livagreen » sustainability

Environmental Roulette

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:10:15 +0000

Meetings. Goals. Meetings. Many recent meetings and their subsequent goals and action items are telling us that the promises we made to ourselves over the past years are not being kept. It turns out with green building initiatives, effiecieny improvements, etc. many agencies are now backing down from initial claims that locations in the US could reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, 2014 or sooner.

The truth is that it’s too painful right now. The idea that Americans somehow changed their behavior after the release of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth was exaggerated. What is did create was more beairacracy, more urban planning acronyms, jargon and level of government to achieve climate goals – not to mention spawning a new era in the machine of the environmental consulting industry and the production of environmental reports to ‘cover’ development.

The graphs and charts we see now show that maybe this is not working – that democratizing a common good leads to profiteering and divisiveness in how to address the problem. Driving behavior has not changed and significant transport infrastructure projects see environmentalists as adversaries; residential populations continue to resist density in favor of the status quo and on claims of environmentalism; energy efficiecy programs are abundant but power loads are increasing.

People worry about federal dollars and stimulus, like trasit and renewable energy money that was promised in Obama’s first State of the Union address – however to be frank that money will be too much too late and it’s scale of impact to global. We need local leadership; we need people to stand up for more, affordable and environmentally friendly housing and jobs in the regional code.

Clearly to make the kinds of changes we need strong local and regional governmental leadership. Recent estimates from the San Francisco Bay Area indicate that even to achieve modest GHG emission reductions the price driving must rise (to close to $5/gallon); more housing must be produced (more than 200,000 housing units are projected to be needed in downtown San Francisco); more renewable infrastructure projects must be pursued.

If this can’t happen maybe we’re just screwed and we should give up on our both our meetings and our goals. We should all just live gluttonously and wait for the end in our V8 gas guzzlers while eating blue-fin tuna sushi.

Jason Corburn's New Blog: Healthy Cities

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:49:05 +0000

Check out Kason Corburn’s new Healthy Cities blog. Livagreen.com will be subscribing to his RSS feed under the sustainable communities tab. Jason is an Associate Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He also teaches in the School of Public Health, is a member of the Global Metropolitan Studies initiative and Chair of the Executive Committee of the College of Environmental Design. His most recent posts cites a Contra Costa Times article on how “Residents of poor East Oakland die, on average, 16 years before residents of wealthier neighborhoods in the Oakland Hills.” indicating that to a large degree where you live and the quality of the environment “your degree of suffering and length of life.” You can also check out his two excellent books: Towards a Healthier City and Street Science published by MIT press.

Two Articles on Green Campus: Transportation and Energy

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:39:21 +0000

Two of the main culprits of emissions / pollution on corportate and educational campus in the US are 1) energy use (power, heating and cooling) and 2) transportation. Here are two discourses on this topic. First a discussion of coal for heat at universities in the eastern US and then a discussion about where we are with non-motorized transit and how campuses might provided catalyst environments for changing transportation behavior.

In terms of energy use on campuses, a 10 Janurary article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed., discusses the difficulties for campus trying to go off non-renewables. It cites Penn State which will in 2010 begin to upgrade it’s coal-power steam plants but is now under pressure to pursue more rigorous environmentalism. The articles notes Ball State University (geo-thermal) and UW-Madison (bio-mass) as examples of colleges pursuing adventurous solutions, but indicates there are costs (many requiring state and federal subsidies) and may lack relability.

Most renewable energy sources are not as reliable, potent, or accessible, and many experts predict that coal will continue providing a significant portion of the nation’s energy. To complicate matters, energy use on growing campuses is more intense than ever—in part because of the living arrangements of students, who occupy bigger spaces and have devices plugged into every wall. Coal is certainly dirty, but colleges that want to stop burning it might have to make significant investments and take some risks to find alternatives.

Likewise the transportation segment is a large portion of institutional GHG emission. It also is low-hanging fruit for campus wanting to reduce emission — simply shifting travel behavior. However A separate article from 22 Dec 2009 from ClimateEdu discusses how US cycling and pedestrian infrastructure lags that of European.

