Green Cross

Top 10 TED Talks - 10 - The Future of Enegy

2012-09-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

For the last talk in my Top 10 sustainability related TED Talks list, we have Amory Lovins with "A 40-Year Plan for Energy." Lovins is the chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a consultant, a physicist, and widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on the subject of energy and how we use it.

In this 27 minute talk (unusually long for TED) he lays out in plain English how we can fundamentally change the way we use and generate energy. The recipe is really quite simple: efficiency first so we are using much less, and then the transition to renewables is much easier.

As Lovins says in this talk, "our energy future is not fate, but choice." Here (and in many presentations like this one) he lays out a clear and simple road map for how to make the right choices.

Top 10 TED Talks - 9 - a Salient Conversation About Geo-Engineering

2012-09-09T09:00:00.000-07:00

Second to last in my personal list of the top 10 TED Talks on Sustainability, we have David Keith, with what is probably the most salient conversation I have seen on the web on the issue of geoengineering (which should really be called macro-climate engineering, but I don't get to pick the words). For those of you new to the conversation, the basic principle of geoengineering is that we could counter the effects of climate change by doing something drastic to the atmosphere, like pumping a lot of sulfur dioxide into the higher levels. SO2 in the stratosphere would reflect light, very much not at all like a bunch of "tiny mirrors," reducing the amount of energy getting into the lower levels of the atmosphere and having a net cooling effect.

Most of the media on geoengineering falls into one of two camps. The first is people in favor of doing it radically and preemptively instead of solving emissions problems (like the Freakonomics guys, who lost all of my respect when they did) and call everyone who disagrees with them wimps and idiots who either can't face or don't grasp the facts. The second is people who think that any and all geoengineering is basically Jurassic Park, half-assed scientists messing with things they don't understand that are going to get us all eaten by dinosaurs.

The truth, as always, is a whole mess of gray. Keith, however, lays out some very logical analysis of what it is, how to evaluate if it is a good idea, and raises some very good points e.g. whether or not it is a good idea, shouldn't we at least have an international treaty that says no one country can do it unilaterally?

The fact is that geoengineering is an idea, and ideas don't go away. So we have to deal with it, like it or not. And what Keith is arguing for here, essentially, is having a grown up conversation about the idea of messing with things that we don't really, fully understand.

Top 10 TED Talks - 8 - Just the Facts on Climate Change

2012-08-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

Coming into the home stretch on our Top 10 TED Talks for the Sustainability minded, we have James Hansen describing very clearly what is going on with our climate -- Spoiler Alert, it is changing in ways that are not good.

This talk is really, really informative, and Hansen is one of the top researches in his field. That being said, make sure you have had plenty of coffee, because it is just a little dry.

This one speaks for itself, I think. The case is pretty clear. The timing was serendipitous for him too, because he sounds like an oracle when he talks about droughts in the bread basket.

Top 10 Ted Talks - 7 - Food That is Good for People & Planet

2012-08-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Number 7 in our list of sustainability related TED Talks, we have Mark Bittman (food writer for NYTimes, author of How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) brings us a very enlightening talk on diet. Specifically, the contemporary western diet and why is bad for the health of both people and the environment.

Bittman approaches the subject of food with love and wit, and makes plain some complex issues of how we arrived at the food system that we have and how we should change our diets to improve both our own health and the environmental impacts of our food systems.

Courtney and I have turned to How to Cook Everything Vegetarian for inspiration in our kitchen for years, and personally came to many of the same conclusions that Mr. Bittman recommends in this talk, but he does such a great job here of summarizing the issues and arriving at the correct conclusions.

Top 10 TED Talks - 6 - Getting Real About Renewable Energy

2012-08-05T08:44:00.002-07:00

Number 6 in my Top 10 Sustainability related TED Talks, we have a serious and sobering look at what it would actually mean to produce all of our energy from renewable sources by THeoretical Physicist and generally brilliant person David MacKay (asside from physics, he has a Ph.D in Computation and Neural Systems).

MacKay uses some very rough and simple calculations in this presentation to show that there are some very serious constraints to renewable energy technology available today, and even assuming that we can improve the technology significantly some of those constraints will never go away. For example: potential energy per unit area is drastically lower for renewables than nuclear, or coal.

I enjoy MacKay's candid, hard nosed look at what the options really are, and the practical return to what is really important: understanding how we use energy and trying to use less. Only then are renewable energy sources even viable as a replacement for fossil fuels.

Top 10 TED Talks - 5 - Nature's Price Tag

2012-07-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

At the halfway point in our Top 10 Sustainability related TED Talks, we have one of my personal favorites (because this is an issue I think about a lot), a discussion of the economic value of natural systems by one of the preeminent thinkers on the subject, Pavan Sukhdev.

Sukhdev is a leader in the field of environmental economics and one of the most influential thinkers tackling the issues of building a sustainable future without dismantling the 21st century economy. In this video he shares some of his research on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Project. I am among those who believe that this is some of the most important work in the world to be done today.

Some people are very uncomfortable with the idea of putting an economic value on nature, believing that this will reduce nature in our view or that it is an extension of the 18th century notion of man's dominance over nature. I feel that it is of the utmost importance to account for the value of nature in every system of thought, because when economists think about nature in their models, they need a language to think about its value. The spiritual, aesthetic, and psychological value of nature must be accounted for in other systems of thought, for they cannot fit in the economists model. If nature is valued in all systems in all languages, then we can all agree about conservation, even if we don't agree about the why.

