Sustainable Living posts from the Daily Score blog - Sightline Daily

Are American Freezer-Buyers Getting Sold a Bill of Goods?

Eric de Place — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:52:09

In an uncharacteristic fit of virtue I recently vowed to start eating better. Among other things, this means I'm stocking the freezer so that I don't get lured by the wealth of take-out in my 'hood.

In fact, I even bought a chest freezer so that I'd have a place to stash all food I'm making (and buying). Naturally, I did a bit of research before buying, but apparently not enough.

I have a feeling that if I lived in Canada I would have made a better choice. Both the US and Canada provide reasonably detailed product information to consumers but there's a big difference in context when it comes to understanding energy use and operating costs.

Here's how it went down. I went home with a sporty little 7.2 cubic foot number from Sears. For $200, it compared favorably with other models both on price and on energy use. Everything else in that size-range either cost more or used more energy. (In hindsight, I probably could have saved a couple of bucks and a few kilowatt-hours with a slightly smaller unit; 7.2 cubic feet is a lot of home made soup.) I didn't go with an Energy Star appliance, but only because there are apparently no small super-efficient freezers. As far as I can tell, the only freezers than earn the Energy Star rating are much bigger, which means that they're not only more expensive but that they actually consume more energy than mine.

The official EnergyGuide card (pictured at right) shows my freezer's energy efficiency. As you can see it's not terrific, but it's better than average. At typical US electricity prices, it would cost a little more than $2 per month to keep it plugged in. At Seattle's ridiculously low rates -- which are a big obstacle to conservation by the way -- it should cost me around $1.

What you can't see until after you've wrestled the freezer into the garage is that the Canadian energy ratings -- available on the flip side of the US ratings card -- tell a different story. In Canada my freezer isn't "better than average," it's the very worst of the lot. Obviously, my freezer uses the same amount of energy in both countries, but in Canada the comparable ratings are more genuinely comparable. (I don't have an image of the Canadian rating, but you can imagine a line graph from 215 to 279 kWh -- with an arrow for my freezer at the very upper end.)

The difference is that in the Canadian energy ratings, my freezer is classed with other small freezers -- from 5.5 to 7.4 cubic feet -- which is as it should be. In the US, however, as near as I can figure, my freezer must be classed with freezers that are about twice as big. (In US you can't tell for sure which size freezers are used for the comparison as you can in Canada.) Being classed with much bigger units gives my little freezer the somewhat misleading appearance of doing pretty well.

Annoying. For one thing, I no longer have the smug sense of virtue that comes from being better than average. For another, if I'd been shown a more realistic comparison I might have made a better choice, thereby saving myself a bit of money and using a bit less energy too.

There are probably a few lessons here, but one of them is that there are still surprising information barriers to good energy decision-making. Among energy geeks it's conventional wisdom that consumers are wildly irrational about the savings from energy efficiency. There's some truth to that but it's also true that consumers are presented with pretty imperfect information. Even if when consumers want to make the right choice -- and even when they're reasonably well-informed -- they may end up going astray.

That's my excuse anyway.

I will say, however, that the US ratings are better in one important respect. The consumer information in the US includes an average annual cost of operation. That's an absolutely critical explanation for buyers. In Canada, consumers are given only the number of kilowatt hours -- 279 kWh/year, in my case -- along with the little comparison axis. But kWh is not a super helpful expression and it doesn't make clear that the cost of higher energy use is, um, higher costs.

My Keyboard Versus the Climate

Eric de Place — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:00:06

As my poor co-workers are only too aware, I have an unholy fondness for potato chips. Few things give me more pleasure at lunchtime than scanning the blogosphere while crunching my way through a bag, dribbling little crumbs down into my keyboard.

Lovely? Oh, yes.

Among other things, it results in a keyboard that needs to be cleaned periodically. Yeck. But last year when I embarked on a little office spring cleaning, I made a shocking discovery: those little compressed chemical dusters (pictured above) are basically greenhouse gas bombs. In some cases, using up just a single canister is the climate equivalent of driving my Honda Civic from Seattle to New York City and then back to Chicago, even allowing for plenty of side trips.

Needless to say, I was apalled. I even briefly considered a mini crusade against the things.

I also ended up having several interesting conversations about the canisters. Two in particular stood out: one with an industry representative and another with an advocate from Australia. In case folks are interested, I'll share what I learned.

First, a little context. The dusting canisters contain one of two kinds of climate-wrecking hydrofluorocarbons, HFC-134a or HFC-152a (these are sometimes called tetrafluoroethane and 1,1-difluoroethane, respectively). Here's why it matters:

134a is roughly 3,300 times as powerful as carbon-dioxide over a 20 year period.
152a is still awful for the climate, but it's only about one-tenth as powerful as 134a.

These chemical compounds are also used in refrigerators, air conditioners (especially in vehicles), some medical devices, and in some industrial applications.

What I learned from the industry rep. (He was a super nice guy and extremely informative, but he asked not to be named.) I asked why anyone would use 134a when 152a is available.

