Editor's Take: July 31, 2008
SueZeeCue, Flickr.com
Rewiring Car Culture Habits
Creative thinking about cars -- or moving beyond car culture as we know it -- is sweeping the Northwest. Seattle is closing city streets to cars on Sundays and opening them to people. San Francisco is looking for incentives for commuters to ditch their cars. and there's a big effort afoot to rethink long-unquestioned transportation building habits in Oregon.
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Plan for San Fran Commuters to Ditch Their Cars
San Francisco Chronicle
07/31/2008
Businesses with more than 20 employees working in San Francisco would be required to help their workers ditch their cars and commute to work on transit or in vanpools under a proposal being considered by city officials.
The goal of the plan, which would be the first in the nation, is to cut greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality by getting more people out of polluting cars.
Go to article.
Car-free Sundays for Seattle? Maybe.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
07/31/2008
Car-free Sundays are a part of Seattle Mayor Nickels' ongoing effort to get people out of their cars and green up Seattle. Select neighborhood streets will be closed on consecutive Sundays in August and September, one neighborhood each Sunday. Some businesses are a little surprised by the initiative.
Go to article.
Oregon Accounts for 40 Million Pounds of Pesticides
Portland Oregonian
07/31/2008
After a nine-year political scrum, Oregon released its first accounting of pesticide use Wednesday, cataloging more than 40 million pounds of 551 fumigants, herbicides and insecticides applied to the state's lands and waters in 2007.
The bulk of the pesticides, about 85 percent, were used for agriculture, from potato fields to nurseries to Christmas tree farms. Two of the top five chemicals applied -- the fumigants metam-sodium and 1,3-dichoropropene -- are listed as cancer causing in California's reporting system.
Go to article.
Seattle Housing: The Cottage Industry
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
07/31/2008
West Seattle cottages offer a path to creating affordable single-family homes. This latest trend provides the feel of a cozy house while taking up less land and resources.
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Traffic, Money and Pollution in Portland
Oregonian
07/31/2008
Instead of spending billions on highways, would it make sense to build toll booths or city streets to reduce rush-hour traffic?
Should we expand mass transit to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions?
Oregon's highway planners aren't asking such questions but they should be, Gov. Ted Kulongoski said Wednesday.
Go to article.
Reuse, Recycle? Water's Odyssey From Sewer to Cup
The Christian Science Monitor
07/30/2008
Orange County, California's water utility has been drawing the gaze of engineers, scientists, and policymakers since it opened the world's largest water recycling facility of its kind in January to scrub clean treated wastewater and turn it into drinking water.
Now, many of those admirers want to replicate Orange County's model of replenishing freshwater supplies using purified sewer water.
Go to article.
Is Access to Birth Control Threatened in US?
MSNBC
07/31/2008
The Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing a Bush Administration draft regulation that would deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan or other entity that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions, including providing birth-control pills, IUDs and the Plan B emergency contraceptive.
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Building Up In the West's Flammable Wild
Los Angeles Times
07/31/2008
Every year, more houses go up in what is known as the wildland-urban interface, where development meets the flammable wild.
An analysis by U.S. Forest Service and University of Wisconsin researchers found that between 1990 and 2000, 61% of the new housing in California, Oregon and Washington -- more than 1 million homes -- was built in the interface.
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David Suzuki: Canadian Politics Get Sustainable
Georgia Straight
07/30/2008
Canada's Federal Sustainable Development Act, which became law in late June, is a bold step toward ensuring that governments live up to their environmental commitments. And it's one that all political parties got together to support. It could revolutionize the way the government deals with national environmental issues.
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Views: Get BC's Minimum Wage Out of Poverty
Vancouver Sun
07/31/2008
It's time to take the politics out of the minimum wage and scrap the practice of sharp one-time increases followed by long periods of inaction. Let's set the minimum wage using clear criteria (such as setting at it a level which allows a single full-time worker with no dependents to escape poverty) and then index it to inflation to preserve its value over time.
Go to article.
