile, other papers report on a new salmon lawsuit brewing in polluted Puget Sound. And a new U.S. Census report triggers a spate of stories around migration trends and unaffordable housing in the region and beyond.

More on Tidepool's front page: Interested in following the alliance between environmental groups and sportsmen, which I featured in yesterday's Tidepool? There's a Wyoming-focused story in USA Today--with a great lede.

And if you're looking for a window onto spring from your cubicle walls: The Globe and Mail reports on a Hornby Island site that has been webcasting an eagle's nest. It's wildly popular. Actually, my toddler and I have been tuning in from time to time over the past month, as we haven't made it out of the city in too long. (I thank my Gulf-Island-hopping archaeologist-husband, who brought it to my attention.) The eggs are expected to hatch around April 25.

If you've found your way to the Daily Score, then you probably already know our news.

The Cascadia Scorecard Weblog is now the Daily Score; Northwest Environment Watch has changed its name; and we've launched this nifty new website that we intend to be a phenomenal resource to exactly the kind of outspoken, active Cascadians that have been frequenting this blog (ie, you).

We're a little tired.

The Daily Score features the same authors and the same type of content as the Scorecard Weblog, but--we hope--is much more usable and searchable. (All 1100-plus posts from the Scorecard Weblog are archived on the Daily Score, and the whole site is powered by a search engine on steroids.)

Two important notes about commenting:

1. Commenting now requires that you register with our site, a very quick process.

2. If you've been receiving email updates from Northwest Environment Watch (like the Friday blog updates), you are already pre-registered with sightline.org. Go here to get your password.

3. Sorry, but we weren't able to transfer over any of the comments from this blog so we encourage you to repopulate the Daily Score with your two cents.

Please continue to read the Daily Score, post your comments, and let us know what you love and hate about it (and us). (You can email elisa@sightline.org or ask-us@sightline.org.)

Make yourself at home!