Chicago at the forefront of environmental design

Really, Mayor Daley does a good job in promoting sustainability and all things environmental for this City. I think it's great. LEED-ND (Neighborhood Design) is still a standard that is under development by the US Green Building Council and I'm delighted that the City is taking its tenants for use in their planning for this south side area, which is pretty blighted. For more info click here (warning it's a 50 MB pdf.)

As part of an effort to stimulate sustainable and equitable economic development in one of the more socioeconomically distressed areas of the region, the City of Chicago is sponsoring one of the largest sustainable neighborhood revitalization developments in the country. Consisting of 1,140 acres in the South Chicago neighborhood, the Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED ND) plan will serve as a guide to the city for sustainable redevelopment on the south side for the next 25 years.

Currently responsible for the redevelopment plan is City Planner Marilyn Engwall, who has been a part of the effort for nearly a decade. Engwell stresses the comprehensive nature of the redevelopment and the necessity to engage in sustainable community building. “This is a plan—a long range plan—and not a project,” she stated, adding, “This is an area that definitely needs development.”

Developed by the U. S. Green Building Council, LEED ND projects take the building standards of LEED and many of the hallmarks of new urbanism, and apply them to an entire area. In addition to requiring new homes in the South Chicago LEED ND to be certified as LEED Silver or better, the initiative incorporates LEED ND standards of easy access to transit, close walking distance to schools and parks, and the remediation of environmentally unsuitable sites. Plans exist for the integration of the three existing Metra stops in the neighborhood with an elaborate transit network reliant on the streetcar—a system that has already gained some traction and financing among local merchants. Whether this part of the plan will happen will take years to determine.

Further thoughts on fuel efficiency

As I was driving yesterday, I was listening to some commentary on NPR about the Obama plan to raise CAFE standards so that cars will have higher fuel efficiency. The argument of the speaker was that higher efficiency means that the cars will be less expensive to operate, thereby encouraging people to drive more, perhaps 10-15% more. In the end, this may not reduce our overall gasoline and oil consumption or our carbon output, but instead will lead to more driving, more congestion etc.

In other words, the only way to decrease driving is to make it more expensive, by putting a higher federal tax on gasoline. That is probably politically impossible, but it makes sense to me.

As an urban dweller who doesn't drive that much, I'm all for a high gasoline tax. Governments put sin taxes on alcohol and cigarettes to discourage their consumption. Why not a sin tax on gasoline? What do the rest of you think?

FT's take on Obama's car efficiency plan

Although a tax of $1 or $2 per gallon of petrol would be more effective in altering consumer behaviour and giving a clear demand signal to manufacturers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, it would not get through Congress.

But it is an inefficient – and probably ineffective – way of meeting the twin aims Mr Obama has set out for the motor industry and the US carmakers: to curb fuel consumption and dependence on foreign oil and to help the Detroit three “once more outcompete the world”.

The corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) rules that Mr Obama wants to tighten have a history of causing unintended consequences. They were passed in 1975, following the oil crisis, to get drivers to buy smaller and more efficient cars, but instead gave Detroit an incentive to make sports utility vehicles.

The basic problem with the CAFE standards is that, rather than altering patterns of demand, they attempt to ration supply. This flaw is exacerbated by the divide in the rules between standards for “cars” and for “light trucks”, which Detroit has ingeniously exploited.

By the 1980s, petrol was cheap again and drivers did not want to buy the lighter, less powerful cars that were fuel-efficient. Instead, they switched en masse to people carriers and SUVs that were classified as light trucks, and so could be thirstier...

A petrol tax is a rare example of a policy that would be simple, let the market operate, and be likely to achieve Mr Obama’s aims. “This is a noble long-term goal, but a gas tax is an immediate incentive to change,” says David Gerard, an economist at Carnegie Mellon university.

Unfortunately, raising the federal petrol tax, which is currently 18 cents per gallon, to levels that would make it bite is not politically achievable in the US. Instead, the president has had to rally everyone around a clunky and leaky regulatory alternative. That really is extraordinary. [FT]

Sec of Energy Chu

Last week, Secretary of Energy Chu gave a lecture titled, "The Energy Problem and the Interplay between Basic and Applied Research." Here's the review of the lecture at Salon.com, where you can also find a video of the entire lecture.

