Recently in government initiatives Category

For businesses, institutions, and contact centers looking for truly greener fields to cut down on their environmental footprints there will be several new opportunities to do just that, by locating their offices near the stations of new rapid transit lines scheduled to open in 2009.

--Arriving first is the Phoenix metro area's Valley Metro light rail line. It will begin regular service on a 20 mile line route connecting Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa on Jan.1; it had pre-opened to crush crowds last weekend

--Portland, Oregon's Tri-Met will introduce service on WES, a diesel railcar-operated suburb-to-suburb line from Wilsonville to Beaverton, 15 miles, where it will connect with the MAX light rail for downtown Portland, airport, and other communities. WES will open Feb.2 and will run initially in rush hours only

--On March 30, Austin, Texas will see service begin on its first rail line, the Capital MetroRail from the city's downtown to Leander, some 32 miles to the northwest. Like WES it will be operated by diesel railcars in peak periods only

--Later in 2009, the Seattle area will, after 40 some years of political warfare, witness rapid transit trains rolling once again, on a route between SeaTac Airport and the city's downtown in the form of Sound Transit's LINK LRT. Also at about the same time, and to the north, Metro Vancouver, BC's Canada Line from the city center to Richmond and Vancouver International Airport will take its first trains. The Seattle region has commuter rail and short streetcar lines in Seattle and Tacoma. Metro Vancouver also has commuter rail, plus a new demonstrator streetcar, and SkyTrain, a rapid transit system linking downtown Vancouver with Burnaby, Coquitlam, New Westminster, and Surrey
 

Should your site selection choices include these cities plus many more that have rapid transit make locating by them your New Year's resolution. It will pull more employees, and visitors from their cars, which in turn will reduce traffic, roadspace demand, and limit their nasty environmental consequences. It also promotes healthier living by not only cutting down on emissions but also by walking to and from stations, or using connecting buses which will also require you and others to get there on your own steam...thereby helping to meet other New Year's resolutions

--BR

Beginning Jan.1, 2009 consumers, small businesses, and other similar-sized government entities in Oregon and Washington State will be able to recycle 'e-cycle' much of their e-waste such as computers, monitors, and TVs though not others such as cellphones, mice, and printers. The TV e-cycling is well-timed with the analog-to-digital TV switch in February, 2009.

There are now 17 states with similar programs; the National Center for Electronics Recycling tracks such laws. It estimates that just under 50 percent of the US population is now covered by such measures.

They should be making a dent in the mountains of electronic garbage created in the U.S; in 2007, Americans generated about 232 million units of computer and TV-related E-waste, of which only 18 percent was recycled. 

Washington State estimates that it will collect and process over 20 million pounds of electronic waste in the first year of operations; the state has about 6.4 million residents. It has set up network will include over 200 individual collection sites, in every county in the state and in every city or town with a population greater than 10,000.

Yet unlike in other states that have set up similar programs, such as California, where consumers must pay to dispose, Oregon's and Washington State's are paid for by manufacturers and free to consumers. Officials say that provision will give incentives to participate--Oregon also has a prod; beginning in 2010 it will be illegal to dump computers and TVs--which should drive up the volume of units recycled or reused.

The states also say they will closely monitor the programs to make sure the toxic boxes and pieces do not get dumped in places like China where e-waste disposal controls and methods are comparatively lax.

The Oregon and Washington State plans make sense because they adopt the polluter-pay principle, which if followed logically by manufacturers, will prod them to make more adaptable, longer lasting, and versatile products made of less nasty materials to limit waste and pollution. It should to kick them into making and reusing 'nonintelligent' items such as keyboards, keypads, and mice.

These laws, enacted in two of the most tech-savvy jurisdictions anywhere may also drive firms to go the next level (literally) and host and network host more of their solutions i.e. cloud computing and dumb terminals that spreads the core hardware to many more users. Hosted/cloud software can also help meet the same goals in tandem by reducing the need for complex shredder-bound hardware.

Another benefit from going these routes is lowered energy demand and fewer amounts of greenhouse gases and toxins from entering the atmosphere.

What would make sense for these programs and others is to follow the time-proven example of the auto industry--yes it has a few good practices--and offer trade-ins on old electronic goods. Bring in your dead cellphone, monitor, and printer and get a few bucks off. Or if they want to go to the next level, offer to pick these old items up when they deliver new ones ordered online or via contact centers and receive instant rebates.

