Daily Score Blog

This is excellent news:

Seattle is one of the first major U.S. cities to claim it has cut greenhouse-gas emissions enough to meet the targets of the international Kyoto treaty aimed at combating global warming.

The achievement, at a time when the city has enjoyed a boom in population and jobs, sets Seattle apart both from the nation as a whole and other cities that have seen greenhouse gases soar in recent years.

Well, good on Seattle.  But at risk of sounding like a stick in the mud, there's still a question mark in my mind about how much progress the city's really made.

This is pretty cool: an interactive map of Seattle's natural systems. Using a Google maps interface, you can travel all across the city's public places to find detailed information about the presence of native (and non-native) plant species. Kinda fun to play with, and probably quite useful to restoration efforts. It's the handiwork of Seattle Urban Nature.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Vancouver, BC at a conference where it seemed like everyone was talking about a new book called Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change.

Reviewing dozens of empirical studies, the book's central argument is that urban form is inextricably linked to climate. Low density sprawl has been a principal contributor to North American climate emissisons. And by the same token, smart compact development -- the kind that fosters less driving -- is essential to curbing climate change.

From the executive summary:

...if sprawling development continues to fuel growth in driving, the projected 59 percent increase in the total miles driven between 2005 and 2030 will overwhelm expected gains from vehicle efficiency and low-carbon fuels. Even if the most stringent fuel-efficiency proposals under consideration are enacted, notes co-author Steve Winkelman, “vehicle emissions still would be 40 percent above 1990 levels in 2030 – entirely off-track from reductions of 60-80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 required for climate protection.“

This is exactly right. Transportation emissions, whch are mostly (but not entirely) auto-based, account for over half of the Northwest's climate emissions from fossil fuels. Under any realistic climate program, it is imperative that we reduce emissions from transportation. But even the rosiest assumptions about fuel efficiency and biofuels won't get us there: we'll need to reduce driving. The best way -- and maybe the only meaningful way -- is to invest now in climate-friendly urban form. Now, because the neighborhoods we build today will be with us for many decades. They will create the conditions of possibility -- or impossibility -- of reducing our transportation emissions.