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News & ArtsEnviro
Thursday, February 9, 2012
News / Enviro US to Approve First New Nuclear Reactors Since 1978
Posted by Goldy on Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 9:44 AM
I guess the Fukushima disaster didn't kill the America's nuclear revival after all:
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to approve Southern Co.'s request to build two nuclear reactors in the southern state of Georgia.
If approved, the $14 billion reactors could begin operating as soon as 2016 and 2017.
Or, if history is any guide, the $30 billion reactors could begin operating sometime after 2020.
Personally, I wouldn't mind approving a few more of these new class of nuclear reactors, if we could shut down some of those crappy old reactors in exchange. And, you know, figure out what we're gonna do with all that nuclear waste.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Books / Enviro "A Neat, Rare Opportunity" to Boat Down the Hanford Reach with Author Neal Stephenson
Posted by Goldy on Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 5:43 PM
A neighbor of mine just emailed me with a fantastic opportunity. Hanford Challenge, a not-for-profit that watchdogs the Hanford nuclear cleanup, is holding its annual benefit auction, and they just added a boat ride down the Hanford Reach with author Neal Stephenson and environmental scientist Marco Kaltofen.
I ran it by Paul, and he says that this auction item is actually a really big deal:
Here's my review of his most recent book Reamde. (I know you don't read The Stranger, so you can take my word for it when I say it's a positive review.)
This is a big deal because Stephenson is highly publicity-shy. He's not a Salinger-style recluse—he does readings and things like that—but you can tell that he really treasures his anonymity. Part of the reason he likes his anonymity is that he's a really thoughtful guy; based on my few interactions with him, he's the sort of guy who doesn't just say "fine" when you ask him "how are you?" He doesn't have a bunch of canned anecdotes; he's very present in every interaction. Personal interaction with his many fans takes a lot out of him because he has so many fans, and because he offers so much more of himself than most authors of his caliber.
So what this says to me is: 1) He must feel really strongly about this cause, and 2) Whoever wins this auction will get a real, genuine conversation with the man, not some canned PR appearance. It's a neat, rare opportunity.
And you can trust Paul. Because unlike me, he reads books and stuff.
So don't miss this rare opportunity to boat down the Columbia with Neal Stephenson, while supporting a good cause to boot.
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Enviro Memories of the Anthropocene: E-Waste
Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 8:11 AM
The return of foraging...
The human foragers at the end of the pleistocene could look at a plant and read the nutritional value of its root. The human foragers at the beginning of the athropocene can look at a junked mobile and know the monetary value of its wiring. Don't cry, baby, these are the days of miracles and wonders.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Drugs / Enviro Smuggler Busted in Rome with Cocaine Breast and Butt Implants
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 4:02 PM
Well, that's one way to do it:
A stunning model proved to be more than meets the eye after she was arrested by Italian police trying to smuggle more than £250,000 of cocaine into the country inside breast and buttock implants. The 33-year-old woman, identified only by the initials MFM, was held by officers as she tried to distract them with her plunging neckline and tight-fitting outfit at Rome's Fiumicino airport.
But her plan backfired as they were so captivated by her looks they pulled her over for questioning and discovered the drugs when she failed to explain why she had been to South America.
In much more interesting Italian cocaine news, researchers have started finding concentrations of airborne cocaine (and cannabinoids) in Italian cities. The researchers took air samples from 20 sites in winter and 39 sites in summer in regions across Italy:
... research revealed that atmospheric concentrations of certain drugs were higher wherever drug use was presumed to be more prevalent, eading Cecinato and co-workers to wonder if they had found a better way to estimate the extent of drug abuse in a given area...
Relationships were evaluated to show how strongly two factors correlate when plotted on a graph. When the researchers compared their results against records of drug-related criminal activity, they found that airborne concentrations of cocaine correlated with the amount of drugs seized by police.
Average concentrations of cocaine also correlated strongly with users’ requests for detoxification treatment, the team reports in Science of the Total Environment.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
City / Enviro Today Is A Day Without a Bag
Posted by Eli Sanders on Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 6:00 AM
- jocic / shutterstock
- Not today!