Top 10 TED Talks 4 - The Dirtiest Oil in the World

2012-07-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

Top 10 TED Talks Number 4 (again, in no particular order): Garth Lenz tells us about the dirtiest oil in the world - the Alberta Tar Sands. Lenz begins by extolling the beauty and value of the ecosystems that are being carelessly turned over to get at the oil rich sand fields underneath, to give context to what is happening.

The Tar Sands of Canada are a very difficult subject, because while they produce the dirtiest, highest carbon fuel in the world, they are also the economic salvation of the Alberta Province, and currently one of the primary economic engines of the Canadian economy as a whole. Before these Tar Sands were being exploited, Canada was one of the most progressive countries in the nation when it came to environmental issues, today it is one of the least.

Lenz is passionate and articulate, and his story is both personal and global - a difficult balance that he handles deftly. This video is also rather timely, as the issue of the Keystone pipeline is once again up for grabs in the next election.

Top 10 TED Talks - 3 - Learning the Limits

2012-07-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

Limits are frequently the theme of Sustainability conversations, and my third Top 10 TED Talk is precisely about the limits of environmental stability. Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, discusses his work identifying exactly what the environmental limits are, and where we are in relation to those limits. Rockstrom lead a group of researches in developing 9 "planetary life support systems" that are being stressed by human activity, and the limits of how much we can stress them before they collapse. The good news is, we've only crossed three of those limits! I think you can infer the bad news.

Rockstrom is both informative and persuasive, and uses some theatrical tropes and props to help get his points across. It is a very effective description of what exactly is meant by existing within the limits of a healthy planet.

Top 10 TED Talks - 2 - Eating an Entire Earth

2012-07-08T10:40:00.002-07:00

Next on my "no particular order" list of Top 10 TED Talks, Jonathan Foley describes how much land we use for food productions and shows us that we are practically eating an entire earth already. Foley does an excellent job of describing how agriculture impacts the Earth while keeping in perspective that it is a necessary part of human existence.

I like how Foley focuses in at the end on the solutions that are needed without loosing site of the scale and scope of the problems. As he says in the talk, Agriculture has been the most powerful force for change in the world since the last ice age, and rivals climate change in importance.

Bon Appetit!

Top 10 TED Talks - 1 - How Inequity Harms Us All

2012-07-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

There are scores of brilliant, inspiring TED (that is Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks on almost any subject you can imagine. There are probably dozens on sustainability and related issues. I have used several TED talks as tools in lectures and classes to illustrate points, because many of them are done by brilliant people who have devoted their lives to one particular area of study, and I (as a generalist) could never put together such a perfect, concise presentation on the issue.

So I have decided to share my favorites with you, in no particular order. The first is a video that really cemented in my mind what it means to talk about equity. Social and Economic Equity are always listed as some of the primary elements of sustainability, but are often nebulously defined. They also tend to be stated as desired outcomes a priori, unable to be justified or measured against the real world.

In this 16 minute talk, Richard Wilkinson distills some of his research into a very clear and succinct argument for greater equity as a goal in our societies. Wilkinson studies issues of equity as they relate to health, crime, and even much more difficult to pin down measures such as "social cohesion" as the Professor Emeritus of social epidemiology at the University of Nottingham in England.

One of my favorite parts is when he contrasts Japan and Sweden, and shows how two completely different systems and approaches in two wildly different cultures end in strikingly similar results.

I think this video is particularly poignant in the United States right now, since our demographics have been trending toward less and less equity for decades. The 99% movement may not have any cohesive leadership, mission or plan, but they have felt in an emotional and unscientific way what Wilkinson has come to through years of study: the gross inequality of our current system is bad for everyone.

A Day with the Nissan Leaf - Electric Transportation Land

2012-06-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

With my in-laws coming in via train for Courtney's graduation, they decided to rent a Nissan Leaf, one of the few fully electric cars on the market right now, to get themselves around town while they're down. For various logistical reasons, I had to pick up the Leaf a day early, and had 24 hours to use it as my primary mode of transportation.

While I am not exactly "in the market" for a fully electric car (my goals are more oriented towards driving as little as possible and living in a walkable, bikable neighborhood), I recognize that they will play an essential role in an overall shift in private transit if we ever want to kick fossil and foreign oil-based fuels. Also, I am a bit of a technocrat, and I just love new things.

There are a number of fun features on the leaf, many of them designed specifically to give you good feelings while driving it. From the cute sounds it makes to let you know it is on (there is no engine noise while idling, and hardly any while driving) to the little trees that "grow" on your dashboard display when you drive efficiently, the car is made to make you feel good about yourself for driving it. And it works, a little. Until it backfires.

When I picked up the car, the dashboard display informed me that I had about 89 miles of potential charge on the battery. It comes up with this estimate based on the car's individual driving history, which is personalized to you if you own it but for a rental car is all over the map. As I started to drive I was intentionally being as efficient as I possibly could, and I watched as the potential miles crept up as I drove. From the starting point at 89 miles, I got over a hundred within 6 minutes. But then I made a terrible, unforgivable mistake. I was brash and foolish enough to drive over a hill. The Leaf handled the hill just fine, acceleration and responsiveness were great, but the potential miles plummeted as I ascended. As I climbed the hill, I had a sinking, anxious feeling that I would get to the other side and not have enough charge on the battery to get back!

