

Why yes, I DO have an extra pair of tickets to Walking with Dinosaurs, the ARENA SPECTACULAR opening later this month at the Rose Garden. (The show features life sized dinosaurs and is, to quote the press release, "everything a dino-phile could want.") Would you like to win them? Okay! Given the hipster-appropriated cutesiness of dinosaur representations in pop culture, a haiku contest seems appropriate, so: Best haiku in the comments by noon on Wednesday, Feb 10, wins the tickets. (The tickets are for Wednesday, February 24.)
(On a dino-related note, I'm not the biggest fan of Dinosaur Comics [I KNOW, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME], but if you haven't seen the "Japanese/English student version," where Japanese kids filled out a blank dino comic, check it out. It is great.)

The Oregon House just approved a bill this afternoon that will permanently ban drilling for oil and natural gas off Oregon's coast update, 1:49 for ten years. Original post: The state passed a three-year drilling ban back in 2007, but it expired on January 2nd of this year. The just-approved bill, House Bill 3613 sponsored by Portland rep Ben Cannon, was originally going to sunset the ban in 2020, but late-game revisions will make the ban permanent if the Senate approves, Update, 1:49 was originally going to be permanent, but late-game revisions will give it a ten-year sunset.
"The revisions happened because we could get a unanimous vote out of our committee," says Christy Splitt, aide to Cannon. "And in a short February session, consensus is a top priority. We could have probably gotten this out of committee without the sunset, but we wanted to show a willingness to compromise."
The bill will now to go the senate, and is expected to be debated in committee early next week. Chances of this bill actually becoming a reality after a successful senate vote and the Governor's signature are "excellent," says Splitt.
The offshore drilling ban was one of the top three special legislative session priorities of environmental coalition the Oregon Conservation Network, who say the ban will protect Oregon's fishing industry and coastal tourist economy.
Adams' office announced late yesterday afternoon that PGE will make Oregon's only coal plant coal-free by 2020, but the details about what this means for Portland's immediate energy future are unclear.
About 40 percent of Portland's energy comes from coal, a significant portion of that from Boardman. So if Oregon goes coal free, does that mean our energy rates will skyrocket as we fill the gap with newer, more expensive fuels?
Adams responds that Oregon's energy rates will go up in the future whether or not the state sticks with coal. To meet state and federal environmental regulations, coal plants will need to install expensive filtering equipment, says Adams. State regulators were pushing Boardman, for example, to install $400-700 million in environmental upgrades to cut back on emissions of chemicals that cause cancer and lung problems.
"The days of reliance on cheap coal are over," says Adams. Though PGE has not yet released the details of how it will phase out coal, Adams says the company has been working with his office and the Sierra Club to partner on Portland's energy efficiency program Portland Clean Works, which would cut some of the need for power by cutting local energy use.
Adams' office posted a short video today of the fleece-clad mayor stopping by Boardman on his summer vacation.