A Day Without a Bag is an educational grassroots even started by Heal the Bay in Los Angeles. Held the third Thursday in December, we ask holiday shoppers and retailers to forgo single-use, plastic shopping bags in favor of reusable bags.
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Thursday, December 8, 2011
Enviro / International Recycled U.S. Batteries Are Polluting Mexico
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 4:00 PM
Jesus Christ—can't we do anything right?
NAUCALPAN DE JUÁREZ, Mexico — The spent batteries Americans turn in for recycling are increasingly being sent to Mexico, where their lead is often extracted by crude methods that are illegal in the United States, exposing plant workers and local residents to dangerous levels of a toxic metal.
The rising flow of batteries is a result of strict new Environmental Protection Agency standards on lead pollution, which make domestic recycling more difficult and expensive, but do not prohibit companies from exporting the work and the danger to countries where standards are low and enforcement is lax.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Enviro Bacteria in Your Reusable Shopping Bag
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 11:34 AM
The researchers collected reusable shopping bags from shoppers entering grocery stores in Arizona and California, and they found that A) “reusable bags are seldom if ever washed and often used for multiple purposes” and B) “Large numbers of bacteria were found in almost all bags.”Wowsers, I thought. We’re talking e. coli. We’re talking coliform. We’re talking, as the researchers put it, “several opportunistic pathogens.”
I told you this was important. Your bags can cross-contaminate your food. They are menacing vessels of grossness!
Before you start thinking about what's in that reusable bag, the update...
Helpful readers have pointed out potential flaws in this study, including its funding, which came in part from the American Chemistry Council. The council represents the plastics industry, though the group also says at the bottom of this story that its members supply products for the reusable bags.
This war is about information.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
City / Enviro Major Grocery Association Says It Will Support Seattle's Attempt to Ban Plastic Bags (Unlike in 2009)
Posted by Dominic Holden on Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:34 PM
The Northwest Grocery Association—which represents the largest grocery chains in Seattle, including Safeway, QFC, and Fred Meyer—tells The Stranger today that it is formally backing the Seattle City Council's proposal to ban plastic shopping bags and charge a five-cent fee for paper bags. That would save roughly 1,000,000 plastic bags per grocery store each year, says NWGA president Joe Gilliam, who represents 600 retail outlets in the Pacific Northwest.
"We support this right now," Gilliam says, and he's prepared to pressure the city council. What if the ordinance is challenged with a ballot referendum? "It's possible that we would contribute to the campaign to uphold the law."
That's a different tune than the NWGA sang two years ago, when it expressed concerns with an ordinance placing a 20-cent tax on all shopping bags. "The Nickels administration was married to this idea a 20-cent bag tax that went to government—that was a nonstarter," says Gilliam. His group stayed "neutral" on that fight "and we all saw the results of it," he says. The American Chemistry Council funded a $1.4 million campaign that ultimately overturned that measure in August 2009.
But this time, Gilliam says, grocery stores like a provision that allows them keep the nickel for each paper bag. That would offset the cost of switching from plastic to paper, which costs the average grocery store about $60,000 a year. "It's a far cry better than the old proposal that went down in flames," he says.
Gilliam believes industry support could allow this measure to stick. "As people see the retail community supports doing the right thing environmentally, and that there is a way to do it without causing the price of groceries to go up, I think that has value."
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Friday, November 25, 2011
2012 / Enviro That's Trillion with a "T"
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 2:36 PM
The Republican presidential candidates are all calling for drastic cuts to EPA regulations, in order to compete with China. Most of the candidates say that Obama's focus on creating green jobs is misguided.
To those candidates, I offer a link to a story headlined, "China unveils £1 trillion green technology programme."
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Enviro Anthropocene Today
Posted by Charles Mudede on Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 8:51 AM
The score...
Humans: 7 billion; tigers: 3000.
According to the Al Jazeera report, about of half of world's tiger population lives in India. And in India these tigers live close to or with poor people. The tigers often attack and kill their means of living, cows, or them. The solution? Those who live in rich countries must start paying serious bucks for these animals. Westerners can not have it both ways; you can't feel for tigers, fret about their extinction and yet do nothing substantial for the people who have no other choice but to live in the jungle and subsist on a few cows. As one poor man says, "Who cares about the tiger, my wife is dead." As for the Chinese: If they are willing to pay a high price for a tiger's death, we must pay a high price for its life.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Chow / Enviro More Salmon Anemia Found
Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 3:52 PM
Via the Seattle Times:
Three weeks after a potentially deadly virus was found for the first time in two juvenile wild sockeye on the Pacific Coast, it has been found again — this time in other wild salmon from British Columbia's Fraser River.