That panic was unwarranted, as it turned out, the car had plenty of charge to get me where I needed to go for the full 24 hours, but in about 1 quarter mile of steep incline I used up 30 miles of potential in the battery. As I was born and raised in a town that is all hills, with only one moderately flat street, it struck me that electric vehicles would be impractical for entire cities such as Laguna Beach, San Francisco, or any other topographically challenged locale.

Also, the eighty to one hundred miles of potential on a full charge is more than enough for the average commute plus jaunt around town (unless you live in a sprawling mega-city like Los Angeles), but it is extremely limiting once you start thinking about traveling, or work that requires a lot of driving (sales jobs, couriers, or taxis e.g.). So in the end, the Leaf can be an excellent commuter, if you live in a moderately sized city with no hills, but it does not provide the all around one stop shopping silver bullet to all of your transportation needs that internal combustion does.

But there never is a silver bullet is there? The Leaf is a cool car, and fun to drive, but if we are serious about kicking foreign oil and fossil fuels, we still need better public transit, design for walkable and bikable cities, more programs like flex cars, and some internal combustion run on bio-fuels, methane, or some as yet undiscovered other renewable energy. In other words, the solution will be a patchwork, involving all of the technologies that have been presented as silver bullets. As it has been said by many others (Grist, Wired, to name a few) silver buckshot is the solution, and the Leaf is one attractive little pellet in that mix.

Summer & All the Good Things that it Brings

2012-06-10T11:03:00.001-07:00

Summer officially begins June 20th in the northern hemisphere this year, and I for one cannot wait. In 10 days the solar azimuth, or the sun's path through the sky, will arc as far north and as high overhead as it gets before the days start growing shorter, and the sun slowly retreats to the south for next winter. This will be the "longest day" of the year. At my latitude in Eugene the sun rises at 5:30am and doesn't set until 9pm resulting in 15.5 straight hours of sunshine! The farther north you go, the longer the daylight lasts, and above a certain latitude (in parts of Alaska, Canada and Northern Europe for example) the sun will not set at all. Those nearer the equator will hardly notice the difference in the day's length.


The Peas Are Taking Off

The summer's approach brings many good tidings in general, and this year a few specific good tidings for me. Not only are the long days and fair weather conducive to a more active lifestyle, and the general quality of recreation improves significantly, but the long hours of sunshine make the garden grow fast and strong. You may recall some of my disaster stories from the last two years of gardening, well this year we are starting to figure it out. I have been turning a compost pile since April of last year, and at the beginning of spring I tilled up the vegetable patch in our yard and turned the compost into the patch. So far, the vegetables we have planted love it.

We also have a few little planter boxes of herbs right by the kitchen door that are doing very well, and our one survivor from previous years, the blueberry bush, has more little green fruits than ever before. We are about to plant a few tomatoes and plan to add some lettuce and other leafy green along the fence (which doesn't get nearly as much sun).

But this year, the best thing that summer brings with it is my wife, who has completed the Master's of Architecture program at UO and has her commencement in a week. After three long years in Design Jail, she is a free woman once again. The last two quarters have been fantastic (she got the studio teacher she most wanted and it was everything she hoped it would be) and her final review went extremely well. Considering the fact that final reviews are usually a bloody affair consisting of a group of cynics tearing apart your hard work and design aesthetic, I think Courtney's face at the end of her review says it all.

Courtney in Front of Her Final Presentation

So for the rest of the summer, (in addition to my usual stuff about going green) you can expect a lot of posts about gardening, barbequing, and for the first time in a while probably some posts about traveling around Oregon, which Courtney and I are very excited about. So I leave you with a Eugene send off, what everyone here says instead of goodbye when it is not raining: "enjoy the weather!"

To Dream of Less Energy - Quality of Life and Energy Consumption

2012-05-27T09:18:00.001-07:00

Energy consumption makes all things possible. It allows us to extend our lives into the nighttime hours, it allows us to keep our homes warm or cool, it allows us to freeze food for preservation, or get it piping hot it in about a minute. Energy, in all its forms, is the foundation of our civilization. If an era is defined by the predominant technology (the stone age, the bronze age, the information age), then we are living, and have been for about a century, in the age of fossil energy: coal for electricity, oil for transportation. Information Technology itself would be impossible without abundant energy, and right now the only technology we have that can provide the amount of energy needed with the consistency required is mostly coal (there is a smattering of other: hydro-electric, nuclear, natural gas, but all of them together are less than a third of coal).

There are two primary problems with this system: resource and waste. The inputs, the raw materials, the oil pumped form the ground and coal dug out of mountains, are limited. They are finite resources that we will one day run out of. You can argue about when, about how much time we have left to keep burning through those resources, but you cannot argue about the fact that one day the wells will all be dry, the last heap of dirt will be devoid of useful coal.

The second problem, waste, is manifold. When these fuels are extracted, the process often involves polluting massive amounts of water and damaging land in a way that will not be repaired for generations. When the fuels give up their energy in combustion, they release several compounds that are degrading to the environment. CO2, Nitrogen- and Sulfur-Oxide compounds, and particulates take their toll on air quality, and various partially combusted hydro-carbons foul our streams and water-ways.

It is almost inconceivable that we could live up to our current standards without energy, and equally inconceivable, given current technology, that we could produce enough renewable energy to replace all of the fossil energy we use. That is why I am dreaming of less.

Technology holds many answer to a future of less energy, but human behavior is equally, if not more important. I dream of a culture that values the energy it uses in an emotional way, not just in price per kWh; where daylighting and passive cooling are as valuable to a home buyer as granite counter tops once were.