 --BR

 

 

I live in a part of North America that is dependent on the auto industry and I am seeing it break down around me. 

Every day it seems the local media has a story on another layoff, if not of the Big 3 but of the many hundreds of firms that supply them. Every day it appears that one more factory has a For Sale or For Lease sign up. Every day one more track in the local railroad yard is taken up by a string of empty auto-rack railcars.

So I am not without sympathy to the families, indeed neighbors who are being hurt by what is happening in that industry.

Yet at the same time I have no pity for the companies themselves, Chrysler and especially GM. And should they end up in the scrap heap so be it. They the espousers of 'planned obsolescence': that philosophy of producing crap, gas-guzzling, air-killing products (I used to own a Dodge Intrepid, 'nough said) are now obsolete.

GM deserves such a fate and more. The tech 'evil empires' are benign when compared with this outfit. In 1949 GM, along with Firestone (now Bridgestone) and what is now Chevron were convicted of conspiring to rip up clean, efficient, electric streetcar lines and replace them with polluting, traffic-prone, and less attractive buses. GM handicapped the market for its now-sold Electro-Motive division that produced (and still does, under its present owners) fine, rugged diesel railroad locomotives that was largely responsible for displacing the romantic if comparatively inefficient and very labor-intensive steam engines. GM's locomotives continue to growl away on freight and passenger trains long after similar-vintage bus, car, and truck counterparts had become scrap metal; its designs are being used in ultramodern commuter rail and freight engines.

The growth in the auto industry, aided by taxpayer-financed roads, led to the near destruction of the rail and transit industries, and the demise of those jobs. But back then it was called 'progress'...

There is now a coming of minds to a solution to the dilemma of putting highly-skilled people back to work and at the same time cleaning up our air and relieving congested highways: investing in the green alternatives of high-speed rail and getting moving on telework. While green vehicles are nice they eat up much more land than rail or fiber optics: land that is used to replenish oxygen and water supplies, and to grow food on.

California is getting into the act by passing its high-speed rail measure. My sources tell me that has sparked renewed interest in the Pacific Northwest, which has, under the branding Amtrak Cascades, a nascent intercity rail network supported by Oregon, Washington, and the province of British Columbia. The premiers of Ontario--which has been especially hard hit because Canada's auto industry is centered there--and Quebec have been pressuring the Canadian government for high-speed rail. Bombardier, which built the now de-bugged Acela trains, has plants, conveniently enough, in both provinces. California, the Pacific Northwest, and Ontario and Quebec plan to power their trains eventually with mostly non-carbon-emiting energy: hydro, nuclear, solar, and wind. Ontario has a couple of nuclear power stations near the proposed right of way, where today's VIA Rail intercity passenger trains 'speed' by at no more than 95 mph on regular railroad tracks that are shared by freight trains.

And one can be sure that should the California plan progress to the stage where bids will be going out that the savvy manufacturers will promise to locate assembly plants there. Just as Siemens had done when orders began pouring in for its light rail cars from across the Western US and Canada; it was ironically, Edmonton, Alberta, the province's capital and the so-called center of the Canadian oil industry, that kicked off the light rail boom when its first line opened in April 1978.

The other part of the equation is telework (including conferencing or 'telepresence). For no matter how good high-speed rail systems and mass transit networks are and can be they cannot substitute for the many commuting trips and intercity business travel that are now taken by car and air.

The Telework Coalition has been invited by the Province of Ontario to make a submission to its pre-budget consultation. The organization plans to make some policy recommendations aimed at encouraging virtual work which too would put people to work, such as those at embattled tech firm Nortel that is headquartered there.

The pieces supporting telework is already there. What is needed is putting them together. On Thursday Nov.20, IEX is sponsoring a TMC Webinar on this topic. I'll be moderating the session, and I encourage anyone who is interested in telework to register, take part, and ask questions.

--BR

Last Tuesday a majority of Americans 'voted green'. They voted for, and the Electoral College is duty-bound to select Senator Barack Obama as President, whose platform contained an extensive list of green energy and employment initiatives, along with funding for Amtrak and mass transit along with highway improvements. 

President-Elect Obama appears to be strong believer in technology, and has promised to place resources in R&D and in rural broadband. There is every reason to believe that of all the policy stances produced that he will deliver on this one, because technology delivered for him. He and his team successfully used advanced communications and marketing technology to create, mobilize, and bring on home one of the most successful grassroots-based election campaigns in modern times.

