Environmentally friendly, green ways of living
There are 363 posts filed in Green (this is page 16 of 37).
How long do you think it will be before someone invents a way to easily coat roads with photovoltaic cells so that they generate electricity? Think of how much power that would generate!
Roads and silicon cells are both made of sand, so why not combine them?
I was drawn to the memo from the NC-20 group pushing the state to ignore climate change research and, quite frankly, I’m stupefied that otherwise-rational people would take this stance. The memo was helpfully provided by Laura Leslie at WRAL [PDF] as part of her story on the group’s science advisor, Mr. John Droz, who apparently knows as much about climatology as I do.
The whole thing reminds me of the mayor in the movie Jaws, who knows the killer shark is out there but refuses to tell the tourists because it would scare them away. I’ve highlighted some of the more outrageous statements in it below.
I swear it seems like North Carolina Republicans have declared a war on science itself.
MEMO: NC 20 Members
FROM: Tom Thompson, Chairman
DATE: December 2, 2011
SUBJ: Sea level Rise NegotiationsAs all of you know, the State has been pushing hard to declare a 39” (1 meter) Sea Level Rise (SLR) by 2100 a fact. The CRC came within 24 hours of mandating it for NC 20 counties Land Use Plans. Larry Baldwin and I met with Bob Emory, CRC Chair, the night before the key meeting and persuaded him to retract the mandate. To his credit and our relief, he did.
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My friend Scott Huler takes down the attempt by coastal developers and the Republican leadership in North Carolina General Assembly to pretend climate change doesn’t exist.
According to North Carolina law, I am a billionaire. I have a full-time nanny for my children, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and I get to spend the entire year taking guitar lessons from Mark Knopfler. Oh, my avatar? I haven’t got around to changing it, but by law, I now look like George Clooney. There’s also a supermodel clause, but discussing the details would be boasting.
You think I’m kidding, but listen to me: I’m from North Carolina, and that’s how we roll. We take what we want to be reality, and we just make it law. So I’m having my state senator introduce legislation writing into law all the stuff I mentioned above. This is North Carolina, state motto: “Because that’s how I WANT it to be.”
via NC Considers Making Sea Level Rise Illegal | Plugged In, Scientific American Blog Network.
While there’s still enough sand left on our coast to do so, state lawmakers and coastal county officials intend to bury their heads in it.
State lawmakers are considering a measure that would limit how North Carolina prepares for sea-level rise, which many scientists consider one of the surest results of climate change.
Federal authorities say the North Carolina coast is vulnerable because of its low, flat land and thin fringe of barrier islands. A state-appointed science panel has reported that a 1-meter rise in sea level is likely by 2100.
The calculation, prepared for the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission, was intended to help the state plan for rising water that could threaten 2,000 square miles. Critics say it could thwart economic development on just as large a scale.
A coastal economic development group called NC-20 attacked the report, insisting the scientific research it cited is flawed. The science panel last month confirmed its findings, recommending that they be reassessed every five years.
via Coastal N.C. counties fighting sea-level rise prediction – Local/State – NewsObserver.com.
Astute MT.Net readers might have noticed that I referred to the now-defunct bike charity 1304 Bikes in the present tense as one of the great things about Raleigh. That’s because I have been in contact with the co-founder in the hopes of reviving this important charity.
For years I wondered why my kids were the only students at their school to ride their bikes there. This year their bikes were joined in the school bike rack by a brother’s and sister’s in the neighborhood. After a a few trips riding from school with these kids, I took a look at their bikes and felt sorry for them. One had a wheel with a broken axle and the other has no brakes. They’re absolutely fantastic kids, they’re in a loving family, but for one reason or another this is what they have to ride.
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Over at her Multi-Modal in Raleigh blog, Kristy blogged about Friday’s Bike To Work Leadership Ride around downtown Raleigh. Kristy even got a pic of me at the bottom of her post, too.
Thanks, Kristy!