The reason, apparently, is manifold. 152a has less "blasting power" and is therefore less useful for removing my potato chip crumbs. It's also more expensive. There's also some minor concern with the flammability of the 152a. While both compounds are considered "not flammable" according to government tests -- and while 152a spray will extinguish a candle -- 134a is the only such compound that has a flammability rating of zero. It simply can't be ignited by a flame, which some people allege is a concern when sprays are being used in heated conditions such as with a copier or overhead projector. Other compounds, or additives to the compounds, generally result in sprays that are cheaper, but that are also odorous, flammable, and less powerful.

He also insisted that there aren't good substitutes available for the industrial and refrigerant applications of the compounds. (We didn't spend a lot of time talking about these uses, as I'm mainly interested in the dusting canisters for now.)

So that's basically the schtick. Mind you, I'm not vouching for these explanations, just relaying them to readers. It seems to me that the commenters to my initial post on the subject were exactly right: there are dozens of better and climate-friendlier ways to clean a keyboard including using breakthrough innovations such as "gravity and shaking," "a damp cloth," "a feather duster," and even "a dishwasher."

What I learned from Australia, and in particular from Brent Hoare who is the Community, Government and Industry Relations Manager for the Green Cooling Council. Seeing as how Brent knows roughly 9 million times more than I do on this subject, I'm just going to quote liberally from his email to me (with permission, of course):

While it's great to see the very powerful global warming HFC gases getting any attention, there are many frivolous uses of these substances, including paint ball guns, spiderman web blaster toys, silly string, window 'snow' sprays, wine bottle openers, and yes, even dog poo freeze sprays...

The far more substantive issue is the use of HFCs in automotive air conditioning and commercial refrigeration because of the very high leakage rates. Domestic and Commercial air con are also big and rapidly growing slices of the HFC emissions pie. Whilst these gases are thought to contribute around 2% of radiative forcing emissions now (let's remember they've been with us for less than 20 years), projections are they could reach 8% or more by 2050, so they must be a priority for phase out now.

The Europeans are doing this from 2011 in new model vehicles and in all vehicles by 2017, and CO2 is the leading contender to replace HFCs in vehicles, in spite of efforts by DuPont and Honeywell to get a new low GWP HFC-1234yf to market (see www.r744.com). Here in Australia highly purified hydrocarbon refrigerants are widely accepted in the service market, and although available in the US too, still face large regulatory barriers, which is a shame as they have very little environmental impact and great performance and cost advantages.

CO2 is also making great strides in supermarket refrigeration in Europe and Australia, and is being introduced in Thailand and soon elsewhere in Asia, but very little seems to be happening in the US, in spite of very progressive proposals from the California Air Resources Board to crack down on fluorocarbon emissions...

What else? For readers who just can't get enough of this stuff, Brent suggest this blog post, a paper called "F For Forgotten? Why Potent Industrial Greenhouse Gases Need More Attention," and a paper called "Keeping Cool Without Warming the Planet: Cutting HFCs, PFCs, and SF6 in Europe."

So I just thought I'd pass this stuff along to readers. Sure, it's obscure stuff -- and it's obviously less important than how we treat clean coal or transportation-sector emissions -- but as we enter an era of serious climate policy it's worth getting this kind of information into circulation. It could very well be that one of the many things we should do for climate protection is devise better industrial products. And on a smaller scale, we should probably figure out a smarter way to clean our keyboards too.

Belief Does Not Equal Action

Clark Williams-Derry — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:54:21

From The New Yorker, a clear case where behavior and attitudes don't match up:

The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage....Moreover, among the major religious groups, evangelical virgins are the least likely to anticipate that sex will be pleasurable, and the most likely to believe that having sex will cause their partners to lose respect for them...But...among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

So here's a group that has strong, clear beliefs: sex before marriage is morally wrong, unpleasant, and shameful. And yet, on average, kids with "save it until marriage" beliefs become sexually active sooner than most of their peers.

There may not be any broad lesson here. These are adolescents, after all; and when I was a teenager, I wasn't particularly rational either. Still, if there's a broader point, it's this: often enough, beliefs simply don't translate into action.

Here's one application of this idea. Convincing people that you're right about an issue--say, the scientific consensus about the threat posed by global warming--can seem vitally important, but in the end may be somewhat beside the point. People may well agree with you, but still not act in accordance with those beliefs.

That's more or less what's happening all around the globe: the solidifying consensus, both among elites and the public at large, is that global warming is real. And yet climate-warming emissions are still distressingly high. Macroeconomic trends have more effect on emissions than do individual beliefs.

Perhaps, convincing people about the merit of your position is only a baby step to creating change. In the long run, you have to move the debate beyond beliefs, and into incentives: lining up the economic and social incentives such that the right choices are the easy, natural ones To do that, we need smart and effective policies. Appeals to people's reason may help, but rational belief alone won't carry the day.