President-Elect Obama wants action on climate change but he also is seeking energy security, which according to an editorial in The (Toronto) Star may mean accepting Canada's 'dirty oil' from the Alberta tar sands in exchange for Canada adopting his tougher emissions policies.

(One wonders just how 'filthy' Alberta tar sands-derived oil really is: from source to refinery compared to shipping 'cleaner' crude from the Middle East on diesel-burning and pollutant-spewing tankers. Answers, please)

Americans also, in a majority of cases, approved ballot initiatives to finance mass transit, including new and expanded bus and rail systems and high-speed intercity rail. The American Public Transit Association reports that voters in 16 states approved 23 out of 32 transit-related ballot measures, or 72 percent, that authorize up to $75 billion in spending.

Examples include:

* A $10 billion bond issue to construct the first phase of a $45 billion high-speed rail line that will eventually stretch from San Diego to San Francisco, Calif. The project will require matching federal and private matching funds

* $40 billion in local transit and highway improvements in Los Angeles including light rail and rapid transit extensions, including at long last, links to LAX, to Santa Monica, and between the separate rail lines in downtown L.A

* A diesel commuter rail line in Sonoma and Marin counties north of San Francisco 

* A $4.3 billion rail rapid transit line in Honolulu

* Proposition 1, a half-cent sales tax increase to supply nearly $18 billion in new and expanded light rail lines and improved commuter rail and bus in the Puget Sound (Seattle/Bellevue/Everett/Tacoma) region 

The news was not all good.  Kansas City voters rejected funding for a new 14-mile light rail system while St. Louis elector rejected a sales tax increase to continue financing its rail, bus, and paratransit network. This last one is a head-shaker: the St. Louis region's transit system is a star performer: its MetroLink LRT has imaginatively used existing railroad rights-of-way (including a downtown tunnel) to cost-effectively connect the metro region.

What makes these votes all the more significant even with the setbacks, are the overriding concerns over the economy and the ability of taxpayers to finance transit expansion. There are already growing reports of transit cutbacks. 

Yet it is important to remember that keeping transit going represents a sound investment because it provides mobility for people who can no longer afford to keep the number of cars they do, or cars altogether, and that it provides good, clean, and green employment at a time when we need jobs, economic infusion, and take action on climate change.

--BR

 

Several ideas/observations overheard at ITEXPO West last week in Los Angeles...

1. Get rid of the ethanol subsidy 

Ethanol production--from grains as opposed to biowaste--is being criticized for generating more pollution than it solves through processing and transportation.

Kind of like LEED buildings being erected in car-oriented office parks, gouged out of what had been environmentally-beneficial fields, wetlands, forests...

2. Go nuclear, like France has done. Get away from coal, heavy oil, natural gas, hydro...

There is some logic here. The big question with nuclear is what to do with the spent fuel. Those costs must be factored into the price.

Then again, compared with bird-killing tailing ponds from tar sands production, blowing up mountaintops and gouging craters for coal, the refining process for oil and natural gas, damming up rivers for hydro...

3. Invest in electric high-speed rail, again like France

Makes sense. Electric rail transportation emits far fewer total emissions than driving and flying and requires much less greenspace. 

Air and road travel have long had free rides--including on the environment--thanks to enormous direct and indirect subsidies that had put private rail passenger transportation out of business. 

The transportation picture, and the environment and energy, not to mention urban development, would have looked much different, had there been a true free market competitive level playing field between modes.

To redress this balance there needs to be heavy government investment--like which was made on the Interstates and in airports that had nearly eliminated passenger and urban rail.

There is a high-speed rail vote going to the California electors this fall. There are also other transit funding measures on or will likely be on the ballot (a future entry in the Green Blog will look at them but this article in the July issue of the transit trade magazine Metro gives a good primer. 

3. Look at shale and other oil sources

There is nothing evil about oil per se from any source, but the final costs from them must include all the direct and indirect environmental expenses incurred.
Anything less is a subsidy...

At ITEXPO West there is also an opportunity to win a Toyota Prius hybrid: a worthwhile vehicle to own for no matter how good mass transit and alternatives like teleworking are, there will always be a big place and need for private cars. The key (literally) is to minimize their environmental footprint by hybrid and pure electric technologies and by unclogging the roads through transit and teleworking so that driving can truly be fast, convenient, and free.