"I am pleased and encouraged by PGE’s announcement today that it is seeking to submit an alternative operating plan for the Boardman Plant and phase out Boardman, or switch to non-coal fuel, by 2020."
Adams pushed PGE to shut down Eastern Oregon's Boardman coal plant back in October, writing a strongly-worded letter to the Oregon Public Utilities Commission saying Oregon needed to ditch coal power to meet Portland's coal of cutting greenhouse gas reductions by 80 percent over the next 40 years.
Numerous green groups, including the Sierra Club, have campaigned hard over the past year for PGE or the state to shut down Boardman.
Until now, coal power has been green Portland's dirty secret. Forty percent of Portland's energy comes from coal and Boardman, which burns 300 pounds tons of coal an hour, is responsible for 65 percent of the sulfur dioxide emissions in the state according to the Oregon Dept of Energy.
Both leading Democratic gubernatorial candidates went on the record with the Mercury in favor of Oregon ditching coal and phasing out Boardman, though Bill Bradbury was willing to set a 2060 2014 deadline for coal-free Oregon while John Kizhaber did not want to set a specific deadline.
Contacted for comment minutes ago, PGE's media relations worker responded, "I'm not sure if we're issuing a news release."
Um, too late.
Update 5:17 pm: Lead coal fighter at the Oregon Sierra Club Cesia Kerns is conflicted about the announcement. "It shows that PGE is taking a step in the right direction, but shutting it down in 2014 would be even better for Oregon's health," says Kerns. Thanks to a rule handed down by the Department of Environmental Quality, says Kerns, the Boardman plant will have to install expensive pollution controls in 2014. The Sierra Club says they should seize the 2014 date to shut down altogether. "They have been polluting unchecked for the past three decades, they should not keep polluting for another decade," says Kerns.
PGE returned my request for comment just a minute ago, confirming that they will be shutting down Boardman or phasing out coal by 2020 and that they will, at some point, send out a press release.
So says Northwest environmental watchdog group Sightline in a analysis posted on a Vancouver, B.C. website.
Sightline set out to evaluate whether Portland or Seattle is more environmentally-friendly based on stats about a number of criteria. The results are surprising, I think. Not only will a baby born in Seattle live three years longer on average than one born in Portland, but their average greenhouse gas emissions will be lower. AND, most galling, though Portland is more compact than the greater Seattle area thanks in part to the Urban Growth Boundary, within the city limits, Sightline says Seattle is actually denser than Portland:
In Portland, somewhere around 45 per cent of residents live in transit neighborhoods. In Seattle, the comparable figure is 57 per cent... Even more impressive, at the time of the last census, before the surge of residential development in Portland's Pearl District and around downtown Seattle, some 11 per cent of Seattleites lived in urban neighborhoods with density in the "walking zone" sweet spot above 40 people per acre. Just four per cent of Portlanders lived in such walking neighbourhoods.
Full report here.
Metro's Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) is a bit embarrassing for the city that's supposed to be the capital of sustainability. The plan lays out all the transportation projects the region will build over the next 25 years—$20 billion worth of roads, bridges and transit—if it's not in the RTP, it's not getting built here in the next two decades.
But despite the $1.3 billion in bike and pedestrian project the plan lays out, plus ideas for light rail and mass transit, if the region builds all the projects in the plan, we'll increase greenhouse gas emissions in the region by 50 percent over the next 25 years. Mayor Sam Adams is not pleased. To meet the city's much-lauded Climate Action Plan, he needs an 80 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050, not an increase.
Adams' team wrote up an amendment to the $20 billion plan that would require Metro to grade proposed transportation projects based on their expected greenhouse gas emissions. Projects found to be "high risk" would get tougher scrutiny and local jurisdictions concerned about climate change could pick out the "low risk" projects to build first.
But in a packed Metro meeting this morning, Adams' idea failed by a 5-11 vote. Metro's Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation approved the regional transportation plan despite Adams' and two other members "no" votes against it.
"We have a new RTP! Thank you all," said Chair Carlotta Collette, to small smattering of applause. Adams did not clap. Instead, he says, approving the RTP without greenhouse-gas ranking amendment means "more projects that are big greenhouse gas emitters will go forward without remediation and scrutiny that could have made them more sustainable."
"We've missed a significant opportunity to walk our talk when it comes to sustainability," says Adams.

Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder disagrees. He says the idea of ranking projects by carbon emissions is flawed if the rankings don't take into account the transportation projects' impact on land use and development. For example, he said, building a road might be "high risk" but if that road leads to a light rail station and is lined with high-density development, it could be an overall plus for the environment. "If we say every road and every highway expansion is a bad project, you think we'll be able to move forward on that?" asks Burkholder.
More on this debate below the cut PLUS a bizarre stand-off in which Metro sort of dissolves into high school debate club, complete with Council President David Bragdon whipping out a dog-eared copy of the Robert's Rules of Order and reading a passage aloud.
Seriously. That’s what the Americans For Prosperity tea-baggers were shouting at the passing traffic outside the Keller Auditorium this evening:



Did I mention you should buy the book?
“If we were to decide in this generation to take for granted all the hard work of previous generations, and then give the back of our hand to all generations following us,” he said, “that would be the most immoral choice that any generation on the planet has ever made.”
All the press were in the nosebleed seats. There was no wi-fi, of course. “Did you see that naked PETA chick?” asked one of the news anchors, about another protester outside—she wants Gore to become a vegetarian and was handing out fliers quoting Paul McCartney. “I just talked to her for a while so I could stare at her tits.”
Meanwhile, I wished I had one of these, like the dude from the O:


