In London, KiosKiosk is a simple, powerful, powerfully fun idea: Create an attractive temporary space for upcoming (but ready to sell) businesses to be at, in a high traffic area. At no cost.

Backed by the London Sustainable Development Commission, businesses just need to submit a brief form describing what they’d like to use the kiosk for, when, and why they are a good idea for the KiosKiosk and vice versa.

While the KiosKiosk is focused on creative/design/arts/music businesses, such an idea could, and should be replicated for green startups, many of which, like any small company, may not have the funds or credit history to get a full fledged, full time space. Since there is no rent to pay, this could also be used by companies to create, say, memorable experiences and activities out of the space, of lasting promotional value and social media worthy mentions, growing their online business, for example.

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B Cycle is the marriage of the concept of car sharing, as exemplified by Zipcar and the like, but even more simplified for instant gratification, with an attractive retro futuristic solar powered docking station, coupled with additional information to give greater substance to the experience of using a bike, like how many calories you burned and how much carbon you offset vs. driving your car.

B Cycle has yet to launch, and they’re using the web to do some of their market research for them while encouraging demand and perhaps evangelism by people wanting to get it in their area:

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[Curitiba, where Jaime Lerner served three terms as mayor. Creative Commons photo by Felipe Freeze]

He transformed the city of Curitiba, Brazil while he was mayor there and now helps urban planners across the world build and improve cities.

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The Watree addresses both of these issues, in a device that some would say looks like an upside down umbrella. While mechanically complex, the idea is simple - Able to be stored in a retracted form, the Watree unfurls to become a large bowl to capture rain, which is then directed to a series of storage tanks underground, ready to be processed as drinking water, or later used to irrigate land.

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The founders Christine Thüring and Jörg Breuning are green roof professionals who have collaborated in the past on green roof tours in conjunction with the World Green Roof Congress.

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Last week we sent an email to our action network asking how people were coping with high oil prices. The response on our sister blog, the Green Room, was enthusiastic — over 600 comments! Here are some of our favorites, organized by topic:

Strategies to Increase Gas Mileage

From Ann:

I’ve been driving 60 mph on the highway and have seen a dramatic improvement in my gas mileage. I’m getting 38-40 mpg in my Toyota Camry on the highway! Drive 60 when you go.

From Mike Frisch:

I have dropped my fuel use by 70-80%

1) I bicycle two days per week (25 mile round trip) - great exercise & fun.

2) I purchased an electric bike/scooter (Ego cycle 2 LX, cost $1700) and I use it two days per week - costs 10 cents to charge it - great fun.

3) On the days I have to use my car, I carpool, and I drive 60 mph or less to save fuel.

Editor’s Note: For others thinking of trying scooters, be sure to do it safely. Motorcycle and scooter accidents are on the rise due to inexperienced converts.

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As a passionate enemy of suburban sprawl, I listened intently to an interview this morning on NPR with Brookings Institution demographer William Frey in which he notes that housing prices are falling faster in the areas outside cities. Is this a permanent correction that is making “exurbs” less desirable overall? And how are gas prices influencing this loss of home value? Mr. Frey was cautious in his answer, saying “the jury is still out” and that Americans have a history of moving outward from cities in order to buy more housing for less, seeing long commutes as an acceptable trade off.

However, it doesn’t take a genius to see that, when a commute costs more than one is saving on housing, while sucking up hours of one’s valuable time, (and as the saying goes, “They aren’t making more of that”) why would one buy a home in the far suburbs? Why, indeed?

Sperling’s Best Places did a survey two years ago when gas prices were at $2.90 a gallon. The following were the most expensive cities in which to commute and listed the average annual commuting cost:

City Annual Commuting Cost (2006)

1. Atlanta $5,772
2. Birmingham, Ala. $5,464
3. Orlando, Fla. $5,404
4. Jacksonville, Fla. $5,360
5. Pensacola, Fla. $5,173

So, if gas prices reach $6.00, Atlanta’s commuting cost would be over $10,000 per year. Yikes.

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What do you do? Build more hotels? That’s one solution, but what about the rest of the year, when there is a lower, more typical demand, and you’re left with capacity far exceeding needs, and resources were used to build these hotels that could have been used elsewhere?

Abilmo, a French company, has a possible solution: They make foldable hotel rooms. Come again? Yes, they have been able to fabricate accommodations that can be set up, without a crane, as many as 25 erected in a day. And they’re not shabby, either.