Today is garbage and recycling day in my neighborhood. As I sort out the plastics, paper, and metals from the blue bin under our kitchen sink I am reminded why producer/seller-pay e-waste recycling programs like that just announced by the Province of Ontario http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/en/news/2008/071001.php can and will work: by assigning costs to waste. 

My community charges for trash pickup. You have to buy garbage tickets. The way to minimize the number of tickets you need to purchase is by recycling. Which is why I had my head under the kitchen sink this morning.

E-waste is a lot nastier than what I was rummaging through (I won't get into the subject of my other trash, which includes the so-far literally insoluble problem of handling cat litter). The hardware that we rely on relies on metals and plastics that are extremely toxic, such as cadmium, lead, chromium, PVCs, and polybrominated biphenyls, when released into the environment i.e. don't drink, breathe, or eat something that has been exposed to this stuff. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (hmm. does 'DNR' mean the environment? Never mind...) has a great set of pages on this topic http://www.iowadnr.gov/waste/recycling/ewaste.html

By assigning costs to disposing e-waste hopefully the manufacturers and resellers will be prompted further to find ways to 'green-gineer' their products to reduce the amount of this garbage that could well end up in our bodies (making these goods also spews out toxins). At the same time, by making these items more expensive the buyers i.e. you and I will think twice about throwing them out and instead repair or find new uses for them. 

I'd like to see some entrepreneur buy discarded PCs and CRTs, strip them out and turn them into dumb thin-client terminals and web appliances, to be sold at the fraction of the cost of computers. Just like the smart people who thought of recycling inkjet cartridges. 

Rebuilding these units locally/regionally also reduces the enormous amount of greenhouse gas and other emissions incurred in shipping new computers such as from Asia. The hulking diesel-burning container ships are a major pollution source in port cities like Seattle and Vancouver, BC as the prevailing winds spread and dump the gases and particulates on homes and businesses.

The market is there. Most corporate functions such as contact centers do not require their individual users to make sufficient amounts of computations to demand processing capabilities at their desktops. Many residents just use their computers to websurf and send e-mail and SMS. So why buy all this toxin-larded hardware that also consumes a lot of power, thereby releasing more pollutants, when it isn't needed for the tasks at hand?

Applying costs to waste, and rewards for efficiency is the best way to get all of us to go green.

The carbon tax brought in by the Canadian province of British Columbia that came into effect on Canada Day, July 1, and which is being advocated at the federal level by the Liberal Party of Canada led by former environment minister Stephane Dion, recognizes if you want people, and organizations, to curb their pollution then they should pay for polluting. If they, and we, want to pay less then they, and we can pollute less. It's that simple. 

The hard fact is that pollution costs all of us. The environment is not a "free lunch".

For example, a study by the Ontario Medical Association, The Illness Cost of Air Pollution, estimates that in the province of Ontario in 2005 "overall economic losses associated with air pollution exposure are expected to be in the order of $7.8 billion. This total is expected to increase to over $12.9 billion by 2026."

Such losses are borne by all taxpayers. By shifting the cost burdens to those who create them at the sources will reduce taxes, healthcare costs, and increase productivity. 

Carbon taxes help place the burden of responsibility for the environment on where it should lie, on each one of us.  It gives us clear choices: pay more or use and/or encourage employees to use mass transit, initiate a telework program, use conferencing rather than travel to meetings, retrofit a building to curb energy demand. It is up to us to make the right decisions.

Carbon taxes should not be tax grabs. Instead the money should go to strategies to lower emissions, such as investments in mass transit, developing alternative energy sources and promoting conservation, in encouraging and incentivizing telecommuting programs, and to enable residents and organizations to make purchases that will cut pollution. 

Both the British Columbia program and the federal Liberal proposals provide either for tax credits or reductions that give money back to help make the changes. 

The province is also investing heavily in mass transit in the Metro Vancouver area, smaller cities, and in rural areas. While more can be done, and some of its highway expansion plans are a little shaky environment-wise (there are many studies that show that new highway capacity fills up in a few years because it encourages pollution-spawning sprawl), the province's plan is one of the most dynamic and gutsy approaches ever made by any North American government on this issue. It is matched only the no-freeways stance in Portland, Oregon in the 1970s that initiated that city's mass transit and carbon-minimizing smart growth renaissance.

With alternatives to emitting large amounts of carbon in place, there should be no reason to pay large amounts of tax. That's a win-win for all of us.