A reminder that while the day to day news cycle is often negative, positive changes are happening all around us.
For example: In 2021, the Blue Mountains Trail quietly opened in Northeast Oregon. It meanders through the Strawberry, Blue, and Wallowa Mountains from John Day to Wallowa Lake.
It's 530 miles, and only 7 people have completed it end-to-end.
There's been very little news coverage of such an incredible new amenity.
While NW Portland's industrial area is underutilized, I'm increasingly skeptical of proposals to replace scarce industrial land with non-industrial use, even if it's dense residential development.
Cities cannot merely be places of consumption & services. Non-college educated middle income employment must exist in an equitable city.
Industrial areas are just easy targets for redevelopment because there aren't existing homeowners to complain about neighborhood changes.
https://www.portland.gov/bps/mp2h/mp2h-discussion-draft-documents
@eric Wow, that's incredible news!
I really hope this does well! Outdoor recreation is far too dependent on large trailhead parking lots.
@Andrewdamitio I'm launching a #TransitToTrails service #inBend in just over a week!
https://cascadeseasttransit.com/transittotrails/
I'd love to extend it further along the Cascade Lakes and have a bike trailer, but hopeful this modest start will improve access to the outdoors here.
Ride public transit to explore the outdoors! Three daily roundtrips until Labor Day Operating Wednesday through Sunday Explore the Deschutes National Forest ADA accessible public bus Free wifi on the bus! Get tickets in advance with the app Use the Umo app to pay your fare. Roundtrip tickets only available using the app. Fares: $5 … Continued
Bluntly, the US lives on a legacy of projects completed before we regulated new construction into oblivion.
Would the CCC-built campgrounds and trails that comprise our recreation infrastructure been built under modern environmental review?
Archaic laws are stopping us from changing our built environment to become more environmentally friendly.
Does it make sense for renewable energy offsetting fossil fuels to be reviewed at the same intensity as new fossil fuel facilities?
It took under 11 years from the creation of NASA to the moon landing.
The timetable for Federal approval of a the Boardman to Hemmingway transmission line in NE Oregon is 16 years, with final CWA and BOR approval expected in 2024.
Concurrent state approval processes have taken almost as long. Oregon's review finished in 2022, and required the state Supreme Court to throw out challenges to the approval.
We can't meet our clean energy targets if it takes 16 years to approve transmission lines.
It's less carbon intensive to charge an e-bike on coal than it is to power an F-150 Lightning EV on wind/solar.
Let's do the math using the 2014 IPCC numbers of carbon intensity of various energy sources over their life cycle:
820g CO/kWh for coal
48g CO/kWh for utility solar
11g CO/kWh for wind
An F-150 Lightning uses 49 kWh/100 mi. An e-bike uses about 1 kWh/100 mi.
An F-150 Lightning on a 50/50 wind/solar mix causes 1.42kg CO2 per 100 mi.
An ebike on coal causes .820kg CO2 per 100mi.
Buying a home builds equity. Buying a car destroys it. The US car-based transportation system forces people into debt and fosters poverty.
"it’s not unusual for drivers to carry negative equity. Dealers say more people are arriving at their lots $10,000 underwater" owing more on old cars than the cars are worth.
Heart-wrenching examples of low income people forced to go into debt because most #USA #transportation is for #cars & only cars.
While there's a scientific consensus that forest thinning reduces wildfire intensity, it's a political landmine to implement for three big reasons:
- It's conflated with the less-effective "salvage logging" that has right wing and timber industry support.
- Thinning must be combined with prescriptive fire to be effective, which is a hard sell to locals worried about fire smoke or fires jumping lines.
- Thinning isn't commercially viable, and requires money to do.
https://www.hcn.org/articles/wildfire-does-thinning-work-for-wildfire-prevention
These slides from the Oregon Global Warming Commission's Roadmap to 2035 presentations are fascinating.
The marginal abatement costs for many environmentally friendly actions like electrifying vehicle fleets or updating building codes are negative.
As in, doing them saves money and grows the economy, regardless of their climate impact.
There's free medium-to-long term economic growth sitting there for policymakers to unlock.
Eric Lint
Cathy Tuttle
