Daily Score Blog

The economy is top of mind for everybody as we count down to Election Day in the US. But perhaps the connection between high energy prices and energy (and climate) policy has become more solidified in voters’ minds.

That's hard to say for sure. But polling from mid-October does show that nearly two out of three undecided voters say that the presidential candidates' positions on global warming will influence their vote come Election Day. The national survey was conducted by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities and Knowledge Networks.

The poll found that a total of 62 percent of undecided voters, 64 percent of John McCain supporters and 75 percent of Barack Obama supporters, say that that global warming is one of several significant issues that will influence their vote next month.

Both candidates have stressed the importance of dealing with climate change. And both have advocated for cap and trade policy as a solution (though they differ on the details of such a policy). In the race to earn undecided voters’ trust on the issue of global warming, the two candidates are in a dead heat. Fifty percent of undecided voters trust John McCain as a source of information about global warming and 51 percent trust Barack Obama.

Surprisingly, 45 percent of McCain supporters distrust John McCain as a source of information about global warming, while only 15 percent of Obama supporters distrust their candidate on the issue. This may be due in part to a partisan divide on climate change wherein McCain’s views are actually quite moderate.

The results come from a nationally representative survey of 2,189 American adults, age 18 and older. The sample was weighted to correspond with Census Bureau parameters for the United States. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2 percent, with 95 percent confidence. The survey was designed by researchers at Yale and George Mason Universities and conducted October 8 through October 14 by Knowledge Networks, using an online research panel of American adults.

As I'm sure you've noticed by now, gas prices have fallen back from the phenomenal highs of last summer.  The immediate cause has been the economic crisis. When credit markets seized up, some companies that wanted to buy oil simply couldn't get the cash.  And perhaps more importantly, the economic slowdown has decreased projections for oil demand.  Markets that seemed tight are now looser than they've been in a while.

But those changes are just on the demand side.  On the supply side, though, little has changed.  If anything, the outlook for oil supplies is somewhat more pessimistic than it was a few years back.  Take a look, for example, at this recent survey of petroleum geologists (pdf link), that was conducted at a recent professional convention and reported in the journal of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.  Three out of five petroleum geologists surveyed believed that global oil production would "peak" within 10 years.  See below:

 

Whatever our transportation foibles -- and we have plenty of them -- Northwest cites are not exactly in the Texas League of transportation planning. A ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday inaugurated a big new freeway in the Houston area. I mean it's almost comically big:

Opponents of the project have noted its extreme size — 18 lanes, counting toll and frontage lanes from Texas 6 to Washington, and more lanes at entrances and exits. The widening uprooted numerous businesses along the route and took two streets in the city of Spring Valley. Opponents also say the widening will increase emissions and noise and contribute to suburban sprawl.

Yikes -- 18 lanes wide and it's 23 miles long. In fairness, 4 of those 18 lanes will operate as 2-person HOV lanes for a few hours each day. And some of the lanes will be subject to variable tolls that should ease congestion. But that's not exactly progressive planning. I mean, check out Congressman Culberson's position:

Culberson, whose ability to get federal dollars was crucial to the widening project, pledged not to give up a single freeway lane for Metro rail.

I don't know about you, but I'm sure glad to see my tax dollars put to good use. And although the project cost $2.8 billion, that's probably just the down payment.

The typical Seattle-area bus has 42 seats.  One of the big, articulated buses has as many as 64 seats.  But on a commute the other day, I counted at least 92 passengers in my bus, including folks who were standing in the aisles.  There were so many folks on the bus that the driver had to leave a few would-be riders at the bus stop.

And then there's rail.  Seattle's soon-to-be-opened Link Light Rail will have 74 seats per car.  But including standing passengers, each car can hold as many as 200 passengers.  If transit ridership stays high, and commuters take to rail as much as some people hope, I imagine that many of the rail cars will be close to full during peak hours.

I mention all this because of the ongoing debate over the climate impact of various forms of transit.  In particular, I've gotten some very reasonable pushback on the chart to the right, which we published last year.  The chart compares the climate impacts of different transportation modes: the blue lines represent CO2 emissions, measured per passenger mile traveled. 

But as you may notice, I don't estimate the impacts of buses or trains that are full to capacity.  That may be an oversight, since quite a few buses are over-full at this point! If I were to bump the ridership figures up to actual peak levels that we're experiencing now, the climate impacts of rush-hour transit would look even better.

Now, new research out of UC Berkeley confirms these findings:  when a transit vehicle is reasonably full, it's a fantastic deal for the climate.  And that's true even when you consider the entire "life cycle" impacts of travel -- including the CO2 released from manufacturing vehicles, and building roads and rail lines.

On October 1, the national Apollo Alliance announced a plan for clean energy and green jobs that would cost $50 billion a year. When the alliance was framing its proposal, I’m guessing it was shooting for the moon, setting an unreasonably high target in order to raise the sights of Congress and the next administration.