Again: Thanks a lot, fish farms.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Enviro Good Day for Cloud Appreciation
Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 4:10 PM
This one drifted over Beacon Hill a few minutes ago...
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Panic / Enviro Japan's New Normal
Posted by Goldy on Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 2:05 PM
Nearly eight months after the onset of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, plant operators still aren't exactly sure what the fuck is going on inside its damaged reactors:
Nuclear workers at the crippled Fukushima power plant raced to inject boric acid into the plant’s No. 2 reactor early Wednesday after telltale radioactive elements were detected there, and the plant’s owner admitted for the first time that fuel deep inside three stricken plants was probably continuing to experience bursts of fission.
The unexpected bursts — something akin to flare-ups after a major fire — are extremely unlikely to presage a large-scale nuclear reaction with the resulting large-scale production of heat and radiation. But they threaten to increase the amount of dangerous radioactive elements leaking from the complex and complicate cleanup efforts, raising startling questions about how much remains uncertain at the plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Plant operators detected xenon 135, a fission product with a half-life of just nine hours, hence the rush to inject boric acid into the reactor. Boron atoms absorb neutrons, thus interfering with a chain reaction.
Friday, October 28, 2011
2012 / Enviro Mitt Romney Is Getting Dumber
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 1:15 PM
Mitt Romney on global warming, June 2011:
“I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that.”
Mitt Romney on global warming, today:
"We don't know what's causing climate change."
Is Mitt Romney's increasing stupidity at all related to global warming? And what will he believe next year, when he's scrabbling for the centrist vote?
Monday, October 24, 2011
Politics / Enviro Rob McKenna Goes Rogue. Again.
Posted by Goldy on Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 3:11 PM
Attorney General Rob McKenna might want to re-read his job description in Washington's constitution. First he takes it upon himself to sign the state onto a challenge of federal health care reform, contrary to the wishes of Gov. Chris Gregoire. Then he refuses to represent Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark in a lawsuit, despite his very clear constitutional and statutory obligation to do so.
And earlier this month McKenna was at it again, signing the state onto an amicus curiae brief (pdf) challenging a 9th Circuit ruling that held that stormwater from pipes and ditches along forest roads are "point sources" that require permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System.
Both Commissioner Goldmark, who was directly elected to manage state forest lands, and Gov. Gregoire refused to join the lawsuit. Likewise, the federal Environmental Protection Agency declined to file an appeal. But that didn't stop McKenna from joining the state of Arkansas in arguing for lax environmental regulations that actually puts Washington at a competitive disadvantage.
No doubt McKenna would say* he's acting at the request of Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn, who apparently signed on in this role after timber industry lobbyists went client shopping: a public records request (pdf) shows Dorn's letter to McKenna lifting language directly from lobbyist Bill Stauffacher. But when Goldmark is refused legal representation when he asks for it, yet the state is drawn into public lands lawsuits when he doesn't, it's hard to see this as anything but another example of McKenna claiming broad discretion to set, challenge, or defend state policy.
"Having the authority and using it are two different things," environmental attorney Peter Goldman tells me.
The irony is that Washington state is already committed under its voluntary Habitat Conservation Plan to eliminate stormwater runoff into streams by 2015, consistent with the NEDC v. Brown, so overturning the ruling would potentially make our timber industry less competitive with that in states with less stringent environmental regulations. But, I guess that's not as much a concern for McKenna as currying the industry's favor.
[* McKenna's offices has not yet responded to a request for comment. Dorn was unavailable at time of posting.]