I dream of a society in which people care where their power comes from, how it got to them, and what happens in between and afterward. Where people see a light bulb burning and think, even just once in a while, about what it means that they can run their homes into the night, keep their produce cold 24-7, turn the thermostat up or down on a whim. Where people care not just about having energy, but the kind of energy they have.

A revolution in our energy production is still a long, long way off, but a cultural revolution, or at least a cultural shift in the way we perceive energy is already under foot. What was once a vanguard is edging into the mainstream, and today more than ever people care about energy. Not just that they have it, but where it comes from too. We are still a long way from a culture where everyone cares about energy, and is concerned with reducing energy consumption, but a change in the culture that uses the energy can be much, much quicker than a change in the infrastructure that delivers it.

Rapidly Expanding Responsibilities, and Back to Blogging

2012-05-01T09:52:00.002-07:00

To my neglected readers (all 11 of you),

Once again, my professional life has stomped all over my burgeoning writing career. I know, it is extremely selfish of me to leave you all for so long, but the last fiscal quarter has seen a significant uptick in the rate of inquiries at my little sustainability consulting practice, which has resulted in a couple of new clients. At the same time, my Professorial responsibilities at Lane Community College have expanded somewhat. The result is that all of my efforts at writing about sustainability have been sidelined by work that actually pays.

But on top of all that paying work, my financially un-recognized responsibilities have also expanded of late. In February of this past year, I was officially elected the new chair of the Eugene Branch of the Cascadia Green Building Council. I have been working with the branch for just over a year now, and served as the chair of the Programming Sub-Committee until the recent elections. I am taking over from Kristen Taylor, who was the chair for 2 years before me, at a very exciting time. Kristen over-saw a very constructive process of arriving at a 5 year vision for the branch in a series of sessions just before the election, and both the Branch at large and the Programming Committee that I used to chair have just completed a set of ambitious goals for 2012. I am very proud to have been selected for this position, and I hope that my energy and passion will translate to good leadership for the Branch as we take the first steps towards our new vision.

With all of these new responsibilities, my writing has completely withered on the vine (much like my garden last spring), but I am finally finding my keel even once again. As my roles and responsibilities in life are expanding at a rapid rate, I have found the David Allen approach to Getting Things Done (I won't discuss GTD here, but rest assured it is awesome - if you want to know more, consult the internet, it has much to say), and things are finally getting so manageable that I feel confident in actually returning to the blog! I am in the process right now of re-imagining this little writing sandbox I have been kicking around in for the past few years, and turning it into something a little bit more structured. We'll see if any good ideas come out of it, or if any of them actually work, in time. But for now, keep your eyes peeled (all 22 of them) for more to come.

Thank you very much to the handful of regular readers who have supported me as I stumble towards a functional blog,

Yours,

-Gabe

Safety and Visibility - Biking in Weather and at Night

2011-12-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Biking is by far the most fun way to commute when the weather is clear, but in the winter you may be biking in darkness both ways and the weather is more likely to be rotten. Safety and visibility should your chief concerns when choosing to commute by bike at night, in the rain or in temperatures below freezing.

Just the other day I took my first spill in years. It was a light rain, and I was going slow, but rounding a corner I crossed a crosswalk, and both wheels touched the painted line at the same time while I was leaning into the turn. Suddenly my tires, which had been gripping the road so faithfully, lost all traction and I found my face in the asphalt. I wasn't injured, but it was a shocking reminder that biking in weather is different: it requires more attention and caution.

I like to ride fast and hard, but when the road is wet you have to slow down, especially on turns: use the handlebars a little more and lean a little less. If the temperature drops below freezing, you can get ice on the road, which is the same problem but much, much worse.

Closer to the planetary poles, the days get awfully short in winter, and many people will find themselves going to work before sunrise and returning after sunset. If you bike, this essentially means biking at night both ways. Some states (Oregon included) have laws that require bike lights, but most urban cycling veterans will tell you to do much more than the legal minimum.

The more lights, reflectors and LEDs you have, the more likely a driver is to spot you before there is any threat of collision. Also, front and back lights are essential but having plenty of visibility from the sides will keep you from getting sideswiped in an intersection. Spoke lights can be as cheap as $5, and they create arcs of light when you are moving.

High visibility clothing and self adhesive reflectors are a must, no matter how dorky you look. I like to wear layers that I can easily take off and stuff in a bag, so the vest my In-Laws got me is perfect.

There will always be accidents. On our last trip to Seattle Courtney's family all admonished us with stories of a cyclist, covered in reflective gear, who was hit by a drunk driver in Kirkland recently. The one thing you can never control is the other people on the road, but the same is true in a car or on a motorcycle. It is best to cycle on routes that other cyclists use. People only look for bikes when they are used to it, so the more there are on the road the safer it usually is.

Artistic Expressions of Waste

2011-12-20T16:44:00.000-08:00

Check out this eerie and beautiful short film (about a minute and a half), a brief metaphor for wasted energy (via BoingBoing): Light, directed by David Parker.

Sometimes a poetic representation like this one can be more effective than repeating facts over and over. Though, I have seen facts represented poetically on occasion as well, as in the work of Chris Jordan, who creates photographs of everyday objects replicated thousands or millions of times in artistic arrangements to visualize a simple fact such as how many plastic bottles are used in America every minute.

