Editor's Take: August 31, 2009
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Cash for Clunker Appliances
Mixed news on the energy front: the government is offering free money to replace clunker appliances, but efforts to design more energy-efficient buildings aren't living up to their promises. Meanwhile, big businesses are co-opting the buy local craze, in contrast to genuine homegrown efforts to generate energy and teach neighbors.
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Coming soon: Cash for appliances
San Francisco Chronicle
08/30/2009
The popularity of Cash for Clunkers has built excitement for the government's next program to stimulate the economy and save energy: cash for appliances. Unlike the $3 billion clunkers program, which required an old car to be traded in, consumers do not have to turn in an old appliance to get a rebate on a new one.
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Buildings not living up to green label
New York Times
08/30/2009
Builders covet a green certification, but many buildings do not save as much energy as their designs predicted. That gap between design and performance has led the LEED program - the country's most recognized seal of approval for green buildings - to announce it would begin collecting information about energy use from the buildings it certifies.
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Racing against nature in coastal AK
Anchorage Daily News
08/30/2009
The landfill and barge landing in Newtok, AK, have already fallen into waves fed by thinning sea ice. A sunken piece of machinery reaches above the water like a sea monster. Military reservists are preparing to move the entire community to higher ground. A growing list of government agencies are racing against nature, and what happens here could have consequences for coastal communities around the state.
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Homegrown classes tap community widsom
Seattle Times
08/30/2009
Residents of Seattle's Colman community have created "Neighborhood University," a forum where neighbors can tap each other to learn something new - how to write poetry or ride a bike in traffic or teach kids to cook - in a free-flowing educational exchange without the baggage and costs of a traditional school.
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Urban 'self-generation' hardly a breeze
Vancouver Sun
08/30/2009
Hugues Leblanc has spent three years at war with a wind turbine. His first model shook his ceiling and filled his apartment with an alien whooping sound. Then the propeller blades began whipping off, crashing on his balcony. Still, he's on the cusp of a movement of urban "self-generators," city dwellers who use the natural elements to power their toasters and televisions.
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WA, ID fear nuclear sites could be Plan B
Tacoma News Tribune
08/30/2009
As the Obama administration and Senate leaders move to scuttle a proposed repository for nuclear waste in Nevada, the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state - along with federal facilities in Idaho and South Carolina - could become the de facto dump sites for some of the nastiest substances on earth for years to come.
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More biking, less parking in Bellingham
Bellingham Herald
08/30/2009
The hot topic last summer was whether Bellingham should remove street parking along one side of Cornwall Avenue to make room for a bike lane in each direction. In the end, 69 parking spaces were removed. A year later, here's how people's hopes and fears and have played out on the ground.
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Does the NW have the spark for electric cars?
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
08/30/2009
Electric cars - other than such hybrids as the Prius - have not captured the fancies of many drivers in the past 20 years. Still, beginning next year, Seattle, Portland and three other cities will become labs for huge federal and private sector experiment with electric cars, the biggest such gamble in history.
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Environmentalists slow to adjust on climate
Washington Post
08/30/2009
The oil lobby sponsored free concerts and rallies warning that a climate-change bill could ravage the US economy. Professional "campaigners" were giving away T-shirts praising coal-fired power. Environmentalists showed up in the middle of the green movement's biggest political test in a generation with...a panel discussion. And gave away stickers.
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Localwashing: Big business pretends to be little
Missoula Independent
08/31/2009
The newest variation on corporate spin: localwashing. Frito-Lay's new television commercials use farmers as pitchmen to position the company's potato chips as local food, while Foster Farms, one of the largest producers of poultry products in the country, is labeling packages of chicken and turkey "locally grown."
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