A perfect Bike to Work Day in Raleigh, NC. We rode a loop from Centennial Mall around downtown Raleigh to raise awareness for cyclists and promote bicycling as a valid form of transportation. It felt really good to be among such great leaders in Raleigh and to show support for this nationwide movement to promote bicycling as safe, sustainable, healthy, and well – easy.
via Multi-Modal in Raleigh: Leading by Example #BikeRaleigh.
Yesterday there was yet another massive traffic jam on I-40 in RTP. Commutes that usually take 30 minutes took three times as long. I was fortunate that it was a day that I work from home, but thousands of others weren’t so lucky. I don’t know anything that could have better validated my earlier thoughts on RTP being doomed.
Today’s N&O editorial echoed my earlier thoughts, though I found a contradiction. The N&O says RTP seeks to urbanize, yet it’s still touting its “large amounts of green space.” You can’t have it both ways! You can’t have density and not have density. Right now RTP has little to no density and the odds of it achieving any are slim to none.
In short, RTP is a losing model. RTP may die a slow death, but it will die. After sixty years of service, it’s time for RTP to retire.
The park’s model has become an American classic – large, woodsy, campus-like settings where companies and agencies have plenty of elbow room. Its founders took advantage of the synergy derived from the surrounding constellation of major universities.
Chemicals, computers, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, environmental sciences – these have been the park’s backbone, and its prosperity has driven growth throughout the Triangle, especially in North Raleigh, Cary and southern Durham.
But if companies like IBM, Nortel and Glaxo were the anchors, the park has had to adjust as those companies have evolved or (as in Nortel’s case) faded from the scene in the face of new technologies. And what used to be an attractive sense of isolation from hectic commercial corridors has become, in some people’s minds, more detriment than advantage.
Benelux Cafe Cycling Club (By Sam Bennett)
Here’s a great pic by Sam Bennett of the Benelux Cafe Cycling Club shortly after they rode through my neighborhood Tuesday evening. Bike clubs like this are just one of the many, many reasons I love Raleigh!
I’ve been looking for a way to take the bus to work and think I’ve found it! There’s a Park and Ride lot just off Blue Ridge Road where a Triangle Transit bus departs at 9:07 AM. It stops at the Factory Outlet Mall at 9:22, from where I can ride my bike over to the office and be there by 9:30. I still have to drive to Blue Ridge Road but it beats driving all the way out to RTP.
I drove over to check out the P&R lot this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see it was almost entirely full! No bike racks, though, which was a disappointment. I would love to have a place to put my bike in the event that the bus bike racks are full and I have to leave it.
I might also consider buying a used bike to leave at the outlet mall so that I don’t have to haul it on the bus every day. As with the Park and Ride lot, there are no bike racks at the outlet mall. I’m not sure why major transit stops don’t have bike racks but I’ll see if I can get an answer.
Oh, and I tweeted yesterday that I could never commute by bus until there’s a bus dedicated to singing. I guess I’ll have to keep quiet or make quick friends with my fellow commuters!
More about the shift away from driving.
“Unfortunately for car companies,” Jordan Weissmann noted at TheAtlantic.com a couple weeks back, “today’s teens and twenty-somethings don’t seem all that interested in buying a set of wheels. They’re not even particularly keen on driving.”
Now a major new report from Benjamin Davis and Tony Dutzik at the Frontier Group and Phineas Baxandall, at the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, documents this unprecedented trend across a wide variety of indicators.
Their two big findings about young people and driving:
The average annual number of vehicle miles traveled by young people (16 to 34-year-olds) in the U.S. decreased by 23 percent between 2001 and 2009, falling from 10,300 miles per capita to just 7,900 miles per capita in 2009.
The share of 14 to 34-year-olds without a driver’s license increased by 5 percentage points, rising from 21 percent in 2000 to 26 percent in 2010, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
via Why Young Americans Are Driving So Much Less Than Their Parents – Commute – The Atlantic Cities.
