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July 2009
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Contributing Sources of Weird Weather? Look In The Mirror
July 31, 2009I live in the Pacific Northwest where the weather for the past several days resembles what has become the norm on the East Coast: hazy, hot, and humid.
The smaller businesses and most homes in this part of the world aren't equipped for this with little or no air conditioning, big glass windows, and limited drapery. The husband of one of my wife's colleagues has to sleep on the basement floor, and few homes here have basements. Fortunately we live/I work out of a new apartment with central air.
And in contrast the East Coast has been hit with rainy weather that is the norm here, except that the rains are harder. I joked in an e-mail to someone there about shipping umbrellas from my part of the world.
Then again I and others shouldn't be surprised that this is happening.
Insist on Telework When Funding Highways and Transit: Attorney
July 21, 2009There has been a lot of jawboning by government officials when it comes to telework as a green transportation alternative.
While federally-funded programs insist that applicants examine no-build options like transportation demand management solutions like telework, the nasty truth is that these are ignored. Why let imaginative, doable lower-cost methods get in the way of shoveling tax dollars to campaign-contributing contractors and engineering firms?
There may now, however, be at last interest and movement in getting governments to do the right thing thanks to large part to broadband becoming a necessity in homes and businesses. Hence its inclusion in the stimulus legislation.
Expanding broadband networks means money for their supplying carriers and equipment vendors. And they are at last emerging as political counterweights to the powerful transportation lobby.
The Dark Side of Housing/Commercial Building Starts
July 8, 2009When housing and commercial building starts data are released and they show a jump there is generally a positive reaction. They seemingly show that the economy is back on track or that is it is growing and that people are being put back to work.
But is it good news? Not necessarily from the green or economic points of view.
And here's why. If the new buildings are being built on open space and not as replacements for older homes, offices, stores, and factories on existing land that is sprawl, which eats up more resources--environmental, infrastructure, services, and taxes--than it generates in income.
Commercial building, especially offices, is not a good sign because it shows that many companies still don't get it--that you don't need as many offices as you have--because half if not more of the work can be done at home. Which helps the public good by eliminating pollution-creating commutes and helps corporate survival by doing away with needless expenses.
Sprawl also leads to vast areas of already-services dying areas, locales that have become infested with crime that infects its way to the suburbs i.e.