These simple pieces of art present the wastefulness of our society in a thought provoking manner, and don't carry the alienation of judgment. Though I think it is implied that we should waste less, it is not explicit in a "you're doing it wrong" kind of way

Changes to my iPinion Column

2011-10-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

At the bequest of the editors of iPinion, my column there is undergoing some changes. Instead of the lengthy, feature style pieces I have been doing for them, I will be contributing a shorter weekly column that takes a more conversational tone. To kick off this new column, I write about Kicking Cars, and discuss the way that many Americans equate their cars to their personal freedoms. Check it out here: Freedom at Last - Kicking Cars

Hope you enjoy the changes, and keep reading!

Dreaming of Less Driving - Car Free Living

2011-09-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

Eugene Area Bike Paths

Driving, as you probably already know, is not fun. Biking, on the other hand, is. Driving is not relaxing, walking is. Driving is not healthy (being essentially sedentary and stressful, it is about as healthy as a desk job), both walking and biking are. I have been dreaming of driving less (or ideally not at all) for a long time, and slowly working to achieve that dream.

Now that Courtney and I live in a highly walkable neighborhood, in the middle of a very bike-able city, we have been seriously considering a car free lifestyle, and how we could drive so little that it would cost less to rent than to own. There would be some bike related expenses (a Burley trailer, e.g.), but the revenue from selling the car would more than cover them. We would need to plan any required car trips carefully in advance, and sign up for a benefits program with a car rental company (Eugene does not currently have an affordable flex-car program). But mostly, we would have to get accustomed to building just a little more travel time into our daily schedule.

Carport of the Future

We have some experience with this already, as we have been biking and walking as often as possible since we moved last April. A little over a month ago, we began keeping a log of how often we actually use the car. So far, the car has been used approximately 2 times a week, and most of those trips could have been avoided with better planning. About half occurred when we were running late and decided to drive to save a few minutes. For the rest, it was logistically easier to use the car (though it would have been possible to make other arrangements for most of them). So basically, most of the time it was laziness or carelessness that led us behind the wheel, which leads us to conclude that if the car just wasn't there, we would be forced to plan better.

As long as we can combine several trips into a day and hold our automobile use down to about two or three days per month, renting a vehicle for those trips is actually much less expensive than paying insurance and maintenance on a vehicle (we pay the gas either way). We also get the added benefit of always driving a car in perfect repair, and having the option to choose more fuel efficient vehicles as soon as they are available. In fact, it might not be long before rental companies are offering electric vehicles. In a way, this means we can vote for the most efficient vehicle as often as possible.

There a number of problems that having a car seems like the best solution to, but car ownership brings a whole mess of problems of its own. By avoiding the need for a car as much as possible, and renting on the few occasions that it is really necessary, we hope to avoid all of the problems of car ownership, save money on insurance and maintenance, and reduce our carbon footprint all in one fell swoop.

The $8 Bike Rack - How to Secure Your Bicycle on the Cheap

2011-07-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

Challenge: find a secure way to lock up our bikes on the cheap. Since Courtney and I moved into the smallest house ever, we can no longer keep our bikes inside. We think they make a pretty tempting treat just hanging out in plain view, so we decided to invest in a rack. Unfortunately, a good rack is very expensive, and a cheap rack is not worth the price tag unless you have additional layers of security (e.g. bikes are already inside a garage). So we decided to hit up our local go to "DIY on the cheap" shop, Bring Recycling. After some deliberation and a lot of poking around, here is what we came up with:

1 staircase handrail
2 concrete masonry units
1 mess of bailing wire

Total price tag: $4

After a quick trip to the local hardware store, we also picked up a bag of Quikrete, $4. I think you can see where I am going with this. We combined these simple ingredients in a pan coated with butter, put it in our easy bake oven for 15 minutes, and this is what came out:

Seriously, though, it was almost that easy. As you can see, we used some cardboard boxes left over from the move to create little forms around the CMUs, put the handrail in the CMU and stuffed the bailing wire in around it (so you can't just take a sledge to it), poured in the Quikrete and let it set. The result is heavy as heck and can't be defeated without some tools and some time (but even the best racks can be defeated with the right tools and some time).

So there you have it, instant bike rack, $8 and about 2 hours total labor (plus 24 hour cure time). It is not the most secure solution ever, but it will deter the average thief pretty effectively.

iPinion Update: Avoiding the Next Mass Extinction - Out Today

2011-07-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

In my latest piece for iPinion.us, I discuss the recent IPSO report which indicates that we may be headed for the first ever global extinction event caused by human beings. Or really, caused by the activities of any one species. I was not particularly shocked by their conclusions -- I have been following most of the research that they sited for their report -- but I was a little surprised by some of the response. Many people are completely dismissive of this report, perhaps because they just can't imagine that our actions could have such a huge impact.

In this latest column, I lay out the fundamental facts behind a few of the major contributing studies, and discuss some well documented strategies for trying to stop this mass extinction event. Avoiding the Next Mass Extinction

Bicycle Security: how to protect your green commuting investment

2011-07-03T00:15:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Commuting by bicycle is one fun way to reduce your transit related carbon footprint, but theft is a huge problem in any metropolitan area. Proper bike security is a must for the urban cyclist, and there are a few simple best practices that everyone should know.

Last month, I got an email from the U of O Transit Group about precisely this issue, in which a former peace officer and current Bicycle Coordinator at the University of Maryland Transportation Services expressed very clearly everything I had ever heard about good bike security. After asking his permission, I have decided to post what he wrote almost exactly (with some omissions, he describes in detail why certain lock types are not very effective, and that is information that we don't need to be spreading through the inter-tubes). This info will be particularly useful for anyone who has just switched, or is considering switching to commuting by bike.