Vancouver Evolving: 10 Minutes with Gordon Price

Elisa Murray — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:25:39

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.

Sightline: And how about from around the globe?

Gordon: Although I haven’t see it happen explicitly yet, I’m pretty sure the sustainable communities that are being built in the Middle East and Asia will be an influence, such as Norman Foster’s Masdar development in Abu Dhabi. These are huge, instant cities that are adopting sustainability principles, particularly when it comes to energy. And many Vancouver architects and developers have been involved.

Another trend is what the French call “passerelles”--pedestrian and cycling bridges. The best-known one is probably the Millennium Bridge across the Thames. They are among the most interesting blends of architecture and engineering around these days. They’ve become these iconic structures. [Editor's note: Gordon has written about a new Vancouver Olympic Village passerelle here.]

Sightline: What else is on your radar?

Gordon: We’re seeing the effective marketing of small space, better designed. And Lane housing--small houses, four or five hundred square feet, at the most, in the back of the yard, on the lane. We’ve been doing that for a while below the horizon. Now it’s emerging. You can see this all through Mount Pleasant.

Sightline: How will sustainable urban design trends be affected by the current economic crisis?

Gordon: We’re seeing all kinds of crises occur simultaneously: collapse of financial markets, peak oil, climate change, health, obesity. And crises allow all kinds of things to happen, good and bad. I think it’s definitely going to mean a change in our way of life. The norm--low density, complete car dependence, and a big, energy-wasting house—is almost impossible to perpetuate as the dominant mode.

Sightline: What gives you hope?

Gordon: The younger generation in Vancouver and in other places have already begun to change their assumptions about what the “norm” is. Yesterday, on Main Street, for example, literally every bike rack and parking meter had a bicycle locked to it. As the numbers continue to build, Vancouver will be close to Copenhagen, which has a strategy of converting 2 percent of road space for other uses. In fact, I’ve talked to transportation engineers here who say, “Well, we haven’t calculated it, but, it wouldn’t surprise me if we’ve been doing that in the last few years just because of the commitments we’ve made to walking and cycling.

And I’m just speculating, but at some point, when real tough decisions have to be made about the reallocation of road space, accommodating alternative modes such as biking and walking will no longer be a case of just accommodating the fringe. It's becoming mainstream.

Tools are being developed to help us make these transitions. For example, I’m going to Scottsdale, Arizona, soon. Thanks to Google Transit, I’ll be able to punch in the address of where I want to go and get a step-by-step guide to the transfers I have to make. If I can do it in a city that’s as car-centered as Phoenix, Arizona, then that shows you how far things have come already.

It’s a re-framing of expectations and aspirations.

Sightline: Where’s your next car-free vacation?

Gordon: Hmmm. I’m trying to think of any car vacations that I’ve taken.

Stuff I Want: Home Appliance Edition

Clark Williams-Derry — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:50:59

Like many folks these days, I'm really in no financial position to be adding to my list of home projects. Still, it's hard for me not to daydream a little bit -- especially about gadgets that would save water, energy, and space in the home.

Consider, for example, a wonder-appliance that's used widely overseas: a super-efficient clothes washer and dryer in a single unit. Yes, such things do exist, even in the US, but they're far more common in boats and RVs than in people's homes.

Combining two major appliances into one saves manufacturing energy, and is a perfect space-saving solution for apartments and smaller homes. But for some of these combos, the coolest feature is a super-fast spin cycle that extracts most of the water from wet clothes through centrifugal force, not heat. The super-spin is a great idea: clothes dryers use more electricity in US homes than any other appliance except for fridges; and converting electricity into heat is ridiculously inefficient. (Yuck.) It's much better to squeeze your clothes dry than to heat them.

Of course, if I wanted to go super-duper efficient, I'd take another idea from RVs and boats -- the hand-cranked washer and counter-top spin-dryer. I've never seen them in action, but they sound nifty -- the washer in particular uses water and detergent so sparingly that it's marketed to folks with low-capacity septic systems. The only drawback is that you can only do a bit of laundry at a time, so it may not be the most convenient solution for a big family. Still, if you're looking to cut back on your water and power bills, this combo is hard to beat.

Or consider the nifty gadget to the left: a combined toilet-handbasin that reuses water from the sink to fill the tank for the next flush. (The model in the picture is the Caroma Profile Smart, and is currently only available in Australia. Sigh.) The water savings are impressive: according to this video at the Popular Mechanics website, the Caroma toilet uses 17 percent less water than a dual flush toilet with a separate handbasin, and 70 percent less than a standard toilet + handbasin. But as with the combo washer-dryer, perhaps the biggest potential benefit is that it saves space and installation costs -- allowing new homes to be a bit smaller and for a bit less money, without losing an iota of modern convenience.

The real point of all this meandering is this: there are TONS of off the shelf products that can save families money, water and energy. They're not exotic, they're not complicated, they're not that expensive. They're just uncommon...so far, at least.