We’ve had more forest fires and more lightning strikes, said Gore. People are dying. Global warming is terrifying. It’s all driven by greed. We’ve got to stop it!
And then this: “For every one of us 6.8 billion people on the planet, there will soon be one billion transistors per person,” said Gore.
That's a lot of transistors!
There were no other surprises.
Via tipster Joel comes a link to Reed students effectively hijacking a parents' weekend Q&A session with Reed President Colin Diver and singing a little song about how the school is failing to do enough about global warming.
So the song goes on for about four minutes too long, but aspiring protesters should take note that the students' monk-like chanting actually turns out to be a pretty good tactic for breaking up Diver's mild-mannered speech-making. Apparently the student senate wants the college to draw up a carbon reduction plan and hire a sustainability coordinator.
I know, I know, Reedies love protests even more than Kindles, but it seems to me that the students have a good point here. The Association of the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education lists Sustainability Coordinators at Oregon State University and Portland State, along with a number of little liberal arts colleges like Middlebury and Bowdoin so, uh, WTF is up, Reed?
This morning CA Senator Barbara Boxer headed up a "Boxer Rebellion" (ha) on global warming issues, voting to move a landmark climate change bill to the Senate floor despite a complete Republican boycott.
Why is it so hard to get Republicans to even discuss climate change legislation? Maybe we need to work on our sales pitch. One idea environmentalists are tossing around right now is that instead of fighting global warming with the rhetoric of science, fear or appeals to human decency, politicians should start selling climate change legislation with patriotism.
Robert Dujarric pitches the idea in the Christian Science Monitor.
So far, only a global recession has been shown to work when it comes to cutting emissions...The way to get Americans to take action? Appeal to their patriotism. Historically in times of war, the US government has successfully gotten citizens to join the armed forces, to buy war bonds, and to accept rationing by appealing to their patriotism...
Even if the oil sold in the US comes from Alaska, Texas, or allies like Norway, American demand drives up the price of the commodity, thereby pumping huge flows of dollars into the treasuries of its enemies.
On the other hand, when the US invests in alternative energy sources and energy conservation, it helps spur technological innovation in America and other advanced liberal democracies.
I long for the day when local tea baggers proudly roll up to Michael's Italian Beef on anti-Obama bicycles.
h/t to Sightline. Check out Portland artist Joe Wirtheim's site for more progressive propaganda posters like the one above.
Portlanders can get a rebate on their utility bills to plant a tree, as of this morning. And a gentleman named Bryan showed up with to council what looked like a violin case to testify about it. "You showed up in Chicago with one of those, and we'd be nervous," said City Commissioner Randy Leonard. But it turned out, Bryan just wanted to sing a song about the trees:

Wild.
"A single mature tree with a 30 foot crown can intercept up to 700 gallons of water annually," said City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, introducing the resolution. "The program will provide a small incentive for Portlanders to plant trees in their yards," he continued. "This is an emergency ordinance because the best time to plant trees is in the fall, winter, and early spring."
Here's how it works:
1.Buy a tree
2.Plant it
3.Submit a treebate application form with a proof of purchase to the city.
4.Receive up to $50, as a utility bill credit.
The city is hoping to manage 10-15 million gallons of stormwater a year, with the program, to prevent sewer backups. And there's a limit of ten trees per residence, before you get carried away.
"Our tag line is plant a tree, increase livability," said Jennifer Karps, who'll be running the program at the city.
"When I bought my house I saw it had a big leaf maple, and shortly after we closed, it collapsed on my house," said City Commissioner Nick Fish. "Shortly afterward I got an $800 bill from the city to chop it up into firewood. I'd been thinking about replacing that tree, and now I have a financial incentive."
"This is a win win win for everyone," said Saltzman.
There was a lot of love for Portland's green goals this afternoon at city council. Portland is aiming to be the most sustainable city in America, a verdant town littered with eco-districts. And crucial to that goal is the Climate Action Plan city council unanimously approved today. The plan pushes Portland to cut its total greenhouse gas emissions a whopping 80 percent between 1990 and 2050.
Mayor Adams, sporting a chic green-striped tie, lauded the Climate Action Plan (pdf) to standing-room only council chambers. "Portland is recognized as one of the most sustainable cities in America," said Adams. "That is very high praise on an incredibly low standard… I'm afraid, as one of your leaders, that we will sit on our laurels.” Adams' Bureau of Planning and Sustainability drafted the plan in conjunction with Multnomah County. Portland's carbon emissions have decreased 19 since 1990 percent while the rest of the country has increased emissions 20 percent (though since Portland's population has jumped in the past 20 years, our overall carbon emissions have only dropped one percent).
Some small criticisms of the plan emerged during the mostly congratulatory testimony. “Only a federal carbon cap will leverage the kinds of technologies that will enable the city and county to meet its goals,” noted Angus Duncan, chair of the Oregon Global Warming Commission. To get on track to end global warming, says Duncan, the country needs to not just decrease its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent, but by an order of magnitude (about 1000 percent). On a less dire note, Portlander Randy White also harshly criticized the high local price of worms for compost.Transportation activist and Planning Commissioner Chris Smith drew a contrast between the $4.2 billion Columbia River Crossing freeway and the Bicycle Master Plan unveiled last night. "We have projects with dollar signs attached but no funding. Let's move the funding from projects that don't help us meet our goals to projects that do," said Smith.
"The Gordian knot has been how are we going to pay for this," acknowledged Adams at the beginning of the meeting. "Right now, Americans can go out and get a loan for a motorcycle or a power boat but you'll find very little opportunity to get the financing for a green energy retrofit for your home." Adams pointed to the development of Portland Clean Energy Works, a pilot program that will allow homeowners to pay for energy-saving remodeling on an installment plan rather than up front.
One speaker mentioned the need to watchdog the process, noting that although the council is supposed to check in on the plan in 2012, it's likely that no one who wrote the plan will be around in 2050 to make sure the city follows through. Commissioner Randy Leonard took offense. "I will be 98 and I will be sitting right here," he joked.
While most of the discussion over Oregon's energy is about dam removal controversies or our much-lauded new wind turbines, the shocking truth is that 41 percent of the state's energy still comes from coal. Even here in the city aiming to be the sustainability capital of America, for four out of every ten minutes a Portlander plugs in their electric car, the electricity is coming from coal.