So here is what John Brandt has to say about bike security [stuff in square brackets = my commentary]:

I thought I'd weigh in on the conversation about locking bicycles because I may have some experience and/or information that some of you might not. I was a cop from 1980-2010 and ran a police bicycle unit and a crime prevention unit for a lot of those years. I was also on a cut-team that was responsible for removing demonstrators that locked themselves to things. Lastly, my college is inside the Washington D.C. “beltway” and we’re not too far from Baltimore, either. As a result, our bike theft problem may be more severe than for many of you. Regardless, I believe that as gas prices rise and biking becomes more prevalent, the problem will become greater for all of us. I apologize for the length of my comments, but I hope I can help some of you.

Here’s what we’ve found about cable locks:

· 3/8” to 5/8” cable locks (coated or uncoated) just plain don’t work as a primary locking device. Thinner cables are even more worthless. Cables can be a good device for preventing opportunistic, walk-off thefts, but if your bike is out of your sight, they’re practically worthless. Don’t believe any hype from manufacturers or dealers about how “their” cable is stronger or better than all the “others.” They can all be easily beaten in four ways (two by easily concealable tools):

[Specific methods omitted at John's suggestion]

Cable locks are a nice secondary lock, when used with a u-lock. Most thieves won’t bother defeating them just to steal your front wheel (unless it’s REALLY pricey). There are just too many unsecured front wheels lying around on bike racks.

Here are the key facts we’ve found about u-locks:

· You generally need power tools to defeat a u-lock and that makes them less likely to be attacked, but they’re not a perfect solution to bike theft and the bike owner is still their own worst enemy when they don’t use the lock properly.

[Specific methods omitted]

· U-locks are only as good as what you attach them to and how you attach them.

o The best you can do is to lock your u-lock through both wheels, your frame, and a substantial bike rack.

§ Almost no one does this because they don’t want to take the time to remove and replace their front wheel.

§ When you do this, all this stuff in the u-lock makes it very difficult, even for bike thieves who use ‘spreader-tools’ to defeat the u-lock. There’s no room to get any tool in the right place without damaging what you’re trying to steal.

§ In 30 years of police work, I’m unaware of ANY bike ever stolen on my campus if it was locked with a u-lock, through both wheels and the frame, to a real bike rack.

o If you attach your u-lock through your frame, but not any wheel, your bike can still be ridden off if what you’re secured to can be defeated.

§ People ride around with u-locks hanging from their frames and handlebars all the time. Cops don’t pay any attention to this.

o If your u-lock is through your bike frame and at least one wheel, your bike is less likely to be stolen than almost any other bike around. Every other bike is easier to steal and get away with so that’s where the thieves go.

§ To be honest, I accept this as my best compromise on my campus.

o If you choose to include only one wheel in the u-lock, putting a cable through the other wheel also makes your bike more trouble to steal.

· Yes, an old model of Kryptonite u-lock could be defeated with a Bic pen, but I’m unaware of any new u-lock model that has this particular flaw. Yes, I’ve seen the video on the web. [link here, it's pretty nifty!]

· Yes, you probably can freeze them in liquid nitrogen and then shatter them with a hammer, but I’ve never heard of it actually being done and the ability to transport and use liquid nitrogen is WAY beyond our bike thieves. If yours are this sophisticated, I think you’re better off banning bicycles on your campus except inside secured and monitored facilities. If you have a video-link of this lock-defeating method, I’d love to see it.

Image via Wikipedia

Here are the most common locking mistakes we see:

· Locking only the front wheel allows the thief to steal an unsecure front wheel from a similar, nearby bike and attach it to your bike. You’re left with your front wheel and your lock. Someone else, nearby, has a bike, but no front wheel. [!]

· The front fork is not a frame element. If you lock your bike through the front fork, the thief will remove the bike from the front wheel and pull the fork up and out of the lock. The bike and wheel are then re-connected and they ride away, leaving your lock, alone and empty, on the rack.

· If you lock your bike at an inverted-u rack, but the rack has become loose in the ground, the thief will just pull the rack out of the ground to free your bike to steal. Trust me, they’ll put the rack back in the ground and hope to get more bikes off it in the future. If you have this style of rack, please check them occasionally. If you see someone shaking one of these racks, they’re probably a thief, trying to break a new rack loose for future use. [!!]

· If you lock your bike to something other than a bike rack and whatever you’re locked to can be defeated easily, don’t expect your bike to be there when you return, unless you’ve run your lock through at least one wheel.

o Thieves just rip bicycles up and off of most landscape items.

o If your lock fits over the parking meter head, they can just lift your bike off the meter (or sign post).

o Wrought iron is actually quite weak at each weld-point; you may not even notice that it’s already broken and bends easily.

o Chains that stretch between bollards are horrible. The chain can usually be cut or just pulled out from one end and every bike along that chain is now loose.

o Arms and legs of decorative lawn or patio furniture are easy to separate. Our thieves then push them back together so they look secure for the next bicyclist.

Image via Wikipedia

Of course, most bike thefts could have been avoided if the owner had just run their u-lock through at least one wheel. Thieves don’t want to CARRY a bike away, this attracts unwanted attention, they want to RIDE it away and blend in with every other nearby cyclist. This is why I say that encouraging bicyclists to use a u-lock through their frame and at least one wheel is a compromise that I’ve decided I’m willing to accept. They may not be willing to take off their other wheel each time they lock their bike, but it only takes a moment more to make sure you include one wheel with the frame as you lock up.

