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Fighting Global Warming Block by Block
Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post
Across U.S., Communities Rethink How They Operate and Grow
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SEATTLE — King County Executive Ron Sims has a simple test for every new public works project, building plan or government land purchase: Will it increase the region’s total greenhouse-gas emissions, or reduce them?
“We are totally committed to reducing emissions, but it requires rethinking the way we do our activities,” Sims explained. “People are saying, ‘But we’ve always done it this way.’ We’re saying, ‘That way doesn’t work in an age of global warming.’ “
Officials in King County and other places are rethinking the way their communities grow and operate, all with an eye toward reducing their overall carbon footprint. After decades of policies that encouraged people to move out to the suburbs in pursuit of larger homes and bigger back yards, some policymakers are now pushing aggressively to increase urban density and discourage the use of private cars.
(4 May 2008)
City of Swiss-style hill villages envisioned here
Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun
Sky-high fuel and food prices will eventually make Metro Vancouver’s current planning model of suburban communities linked by gas-guzzling highways economically obsolete.
So says Vancouver architect Richard Balfour who believes the region’s future should resemble Switzerland rather than Los Angeles.
Balfour argues that Metro Vancouver should begin creating Swiss-style hill villages linked by rail rather than towns on flood plains and valleys connected by pavement.
This is what regional sustainability will require in the coming era of escalating oil prices, climate change and mass migration, says Balfour,
(6 May 2008)
Bellingham leaders want to plan for expected decline in oil supplies
Sam Taylor, Bellingham Herald (Washington)
Approval of a task force to study the effects of potentially declining oil supplies and increasing fuel prices on the area hasn’t hit its own peak for City Council members just yet.
Officials decided Monday night to hold off on approving a resolution creating an 18- member peak oil task force because some council members were concerned that the proposal had been introduced the same night.
“I’m an old stickler for procedure,” said City Councilman Gene Knutson. “I guess that’s my age showing.”
… council members and members of the community who formed an initial work group on the peak oil issue painted a fairly dire picture of the future, with loss of oil supplies and increasing gas prices.
Councilman Terry Bornemann even used the opportunity to take a jab at the Bush administration, saying he thought it was an “interesting coincidence” that oil prices for the past six years have skyrocketed during the Iraq War and oil companies’ profits have done the same.
John Rawlins, a retired nuclear physicist who teaches at Whatcom Community College, said the government needs to prepare now for the coming decline in oil supplies.
He said communities will begin to feel the crunch, with lower-income residents feeling it the most.
(6 May 2008)
John Rawlins is an Energy Bulletin contributor.
Are livable cities just a dream?
Dave Holmes, Links (International Journal of Socialist Renewal)
When one sees a modern city from the air, especially at night, it is a truly awe-inspiring spectacle. What always strikes me is the immensity of the project, a testimony to the power and creativity of human beings. However, on the ground and actually living and working in this wonder, things are quite different and the social and ecological problems crowd in and fill one’s view. The truth is that our cities have always been dominated by the rich and powerful and built and operated to serve their needs – not those of the mass of working people who live and toil in them.
Problems of urban life
And today the destructive effect on the quality of urban life of the capitalist pursuit of profits before anything else is growing alarmingly. Here is a short and far from complete list:
* Modern capitalist cities are absolutely dominated by cars and the trucks. This leads to massive, life-threatening pollution and a vast network of roads and car parks which scars the urban landscape. People live on islands surrounded by seas of asphalt and concrete – 40% or more of the city surface is asphalt and concrete. The city creates its own, warmer climate.
* Motor vehicles also directly kill and maim large numbers of people each year; still greater numbers die from the pollution. Vehicle emissions are also a major contributor to greenhouse gases and the climate change which threatens the human race with utter catastrophe.
* The corollary of this is that public transport systems are weak and take second place to the motor car. Similarly, the great bulk of freight is carried by trucks not rail.
… On top of the all the above, as the concept of peak oil and the eventual end of this finite resource laid down over millions of years gains currency, the fragility of the modern city is suddenly laid bare. The movie The End of Suburbia demonstrates very well how the American suburbs have been built on the automobile. If the motor vehicle as we know it goes – i.e., can no longer serve as mode of mass transport – then the urban sprawl becomes even more untenable and an alternative way of living becomes desperately urgent.
Dave Holmes is a member of the Australian Democratic Socialist Perspective, a Marxist tendency within the Socialist Alliance.
This article is based on a talk presented at the Climate Change | Social Change Conference in Sydney, April 2008. The conference was organised by Green Left Weekly. For more articles, audio and video from the conference, click here.
(6? May 2008)
