Green Options » Oakland

Walking Around Oakland

Rhonda Winter — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:42:13 +0000

Last Sunday we were walking around sunny downtown Oakland, California, before my friend C. Ryder Cooley’s most excellent Animalia performance. I came across this storefront installation of plants growing in used nylons. Genius.

Plants don’t ever care if they have a run in their stockings.

California Community Re-defines Recycling and Wins

Mary Casper — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 21:42:34 +0000

California officially leads the nation in recycling, according to a report published by the California Integrated Waste Management Board announcing the state has reached a 58% waste diversion rate. Of the 93 million tons of solid waste produced by Californians, nearly 54 million tons have found renewed use in places other than landfills.

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Schwarzenegger, Bay Area to Build First U.S. Electric Vehicle Network

Jerry James Stone — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:33:36 +0000

Bay Area leaders are hoping that a combo of public and private investments can turn the region into The Electric Vehicle Capital of the U.S., by building out a $1-billion electric vehicle infrastructure. The group involves Silicon Valley’s Better Place and a group of wide-eyed politicians: California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland.

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FedEx Ups Its Solar Power Production To Almost Double

Jerry James Stone — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:19:15 +0000

FedEx’s New Solar System Is Enough To Power 370 homes

FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp, broke ground on its first - and largest - international solar energy facility on Monday. The facility near the Cologne, Germany airport will house over 16,000 square meters of solar panels.

The new solar panel installation is slated for completion by 2010; a 1.4-megawatt (MW) solar power system that will generate 1.3 GWhs of electricity/year. That is equivalent to the annual consumption of 370 homes!

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The Sarah Palin Chronicles: The Environment, Part Two

Jerry James Stone — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:19:39 +0000

In an effort to curb Global Warming, born-again environmentalist Sarah Palin has introduced a bill enacting the legal aerial hunting of humans, polar bears, or anything she deems “pesky and liberal.”

Okay, that’s not true. However, it summarizes how environmentally out-of-touch I feel the Alaskan Governor is. For example, just one day before being picked as the GOP vice president, she wrote a letter to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to shoot down pollution-reduction efforts aimed at cargo containers. Palin’s concerns were aimed at the Alaskan economy, and well…not the environment. Oh, and it gets better! Check out some of the other things Palin has had to say on the topic.

From Think Progress

Palin Denies Man-Made Global Warming. When asked for her “take on global warming,” Palin replied, “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.” [Newsmax, 08/29/08]

Palin Says She’s Not A ‘Doom-And-Gloom Environmentalist’ Who Blames Global Warming On ‘Human Activity.’ “I’m not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity, but I’m not going to put my head in the sand and pretend there aren’t changes.” [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 12/4/07]

Challenging ‘Uncertain Climate Models,’ Palin Is Suing To Lift Protected Status For Polar Bears. After a multi-year court battle, the Bush administration recognized in 2008 that polar bears are threatened with extinction by global warming. Announcing Alaska’s suit to block the listing, Palin said, “We believe that the listing was unwarranted and that it’s unprecedented to list a currently healthy population based on uncertain climate models.” [Reuters, 5/22/08]

Palin Established Illegal Fly-By Wolf Hunting Bounty. In 2007, Palin illegally established “a $150 bounty to the state sanctioned airborne wolf hunters as an added incentive to increase their kills,” soon overturned by the Alaska State Court. [Alaska Wildlife Alliance; Anchorage Daily News, 3/31/07]

Palin Changes Position on Global Warming - Then Denies It
Why Palin is a Bad Choice for the Environment
World Views of Sarah Palin & The Environment

Image source: bobster1985 on Flickr

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Palin Tells Schwarzenegger to Veto Bill Aimed at Port Pollution

Jerry James Stone — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:14:52 +0000

Just a day before being picked as the GOP vice president, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wrote a letter to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urging him to shoot down a groundbreaking pollution-reduction effort aimed at cargo containers: she asked the Governator not to sign a bill that would impose heavy fees on ships entering the ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland.