Just as importantly, there are plenty of super-efficient product ideas that are just over the horizon, and wouldn't be that hard to implement. (Take, for example, this concept for a recycling washer-dryer combo that uses rinse water from one load to wash the next.)

There's simply no reason we can't make these sorts of appliances the norm, rather than the exceptions. And now that both money and energy are at a premium, there's no reason to dawdle, either.

The Perks of Parks

Eric de Place — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:09:53

Seattle voters will be deciding on a new parks levy this November. Former Sightline intern Todd Burley reminds me that parks confer a whole range of benefits that sometimes get overlooked. (Todd's now involved with Seattle Parks For All.)

So in the interest of not overlooking those benefits, here are some intriguing studies from The Trust For Public Land:

The Benefits of Parks (white paper)
The Health Benefits of Parks
Quantifying the Greenhouse Gas Benefits of Urban Parks (white paper)

I haven't read or analyzed these reports -- and so I'm not vouching for them -- but I'm linking to them because I think these these sorts of things can add to a good civic conversation. It's pretty easy to quantify a levy's tax liability or land acquisition acreage, but the benefits to health, climate, and equity are often a lot less clear.

Sightline isn't taking a position on the parks levy, but we do wish everyone "happy reading" and "happy voting." Feel free to advocate in comments...

US Mayors' Study: 4.2 Million Green Jobs, 3 Decades

Anna Fahey — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:40:34

According to a study released today by the US Conference of Mayors, green jobs "could be the fastest-growing segment of the United States economy over the next several decades and dramatically increase its share of total employment."

As the Seattle P-I reports, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, the conference's president, said the report makes "a very compelling economic argument for investing in the green economy and that we're going to get a huge return for it."

Indeed. The study cautions that these numbers won't be realized without "an aggressive shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency." From the P-I:

For example, it assumes that by 2038 alternative energy will account for 40 percent of electricity production with half of that coming from wind and solar; widespread retrofitting of buildings to achieve a 35 percent reduction in electricity use; and 30 percent of motor fuels coming from ethanol or biodiesel.

"These are things we have to do," Mayor Diaz told an AP reporter over the phone, adding that "Washington [DC] needs to get on the train."

How Is That Car-less Family?

Alan Durning — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:59:15

People often ask me, “Is your family still car-less?”

I myself am still car-less, but the family has changed. Amy and I have separated, undone our vows, and revised our coupledom into a parenting partnership. The divorce paperwork is underway.

Don’t worry: I’m not going to regale you with the emotional tale. This isn’t that kind of blog.

Instead, I’m going to do what the Daily Score does best: wonk out. In this case, about the carbon footprint of divorce. (No kidding.)

Although the human implications of divorce are constant topics of discussion, divorce’s consequences for sustainability are rarely considered. That may not be surprising: Who could think about carbon budgets at such a time? (Not me, at first. But months have passed.) Still, the impacts of divorce on resource consumption are interesting.

Sharing a home among more people conserves natural resources, for space and water heating, cooling, lighting, refrigeration, building materials, land, and all the tonnages of consumer goods that furnish our abodes.

Eunice Yu and Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University recently published a study quantifying the global impacts of divorce on resource consumption. Among their findings were that square footage of home per resident as much as doubles after divorce, while energy and water use per person jumps by about half. Consequently:

Divorced households in the U.S. could have saved more than 38 million rooms, 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, and 627 billion gallons of water in 2005 alone if their resource-use efficiency had been comparable to married households.

Thirty-eight million rooms!

So far, my own experience mostly aligns with those norms. Eight years ago, I bought a modest house with Amy. Once we remodeled it, it accommodated our family of five. Since the separation in early January, however, it’s at half occupancy: me plus (in alternate weeks) my two highschool-age children plus (during semester breaks from college) my eldest.

My household’s population dropped by half. Consumption of energy has dropped, too, but not by half. Comparing the resource use at my house before our separation (during the first half of last year) with resource use after separation (during the first half of this year), I find: per-person use of natural gas has increased by 36 percent (from 0.5 to 0.7 therms per day). Similarly, per-person electricity use rose 30 percent (from 3.2 to 4.1 kilowatt-hours per day).

Repeat: I’m not saying that my total gas or electric bills went up. They went down. They just didn’t fall by half, like occupancy did. The reason is that, whether there is one person in the house or five, it takes a certain amount of energy to keep the water in the tank hot, the air in the rooms warm, and the ice cream in the freezer cold. In fact, my per-person bumps in gas and electric consumption were below the 50-percent norm that Yu and Liu documented.

I beat the norm in water use and driving, too. My tap water use has fallen by half, in direct proportion to household population. We used 40 gallons per person per day before the separation; we use the same since. Meanwhile, our driving tally fell by more than half: before separating, the family used Flexcars to cover 2 miles per person per day; since separating, my half of the family racks up 1 mile per person per day. (Partly, that’s a reflection of my extreme attachment to my bike. But it also doesn’t reflect the 1,500 miles we drove in late August on our vacation in BC’s West Kootenays—not a car-less vacation.)