Addressing a roomful of scientists and students at MIT on Tuesday, however, gave Chu a chance to let his geek flag fly. In a packed auditorium, he delivered MIT's Compton Lecture on the topic "The Energy Problem and the Interplay between Basic and Applied Research." It must have been a huge relief not to have to dumb himself down -- this was an audience primed to laugh appreciatively at jokes about microscopy involving the word "angstrom." I just spent a little over an hour watching it, and I had to marvel, once again, at the fact that a real scientist, a fervent believer in the fundamental importance of basic scientific research, is the man in charge at the Department of Energy. (Thanks to Greentech Media for the tip.)

His lecture ranged across a wide variety of topics, from the number of Nobel Prizes that have been granted for advances in fertilizer technology (two and a half) to the energy efficiency improvements in American refrigerators to the history of Bell Labs and how advances in quantum physics paved the path from the vacuum tube to the transistor. Through it all, he expressed confidence and optimism in the premise that technological progress will allow us to confront the challenges of climate change and energy constraints. There's a lot of "exciting" science to be done, he said more than once, and he seemed thrilled at the prospect of spending the government's checkbook funding the "dazzling" work of the future.

Perhaps most important, while he touted likely advances in battery technology and solar power and genetically engineered biofuels, he was very clear on one point: The crucial front to make immediate progress on is energy efficiency and conservation. Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy used in the United States each year: Making them more energy efficient might not win Chu another Nobel Prize, but it could easily save us from having to build a few more power plants that we can't afford.

He finished with a slide of a picture of the Earth rising above the lunar landscape taken by the astronauts on Apollo 8.

"It's our home," said Chu. "Let's take care of it."

It's about time

For years, Detroit has spent more money on lobbyists fighting higher fuel efficiency standards than they have on efficiency R&D. The Bush administration was on their side - hey, fat cars were good for W's oil buddies.

At long last, now that they've got no choice, US car manufacturers are going to have to do what's right. Too bad they couldn't manage to do it of their own volition, but had to be strong-armed.

Why, after decades of battling, complaining and maneuvering over fuel economy standards, did carmakers fall in line behind the tough new nationwide mileage standard President Obama announced Tuesday?

Because they had no choice. The auto industry is flat on its back, with Chrysler in bankruptcy, General Motors close to it, and both companies taking billions of dollars in federal money. Foreign automakers are getting help from their own governments. Climate change legislation is barreling down the track, and Congress showed last fall that it had no appetite to side with Detroit any more.

Simply put, Detroit and the other companies need Washington’s help, and they are powerless to block the rules Washington dictates.

“They can feel the political winds changing,” said David Doniger, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council who has faced the car companies in court many times. “They need government aid to stay in business. When you have your hand out for help, it’s hard to use the same hand to thumb your nose at the federal government.”

In 2005, car companies were able to stop fuel economy legislation. By 2007, with the country awakened to the realization that global warming was a threat, they were forced to go along with higher standards but managed to water them down.

This time, they arrived at the table so debilitated they could extract only the barest of concessions. The primary gift carmakers received from Mr. Obama in Tuesday’s proposal was the certainty of one fuel economy standard from California to Maine, rather than the patchwork that would have resulted from two sets of regulations, one by the 18 states that wanted tighter standards, and another for everywhere else. [NYTimes.com]

Bread as metaphor

Bread is used as much as metaphor as it is food. The most obvious examples that come to mind are from the Bible, in both the Christian and Hebrew texts. A simple search for the word "bread" in an online bible yields hundreds of results, and familiar stories abound. The book of Exodus reminds us that when the Jews were lost and starving in the desert God fed them with manna, or bread from heaven. And sometimes directions are pretty specific. In the book of Ezekiel, for example, the prophet is instructed to take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, and millet and make bread out of them for nourishment while he too was in the desert. In the New Testament Jesus uses bread as the ultimate metaphor when he refers to it as His body: blessed, broken, and shared. After more than two millennia this is still practiced in the form of Holy Communion each Sunday in Christian churches around the globe. And one of the most powerful Biblical metaphors is in the Lord's Prayer, where people pray to God for their life's necessities, while using the words Daily Bread. These, of course, are just a few examples of many.

Bread as religious metaphor is not limited to Judeo-Christian tradition or inspiration. Rumi, the 13th century Islamic mystic and poet, who is an important figure in Sufism and is usually accredited with the Whirling Dervishes, dedicated or inspired an entire series of poems to bread and how it mirrors life. To this day, in fact, bread is such an integral part of many Middle Eastern diets that in some Arabic dialects it is referred to as esh or aysh, meaning life.