Locally, the Sierra Club has launched a campaign to get Oregon off coal. Two weeks ago, the group packed a meeting of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a governor-appointed group that writes up recommendations for the region's future energy use. There was not a seat left in the Power Council's Ecotrust meeting room, as dozens of people waved red "No Coal" signs on popsicle sticks during a public hearing on the most recent power plan. This afternoon, the Sierra Club marched a human "Coal Train" around an inflatable replica of Boardman in Pioneer Square.
For all the hokey stunts, the anti-coal environmentalists have some solid support in the political ranks. Portland General Electric (PGE) owns Boardman and the Department of Environmental Quality gave the company two options: either shut the plant down by 2014 or install serious environmental upgrades ASAP. Mayor Adams wrote a letter earlier this month, urging the company to shut down Boardman by 2020.

But it's not clear whether the political and grassroots pressure will actually have any impact on the power companies' policies. As Adams pointed out in his letter, PGE's most recent energy plan actually increases the state's reliance on coal. And while the Power Council's current plan does aim to reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions, chairman of the Oregon Global Warming Commission Angus Duncan says they significantly underestimate the problem. "Our goals in Oregon and Washington are probably more conservative than they will need to be," Duncan told the council. Steve Corson said in response to Adam's letter that closing Boardman would raise prices for energy customers as PGE would rely more on natural gas if it closed the controversial plant.
PGE's plan will have to be approved by the Public Utilities Commission later this year or in early 2010, while the Power Council will finalize their report in the next couple months. On top of the handful of recent protests against coal, this Saturday 10/24 is the "International Day of Climate Action" and Portland environmentalists are planning a big protest in Pioneer Square 1-3PM. There's also plans to possibly spell out something in the river with kayaks? See, teabag folks, this is why you don't get media attention. You need more kayaks. And inflatable things.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has released Youtube footage of Oregon Congressman David Wu driving a huge GMC Yukon truck, despite promising to be a champion for the environment:
From Politico:
WTOP reports Wu's camp defended their boss: "Wu, who is married and has two children, bought the black GMC Yukon eight years ago so that it could carry his dog, a couple of strollers and his family, spokeswoman Julia Louise Krahe said. The congressman and his family regularly practice recycling in their household," she added. "He demonstrates his commitment to the environment in a number of ways, both personal and professional," Krahe said.
Eager to find out the transformative impact this footage may have on Oregon's political climate, the Mercury called Wu's opponent in the 2010 primary, David Robinson.
Robinson drives a BMW that gets 22 miles per gallon in the city and 30 miles per gallon on the highway, but "would prefer the story not be about the vehicle choice I have made." "Obviously when I get the financial opportunity to purchase a more environmentally friendly vehicle I would do so," he told the Mercury, adding, "it's better than driving a GMC Yukon."
Robinson says "Cash for Clunkers was Obama's great program to get environmentally unfriendly vehicless off the road." He thinks vehicle purchasing decisions are a matter of personal choice, and while some people need vehicles like a GMC Yukon "for the haulage capacity," "the congressman made a choice not to take advantage of the financial incentives to purchase a more environmentally friendly vehicle."
Robinson chose not to trade in his BMW, either, of course. But that's a debate for the 2010 primary, I suppose. And to think, some say Oregon has grown complacent about its environmental protection reputation. "The congressman and his family regularly practice recycling in their household." Nice.
Wu's office and the NRCC are yet to return calls for comment.
In a letter released today, Mayor Sam Adams criticizes power giant Portland General Electric for keeping coal as a major part of its newly-crafted business plan. The company's Integrated Resource Plan (downloadable here) sets PGE's goals for the next two years and makes some movement toward increasing renewable energy options. But the plan also increases the share of PGE's electricity generated from coal. "I strongly urge you to evaluate phasing out Boardman [coal power plant] and the procurement of coal-produced electricity by 2020 at the latest," writes Adams in his letter (pdf).