American urban planners and road engineers still have a knowledge gap when it comes to building infrastructure for bikes. In Europe, bicyclists enjoy cycling lanes separated from traffic by boundaries. Traffic calming devices and bicycle-specific traffic lights also add to the perception of safety, and European bicyclists can travel long distances without ever coming into close contact with a car.

Similarly to the discussion on coal, many times state and federal subsidies / funding is needed to implement large-scale projects, but that does not preclude incremental steps. Efficiency and behavioral program, as well as good day-to-day, contextual urban design can help address these step-by-step; with the hope of a large big-hit in the future.

Teaching Green: Curriculum Resources

Billy — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 06:03:37 +0000

A lot of recent planning research is debunking assumptions of environmental determinism and the idea that the built environment controls behavior. As such educational programs are important factors in encouraging healthy and green practices. So what kind of programs are out there? Well, there aren’t many but here are few that I could find on short notice; definitely room for improvement in both quality and quantity.

NESEA (Northeast Sustainable Energy Association) > Curriculum: http://www.nesea.org/k-12/curricularunits/
GreenNexxus.com > One Million Acts of Green > Climate Classroom: http://www.greennexxus.com/omaog/us/education
Smart Communities Network > Curriculum: http://www.smartcommunities.ncat.org/buildings/gbedtoc.shtml
Climate Classroom: http://online.nwf.org/site/PageNavigator/ClimateClassroom/cc_teachers_slideshow
Green Education Foundation: http://www.greeneducationfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_fjrelated&view=fjrelated&id=234&Itemid=111

Employment a Missing Variable in Richard Florida Economic Development?

Billy — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:22:31 +0000

With all the talk of generating vibrant communities with places to play and interact I’ve often wondered if there is too much emphasis on people being able to live and play in a community vs. being able to work there. Many communities around the US have committed to entertainment and shopping venues in their downtown areas. They have made PLAY a central feature of their economic development initiatives with not as much focus on WORK. I think that the assumption is that by having a quirky, creative, lively and attractive urban area talent and Mr. Florida’s creative class will be enticed to LIVE and WORK in such an area.

One case study in this, is my hometown Louisville, KY. During my graduate education in Urban Planning there I had the opportunity to observe and learn from a Mayor who wanted revitalize downtown areas with vibrant entertainment facilities, options for downtown living and increased business growth. Policy was highly focused on job creation and business incubation in downtown Louisville. It drew from example locations that fostered innovation and creative economies such as Portland, Raleigh-Durham, and the Silicon Valley. Much of it was based on recommendations from Harvard economist Michael Porter and his report for Louisville in 2002. Porter believed in business clusters; that the synergies between different job sectors could be in Metro-Louisville’s strengths – technology providing the infrastructure for manufacturing and distribution sectors. Porter noted strength in companies like Humana (health care sector) and UPS (warehousing and distribution sector). It’s a bit more technical than Florida’s writing and provides a solid economic base for creative endeavors.

That said, in recent years I’ve watched central focus of economic development become the creation of entertainment / retail districts and a downtown arenas. I’ve talked to many locals who believe that the arena (pictured below) will bring money into the community, encourage innovation, community investment and talent retention.

Louisville Downtown Area, Courtesy Louisville Courier Journal

Knowing that something about that strikes me as a bit fishy Retaining talent is a critical part of job growth, but does a arena or entertainment district really change talent retention. Could people really afford to live and play where they can’t work; where there may not be adequate professional opportunities? I would argue that when adequately salaried jobs opportunities are not present there is simply no foundation for people to sustainably support an entertainment economy.

And the fact remains that, like many smaller cities around the world, Louisville remains talent deficient. As a Brookings Institute report Beyond Merger indicated, while there may be clear past economic policy there is,

“… a talent shortfall… Talent powers growth; talent brings homegrown jobs, new companies, and higher wages… (highly skilled minds are needed) to move beyond its current status and go to the next level of competitiveness in the emerging economy.”

A lesson to be learned by all urban designers and community planning aficionados…