Excellent rundown on "The Biofuel Circus"

Nice article explaining why we should STOP subsidizing biofuel production immediately and spend that money on real research instead.

Who could have predicted? Oh, that's right ...

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080616/NEWS/806160330&s=d&page=2#pluckcomments

The inimitable Tom Toles

Another gem from the best editorial cartoonist in America.

Oregonian Wakes Up, Remembers Peak Oil Task Force

This is Portland-focused, but the thrust is even more applicable in Salem, where we are in a far worse position to meet the new reality on energy. There have not even been any mentions of peak oil in the Statesman Journal, the City Council chambers, or the County Commissioners' meeting room. The local transportation planners, SKATS, has heard about peak oil but has chosen to adopt the fingers-in-the-ears-and-shout-"I can't hear you" strategy.

Step program for gasoholics

One year ago, the Peak Oil Task Force delivered a report to the City Council, but the whole region needs to mobilize

Think of it as a commuter version of "Some Enchanted Evening." At a recent graduation party in Cedar Mill, two neighbors squint at each other across a crowded kitchen island. Kinda scary, isn't it, they agree, about those gas prices headed toward $5 a gallon. Then a bit shyly, they circle a new question. Maybe it's time to take it to the next level. Both, they know, work downtown. Both leave home and return each day at roughly the same time. Turns out, they even park right next door to each other. Maybe this is a match made in post-Peak Oil Heaven.

All over the metro area, people are flirting with new transportation hookups. Bus and train ridership are soaring; interest in car-sharing is, too.

That should help Zipcar (formerly Flexcar), which has 202 cars available in Oregon. Except the same spikes in fuel costs that help the company attract new customers also eat into its profits and limit its ability to expand. (It has only three cars in Vancouver, three in Beaverton, none in Hillsboro.)

In fact, many businesses, governments and families are in the same fix: They must ride the ice cube while it melts. We need to fuel a transformation, and it may ultimately improve our lives. But only if we can fuel it fast, while supplies last -- of diminishing fuel.

Two years ago, when Portland created the Peak Oil Task Force, it sounded apocalyptic. Not anymore. Summer of 2008 may be remembered as the moment we awoke from our long national gas binge. Whether oil production has peaked or will do so in a few decades is almost academic. Every fill-up knocks home the realization that we can't afford to go on like this.

With oil prices headed toward $150 a barrel, the Peak Oil Task Force's key recommendation -- that the city must cut its oil consumption in half by 2030 -- seems ever more prescient and prudent.

The report belongs on Mayor-elect Sam Adams' bedside table. But it deserves an equally close reading by business and community leaders in car-oriented suburbs. There, some residents face a triple trap: a decline in housing values because they're so far out, an inability to buy anything closer in and too little income to keep filling the tank -- at least all on their own.

Never has the wisdom of the region's investment in TriMet been clearer. The key is to maximize it, in part by persuading businesses to stagger their hours of operation or go to four-day workweeks, so everyone isn't scrambling into a train at once. Another key is educating people, not just with maps but with one-on-one advice.

As of last week, 10,000 people had signed up for Metro's CarpoolmatchNW.org, an increase from 9,000 in April. No doubt at summer potlucks, some neighbors will figure out on their own that one plus one equals a carpool.

But the research also shows that intensive hand-holding and "green guidance" of the sort Portland's SmartTrips offers can alter behavior. Gas prices have sparked a desire to change. Door-to-door help on a massive scale could ignite regional transformation.

Will they, won't they? The neighbors part for the night, promising to rendezvous again soon. No worries. No big deal, except that it actually would be huge if they could align their lives even once or twice a week.

The party's over.

But a deeper community connection has just begun.

Another Hidden Cost of Auto Dependency

LIVING NEAR MAJOR ROAD INCREASES ALLERGIES, ASTHMA IN CHILDREN
 
DAILY GREEN  A study of nearly 6,000 children in Munich has found that children are much more likely to develop asthma, allergies and skin rashes if they live near major roads. Vehicle tailpipes emit nitrogen oxides, volatile organic chemicals and fine particulates (soot). While U.S. laws have cracked down on the worst polluters, diesel engines, air quality near major roads is known to be worse than in other areas. . . 
 
Those children living within about 165 feet of a major road had a 50% greater chance of developing allergies. "We consistently found strong associations between the distance to the nearest main road and the allergic disease outcomes," Heinrich wrote.  "Children living closer than 50 meters to a busy street had the highest probability of getting allergic symptoms, compared to children living further away." 