In a Portland Tribune editorial accompanying the release of the plan, PGE CEO Jim Piro argued that the plant must be kept open, but could be cleaner. "At PGE, we are committed to reducing the environmental impact of generating electricity by capturing more energy efficiency and adding more renewable power sources to our energy mix. We also understand that the system can’t power up and down with the wind or sunshine — it has to be there when the electricity is needed," wrote Piro.
Adams does not have any legal say over PGE's future plans, but he hopes to utilize his "bully pulpit" to get the company to commit to closing Boardman and investing in greater energy efficiency, in collaboration with Portland Clean Energy Works.
The Oregon Public Utilities Commission has to approve PGE's plan early next year and Adams' criticism could possibly push the company to revamp its business model. "I want to engage with them and come up with a business model for investing more in energy efficiency, clean energy and eco-districts." Adams says expanding clean energy will be better for PGE's business than sticking with its current coal and natural gas mix, though he admits he has not seen that type of business model work on the scale of a city (except with nuclear power, which Adams isn't interested in). "But this is Portland," says Adams, noting that 25 years ago people said Portland's recently-achieved car travel reduction goals were impossible.
I've been complaining about the wastefulness of phone books for a few months now, but this weekend's arrival of the Yellowbook was a slap in the face:

Neighbors in the Creston-Kenilworth Yahoo group echoed my irate opinions about the greenwashed Yellowbook. But miracle of miracles, one of them managed to track down the phone number of someone who will actually come to your house, pick up your unwanted phone book and offer to take you off their delivery list altogether. Hallelujah!1
Dialing 1-800-373-3280 will get you to the national Yellowbook distribution HQ. The line seems to be primarily used for people applying for a job dropping off phone books, but after a robot informs you that job information will be available at "a meeting with casual dress code," you're connected to a person who will arrange to have the Yellowbook delivery drivers come by and un-deliver your phone book. This exclusive limited time offer only lasts while they're still distributing phone books in Portland, so act now!
1. I just realized that maybe having someone drive a van back to my house to pick up and reuse one phone book is worse for the environment than if I just recycled it on my own. Uh... so maybe you should band together as neighbors if you're going have your phone books undelivered.
This morning a dozen students in classy uniforms and just as many parents gathered around a new installation at Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy on North Flint Ave: a white trailer outfitted with jars, tubes and computers designed to figure out exactly what Portland's students are breathing.

After the brief press conference at the site, parents involved with PDX AIR grilled DEQ representative Gregg Lande. Ringleader Mary Peveto asked what the DEQ is going to do about the two "hotspot" toxic air sites models identified in Portland. "Should parents be worried about their kids breathing the air in those areas?" asked Peveto.
"I don't think they should," replied Lande, stressing that this air testing is a first step toward figuring out whether Portland's air is really as bad as the statistician models say it is. "It's important that we get more accurate measurements." While the EPA recommended they place the air testing station near an industrial site, Lande's team chose to put the station at Tubman school which (unlike Jefferson High School or Chapman) isn't near any heavy industry. Deflecting parents' skepticism, Lande explained that the DEQ wants to test the air quality near I-5, which runs just past the small school.
The city's Bureau of Environmental Services is offering a grant of $5 per square foot to property and homeowners who choose to build ecoroofs. Check out the their website for more.
I know this, because I too was at the Mercury's branch office outside City Hall Friday morning, enjoying the sunshine. I also learned more about the city's Grey to Green initiative, thanks to the staff's wise choice to offer free coffee and cookies on the sidewalk. Ecoroofs are part of the program, but Grey to Green is also doing a bunch of other stuff. In the year and a half that it has been underway, the city has seen some significant improvements:

That's just the beginning. The five-year goals for Grey to Green include adding 43 acres of ecoroofs, constructing 920 green streets, and purchasing 419 acres of high priority natural areas. And with a city grant of $50 million over the next five years, those goals seem reachable.
The city has never taken on street tree planting on this scale—the budget for that has been only about $20-40,000 over the last twenty years, and now they're looking at over $1 million in just a year or two. Despite the rosy outlook for Portland watersheds, the work isn't done.
A new treebate program (get it? like rebate!) will compensate property owners for planting trees. The initiative is a collaborative effort with Friends of Trees and will launch in a few weeks. It hopes to encourage land owners to plant trees, especially local varieties, by covering 50% of tree-planting expenses up to $40, and up to $50 for native species. Money for you, trees for the world!
Very interesting article in the New York Times today about LEED buildings falling short of green goals. One of the problems with LEED (though Slate spells out a few more) is that it just relates to how a new building is constructed and does not follow up with how the building actually functions day-to-day after snagging the silver, gold or platinum LEED seal.
The NYT writes: "The gap between design and construction, which LEED certifies, and how some buildings actually perform led the program last week to announce that it would begin collecting information about energy use from all the buildings it certifies."
This is all highly relevant to Portland because just last week neighbors and city commissioners were questioning whether the new Albert Apartment complex on N. Williams will actually be a green building. After learning that some of the bedrooms in the building would be interior rooms with no windows, Commissioner Amanda asked, "How would you meet LEED silver if you constantly have to have a light on in the bedroom?"
One of the experts in the NYT article must have seen straight into Fritz's heart! Look at this quote:
"Once a building opens, it may use more energy than was predicted by the design. And how a building is used — how many occupants it has, for example — affects its energy consumption. 'If the occupants don’t turn off the lights, the building doesn’t do as well as expected,' said Mark Frankel, technical director for the New Buildings Institute."
Today is a day to reflect on $30 million the state of Oregon no longer has. Yesterday afternoon, the governor rubberstamped $30 million taxpayer dollars for continued planning of the Columbia River Crossing (CRC), funding which several legislators protested setting aside for the big bridge as they slashed budgets for social services, education and just about everything else.
In an absurd, Orwellian turn of events, the CRC received another feather in its $4.2 billion cap today: an environmental excellence award! The National Association of Environmental Professionals crowned the 12-lane bridge a "A Model for Collaboration and Environmental Stewardship" for its greenhouse gas and climate change evaluation.
Oh, you mean the greenhouse gas and climate change evaluation that the Environmental Protection Agency found "failed to adequately examine the potential for a bridge to induce sprawl, increase pollution and contaminate an aquifer that supplies Vancouver and Clark County's drinking water." The one that green advocacy group Coalition for a Livable Future tears apart, arguing that CRC planners' analysis that the bridge will decrease greenhouse gases is wrong?
Local consultant and economist Joe Cortright explains (at more length here) that the CRC's greenhouse gas and climate change analysis relies on a faulty baseline. "They made this assumption that there will be tens of thousands of more people in Clark County whether they build the bridge or not, and that all those people will get in their cars and drive across the bridge." But really, says Cortright, the bridge itself will help create more sprawl and lead to more people commuting over the river in cars. "The effect of the bridge will be more people driving longer distances," he concludes.
I just got my new IKEA catalogue! The one I didn't want or request, the one that was removed from the front porch and directly dumped into the bottom of my recycle bin. It's annual arrival got me thinking about all the junk mail I receive in a year and I contemplated saving it all in a big pile and weighing it and... oh! Hey! Seattleite Alan Durning over a Sightline just did that!
His write-up of a year's worth of junk mail is pretty funny—15 pounds of phone books? 17 credit card offers from United Airlines? Seven pounds of annoying sales pitches from Qwest, Verizon and Comcast? This shit is ridiculous, but Durning includes action ideas after each item to help channel that frustration into activism.
It would be cool to chronicle Portland's biggest junk mail offenders. I think it must be phone books by far but I can also commiserate with the Comcast deluge.