Palin’s concerns were aimed at the Alaskan economy, and well…not the environment. Duh! Claiming that shippers are already burdened by high fuel prices, she said this “may harm California by driving port business away from its ports.” As those three ports together account for over 40-percent of U.S. goods, that kinda seems unlikely. The bill’s author isn’t impressed by Palin’s suggestion either.

“We are losing about 3,400 Californians each year because of pollution. … I don’t think Gov. Palin truly understands the impacts going on here,” says state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D), who sponsored the bill. “She certainly displays a lack of understanding,” Lowenthal went on to say.

Many California environmentalists consider this to be the most important pollution reduction effort made in the state this year.

“Why should Gov. Schwarzenegger take into account what out-of-state interests are saying?” said Lisa Warshaw, a spokeswoman for the Coalition for Clean Air. “It’s unfortunate that she is using her popularity to push her agenda on this state.”

The bill would impose a $60 fee for every 40-foot cargo container entering those ports. It would bring in about $400 million per year, which would go towards the installation of cleaner truck and train engines and projects aimed to reduce congestion and idling. That sounds pretty good to me!

Schwarzenegger has had concerns about the port fee and even threatened to veto it last year. He urged Lowenthal to meet with retail and shipping representatives to address their complaints that it will harm business. But Schwarzenegger has not yet responded to Palin’s letter, nor has he made a decision about whether to sign or veto the legislation, said spokeswoman Rachel Cameron.

Image source: tinou bao at Flickr

PG&E Moves to Subvert Community Choice Energy

The Dave Room — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:07:59 +0000

I hope PG&E is not an advertiser on Green Options, because they almost certainly would want to censor this post. I feel compelled to do the post because a lot of folks in the Bay Area are concerned about PG&E’s effort to subvert California’s Community Choice Energy law (AB 117). So is the Attorney General; see the article below!

Community Choice enables cities and/or counties to pool their purchasing power and collectively bulk purchase electricity from their selected providers. It is structured as a private-public partnership in which cities do their own procurement, opting for greater quantities of renewable energy than they could with PG&E, and PG&E continues to do the transmission, distribution, metering, billing, and customer service.

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Greening the Golden Years Podcast: 50 San Francisco Environmental Elders Celebrated in Book

Max Lindberg — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:39:29 +0000

If you’ve ever been to San Francisco, or lived there for a time as I have, you can’t help but be charmed by the city, but also aware of the natural beauty of the entire 9 county bay area. That charm and beauty, in many cases, was won in difficult and often contentious battles between environmentalists, governments and developers to name a few.

San Francisco author John Hart and photographer Nancy Kittle have put together a wonderful book about 50 notable "elders" who helped shape the area with their committment to the environment and conservation. This is a review of Legacy, and the impact the "elders" have had on the bay area.

Ecocity Builders: Designing the Sustainable Urban Experience

Sara Holt — Tue, 08 May 2007 13:00:08 +0000

Photo Credit: Ecocity Builders

What if your commute to work included an experience in the following:

Plant and pedestrian-friendly plazas
Pedestrian streets
A bike ride
Rooftop gardens
Bridges between buildings
Car-free streets
And neighborhood waterways

How different would we feel if our cities were designed “for the long term health of human and natural systems?”

At Ecocity Builders, this question is asked every day with an urban re-design approach that treats each city as a giant living organism, with each building an organ, and each human being a cell in it.

Blending social and environmental ecology to reshape our cities by “returning healthy biodiversity to the heart of our cities, agriculture to gardens and the streets, and convenience and pleasure to walking, bicycling and transit,” Ecocity Builders uses various educational materials, world wide conferences, and local hand-on projects to provide a medium for integrating urbanism with dynamic living systems.

Coming up in 2008, the next Ecocity World Summit will be held in San Francisco. “We want to encourage people who have great ideas and projects to write it up and present it at the academic and talent scouting sessions,” says executive director Kristin Miller. Click on the website’s call for papers to learn more, or check out www.ecocitybuilders.org and read the newly released EcoCities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature, second edition, by Ecocity Builders founder Richard Register.