[ sustain ] archive
Paris to Introduce All Electric Car Sharing Program
As a follow up to my previous post on new bicycle sharing programs, news today that Paris plans to introduce an all electric car sharing program within the city. As the article notes, the system has the potential to provide many benefits but also many pitfalls. It will be interesting to see how the system [...]
Mexico City Initiates Bike Share Program
Mexico City has initiated a new bike sharing program called “Ecobici.” The program, based on similar systems in many European cities, allows users to access bicycles after paying an annual membership fee. The intent of the program is to encourage the use alternative forms of transportation. The hope is that getting more cars off the [...]
How Efficient Are We in Our Use of Oil?
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the continuing environmental catastrophe that has resulted got me thinking about domestic oil consumption in the United States. Clearly, this disaster is one consequence of our dependence on petroleum and the need to satisfy that dependence with offshore exploration in increasingly difficult and hostile environments. It [...]
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Serenbe – Experiencing Urbanism at a Micro Scale
This is Selborne Village, in the Serenbe Development located near Palmetto Georgia. Serenbe is a conservation development, where a very large parcel of land (400+ acres) was largely preserved in its natural state through the development of tiny villages which take up only a small portion of the site. Clustering the development in this way allows for some interesting things to happen, which I think you can see pretty well in the video below.
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Combustion Charge Zone
The Combustion Charge Zone should reduce congestion and raise funds for the transportation system. In addition to this, the Combustion Charge Zone should help reduce air and noise pollution.
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The Future of Land Access
Now we have a better understanding of the dearth of federal public lands in Texas, the historical reasons for this dearth and why, in the future this could be a problem. We can now better explore some of potential policies that could provide the public with greater access to public lands. Acquisition of Property The [...]
Access to Nature
Texas is often seen as quintessentially “Western.” The big open spaces and the images of cowboys, cattle and horses abound. Certainly many residents of Texas think of the state in that manner; even when they reside in one of the state’s enormous cities. One needs only to look at the recent Houston Live Stock and [...]
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$2.50
I was browsing through some data about historical gas prices, when I found some an interesting graph from the Energy Information Administration. Immediately something jumped off the page at me: when looking at historical inflation-adjusted gas prices, every time the price goes above $2.50 we’ve had a major economic meltdown.
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Changing Behavior through Fun
Sometimes humor is the best way to change behavior. At a particular subway station in Sweden everyone rode the escalator up, virtually no one chose the stairs. Well, stairs are clearly a little healthier since they require more effort to walk up… so is there something that we can do to encourage people to make the healthy choice? See for yourself:
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Making the most of Solar Energy
Yesterday the Chron ran this article about a new solar plant that is going to be built on the Northwest side of town. NRG is going to spend $40 million to build a 10MW solar plant, and the City will enter into a long-term contract to buy power from the plant at 19 cents per [...]