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No time to walk

Passed on without comment:

Gov. Ed Rendell yesterday called on President Bush to slap a windfall profits tax on oil companies as a way to offset skyrocketing gasoline prices for consumers.

"It is simply bad economic policy to let profiteering continue unabated," he said at a news conference held at an Exxon/Mobil gasoline station two blocks from the Capitol.

Mr. Rendell drove to the news conference even though the gas station was close to the Capitol. He said he was running behind schedule on a busy day and didn't have time to walk.

(via R-Squared)

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Jane Jacobs

The New York Times is running a long and fascinating appreciation of Jane Jacobs, who died yesterday. I like this:

She came to see prevalent planning notions, which involved bulldozing low-rise housing in poor neighborhoods and building tall apartment buildings surrounded by open space to replace them, as a superstition akin to early 19th-century physicians' belief in bloodletting.

"There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder," she wrote in "Death and Life," "and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served."

Removing impediments to the "real order that is struggling to exist and to be served" -- you could do worse.

Some hope from HOPES

A couple of folks on another post commented on how environmental activity is limited to progressive cities and campuses. Since I just got back from a green campus in a green city, I thought readers might want to hear about some good stuff going on in that small corner of the world.

The University of Oregon's annual HOPES Conference just wrapped up on the 16th. Now in it's 12th year, HOPES is a student-run environmental-design conference. If you are depressed by the level of environmental apathy around you, this was a place to recharge your faith and hope in humanity, especially the college-age segment of humanity.

Conference bleg

Over the past month or two, I've gotten approximately 426,088,131 emails and press releases about various conferences and summits and whatnot on the subject of energy and/or peak oil and/or global warming. For instance, I think there's one in New York City soon?

I honestly can't keep track, but I really do want to publicize them, so here's my solution: If you know of a cool conference (or whatnot) happening soon, let me know where and when in comments, and I'll promote it up here. It's called lazy-ass collaborative journalism!

Maximizing the MPGPP of your SUV with your HTS

Troubled by high gas prices? Not to worry, our fearless leader is on it. His staff has come up with a short, easy-to-articulate-and-memorize list of how he is going fix the problem:

1. Make sure consumers and taxpayers are treated fairly.
2. Promote greater fuel efficiency.
3. Boost U.S. gasoline supply.
4. Invest aggressively in gasoline alternatives.

Yawn ... whatever you say George.

The biggest environmental dilemma

I need this decided once and for all: is the prefix eco- pronounced "eh-ko" (rhymes with gecko, the lizard) or "ee-ko" (rhymes with Biko, the South African activist)?

Summer Rayne Oakes says "eh-ko." I've always said "ee-ko."

This is the most pressing environmental dilemma of our time! Please vote!

Those architects know their green architecture.

I am short on time and long on things to do today, so I will just direct you to eco-goings-on by the American Institute of Architects. No Fountainhead-esque architects these: the AIA's Committee on the Environment (COTE) ...