Overall, our per-capita carbon footprint (shown below) more than doubled in the first half of this year, compared to the first half of last. Again: that’s per person, not total.

Because I beat the norm in power and natural gas use and slashed driving, this spike is probably temporary. The growth was all in air travel: I flew my kids to Ecotopia on the Hudson for a blow-out Spring Break—an adventure together to make some new, happy memories in our changed family. But the general point is still there: divorce boosts resource consumption.

I’m definitely not saying people should stay married for the climate’s sake. In fact, Yu and Liu’s study may miss a point as large as it hits. The resource implications of divorce are all about the benefits of larger households, not just divorce. A slow if dominant trend for decades in prosperous places like Cascadia has been shrinking household size, and the causes are several. Compared with previous generations, we not only divorce more, we also move away from home at younger ages, stay single longer, have fewer children, and live longer. (On the other hand, we’re quicker to shack up, which conserves resources just as effectively as a marriage license.)

Housing size hasn’t kept pace with household size, with the result that floorspace per person has grown. Rising affluence has also played a role, of course.

This line of reasoning raises some wonkish questions for me:

Have we designed buildings and zoning codes to be flexible enough to accommodate shifting family structures? For example, I’ve got room in my house now to install a rental apartment—a “granny flat”—but doing so would be illegal. At the same time, for reasons I don’t understand, my city offers few apartments or condominiums that can accommodate a dad and up to three kids. It’s all one- and two-bedroom units.
Are we making co-housing—organized sharing on a large scale—as easy as it should be, in our zoning and building codes, and insurance regulations?
Are we encouraging extended-family households to form? My brother and his wife share a house not only with their children but also with her parents. That’s a living arrangement that could be as relevant to our carbon-constrained future as it was to our dollar-constrained past.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Anna Fahey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:48:51

A new poll by AARP finds that many Americans ages 50 and older are driving less as a result of high gas prices. But getting around isn't always easy - inadequate sidewalks and bike lanes, as well as insufficient public transportation options are obstacles to older Americans saving money by leaving their car at home.

Almost one of every three people 50 and over (29 percent) say they are now walking as a way to avoid high gas prices.
But as those people set out to walk, almost 40 percent of the 50+ population say they do not have adequate sidewalks in their neighborhoods.
Additionally, 44 percent say they do not have nearby public transportation that is accessible.
Almost half (47 percent) of poll responders say they cannot cross the main roads safely (this is crucial: 4 in 10 pedestrian fatalities are over the age of 50.)

The good news: Many states, cities and towns are looking for ways to solve this problem by adopting "complete streets" policies. According to AARP, the Columbus, Ohio city council just passed a complete streets resolution on July 29th and both Decatur, Georgia and Seattle, Washington adopted complete streets policies this spring.

"Some cities like Sacramento, California and Kirkland, Washington are ahead of the curve," said Elinor Ginzler, AARP's Senior Vice President for Livable Communities. "They have extra-wide sidewalks, flowered medians and flashing lights embedded in crosswalks at busy intersections. Bike lanes and bus stops line even some of the town's busiest streets. These amenities allow residents to be safer pedestrians and commuters and even help the flow of vehicle traffic."

Walkable cities aren't just good for the over 50 crowd. Anybody trying to save money and stay healthy has a stake in neighborhoods that can be navigated safely and conveniently without a car.

The telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,006 Americans age 50 and older was conducted for AARP between July 9 and July 15, 2008 by International Communications Research, Inc. The sampling error is +/- 3.09 percent.

Gym Dandy

Clark Williams-Derry — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:36:11

So this is a bit of a gimmick -- but it's a GOOD gimmick: a new gym in Portland, OR is using stationary bicycles to produce electricity. (See here and here for recent press.)

First off, to any naysaying skeptics out there: there's absolutely nothing wrong with recapturing a bit of power that would otherwise be wasted. So I don't want to hear any talk-radio crank poo-pooing the idea. (Not that they'd ever listen to me -- I just wanted to get this out of the way early.)

Second, and perhaps more importantly, this is a perfect example of the sort of creativity the market's capable of. Once we set responsible limits on climate-warming emissions, we'll find all sorts of ways, large and small, to eliminate energy waste, and do more work with less fossil fuels. Stationary bike-generators are just small examples of all the nifty stuff we can do when we let ourselves imagine new solutions to energy woes.

That said, since I'm an incurable geek, I just had to run the numbers. How much power can a person actually generate from one of those stationary bikes?

Answer: not much, unfortunately.

According to Calorielab.com, exercising on a stationary bike requires a rider to produce somewhere between 50 and 250 watts of power. A wattage of 50 is considered "very light effort" -- just enough to get your heart rate above resting, I suppose. A wattage of 250 is considered "very vigorous effort."

That sounds about right to me. Tour de France rider Floyd Landis (later caught doping) sustained an average of 232 watts over the course of the tour. Of course, that's over a long race with lots of downhills; peak output during short bursts can be much higher. Super-biker Lance Armstrong could pump out about 500 watts for 20 minute bursts.