The act of sharing bread or an entire meal together is sometimes referred to as "breaking bread." This is also the basis of the modern word companion, which is derived from the Latin phrase com pani, which loosely translates to with one whom bread is shared (com: with or together; pani: bread). Other modern, albeit slightly dated, examples are in the form of slang. Money is sometimes called "bread" or "dough." [cheftalk.com]

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Hat tip: Stelios

Why does Pakistan need more nukes?

Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program....

Inside the Obama administration, some officials say, Pakistan’s drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents....

Bruce Riedel, the Brookings Institution scholar who served as the co-author of Mr. Obama’s review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, reflected the administration’s concern in a recent interview, saying that Pakistan “has more terrorists per square mile than anyplace else on earth, and it has a nuclear weapons program that is growing faster than anyplace else on earth.” [NY Times]

Given that nukes are probably weapons to be used against India, which is really not the imminent threat that the Taliban is, why is Pakistan ramping up their nuclear capabilities? Scary stuff!

Dolphins

I've been thinking about dolphins this morning and why I named my blog Dolphin Log, other than the fact that I've always felt an affinity for them.

Along the way, I found some lovely quotes:

"All animals except man know that the
ultimate of life is to enjoy it."
- Samual Butler; 1912

"There is something about dolphins.
It is difficult to put into words..."
- Mark Carwardine

"Diviner than the dolphin is nothing
yet created..."
- Oppian, Halieutica

"Listen to the voice of a dolphin,
and you shall learn the secret
to mankinds' survival: PEACE!!!"
- Mallory Watson

"Pushing through green waters
Symbol of joy
You leap from the depths
To touch the sky
Scattering spray
Like handfuls of jewels..."
- Horace Dobbs

A while ago I was asking people what kind of animal they would be, and here were some of the answers:

My aunt: a dog
My grandmother no doubt would be a giraffe
My mother: a rhino
George: a virus, so you can get inside and find out how things work
And for me, surprise, a dolphin because I'd like to be that smart and to swim around all day.

What would you be and why?

Car-free suburb in Germany

Residents of this upscale community are suburban pioneers, going where few soccer moms or commuting executives have ever gone before: they have given up their cars.

Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban’s streets are completely “car-free” — except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park — large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home.

As a result, 70 percent of Vauban’s families do not own cars, and 57 percent sold a car to move here. “When I had a car I was always tense. I’m much happier this way,” said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor.

Vauban, completed in 2006, is an example of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called “smart planning.” [NY Times]

So, what do you think? Is it the right thing to do, reducing emissions and oil dependency, while encouraging exersize? Or is it taking this whole green thing too far?

Market forces at work in China... for the environment

The Chinese capital of Beijing will increase water prices this year as it aims to restrict total water consumption to 3.58 billion cubic meters according to China News Service. [Environmental Leader.com]

Communication Revolution

I've heard stories that Indian village farmers can now make more money because, via cellphone, they have better market information. I also remember my friend using his cellphone screen as a flashlight to help us all go down the dark stairs in his apartment building.

Sometimes a technology comes along and crystallizes a cultural moment. Not since Americans and their automobiles in the 1950s, perhaps, have a people and a technology wedded as happily as Indians and their cellphones — small and big, vibrating and tringing, BlackBerry and plain vanilla.

What makes the cellphone special in India? It is partly that India skipped the land-line revolution, making cellphones the first real contact with the outside world for hundreds of millions of people. It is partly that, with few other machines selling so briskly, the cellphone in India is forced variously to be a personal computer, flashlight, camera, stereo, video-game console and day organizer as well. It is partly that India’s relative poverty compels providers to be more creative to survive.

But it is also that the cellphone appeals deeply to the Indian psychology, to the spreading desire for personal space and voice, not in defiance of the family and tribe, but in the chaotic midst of it. [NY Times]

Star Trek - too good?

Has anyone seen the new Star Trek movie? I'm planning to see it at some point.

Here is the Onion's take.



Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Real life Escher

A cool photograph. Hat tip: Stelios

Piracy, continued

Thank you so much to Ron and Satish to weighing in on my piracy questions. Check here for their insights.

For further reading on piracy, I came across a nice list on Foreign Affairs.com.

Buddha's Birthday

This week Buddhist's are celebrating Buddha's birthday. Here are some great pictures. [foreignpolicy.com] In Korea and other places, lanterns play a large role in the festivities, representing illumination both internal and external. I love these fish.

Ideology gone wild

I came back from two weeks of vacation, away from news, away from politics, away from TV to find Bristol Palin advocating abstinence-only. What!?

Why does ideology have to trump common sense? She, of all people, should know that what she's talking about is rubbish. While he's not terribly articulate, I'm glad her baby-daddy is out there countering the nonsense.