Climate Change
Basics
Think Tank Responds to Report on Hidden Costs of Fossil Fuels: Yawn
The National Academy of Science's new report on the hidden health costs of U.S. reliance on fossil fuels has generated high-profile media coverage around the country, most of it focusing on the $62 billion annual estimate for coal rather than the $56 billion projection for vehicles.
October 20, 2009
16 Cities That Are Leading the Way in the Climate Change Fight
Long before Congress started to take the threat of climate change seriously, American mayors were already recognizing the need to decrease fossil-fuel consumption, promote efficiency, and generally create more livable places.
October 20, 2009
What the Virginia Campaign Can Teach Us About Transportation Policy
However the Virginia off-year gubernatorial race ends up -- and at the moment it looks as though Republican Bob McDonnell will reclaim the governor's mansion for the GOP after years of Democratic dominance -- the media will frame the story as a referendum on the policies of national Democrats.
October 19, 2009
New Study Shows $56 Billion in Hidden Health Damage from Autos
Transportation's effects on public health are rarely discussed by policy-makers, but they remain very real -- and the National Research Council (NRC) put a number on them today, reporting that cars and trucks have about $56 billion in "hidden" health costs that are not reflected in the price of oil or electricity.
October 19, 2009
Rep. Earl Blumenauer: Announcing the Livable Communities Task Force
With much excitement, today we are launching the Livable Communities Task Force -- an official initiative of the House Democratic Caucus that will work to improve community livability and Americans’ quality of life.
October 19, 2009
Transportation Allowances in the Climate Bill: A Tale of Two Modes
To understand why the climate change bill is a top priority for urbanists, it's crucial to understand the emissions allowances that the legislation distributes. The allowances essentially put the "trade" in "cap-and-trade" -- whichever industry or state government holds them can benefit from their monetary value or use them to emit pollution under the "cap."
October 16, 2009
Electrification in the Climate Bill: Thinking Bigger Than a Car
At today's Senate energy committee hearing on climate change, there was much talk about electricity -- how it could be generated under a cap-and-trade system and how prices could remain within consumers' reach even as the nation begins to put a price on carbon.
October 14, 2009
What Washington Can Do For — And Alongside — Metro Area Planners
At one point midway through yesterday's Brookings Institution forum on metropolitan planning, moderator Chris Leinberger quipped that Portland was deliberately not represented. It's not that Portland isn't a model of sustainability, he explained, but that "we all have Portland fatigue" -- that urban policy thinkers are eager to expand the models of local development beyond Oregon.
October 14, 2009
Congestion Pricing: Still Good For Basically Everyone
Urbanists often find themselves falling into a pattern of thinking that boils down to the dictum that what's good for drivers must be bad for walkability, and sustainability, and all the things that they prize about well-designed cities. Drivers seem to believe this too, which is interesting because it often isn't true.
October 13, 2009
CNU Summit to Focus on Reforming Transportation, Planning Principles
The Congress for the New Urbanism will meet in Portland, Oregon, in early November for the annual Project for Transportation Reform,
a summit to further define and clarify emerging urban transportation
policies that embrace entire networks, rather than interdependent
transportation segments, and that seek to balance modal transportation
splits and reduce overall vehicular miles traveled (VMT).
October 9, 2009