But Armstrong, obviously, is pretty abnormal. For the average gym rat looking for a cardio workout, I think that 150-200 watts would probably be in the ballpark. And let's further assume that the generators are about 90 percent efficient -- meaning that 90 percent of the mechanical energy from the bike actually gets turned into usable electricity.

Doing the math, a 45 minute ride at moderate-to-vigorous effort produces about 120 watt-hours of power. How much is that? Enough to:

Run a 100-watt bulb for a little over an hour.
Run 4 compact fluorescent bulbs for the same duration.
Run an aquarium pump for a day.
Power a small frost free fridge for about a half hour (give or take.)

You get the drift. Gym-rat power probably won't do much more than keep the machines running and help keep the lights in the gym on. It certainly won't heat the water for an after-workout shower.

The cost savings are pretty slim, too. Portland General Electric's peak power rates are about 11 cents per thousand watt-hours. So 45 minutes of biking produces only about a penny's worth of electricity. And that's where the "gimmick" part comes in: I have to wonder if the cost and energy used to outfit bikes with generators really balances out the relatively small amount of electricity that's generated. Maybe it does. But the question definitely runs through my mind.

And here's another wrinkle. Imagine if, instead of riding a stationary bike attached to a generator, the gym rat had ridden a real bike in place of a car trip. That's a much, much bigger energy saver, since cars are surprisingly bad at converting fuel into forward motion. A ten-mile bike trip reduces gas consumption by half a gallon -- the equivalent of about 18,300 watt-hours, compared with the 120 watt-hour output of a stationary bike generator. Measured per unit of energy, biking instead of driving is, oh, about 150 times more eco-friendly than using a stationary bike generator. If what you really care about is saving energy, look to replace some car trips with bike trips, if you can.

Still, if you're looking for an eco-friendly place to get a nice indoor workout in Portland, I'd check this gym out. It sounds like a cool idea, and a nice place to get a workout.

Comprehensive Car-Free Hiking

Eric de Place — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 11:58:24

We're heading into Labor Day Weekend. That means hiking for a lot folks, so I'm reprising some of the ways that Northwesterners can hit the trail without a car. In my two prior posts on this subject, commenters have offered some terrific advice from around the region and beyond.

First up, a place of honor for Andrew Engleson over at Washington Trails Association. He's on the verge of creating a new blog genre: Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail Without a Car (that's the 2,600-mile trail from Mexico to Canada); Hiking the Wonderland Trail Without a Car (that's the 93-mile loop around Mount Rainier); and Biking To a Hike. More please!

Speaking of biking to a hike, the central Puget Sound region is blessed with some pretty good hiking in the Cascade foothills, including the big parks of Cougar Mountain, Tiger Mountain, and Rattlesnake Ridge. These are all more-or-less accessible via bus or by bicycle (check out King County's terrific new regional bike map). I'm not saying it's a snap to get to these places sans vehicle, just that it's possible if you're committed.

Of course if you're truly hardcore, Rick Dubrow points out that you'll want to check out the Self-Propelled Outdoor Club, described here in an article with some ideas for the Vancouver, BC region.

And while we're on Vancouver, my favorite car-free hiking suggestion comes from Michael Newton who writes:

Vancouver's north shore has loads of hiking that's accessible by transit. We've got the advantage of having nothing but wilderness north of the city; if you skirt by Whistler, you could probably head north all the way to the Arctic Ocean without hitting another town! Cypress and Seymour Provincial parks, Lynn Canyon and Lynn Headwaters regional parks, not to mention numerous smaller parks and of course, the Grouse Grind.

You see, that is what I'm talking about. Arctic Ocean or bust! Who's with me?

Of course, car free hiking just isn't realistic many times. In that case, Eric H's advice seems spot on:

I don't have many more answers than you, but I'm always one to suggest organizations like the Mountaineers and Mazamas where you can find other people going out for hikes, maximizing carpool possibilities.

For readers who may not know, The Mountaineers are based in Seattle with branches in Bellingham, Olympia, Tacoma, the Kitsap Peninsula, and Everett. (And don't forget about the Spokane Mountaineers, not to be confused with the aforementioned Mountainers.) The Mazamas are based in Portland. Another option for Portland-area residents comes to us from Kevin Gorman:

I'm the director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge and one of the ways that we cut carbon and exposure people to the beauty of Columbia Gorge is by carpooling to our scheduled hikes. The hikes run until Father's Day weekend and can by found at www.gorgefriends.org. Most hikes originate at the Gateway Transit Center in Portland which is accessible by bike, bus, light rail and of course cars. Hikers are asked to share in the cost of the ride and most gladly do. I have rarely left the transit center without a full vehicle of hikers and some of our hikers don't even own a car. It's also a great way for people to meet other like-minded hikers.