On October 3, the US Congress approved a $700 billion economic stabilization plan. In recent days, it’s discussing a new economic stimulus package that might run to $150 billion. The Apollo Alliance was apparently too timid by a factor of three.

Even more timid, at just $18 billion a year, was the much-more comprehensive, systematic, and – to my mind – brilliant energy plan called Winning the Oil Endgame that Amory Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute colleagues published in late 2004.

In short, a new green-collar stimulus could fully fund both plans. I’m not kidding.

By now you've probably noticed we've been talking a bit about Vancouver over the last couple weeks. That's because we're giving away a free three-day trip for two to BC, just for signing up for Sightline Daily emails.

If you haven't signed up already, tomorrow will be your last chance to get in on the action. You'll still be able to sign up for Sightline Daily's email news service -- where our editors get up at 5 AM every weekday morning to pick out the best sustainability news from our region -- but after tomorrow night, you won't have a chance at that free trip.

So get to it; sign up here and you could soon be experiencing a getaway in Cascadia's crown jewel of a city.

PS, if you're already signed up, you still have time to share it with your friends, family, and colleagues who could also benefit from Sightline Daily. Click here to spread the word.

With just a week to go before the election I don't have much to add to the defeaning chorus of "No on Measure 63" editorials from Oregon's newspapers. (I could be mistaken, but I don't think there's been even a single "yes" editorial in the state.) But let's take a look at what newspapers are saying.

First, my favorite (for selfish reasons), the Oregonian gives it a thumbs down while also giving nice props to Sightline:

The measure would allow Oregonians to make up to $35,000 worth of home improvements without obtaining, or worrying about their failure to obtain, building permits. Which sounds swell. The glitch, pointed out recently by the perspicacious Seattle-based environmental nonprofit the Sightline Institute,is this: We Americans hop around a bit. In any given year, roughly 15 percent of us move.

That means our castles change hands frequently, sometimes even twice in a single decade. The remodeling experiments you bravely undertake, in the privacy of your own home, ultimately become your bequests to the next person who purchases your, um, laboratory.

Freelance construction projects don't always lead to disasters, collapses and tragedies, of course. But they do frequently saddle new homeowners with unpleasant surprises and defective workmanship that's expensive to fix. That's why so many skilled construction trade groups in Oregon have united in opposition to Measure 63.

I'm giving bonus points for use of the word "perspicacious."

The economic crisis continues unabated (scroll down to the shocking international list of October stock market losses). New voices keep speaking up.

The case for new federal stimulus spending keeps getting stronger: Robert Reich explains the macroeconomics.

Tom Friedman argues that the economic crisis should not be the end of green. Instead, green should be the way we end the economic crisis:

A while back, the Christain Science Monitor ran a fascinating article on one of the most counterintuitive subjects in transportation policy: the so-called Braess Paradox.  Stated simply, mathematician Dietrich Braess proved the unthinkable:  sometimes, building a new road -- even a high-speed one -- can slow down traffic.  (Here's the Wikipedia page on the issue, if you're curious. And note that Braess's discovery can apply to computer networks as well as roads.)

This is not actually a a paradox in the strictest sense.  It's just one of those things that sounds completely implausible, but is nonetheless completely true.  The converse is just as true: sometimes, you can speed up traffic by closing a road.  The city of Seoul, Korea, for example, identified a high-capacity highway that had this strange property, and was actually gumming up traffic.  The city pulled down the highway and -- almost like magic -- traffic eased a bit, even as the urban environment improved.

As Alan Durning recently pointed out, the concession by former Federal Reserve Board chair Alan Greenspan that an unregulated free market has failed Wall Street and Main Street alike signaled a significant turning point in fundamental political beliefs. Coming from Greenspan, the signal is more like an emergency flare -- or a bugle playing "Taps" at the funeral of market fundamentalism.

Greenspan is not alone. Americans of all stripes -- including conservatives -- are singing a new tune about the role of government in making sure markets work for everybody.

A Los Angeles Times / Bloomberg national poll from earlier this month shows that nearly three-quarters of respondents think the lack of regulation was in large part or partly responsible for the current financial and housing crises.

Perhaps most significantly, the need for stronger regulation of financial markets was cited most consistently as the top issue for the US presidential candidates to address in the final stretch to Election Day  -- topping the list for all ages and income brackets, even those whose income is above $60K and above $100K. And nearly half of those surveyed now think there is too little regulation of business.

The Associated Press reported:

Greenspan said he had made a "mistake" in believing that banks in operating in their self-interest would be sufficient to protect their shareholders and the equity in their institutions.

Greenspan called this "a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works."

The New York Times:

[I]n a tense exchange with Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the committee, Mr. Greenspan conceded a more serious flaw in his own philosophy that unfettered free markets sit at the root of a superior economy.

Referring to his free-market ideology, Mr. Greenspan added: “I have found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

Mr. Waxman pressed the former Fed chair to clarify his words. “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,” Mr. Waxman said.

“Absolutely, precisely,” Mr. Greenspan replied. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

In other words, “Oops!”