In the past few years we’ve given away hundreds of u-locks and sold hundreds more at wholesale cost. The theft rate for bicycles on my campus has dropped dramatically, but the remaining thefts still have one thing in common, around 93% (it varies) of them were only using cable locks. Many of the remaining thefts were unsecured bikes taken from inside buildings, cars, etc. I’m aware that there are probably other factors that reduced the theft-rate, like CCTV cameras, the economy, etc. I can’t factor those into the equation, but it seems obvious to me……lots of good racks and lots of u-locks = less theft of bikes.

I know, I didn’t address component or parts-theft, so here are a few thoughts to ‘minimize’ that problem:

o If it can be removed without tools, it can be easily stolen; fix that:

o Change your seat post quick release to a bolt; how often to you really adjust your seat height.

o You can replace wheel quick releases with bolted axles (yuck) or with locking mechanisms ($$), or you can put a fat zip-tie on the spoon to hold it tight against the frame or fork. It’s not perfect, but it makes it harder to open the spoon. If you carry tools to do road-repairs on your bike, you should have something that can pop the zip-tie if you get a flat. If not, you can still fix the flat with the wheel still on.

o Lights? Buy lights that bolt or screw on, take them with you, or buy cheap enough to not worry about the loss.

o Computer? Pop it off and take it with you. It’s unlikely that a thief wants your old model, but why tease them or provide a target for a vandal?

o Panniers or other bags? Take them with you or switch to a courier bag.

Lastly…….here’s the additional advice we should give to everyone………..please, please, please…….register your bike with somebody, record your serial number somewhere, be able to give a detailed description of your bike, and always report it if it’s stolen.

P.S. If you’re a bike thief, please forget everything you just read; there’s just no way to beat any bike lock. Find another profession. There’s no profit in stealing bikes because the cops recover EVERY bike and arrest EVERY thief; EVERY time.

So there you have it folks, the definitive guide to bike security. Or at least a good gloss. One last note, John also told me via email that in any good talk about security, one should mention environmental security. In other words, lock your bike in a place that is well lit and frequented by pedestrians. Even a fast bike thief will be a little wary of working on a lock in broad daylight, with lots of bystanders. Also good is any area patrolled by bike cops, they tend to be more savvy about bike security and suspicious bike behavior, and their presence can deter theft.

Recap: U-locks are good, cable locks only good as backup/ component protection, and any lock only as good as the rack you are locking to. Don't let thieves make saving the planet harder, secure your bike, and Ride On!

From iPinion - "Making Markets Free"

2011-05-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

In my latest article on iPinion, Regulating Freedom - Making Markets Free, I explore the complex relationship between rules and freedom. Economics has traditionally taught us that a free market is one that is unregulated, but can a system with no rules ever really be free? Check out this latest installment in my series on Sustainability and Economics.

Living Small and Walking Tall - The Big Move

2011-05-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

Moving is never easy, but when you choose to move into a smaller space it is nearly impossible. Courtney and I, in an effort to put our money where our mouths have been, have opted to move into a home that is half the square footage of our last place, in a neighborhood that is vastly more pedestrian friendly. Let me repeat that: HALF the square feet. We now share, with our two dogs and two cats, a 550sq.ft. two bedroom home just west of Amazon Park, which has a Walk Score of 91.

You may think that we are crazy to willingly, and not for monetary reasons, choose to live in a much smaller space (and some days recently I would be inclined to agree with you). But the fact is that most of us, by far, have much more space than we need. As you may remember from my Dream of Less, we have been thinking about fitting our lives into less space for some time. The goal is to find out how much space we really need instead of constantly trying to "upgrade" to a space which is bigger than the last. This time, we upgraded to a home that is better and smaller, so we are really getting a lot more for our money. Why would we endeavor to do this you ask? Aside from forcing us to pare down, keep less junk, live more simply, etc. there is a primary environmental motivation: smaller spaces consume less energy, by far, than larger ones. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (or DEQ for short) recently published the results of a long study on housing types, and living small was on the top of their list of ways to reduce your carbon footprint. To take a look at the whole report, click here. A few other quick take-aways from the report: carpet has the highest embodied energy of any building material and sharing walls, whether in a duplex, townhouse, or apartment, drastically reduces your carbon footprint.

As you can imagine, the process of paring down to fit in a space half the size has been pretty intense. It began weeks before the move, as we went room by room through the house, measuring furniture and emptying storage spaces to sort what we would keep and what we could fit. About a hundred Craigslist posts and one garage sale later, we thought we had done a pretty good job. As we began to bring our stuff into the new place (with much needed help from Courtney's parents, who came down to Eugene just to give us a hand), it quickly became clear that we had not done nearly enough.

We are now about 80% done getting rid of stuff and fitting in the new space, and as soon as it is presentable (currently there is at least one half empty box per room, except the bedroom which is actually coming along quite nicely), I will post some pics with explanations of what we did to fit our oversized lives into this undersized space.

That may sound like a lot of unnecessary stress to you, but there are two things that have made it not only bearable, but actually quite rewarding: one is the sense of elation and freedom that comes from getting rid of something after deciding that it is not adding any value to your life. On the day we had our garage sale, some kids who came by regularly to request the presence of our dogs in the common area came to pick over our wares. Courtney made a decision in that moment about a box of toys that she had been carrying since her childhood. They served no purpose in our life right now, but she couldn't bare to just drop them at Goodwill. She brought out the box and one by one gave her teddy bears and trinkets to the kids as a kind of reward for exercising our puppies so many times. Everyone involved was quite pleased with the outcome.