Many readers have pointed out that you don't need to join a hiking club to carpool. Commenter Morgan even mentioned that he's exploring Meetup groups for the purpose. Plus, choosing a fuel-efficient vehicle can go a long way toward easing your carbon guilt and keeping some dough in your wallet. And I'll add that what's really important is making sure you choose a hiking vehicle that's not terrible; even mediocre mileage may be better than you think.

In a few places, buses may be an option. I've written before about the new I-90 bus that runs between North Bend and Snoqualmie Pass, providing access to hiking and biking trailheads. The website masterpiece, however, is Hike Metro, which provides stunningly comprehensive directions on hiking in the Seattle region, mostly at urban and suburban-area parks. Seriously, check it out.

These transit services, however, are far from perfect. Frequent commenter Eldan gets the problem exactly right, I think:

I think there's a bootstrapping problem here, and the hiker shuttle reflects this too. A bus that ran once an hour, didn't require advance reservations for a specific departure time, and didn't cost more than driving alone, could over time persuade a lot of people to leave their cars behind. But the week it started, and probably for its first few seasons of operation, it would run too empty to break even, either in $ or fuel consumption terms, because right now most skiers have cars and are used to driving themselves.

Maybe buses make more sense in the winter when they're serving concentrated destinations like ski areas rather than dispersed trailheads. And all the major Northwest cities are within a short distance of good skiing. Unfortunately, Seattle's Cascade Ski Bus (pointed out by Matt the Engineer) is now defunct. But as Finish Tag notes, Crystal Mountain is now providing bus service from both Seattle and Tacoma. What about Portland and Vancouver? Can you ski-bus it to nearby slopes?

The Northwest has an unparalled urban-wilderness interface, but we don't have transit like some places do. Reader Adam tells us how they do it In New York:

I live in NYC and there are a surprising number of trails nearby and all accessible by bus from Port Authority or Metro-North. Bear Mtn. and Harriman State Park make for good weekend trips and only an hour's ride out of the city.

And the Big Apple isn't the only big city where this sort of thing is possible. Says Payton:

I'm lucky to live in Chicago, where I can still take an inter-urban train to get to some cute beach towns or even some campgrounds at the urban fringe. (Not much hiking, though.) Once upon a time, though, this was normal: Atlantic City, Asheville, Miami, Santa Monica -- plenty of resort towns grew up as weekend railroad escapes from the big city. Easy access to the countryside makes city life all the more appealing...

That's a good point to close on, I think. The greatest cities allow a change of pace once in a while; and the terrific quality of life in Northwest cities has a lot to do with the proximity to first-rate wilderness. It'd be nice to make that connection easier, not to mention cheaper and more responsible too.

Update, Sept 2: I missed this earlier, but over at Washington Trails' blog Lauren Braden has a post about hiker meetups:

In the August 2008 issue of Washington Trails magazine, editorial intern Erinn Unger wrote about hiking meet-up groups in Washington. Erinn hiked with an Issaquah-based group called Something New! There's also the Seattle Backpackers site, which has over 1,300 members and is primarily focused on overnight trips. For those looking for something a little less intense, the Eastside Slow Poke Hikers group describes itself as being dedicated to the "lollygaggers, the meanderers, the dawdlers and the slow-pace hikers of the Pacific Northwest." Or check out the Pacific Northwest Hiking Group, which does hikes, backpacking trips, bike trips, and social events.

Leaving a Lighter Footprint

Eric Hess — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:26:20

7 in 10. What number could that be? The number of Americans watching Michael Phelps make Olympic history? Surprisingly, it’s the number of Americans who say they’re trying to shrink their carbon footprint through driving less, conserving electricity, and recycling, according to a new ABC News/Planet Green/Stanford University poll.

When it comes to global warming, 80 percent of American voters across the country believe it’s happening and poses a threat to future generations. 74 percent support the idea of a cap and trade system for carbon emissions; 57 percent say that they would still support a cap and trade system even if it meant a $10 increase in their monthly electricity bill. A third of Americans say that taking unilateral action on global warming would help the US economy. That’s a dead heat with those who say global warming-reducing measures would damage the economy (32 percent).

So, people are starting to see economic potential that’s possible with smart climate policy. In the last few days, the news has been full of articles about Northwest companies and communities investigating new industries like solar and wind.

Surely high energy and gas prices are a major player in these trends towards energy conservation and support for climate policy, and it’s guaranteed that high prices will continue to influence public opinion on the issue. But it looks like it’s not solely centered on oil prices. These numbers suggest that Americans are tying gas prices to broader concerns about energy conservation and global warming:

“A third say they're taking conservation measures mainly to improve the environment, but a quarter instead say it's mainly to save money -- and more, 41 percent, say it's for both reasons equally.”

The fact that 71 percent of Americans are altering their habits to curb carbon emissions and energy use will also probably have some bearing on November’s elections. Maybe Paris had it right: the world’s biggest celebrity and the wrinkly white-haired dude better make energy policy a top priority if they want to compete for the White House.