If you’ve been reading our suggestions about a green economic stimulus, you might like to sign the Apollo Alliance’s new petition.

As we speak, Congress is putting together a bill to revive our lagging economy.

Will our leaders help everyday Americans by creating green-collar jobs and lowering energy bills?

. . . We've been through drill, baby, drill – now, we need jobs, baby, jobs. Good, green jobs to end our oil addiction and get our economy back on track.

Sign the petition: Jobs, Baby, Jobs!

I recently mentioned funding green-collar jobs programs that are authorized but not yet financed.

Another good way to stimulate the clean-energy economy fast with federal funding is through targeted tax incentives. In fact, Congress has already done so.

We already described the new tax benefit for employers of bike commuters. What other green stimulus went into the $700 billion economic stabilization package for the financial sector? I found summaries here, here, here, here, and here.

Highlights:

The stock market sank yet again yesterday, as a late-day sell-off pulled share prices down another 5 percent.

It's just the latest in a series of occasionally-manic-but-mostly-depressive market convulsions.  After getting so much good press for the last decade, the "wisdom of crowds" -- i.e., the combined knowledge of millions of investors -- seems pretty threadbare these days.  The markets simply can't decide if it's finally time to buy, or time to keep selling. The crowd is as flummoxed as the rest of us. 

Since the economic crisis is far from over, it's probably far too soon to draw firm lessons from all this turmoil. Initial reactions are like Rorschach tests, revealing more about the observer than about what's being observed. It'll take a long while for the real lessons to emerge.

Still, I can't help but think that there must be something to be learned from what markets have been telling us in recent weeks. So at risk of blogging prematurely (but hey, that's what blogs are for) here are three things I've learned, or re-learned, from my schizophrenic 401k.

     1.  Unlikely events are common

     2.  Markets don't know much

     3.  Unsustainable things stop

 Ok, I admit that's all a little cryptic.  Details follow...

Editor’s Note: As part of our “Escape to Vancouver” campaign, Sightline talked to Gordon Price--urban design expert and former Vancouver city councillor--to get his take on the changing landscape of Cascadia’s most urban city. Gordon, who has offered a Vancouver walking/biking tour to the winner of the trip, blogs and posts his popular urban design newsletter on his Price Tags website. (Full disclosure: Sightline is also lucky enough to claim Gordon as a board member.)

Sightline: Where would you start your Vancouver urban design tour?

Gordon: No doubt at all: I’d begin with False Creek. From the False Creek seawall you can see 40 years of various forms of cutting-edge urban design, from Granville Island to the south shore of False Creek and the Olympic Village to North False Creek and the West End. You really see a panorama of ideas for how Vancouver attracted people to live in the downtown corridor in a livable way.

Sightline: What’s the background of False Creek?

Gordon: The vision of a residential False Creek came out of the spirit of the 1970’s. It was one of the first experiments in creating family-friendly environments in denser urban neighborhoods—in what used to be a polluted industrial basin in Vancouver. So we planned for lots of green spaces, ground-oriented housing, schools, and childcare, a truly mixed-use neighborhood. Later, the same philosophy of family-friendly housing was applied to the north shore of False Creek, but at a level of much higher density.

Sightline: What are examples of its success?

Gordon: One is that in 2005, Vancouver opened its first new downtown school in half a century, Elsie Roy Elementary, on the False Creek Seawall in the Concord Pacific project. While other cities are closing schools, it’s full to capacity. False Creek really recalibrated the standard for high-rise living. Another example: Ninety percent of residents of False Creek North walk as part of their daily routine.

Sightline: Where else would you take folks?

Gordon: Probably to some of the old streetcar villages all around False Creek that are continually reinventing themselves, such as the West End, Kitsilano, and Mount Pleasant. Mount Pleasant is a good place to see the emergence of the bicycle as a mainstream form of transportation. On 10th Avenue, you’ll see very, very high cycling rates. It’s the Europeanization of cycling in Vancouver. People don’t wear Lycra, they wear street clothes. They’re riding bikes without gears, called “fixies.”

Sightline: These strike me as examples of Vancouver’s success at designing livable, compact neighborhoods that can allow people to get around without a car. I know the city's not perfect, but it's certainly been ahead of the curve in Cascadia. What’s made the difference?

Gordon: You could make a case that it entered our thinking right from the beginning, because we were surrounded by mountains and water and we used up our land base very quickly. Simply because of our geography, we had to find a way to create livable high-density. It wouldn’t be just an option for those who couldn’t afford the house in the suburbs. The other factor that was absolutely huge is we didn’t build freeways. [Editor's note: Read more of Gordon's take on the great Freeway Fight here.]

Sightline: Are there ideas that Vancouver is borrowing from places like Seattle and Portland, these days?

Gordon: Definitely. The Pearl District in Portland has been influential. So many green glass high-rises have been built in Vancouver that people have finally said, “Enough already!” Portland offers another model of how to do good density.