Chow / Enviro What Salmon Anemia Reminds Us About Fish Farms
Posted by Zach Corrigan, Food & Water Watch on Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 6:00 AM
- Shannon Heryet / Shutterstrock
- Salmon, spawning the wild way.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Chow / Enviro The Fish Do Have Issues... They Are Called Fissues
Posted by Unpaid Intern on Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 7:25 AM
Posted by chow intern Christina Spittler
Slow Food Seattle’s presentation of chef/author/fish-enthusiasts Barton Seaver and Becky Selengut on Monday—entitled (weirdly) "My Fish Has Issues; It’s Complicated—Sustainable Seafood in a Multimedia World"—was an educational and entertaining reminder that if you eat a lot of seafood, you’re probably doing it wrong. Seaver, an East coast native and author of For Cod & Country, and Selengut, a PNW local who’s written Good Fish, discussed a multitude of issues currently facing our oceans, as well as ways to educate oneself about sustainable seafood options. Selengut lauded the small, silvery sardine as one of the most delicious and sustainable choices available, and vowed to host a “sardine-hater dinner” to change any naysayers into fans of the fish. Among loads of smart-sounding biological terms coupled with explanations of numerous oceanographic processes that necessitated the use of his forearm as an illustrative instrument, Seaver also noted that simply reducing the portion-size of the seafood you eat can make a difference. “Shrimpfest will never be sustainable,” he said. “We are not going to save the oceans by eating seafood. We are going to save the oceans by eating vegetables, and sustainably sourced seafood once in a while.”
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Chow / Enviro Cantwell Calls for Investigation Into Salmon Anemia
Posted by Eli Sanders on Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 10:46 AM
If you eat fish and you're not following the salmon anemia story I linked to on Monday, you should be. Washington Senator Maria Cantwell has caught wind of the problem, and along with lawmakers from Alaska she's now calling for a Congressional inquiry.
"We need to act now to protect the Pacific Northwest’s coastal economy and jobs,” said Senator Cantwell said in a statement today. “There’s no threat to human health, but infectious salmon anemia could pose a serious threat to Pacific Northwest wild salmon and the thousands of Washington state jobs that rely on them. We have to get a coordinated game plan in place to protect our salmon and stop the spread of this deadly virus."
The problem with salmon anemia—noted here—is that "no country has ever gotten rid of it once it arrives."
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Chow / Enviro Anemic Salmon
Posted by Eli Sanders on Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 6:00 AM
- stefanel / shutterstock
- Thanks, fish farms.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Arts / Visual Art / Enviro Help Clean Up the Duwamish
Posted by Jen Graves on Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 1:43 PM
The Nature Consortium, based out of Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in the Delridge neighborhood of West Seattle, is an amazing little unsung arts-and-nature organization—in addition to putting on an Arts in Nature Festival once a year, they organize regular rotations of volunteers to do environmental cleanups. The next one, focused on the Duwamish River, is October 15 from 10 am to 2 pm, and some of the cleaning-up will happen from inside canoes. I'm just saying.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Enviro Watch Live Video from a Texas Chemical Plant Fire
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 10:07 AM
Firefighters were on the scene at the 1600 block of state Highway 287 [in Waxahachie, Texas] at the Magnablend chemical company, which manufactures custom chemicals for a variety of industries, including oil fields, agriculture, pet food and feed supplements, water treatment, construction and industrial cleaning.
This CNN livestream of the chemical plant fire is sponsored, unfortunately, by ExxonMobil™. They're evacuating nearby schools.
UPDATE 10:13 AM: There is a pleasant little stream running next to the chemical plant. It is on fire. This is Rick Perry's America.
UPDATE 10:30 AM: ExxonMobil has removed their branding from the fire livestream.
UPDATE 10:32 AM: Firefighters are working as hard as they can to keep the fire from spreading to some adjoining trees. At the moment, it looks like they're succeeding.
UPDATE 10:55 AM: It looks like firefighters have gotten it mostly under control. Hooray for firefighters! Which corporation is responsible for firefighters, anyway? I'd like to send them a thank-you note. The invisible hand of the market sure smacked this fire down.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Transportation / Enviro Why I Love My Scooter (Pt 1 in a Series)
Posted by Unpaid Intern on Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 2:53 PM
Posted by news intern Paul Holmes
Not to worry! I took my time, had breakfast, listened to some of my favorite arias (I'm training to be an opera singer—seriously), and pulled my scooter out at 10:10 a.m. I like to take a different path to "work" every day, and since it was such a glorious morning, I took the extended route north on Lake Washington Boulevard starting at Seward Park. My 2009 Buddy has a 125cc engine—for reference, that means I can sometimes pull 55 miles per hour with a tailwind. Which I did, until I turned off at Yesler.