Stunning Example of Full-Blown Denial

The Statesman Journal Editorial Board writes

Support Delta in Salem or risk losing service

pretending that "There’s no question that the Mid-Valley benefits from regaining commercial air service in Salem, especially for business travelers and for companies shipping cargo."

Funny, I thought business travelers and companies needed a stable climate too. And aren't they the very ones who most often rage about taxes --- like the taxes needed to subsidize a service that obviously makes no sense economically (else why the need for a subsidy?)

The clutch play, of course, is an appeal to ego. When you want to do something irrational, appeal to irrational symbolism:

The symbolism of airport service is equally important. It makes the Mid-Valley more appealing to businesses. The alternative — a state capital without even air service — seems absurd, although that’s what residents and businesses endured for years.

What seems absurd is a city that can't even manage to offer bus service on Sundays that's throwing money at airlines when it's crystal clear that jet fuel will never, ever be cheap again and that the whole air travel paradigm is going to change radically, with flying again becoming the mode of travel for only a select few. On top of beating the drum to blow 2/3 of a billion dollars on a third bridge over the Willamette to speed the cars and trucks that will soon run less and less as prices of oil keep shooting up.

The argument that we need to appeal to businesses with jet service is also absurd. What we need are businesses who don't have their heads so deep in the sand that they are clueless about what's coming down in the climate and in the energy markets as a result of our century-long energy waste party.

Flying from SLE won’t always be more convenient or as financially feasible as flying from PDX. Those are judgment calls that each family, business and government agency must make when deciding which airport to use. But the money spent flying through Salem is an investment in the Mid-Valley's economic future.

Indeed --- every time you fly, you help degrade our economic future by increasing our greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the demand for fossil fuels (and thus the prices), and diverting the money from investments in the infrastructure we will need as oil sails through $250 per barrel on its way to eventual pricelessness.

Ecovelo Blogger on Cars and Alienation

http://www.ecovelo.info/2008/06/12/the-steel-cocoon/

Excerpt:

Driving a car is so effortless, hardly a thought is given to whether a trip should or should not be made. Cycling for transportation requires concerted effort, and consequently, encourages consideration and efficiency. Cycling, by its nature, discourages wasted energy.

We pay a heavy price for the convenience offered by the automobile. Dependence on foreign oil, global warming, smog, traffic fatalities, and many other problems are all part and parcel of our desire to extend our creature comforts beyond our homes by driving our cars. The question is whether it's worth it, and if not, what we choose to do about it.

In case you haven't seen it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

Salem paying the price of ignoring the signs

More than a year ago, a citizen told a meeting of the Salem-Keizer Area Transportation Study group (SKATS) -- the federally required metropolitan planning agency for the Mid- Willamette Valley Council of Governments -- that oil at $100 a barrel would soon be a fond memory, and that instead of planning an unnecessary third bridge for the Willamette, they needed to start thinking about how to preserve vital public services like police, fire, and ambulance, and to be thinking about how the impact of high oil prices would devastate their budgets.

Oil was under $60 a barrel at that point, and the SKATS members were, with the exception of Lloyd Chapman, uniformly unreceptive to the message. The SKATS members went on about their business, figuring out how to pour more pavement to serve the ever more cars and driving that they expected to see. Like ostriches sticking their collective head in the sand.

Today, the Salem Statesman Journal reports that the ostrich strategy doesn't work all that well:

Gas burns through Salem city budget

Spike in fuel prices was not factored into its planning

The spike in diesel and gasoline prices has city government suffering from sticker shock along with consumers.

In the next fiscal year, fuel for Salem's fleet of police cars, fire trucks, public works vehicles and other equipment is expected to cost nearly $559,000 more than was estimated last fall.

Salem City Council on Monday approved additional money for fuel in the city's 2008-09 fiscal budget. City funds set aside for fuel purchases will go from little more than $1.2 million to about $1.8 million.

"We knew there was upward pressure on fuel over the last few years, but we didn't expect it to skyrocket,"said Debra Neville, Salem's budget officer. . . .

Fwd: $4/gal gas is having an impact on travel

[Click image for a larger version (in Firefox anyway, your browser may vary).]

Something to think about as we're told that between Portland and Salem, we have to spend nearly $5B (before overruns, and presuming that materials prices don't keep skyrocketing) on two bridge spans or else the world will end.