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Critics of the plan emerged quickly, and Peru’s prime minister was equally fast to label the critics as “the same ones that some time ago said Peru couldn’t host the EU-LAC summit and were pessimistic when it was announced.” Peru’s current infrastructure does raise numerous doubts about how successful the Olympics could be in Peru. Lima would no doubt host the lion’s share of events, while Cuzco, Trujillo, Arequipa, and others cities might play a part as well. Traffic problems, environmental and social issues, and financial difficulties could all make the Olympics a disastrous and harmful event for Peru. But, also, despite what the critics might say, the move to bid for the Olympics might have been a brilliant and ingenious action thought up by President Alan Garcia’s staff.

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Several of my favorites have included his essays on “Central Park South: New York Selects a Design for Governor’s Island” and “The Spire of Dublin: A Modern Monument That Points Up What’s Wrong With the World Trade Center Memorial.” Unlike his other pieces, his latest slide-show essay, “If You Build It: Two Visions of the Ideal City Rise in the Persian Gulf,” was his first that left me disappointed.

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Whether or not this has been your experience, it’s a perception that many people hold, and it’s a factor in holding back bike riding from being more widely used mode of transport. What to do? Enter the Bike Tree. These devices address several issues at once, but let me start with the primary: it stores your bikes high up in the air, for all the world to see, and thieves to be foiled, looking like, yes, a tree made of bikes.

How does it work? Simply.

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UniverCity recently received the 2008 National Planning Excellence Award for Innovation in Green Community Planning from the American Planning Association (APA). Utilizing mixed-use planning principles, the finished project will consist of several neighborhoods, each with its own town square, as well as its own school, community and childcare center, and parks. Once completed, UniverCity is expected to house 10,000 people on 200 acres.

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Portland has been recognized for decades as a leader in urban planning. Today its progressive philosophies are being applied to environmental policy-making. Tackling sustainability on an urban scale, the Portland Development Commission has conceived a model neighborhood known as the Lloyd Crossing Sustainable Urban Design Plan. A massive undertaking, the Plan sets goals and objectives that are intended to guide development over the next 45 years.

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The book discusses, in four sections, pockets of civilization that can give us hope for sustainable communities and environments. McKibben starts with arguably the driest section, chronicling the regrowth of wildlife in New England despite our best efforts to completely destroy it. Although the most tedious of the book, I found this section full of promise because it reminded me that in our quest to "save the environment", we are really saving humanity: the earth will continue to bounce back long after we're gone.

The second two sections discuss two local solutions to global problems in the communities of Curitiba, Brazil and Kerala, India. In the first, ambitious city planners in Curitiba use practical, yet ingenious solutions to the city's problems to create a sustainable city where people's desires are met, no matter what their income, and residents feel a strong sense of community. For example, Curitiba's favelas, or slums, were constantly overwhelmed with trash piling up. Local officials started a program where residents of the favelas could exchange bags of gathered trash for equal-weight bags of food purchased, by the city, from local farmers who had a surplus. A model public-transportation system, based on buses owned by private companies, but with fares and routes dictated by the city, had, in twenty years, grown from 25,000 riders per day, to 1.5 million. City planners changed much of the downtown business district into pedestrian-only areas.

Kerala's story was different, but no less remarkable. In a region where people survived on, at the time of first publication, $330 per year, life expectancies were equal to those of Americans, there was virtually 100% literacy, and education was a community priority, for adults and children alike. Keralites have been able to avoid the abject poverty that pervades much India, due to their leaders committing to putting people first, and breaking down socioeconomic barriers such as race, class, and gender through community commitment to problem solving.

The stories of these communities are so completely intriguing, mainly because of their innovative, yet practical approaches to solving problems that also plague us here in America. It indicated to me the glaring ethnocentrism that we sometimes demonstrate when it comes to looking outside our own country for answers to problems.

The final original section of the book covers McKibben's reflections on the first three, although I found the afterword much more fascinating, as McKibben reflects on the original text ten years later. Were Curitiba and Kerala able to sustain the successes they had achieved? How have NAFTA, the WTO, and 9/11 affected sustainability? Are we doomed, or does hope still exist? McKibben doesn't have all the answers, but I was left with hope that those answers are out there, waiting for us to discover them.