To wit: Drive a scooter if you want to feel like your commute is Mario Kart.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Panic / Enviro Japan's New Normal
Posted by Goldy on Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 9:27 AM
According to a recent poll, 70 percent of Japanese respondents oppose restarting the nation's shuttered nuclear power plants, despite the threat of summertime blackouts and higher utility bills. 78 percent of the nation's 54 nuclear reactors are currently shut down for maintenance, inspections and meltdowns.
Before the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, nuclear power had provided nearly a third of the nation's electricity; it now provides less than 20 percent. The Japanese government recently dropped plans to double the nation's nuclear power generating capacity, and pursue an aggressive strategy of wind, solar, biomass energy in its place.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Media / Science / Enviro In Which Bill Nye "Confuses" Fox News Viewers
Posted by Goldy on Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 9:09 AM
But then, most Fox News viewers are confused by basic facts, so that's a good thing.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Transportation / Enviro Why I'm Right on Free Parking for Scooters (Pt 2 in a Series)
Posted by Unpaid Intern on Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 2:46 PM
Posted by news intern Paul Holmes
A few weeks ago, I ranted about having to pay for parking on my scooter. Apart from being a self-involved 21 year-old, I'm also right (at least on this one).
First, scooters are better for the environment. As a benchmark, we'll continue the comparison between Goldy's 2001 Nissan Altima and my 2009 Buddy 125. Claims of reduced CO2 emissions are indisputable. Scooters consume less fuel, and thus emit less carbon dioxide. Burning a gallon of gasoline produces 17.7 pounds of carbon dioxide, and at 21 MPG, Goldy's car produces 0.84 pounds of CO2 per mile. My scooter, at 95 MPG, produces 0.19 pounds, or less than a quarter of his emissions per mile. Other forms of tailpipe emissions are more complex and variable, but the bottom line is that four-stroke scooters are better than passenger cars. If you'd like an obscene amount of information on the toxicity of scooter exhaust to humans, here's a doctoral thesis. (Warning: PDF)
This potentially amounts to a lot of environmental benefit for not very much money, which is why Seattle City Council Member Tim Burgess took up the issue in 2010.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Boom / Enviro Mooning Over Victoria's Dockside Green Development Project
Posted by Cienna Madrid on Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 4:31 PM
If you're looking for some light Friday afternoon reading, The Atlantic has a fascinating, pic-heavy article about the Dockside Green development project in Victoria, BC—what could arguably be called "The World's Greenest Neighborhood." Dockside Green is a former industrial site currently being developed into a 26-building mixed-use community that will eventually house 2,500 residents (including low-income families). The project, which is far from complete, has already earned scores of accolades, including LEED platinum ratings for green building development—in one case "setting a new world record for the highest LEED building score ever achieved."
But that's not all:
Dockside Green is host to a biomass gasification plant that, along with additional renewable energy technology including on-building windmills and solar panels, enables the development to be carbon-neutral. Each residential unit has a real-time meter showing energy and hot water usage along with associated carbon emissions, which can be easily compared with the development as a whole or the unit's history.
It's rare to see a dense urban neighborhood being deliberately built from the ground up in this way, instead of being the product of patchworked history. (Even though Seattle's Yesler Terrace rebuild isn't comparable, YT generates the same sort of excitement, in my opinion).
The article's pictures and design sketches are lovely but I especially appreciate author Kaid Benfield's breakdown of how the project succeeds—and fails—as a neighborhood. "Dockside Green certainly isn't yet the kind of complete, mature, multi-generational neighborhood highlighted by Scott Doyon's "popsicle test" (can an eight-year-old go get a popsicle on her own and return home safely before it melts)," he writes. "Now, there is a sense of isolation, in that it feels much more walkable internally than externally..." The article is definitely worth a read.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Panic / Enviro Japan's New Normal
Posted by Goldy on Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 8:19 AM
Meanwhile in Fukushima, a half-year post-meltdown, the Japanese government announced that it is tightening radiation exposure limits for children at the prefecture's schools, from 20 millisieverts per year down to one.
