Editor's Take: June 21, 2009
ex-magician, flickr
No Country for Whiners
Oregon's Klamath County is applying its code of self-reliance and no excuses to pioneering rural sustainability. Farmers are also winning on federal climate change legislation, lobbying for controversial carbon offsets and against cracking down on cow burps. In urban news, the debate rages on about whether Seattle or Vancouver, BC, is the better city.
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No country for old whiners
Oregonian
06/21/2009
Rather than complain about a 15-percent unemployment rate, Klamath County, OR, is applying its no-excuses ethic to economic sustainability. Geothermal energy already heats a spider-mite-growing greenhouse, a beer brewery and a college campus focused on medical technology training, adaptable agriculture and a greener timber industry.
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Excuse me! Farm lobby wins on burps
Washington Post
06/21/2009
One contributor to global warming - bigger than coal mines, landfills and sewage treatment plants - is being left out of efforts by the Obama administration and House Democrats to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Cow burps.
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The great Vancouver vs. Seattle debate
Crosscut
06/22/2009
As two urban experts each made the case for the other's home town, they praised freeway-free downtowns, granny flats, parking strip gardens, skinny towers and bikeable streets. But Peter Steinbrueck said Seattle has given up on families in its urban core. Gordon Price said Vancouver's dirty secret was: "We've reached a very high level of mediocrity."
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Offsets center stage in climate debate
San Francisco Chronicle
06/21/2009
Dairies, tree growers, vegetable farmers and businesses could win big under legislation advancing on Capitol Hill that would allow companies to "offset" 2 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year by investing in pollution-reducing projects. But some argue the generous offset allowances undermine any effort to address climate change.
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Identity crisis for new BC greenway?
BC Local News
06/21/2009
British Columbia's new 25-kilometre, $25 million Central Valley Greenway that opens Saturday will give walkers, joggers and cyclists a fairly flat route from the Westminster Quay to Vancouver's False Creek. But the greenway can't seem to make up its mind whether it's for commuters or recreational users.
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Poll finds wide support for government-run health
New York Times
06/21/2009
Americans are strongly behind a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. It also found most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance.
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Chicken fight over egg-layers' welfare
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
06/21/2009
By one of the biggest margins in California's rich initiative history, voters decreed last year that egg-laying hens must be able to stretch their wings without touching another bird or a cage wall. But the details of the new animal welfare law are bedeviling egg farmers, and some are even rumored to be breeding hens with shorter wings.
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A way out of the woods
Medford Mail-Tribune
06/21/2009
On an Oregon forest that was ground zero for the Northwest timber wars, an economic stimulus project feels like a start - not only to grappling with the growing threat of wildfire in a warming climate, but in healing rifts between environmentalists, the timber industry and the Forest Service that have left the national forests in limbo.
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Shorter bus routes, more rail riders?
Seattle Times
06/22/2009
In a city said to be at war with the automobile, Seattle's Mount Baker Station is designed as a refuge. To coax bus riders onto trains after Seattle's new light rail line opens July 18, King County Metro Transit will shorten some routes in September, so they will end here.
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Getting happy with the naked cyclists
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
06/21/2009
At a painting party for the Fremont Solstice Parade's naked cyclists, everyone oooh'd and ahhh'd when one veteran peeled off the strip of masking tape that swirled around her shimmery blue body, revealing a perfect ribbon from neck to toe. That's when I realized why I felt so comfortable in a room full of naked people. These weren't bodies. They were canvases. And they were about to go on the road.
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