Second, the ability to walk to everything has been a constant source of joy. We now live across the street from a butcher shop that carries only meat from local, sustainable farms (as well as some provisions like artisan cheese, olive oil, beer and wine, both local and from afar). We are literally next door to a fantastic cafe and deli, which serves delicacies rarely seen on the west coast like knish and bialies. On our block there is a sushi restaruant, a hardware store, a high end kitchen store and, should we ever feel the urge, a knitting store. Just around the corner is a very well reviewed veterinary office, a bicycle supply and repair shop, and a few more boutique shops. Within a 10 minute walk is a dog park, a Market of Choice (like Whole Foods with Ralph's prices, for those not from Oregon), a liquor store, and more restaurants than we could eat at in one week, ranging from McDonalds (which are not likely to frequent) to Rabbit (which we wish we could afford to frequent more frequently).

Living where we do, on the edge of a residential/ commercial zone change, being able to walk to everything, makes both of us immensely happy. We have moved from having to get in the car, for some reason, almost every day, to going for four or five days in a row without starting the car once. I have been promoting small living and car free living for some time; I have been dreaming of having less space and using less energy. Now I really feel that we are beginning to live the dream.

Nuclear Energy is Not a Sustainable Solution

2011-04-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

The debate on nuclear energy as an alternative to coal has gained momentum in the aftermath of the catastrophe in Fukushima. Despite the fact that the damaged nuclear reactors are not yet contained, and it may yet take weeks of hard work to get the cooling systems running again (Reuters), proponents of nuclear energy are already claiming that this disaster is proof of how safe fission energy generation is. The strongest proponents of nuclear energy these days are some of its earliest enemies: environmentalists. Curbing carbon emissions, the argument goes, is more important than anything else, and nuclear power is supposedly carbon neutral.

Claiming that this disaster (which now seems to be leaching extremely radioactive water in every direction) proves the safety of nuclear energy is quite simply absurd. First of all, it is premature since the extent of the damage is yet unknown and the disaster is by no means over. Furthermore, it grossly downplays the role that luck had to play in the narrow avoidance of a meltdown (not to diminish in any way the hard work of those involved in containing the disaster). As Elizabeth Kolbert argued quite elegantly in "The Nuclear Risk," The New Yorker, March 28 2011, the simple fact is that nuclear energy generation has never been as safe as we have been pretending. In reality, we have been extremely lucky so far, and we are ourselves only one or two natural disasters away from a nuclear catastrophe of horrific proportions. Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, provides an excellent case against nuclear energy in this guest post on Green Tech Media, focusing on safety as well as financial feasibility.

Even setting aside the safety argument, however, nuclear energy does not make sense on a purely carbon emissions basis either. First off, nuclear is not carbon neutral: all nuclear power plants must be backed up by another form of generation, because they require backup power to avoid a meltdown during any generation downtime. The embodied energy in a plant is also significant, and is many times more than wind generation. Still, considering only these factors the carbon emissions per kwh are minuscule compared to coal based plants.

But there is one simple fact that really shoots the net carbon emissions of nuclear energy through the roof: nuclear waste is a powerful weapon. My father in law was the first to point out to me that military organizations around the world burn massive amounts of fuel in their efforts to secure nuclear waste and track down any waste which has evaded security efforts. In any honest assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear energy, we must consider at least some portion of the emissions of the military. When one considers that the US military alone burns about 395,000 barrels of oil every single day moving people and materiel around the globe (and the number one thing by weight that they move is more fuel), that contribution is clearly significant.

Ultimately, nuclear energy is not a good solution, short term or long term, to climate change. The risk to human health in the form of potential radiation and weaponization is always downplayed by nuclear advocates, and the carbon footprint is never accounted for properly. None of the arguments for investing in nuclear energy will stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

The Paradox of Value

2011-03-16T15:06:00.001-07:00

In my second piece about Sustainability and Economics for iPinion, I take up the popular economic puzzle of the Paradox of Value. Simply Stated: why are necessary things like water given such low market value when apparently useless things like diamonds command such high prices?

Find out why and what implications this has for the sustainability movement here: The Paradox of Value

Green Cross

Top 10 TED Talks - 10 - The Future of Enegy

Top 10 TED Talks - 9 - a Salient Conversation About Geo-Engineering

Top 10 TED Talks - 8 - Just the Facts on Climate Change

Top 10 Ted Talks - 7 - Food That is Good for People & Planet

Top 10 TED Talks - 6 - Getting Real About Renewable Energy

Top 10 TED Talks - 5 - Nature's Price Tag

Top 10 TED Talks 4 - The Dirtiest Oil in the World

Top 10 TED Talks - 3 - Learning the Limits

Top 10 TED Talks - 2 - Eating an Entire Earth

Top 10 TED Talks - 1 - How Inequity Harms Us All

A Day with the Nissan Leaf - Electric Transportation Land

Summer & All the Good Things that it Brings

To Dream of Less Energy - Quality of Life and Energy Consumption

Rapidly Expanding Responsibilities, and Back to Blogging

Safety and Visibility - Biking in Weather and at Night

Artistic Expressions of Waste

Changes to my iPinion Column

Dreaming of Less Driving - Car Free Living

The $8 Bike Rack - How to Secure Your Bicycle on the Cheap

iPinion Update: Avoiding the Next Mass Extinction - Out Today

Bicycle Security: how to protect your green commuting investment

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