Ecotopia, 30 Years Later

In the current issue of the Seattle Weekly there is a great interview with Ernest Callenbach (warning, link is not Firefox friendly), the author of Ecotopia. This is one of my all-time favorite books, and I find Callenbach's futuristic vision of a politically independent, ecologically sustainable Pacific Northwest inspiring on many levels. It was interesting to read his take on the current situation and his assessment of our future prospects. Favorite quote: "So this has to get through our thick skulls somehow, that what makes for a good life is not goods."

Holy Mode Split, Batman!

I just listened to Svend Auken on The Conversation on KUOW. Svend Auken is the former Danish Minister for Energy and the Environment and helped to implement many of the policies that led to Denmark's energy independence. Most of the program was focused on Denmark's efforts to generate electricity with wind and biomass, and a caller pointed out that in the United States we drive so much that any efforts to move us towards energy independence will have to address our automobile usage. Svend responded that in Copenhagen the mode split for home-work and home-school trips is 1/3 transit, 1/3 private car, and 1/3 BICYCLES. I found this pretty staggering, but also incredibly inspiring. It should be noted that Denmark also has a 200% tax on private automobiles, and this is undoubtedly pushing many people out of cars and on to trains and bikes. Although that kind of policy is probably not realistic in the near term in the U.S., it does make me think that we could certainly adopt policies that would increase the number of people getting around on bicycles.

Sustainable Seattle

It was a pretty good board meeting for the Fremont Neighborhood Council on Monday. We covered a lot of issues, ranging from land use to liquor licenses. We also discussed the application I prepared for Fremont to be one of the additional neighborhoods added to Sustainable Seattle's "SNIP," Sustainable Neighborhoods Indicators Project. The interactive maps for the first three neighborhoods were created by my colleague Tim Schaub. Also at CommEn Space, I'm currently working on the Puget Sound/Georgia Basin Cross-Boundary Indicators study, so it will be interesting working simultaneously on two indicators projects at radically different scales. Hopefully our application will be accepted.