Rethinking the Economy

If you want help save the planet, you should green your house or buy a green car, right? Not so fast, says an EPA study (via Planetizen).
No factor has a bigger impact than going from conventional suburban to transit-oriented design. Making that change alone results in a 50 percent reduction in energy [...]

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Speaking of winners and losers, a BusinessWeek article about the battle over the electric car market. In between some interesting bits about Nissan’s attempts to convince “city, state, and utility officials around the country to solve crucial infrastructure problems such as the cumbersome permitting process for home chargers and the need to create [...]

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Via the Nation, I’ve just learned about an interesting group called the Southern Energy Network, a network of students in the South that currently boasts 65 campuses. Their three-year plan:
1) Establish and facilitate statewide networks in all 12 Southeastern states (KY, NC, SC, TN, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, AR, VA, WV) and [...]

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Some great news from one of my fav groups, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. After years of fighting, a victory:
We have some great news to announce: The coal-burning power plant proposed by the East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) has been canceled by the utility.
EKPC has entered into an agreement with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, [...]

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Fast Company has an interesting article about Starbucks’ efforts to figure out a way of making their cups sustainable. Most of the article focuses on Starbucks’ trials and tribulations – it turns out it’s a lot more complicated than it might at first seen. But near the end of the article, Fast Company gets [...]

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San Francisco’s innovative project to radically reduce unrecycled waste hasn’t just figured out how to recycle 79% of the city’s garbage. Courtesy of Recology, their waste hauler, it’s also an innovative way of supporting the arts!
Since 1990, Recology has its own artist in residence program, where artists receive a monthly stipend, a [...]

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San Francisco has a plan to try to get the amount of unrecycled garbage the city has to haul off down to zero. That sounds crazy, but they are already impressively close:
In 2008, the last year for which the city has data, the diversion rate was 72 percent, up from 69 percent in 2007 and [...]

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This is what happens when you don’t read those pesky messaging memos. From Center for American Progress’ Wonk Room:
In his interview with the Wonk Room, [American Petroleum Institute Chief Economist] Felmy recognized that the [Center for American Progress] report concluded that you would get four times as many clean energy jobs as oil jobs [...]

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Grist writer and North Carolina farmer Tom Philpott, commenting on an American Prospect article, explains why consumer choice isn’t enough to bring about an organic, locally grown, sustainable food system:
the example of a New York State farmer named Morse Pitts. He sells the bounty of his 15-acre Windfall Farm in the Hudson [...]

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When I lived in the Bay Area, I did what Mark Mykleby said we should do: I biked to work. I don’t in DC, and it isn’t just the awful summer weather. It’s simple — I don’t want to die.
In DC, I have friends here who bike to work every day. They tell [...]

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