Current Stories
Editor's Top Picks
In S.F., thou shalt compost: It's the law
Sacramento Bee
07/02/2009
A new San Francisco law gives the city authority to fine residents and small businesses $100 -- and impose penalties up to $1,000 on big firms and apartment owners -- if they refuse to segregate leftover fish bones, watermelon rinds, and watercress salad into compost bins.
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Energy efficiency at home: simple, accessible, and possible
Astoria Daily Astorian
07/02/2009
Most people who live in existing housing are baffled about how to make their lifestyle more sustainable. Here's how.
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Say "I Do" to a recession wedding
Toronto Globe and Mail
07/02/2009
The recession has left a lot of victims in its wake -- weddings included.
According to the consulting firm The Wedding Report, Inc., couples planning their weddings are significantly scaling back spending on their day of bliss by at least 10 per cent this year, on top of an already larger cutback in 2008.
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The politics of parking
San Francisco Bay Guardian
06/30/2009
The local politics of parking in San Francisco have reached "a spatial stalemate." Even as residents in the 1960s decided they did not want gashes of freeway through their waterfront and parks, the city didn't take space away from cars. And if you don't do that, you're not solving the problem.
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Cracks in Seattle's green-growth coalition
Crosscut
07/01/2009
Seattle politicians like to jockey over who is more green than the other. But candidates need business support too, and the battle for endorsements reveals some ideological divides between local environmentalists, developers, and independent thinkers who wonder if all urban growth is good.
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Produce travels to Seattle quiet as whisper
Peninsula Daily News
06/30/2009
Let us follow a strawberry, flush from the field as it travels on wind and water - but without petroleum - from Sequim to the big, hungry city.
People in Seattle want these oil-free Sequim berries with the Nash's Organic name on them, according to David Reid, owner and operator of Seattle's Sail Transport Co.
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Hohmmmm: The zen of saving energy
KPLU
06/28/2009
Tracking energy use is the first step toward reducing your carbon footprint and saving money on your utility bill. Now, Microsoft is coming out with free software that let's you analyze how your home uses energy. It's called Hohm: a combination of "home" and "ohm," the unit for measuring electrical resistance.
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Going whole hog on energy upgrades
Sacramento Bee
06/28/2009
Jon Pyle is trying to do right by the environment and his pocketbook by having double-pane windows installed in his home, but some energy experts say the California resident doing it all wrong. Like most people, he's doing piecemeal energy efficiency upgrades rather than embarking on wholesale change.
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Stopping chain saws inside OR's urban areas
Oregonian
06/29/2009
Oregonians love the region's trees. Unless, of course, we need to cut them down, for any reason at all -- profit, development or even just to improve our view. Now two citizens groups are pushing urban tree codes designed to protect the area's leafy canopy as the population swells.
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Connecting Seattle rail to the beaten path
Seattle Times
06/29/2009
Seattle's new light rail trains won't quite take people to Columbia City's old brick storefronts built along an electric streetcar line. The challenge is to forge a transportation and psychological bond between the stop on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and the bustle on Rainier. Otherwise, ridership will sag.
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Obama praises climate bill's progress
Washington Post
06/28/2009
In an interview with a small group of energy reporters in the Oval Office, Obama brushed aside criticisms about compromises and savored last week's narrow victory in the House on one of his top domestic priorities: a climate bill designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.
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First foods inform tribe's conservation
Indian Country Today
06/28/2009
Resource management on the lands of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon took a unique turn a couple years ago when the board of trustees approved a plan built around consideration for their first foods: water, salmon, fish, big game, roots and berries.
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One trash bin + one year = one clear conscience
Toronto Globe and Mail
06/25/2009
Three Vancouverites are anxiously anticipating the culmination of their buy-nothing, waste-nothing year. Their rules are strict: No material goods can be purchased. All one-time personal use items, such as takeout boxes, are shunned. Consumables such as food, drinks, medication, and a minimum of personal hygiene products are allowed as long as they're sold in recyclable packaging.
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Oregon tribe first to go to all green light bulbs
Oregon Public Broadcasting
06/26/2009
How many light bulbs does it take to change a region's energy efficiency? Over the next two weeks, workers with the Burns Paiute Tribe will screw in a historic light bulb. And tribal members will become the first in the country to install energy efficient light bulbs in every one of its homes, located southeast of Bend, Oregon.
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Starbucks unveils eco-friendly store designs
Seattle Times
06/26/2009
Starbucks is opening far fewer stores than it used to, and it has come up with a new formula for them. The chain of more than 16,000 stores wants its new locations to be environmentally friendly, to be made with local materials, and to have new looks that reflect their neighborhoods. The first example opened across the street from Pike Place Market in Seattle.
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Ship of plastic bottles to send eco-message
Seattle Times
06/25/2009
You've heard of a ship in a bottle. How about a ship made of plastic bottles? That would be the Plastiki, designed to sail the Pacific on an 11,000-mile voyage highlighting the dangers of living in a throwaway world.
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The pantry recession
Toronto Globe and Mail
06/25/2009
Many consumers hit hard by the recession are being extra careful about their purchases and using up what they have at home before replenishing their pantries. An environment of conspicuous consumption has switched to an environment of conspicuous conservation.
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Metro Vancouver to compost food waste
BC Local News
06/25/2009
Curbside pickup of food waste is coming to Metro Vancouver neighborhoods as part of a new organics composting program that aims to help cut the amount of garbage going to landfills.
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The lure of the laundry line
Wenatchee World
06/25/2009
They might not be saving time, but people who dry laundry on a clothesline are saving money and energy. The dry heat of summer in North Central Washington is conducive to line-drying laundry. Lots of people here are already doing it.
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Green empowerment on Vancouver Island
BC Local News
06/24/2009
Don't just stand there, plant something, carpool, and support local farmers. Messages of green empowerment echoed through the recent Seeds For Change conference in Duncan where Vancouver Island locals got stoked to take action and green Cowichan themselves, rather than waiting for politicians to do it.
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Report: Zero-waste goal best met by recycling, composting
Toronto Globe and Mail
06/24/2009
Instead of spending millions on waste-to-energy plants, Metro Vancouver should focus on composting, recycling and keeping materials such as electronic and construction waste out of the garbage, a new report suggests.
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Missoulia leaders compromise on 'granny flats'
Missoulian
06/25/2009
"Granny flats" -- other mother-in-law apartments -- likely will be easier to build in some parts of town, while and in other parts of Missoula new ones probably won't be allowed at all.
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Recession generation? Young adults simplify
USA Today
06/23/2009
The virtues of simple living now coming into vogue strike a chord with the Millennial generation, or Gen Y, who talk about wanting to free themselves of material goals that shackled their parents. But the recession in some ways is shattering the world they thought they knew.
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Does small equal affordable in BC?
Georgia Straight
06/23/2009
A laneway-housing-style development in Victoria is brimming with cute abodes, but it's not exactly a poster child for small-footprint houses' promise of affordability.
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Missoula zoning for 'granny flats'
Missoulian
06/24/2009
A rewrite of Missoula zoning laws has sparked controversy over mother-in-law units or "granny flats." But many citizens also praised the new regulations for considering business interests, for looking at transit and affordability, for planning for a future when many more people will live alone instead of with families, and even for being readable.
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