Here is what the playground of Vestal Elementary school on 82nd Avenue currently looks like:

Last summer Vestal teacher Chad Honl got so upset with kids spending recess on a what amounts to a grassless parking lot that he got the school to tear up one patch of pavement and plant grass. This summer, he's got some help. The anti-pavement nonprofit Depave that I profiled a couple weeks ago is heading out to Vestal this weekend to annihilate another 15,000 square feet of pavement. In the picture above, you can see volunteers cutting the pavement into squares with the help of heavy machinery — tomorrow anyone can come and attack the pavement with pickaxes.
I can tell you from personal experience that there are few things as cathartic as getting to manually demolishing a giant swath of asphalt. It's basically every eight-year-old boy's dream come true—getting let loose with a crowbar and told to attack. Plus, they'll have free snacks.
Tomorrow, Saturday August 8th! 9AM-5PM Vestal Elementary, 161 N. 82nd Avenue
I just flew back and forth across the country and every time I asked for water, the flight attendants handed me one of these bright two-gulp bottles:

The peppy branding made me cringe a little, so I turned over the bottle and read this little statement on the back:

Uh, what? This bottled water company wants me to stand dripping and cold in the shower so that there's still enough water in the world to be drained into millions of totally unsustainable 8.5 ounce plastic bottles? Who would be so cheeky?

Oh geez. What a bizarro green-hungry market we live in these days. Coca Cola is preaching to me about how my showers are wasteful while it's meanwhile trying to get itself out of hot water with environmentalists who criticize their overuse of the world's finite water supply. While Coke is ambitiously aiming to be "water neutral" by 2012, they still extract 1.73 liters of fresh water for every liter of soda they produce. Thanks for putting your eco-friendly tips on the side of a bottle of water distributed on jet planes, Coke!
Oregon has been named a test market by the Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation, which today announced achieving $99.8million in federal funds to study electric vehicle usage.
The state could be getting up to 1000 Nissan Leaf cars, and up to 2,500 charging stations in 2010, according to a press release just put out by Mayor Sam Adams' office.
“This is exactly the kind of clean tech investments that Portland, and Oregon, have fought for,“ says Mayor Sam Adams, in the press release. “I have committed to making Portland a national leader in the EV industry, and with Nissan and eTec, we’re able to move our agenda forward.”
We've got a call in to get some more information on the project—yet to be returned.
Update, 3:51pm:
The mayor's spokesman, Roy Kaufmann, says the price of a Nissan Leaf includes the cost of having Arizona-based company ETEC install a plug-in station at the buyer's home, making it more practical for people to own and drive the cars.
Kaufmann didn't know the exact cost of the Nissan Leafs but said they would be priced "competitively."
"The big problem with electric cars has always been that it's hard to get parity with gas vehicles because there's this infrastructure to fill up," says Kaufmann. "The win in with this deal is that it brings not only the cars but the infrastructure, too."
"Hopefully after we've built out the charging stations in Portland and Seattle, we're going to start seeing the charging stations emerge on I-5," he continues. "That's the hope."
Portland will start seeing the charging stations being installed next summer, with the vehicles available for private purchase in late 2010. "I have a feeling it will be more of a long wait list than going to the dealership to pick one up, if the Prius is any indication," says Kaufmann.
San Francisco was not awarded one of the five target market designations, much to Kaufmann's delight. "Their application was for a battery swap model, not a battery charging model," he says.
Portland's high speed charging stations will only take a matter of hours to charge the cars, rather than overnight.
Former Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradley Twitters:

The challenge he's referring to is a get rich quick scheme from a blogger who's willing to bet global warming skeptics $25 dollars a day that the world is getting hotter.
Victoria Taft is the charming local radio host who coins phrases like "crap and trade". But is she chicken? Victoria and all other global warming deniers can take Nate up on his offer right here.
Pat yourself of the back, Portlanders—according to Northwest enviro think tank Sightline you're each using an average of 40 gallons less gasoline per year than the average American. And, importantly, our gasoline consumption has declined over 15 percent over the last ten years. Check out this graph from their new report (pdf):

What do the researchers credit for the change? An environmental ethos is never mentioned. Instead, Sightline points to practical changes like smarter urban growth policies, investments in transit and high gas prices. And don't get too excited because even though we're below the national gas consumption average, America consumes a miserably high amount. Twenty million barrels of oil per day! Woo! We're #1!
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Leslie and The Badgers