Pinko bastion spawns capitalist solution to solar financing – Boulder city/county passed the same kind of property-tax based financing of energy efficiency (and solar) improvements on the Nov. ballot too – modeled on Berkeley, but with enabling legislation at the state level (to avoid the kind of lawsuit Berkeley had to fight over whether or not they had the power to issue such bonds). The biggest worry I had in reading the Boulder initiative though, was that they had not yet come up with a good mechanism for ensuring that the improvements which were being proposed (more insulation, solar hot water, whatever) would necessarily save enough energy in order to justify the value of the bond being created. Hopefully they’ve fleshed that metric of value out much better by now (in both Boulder and Berkeley) and it’s not possible to abuse it… otherwise I suspect you’ll get deployment of faddish fixes (e.g. sexy-sexy PV instead of solar hot water, or better insulation, or super-windows, etc) instead of the best energy improvement per dollar invested. (tagged: financecapitalisminvestingenergyefficiencysustainabilitygreensolarberkeleyboulderbonds )
Campaign for a Car-Free Lincoln Park, Pt. 2 – A lack of car-free options for arriving at Lincoln Park, coupled with poorly lit, unsafe parking far away from the park's main attraction means everyone just drives their cars all over the park, on the grass. Across the street, the DMV has a huge parking lot which is totally unused after business hours, which is when the park gets the overwhelming majority of its use. Why not (gasp!) timeshare the DMV lot? Hopefully no small children have to get crushed by the marauding death machines for someone in the state and city government to take this idea seriously. (tagged: carsparkingtransportationurbanplanningdesign )
FlyingConcrete – Beautiful biomimetic architecture. Curving vaulted ceilings and stairways. Rounded sleeping nooks and pillars like trees. Traditional rectilinear construction is so boring. This is lightweight concrete (cement with perlite, pumice, and other lightweight filler added instead of sand and gravel) laid up on a mesh that's been shaped such that when the cement hardens, it's a load bearing compressive structure. (tagged: architectureartconcretedesignconstructionbuildingssculpture )
PACE Lives! The Federal Housing Finance Administration is taking public comments on Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, at the insistence of California's 9th Circuit court of appeals. Here's what I told them:
Property Assessed Clean Energy financing programs, as have been initiated by many states and local governments, are a potentially transformative financing mechanism, enabling property owners to make good long term investments in energy efficiency and behind-the-meter renewable energy production. They address a market failure, in that buyers often do not appropriately integrate a property's energy costs into their price assessment. So long as the state and local PACE programs are
Climate Denial Instruction In Schools Corporate interests are pushing a model bill in many states that would require schools to teach climate change denial. It sounds creepily reminiscent of the creationism/evolution mess from a few years ago. Except with the fossil fuel industry instead of the religious right behind it. Gah.
Vision Prize Vision Prize is an expert poll on the nature of the climate risks we face, meant to demonstrate the degree of consensus (or the lack thereof) amongst those able to judge the evidence. It's put together by Carnegie Mellon University. Will be interesting to see what the results look like...
Open Climate Science Course The University of Chicago has created an Open Courseware style Climate Science 101, with videos of the lectures and self-assessment materials online. It's aimed at non-science undergraduates. If you, or someone you know, want to get a little more in depth knowledge about climate science on their own time, it's a great resource.
Think Again: Drugs A great roundup of the myths surrounding the Drug War, and the cogent arguments against continuing our ridiculous, harmful, and expensive policy of ideological prohibition.