Hot Water

Clark Williams-Derry — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:30:26

The great thing about this Swiss study on tap water vs. bottled water is that it takes a boring, commonsense intuition, and makes it interesting -- just by providing a few numbers.

In this case, the intuition is that bottled water uses more energy—and thus releases more greenhouse gases—than plain old tap water. The point is really obvious: just think about the energy that’s required to manufacture bottles, and you can pretty easily guess that bottled water will be more energy-intensive than water from the tap. In fact, it’s so obvious, it almost seems pointless to do a study

But it turns out that there’s a very interesting point to be made: the gap between bottled water and tap water is simply enormous. Based on European data used in the Swiss study, water straight from the tap has about one half of one percent of the climate-warming impact of the most benign bottled water -- and less than a thousandth of the overall environmental impact of the most energy-intensive bottled water.

In the chart to the left, I’m deliberately leaving the numbers vague. The two bars actually average of a number of different figures – different drinking water systems, bottling options, and water temperatures. So the numbers are a bit meaningless. Still, they give a sense of the magnitude of the difference between bottled water and tap water.

In this case, the most important message isn't simply that tap water is better -- it's the raw scale of the gap between tap water and bottled water. Of course, bottled water doesn't rank particularly high on the list of climate offenders, compared to cars and trucks, coal fired power plants, and the like. Still, if you’re a bottled-water drinker, and you're looking for a quick and easy way to reduce your carbon footprint – and you’re lucky enough to live in a place with clean, tasty tap water – playing taps (ha!) for your bottled water is a pretty good place to start.

Car-Free Hiking

Eric de Place — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:59:03

Via Signpost, a terrific new development from Washington State Parks: a hiker shuttle up Snoqualmie Pass. I'm feeling lazy, so I'll just quote liberally from Andrew Engelson:

The new "Bus-Up 90 Shuttle" will run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and starts at Cedar Falls, which is near Rattlesnake Lake outside North Bend. The shuttle runs to Hyak, east of Snoqualmie Pass. The ride will be air-conditioned and the shuttle has room for backpacking gear, plus a trailer to provide transport for bikes. The shuttle is primarily intended for folks intending to hike or bike down the John Wayne Trail, a 20.5-mile gravel path that follows the old Milwaukee Railroad.

The shuttle will also provide return service and apparently can make stops at trailheads along the western I-90 corridor if you pre-arrange it. There will be three departures daily from Cedar Falls and Hyak.

Schedule and directions are here.

Rock on. This type of shuttle is long overdue. There are a huge number of hikers traveling up I-90 every weekend (one of the greatest things about living in Seattle is the extreme proximity to wilderness trails). I'd love to see this shuttle expanded and extended. In a perfect world it would run from Seattle to Bellevue and to the major trailheads; and it should run year-round for skiers and snowshoers too.

So, great news for hikers in the central Puget Sound region. But what about other places in the Northwest? In past discussions of guilt-free hiking, readers have had a bunch of good tips for low-carbon trailhead access in British Columbia, Oregon, New York state, and beyond. Does Bellingham have transit access along Chuckanut Drive? Can Portland hikers bus it out the Columbia Gorge? Let us know what you know!

In the meantime, your moment of zen comes from commenter Michael Newton; it's hoisted from a previous post:

Vancouver's north shore has loads of hiking that's accessible by transit. We've got the advantage of having nothing but wilderness north of the city; if you skirt by Whistler, you could probably head north all the way to the Arctic Ocean without hitting another town! Cypress and Seymour Provincial parks, Lynn Canyon and Lynn Headwaters regional parks, not to mention numerous smaller parks and of course, the Grouse Grind.

Wow.

Photo is the Pacific Crest Trail's Kendall Katwalk, one of the dayhiking destinations served by the new shuttle.

Update 7/17: I hope I didn't over-sell the virtues of this shuttle. As several commenters have pointed out, it's kind of expensive, and it has a fairly limited route and schedule. It's great for using the Iron Horse Trail (which is awesome, by the way), but maybe not yet perfected for hiking uses. Still, it strikes me as a big step in the right direction. I'd love to see more like this.

Staycation, All I Ever Wanted

Clark Williams-Derry — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:49:40

"Staycation...a portmanteau that combines “stay” and “vacation” and refers to a holiday that takes place either at or near home."

With gas well above $4 per gallon this summer, and with airlines raising prices and canceling flights because of high fuel costs, it's not too surprising to find a word like "staycation" gaining a toehold in the North American lexicon. Google now finds nearly 200,000 web pages that use the word -- most of them added within the last few months, if my casual browsing is any indicator.

But even back when fuel wasn't so pricey, some of my favorite vacations were spent within a 50 mile radius of home. It's easy to forget how many parks, museums, nature walks, boat rides, and all-around fun can be found close to where you live -- which makes a staycation a perfect opportunity to reconnect yourself to your home town.

So I'm curious: is anyone out there planning a staycation this year? Where are you, and what do you plan on doing?

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user matildaben, distributed under a Creative Commons license.]