It says it will not require schools to keep children indoors even if radiation levels exceed the new limits, but recommends that they be promptly decontaminated if they go outside.
You know, the usual elementary school routine: lunch, recess, prompt radioactive decontamination, and then maybe a nap for the younger kids.
Panic / Enviro Power Restored to Nuke Plant Near VA Quake Epicenter; No "Major" Damage Reported
Posted by Goldy on Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 8:09 AM
Located just a few miles from the epicenter of yesterday's nearly unprecedented 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia is the North Anna Nuclear Generating Station and its two aging reactors.
The plant lost power and automatically halted operations after the quake. While a Dominion spokesman reported no "major" damage to the facility, three diesel generators were required to kick in and keep the reactors' radioactive cores cool. A fourth diesel unit failed.
Fortunately, central Virginia is even less prone to tsunamis than it is to earthquakes, and so the backup generators survived long enough for power to be restored this morning. Disaster averted (that is, assuming we can trust a spokesman from a nuclear power company). On the one hand, the backup system apparently worked the way it was supposed to. Yay. On the other hand...
"Nuclear power plants lose a significant margin of safety when they're forced to rely on these emergency back-up systems," said Paul Gunter, director of reactor oversight at Beyond Nuclear, an anti-nuclear lobby group.
Just something to keep in mind as we debate a major expansion of nuclear power in the United States.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Transportation / Enviro I Want Free Parking for My Goddamn Scooter
Posted by Unpaid Intern on Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 3:03 PM
Posted by news intern Paul Holmes.
Listen, guys: I'm tired of people conflating a car tab with a Vehicle License Fee. A car tab is for cars. A VLF is for "vehicles," including two-wheeled vehicles like scooters. The distinction is not arbitrary, as new county and local fees adding up to $80 annually will apply equally to Goldy's 2001 Nissan Altima and to my 2009 Buddy 125, a scooter which averages about 95 MPG.
Scooters consume far fewer resources than cars, in terms of fuel, carbon dioxide emissions, and required parking space. Yet motorcycle and scooter riders are paying the same amount to use less road—including parking space. Obviously, bicycles and foot traffic are more sustainable ways to get around, but scooters are superior in just about every way to cars for the city (unless you care about dying.pdf or have small children). If scooter riders are asked to contribute the same amount to city transit and roads, I think some other compensation must be offered by the city.
Personally, I'd like free street parking for my scooter, something that Seattle City Council Member Tim Burgess has suggested*. It's ridiculous to pay the same amount to park my scooter between two Seattle drivers who can't parallel park as a Hummer pays to take up two spots on the street.
To wit: I want free parking for my goddamn scooter. Thanks!
*Burgess totes owns a scooter. VROOOM!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Al Gore Literally Calls Bullshit on Climate Change Deniers
Posted by Paul Constant at 10:05 AM in Enviro
Monday, August 8, 2011
Banning Plastic Bags: It Can Be Done
Posted by Dan Savage at 7:31 AM in News / Enviro
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Port Company That Would Send Coal Trains Through Seattle Violates Permits
Posted by Cienna Madrid at 10:50 AM in Politics / City / Enviro
Monday, August 1, 2011
Port Proposal Would Put 18 Coal Trains a Day on Seattle Waterfront
Posted by Cienna Madrid at 3:35 PM in Politics / City / Enviro
Richard Conlin on the Road to Carbon Neutrality
Posted by Dominic Holden at 10:36 AM in Enviro
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi in Love Seat Scandal Video
Posted by Paul Constant at 11:08 AM in 2012 / Enviro
Monday, July 25, 2011
Oh My Gosh, You Guys! What an Enormous Package!
Posted by Lindy West at 3:20 PM in ??!! / Film / Enviro
House Republicans Summon Captain Pollution, Try to Destroy the World
Posted by Paul Constant at 1:15 PM in 2012 / Enviro
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Update on Replacing Old Streetlights With LEDs
Posted by Dominic Holden at 2:14 PM in Enviro
Friday, July 8, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
White House Names Seattle Among Three Cities for Energy Efficiency Pilot Project
Posted by Dominic Holden at 6:07 PM in Enviro
Friday, June 24, 2011
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