In Defense of the City

A couple days ago, Jenn wrote a post asking whether cities were so much more sustainable than suburbs?

And of course it got me thinking.

The first thing I thought was, well, it depends.

Which is pretty much the obvious answer and also my knee jerk response to just about everything. (I must be so annoying to read with my, oh well, it's complicated, and my, oh, what we really need is institutional change. Blah dee f**king blah, can't I say anything definitive?)

The truth is, that sure, some suburbs can be sustainable. And if you want to live in a suburb, you should do it, and do your best in your situation.

But eff it. I don't feel like writing the, "Cities are great, but suburbs are fine too," post. So instead, I want to write a post about why cities are awesome. Because I live in a city and I think everyone should be like me. Validate me, internets!!

I've lived in cities for most of my adult life. I adore cities. I think everyone should want to live in cities because cities are where the cool people (meaning me) live. Truthfully, though, none of the four cities I've lived in has been perfect, sustainability wise, nor has my behavior been perfect in any of said cities.

In Los Angeles, the weather is great meaning that you rarely turn on the heat or the a/c. But of course the public transit sucks so you drive everywhere,

In London, the weather is pretty wet and miserable so the heat is on more often. On the other hand, the public transit is great.

New York is both cold AND hot meaning a/c in the summer and heat at night. Plus, I'm sorry, but New York is TERRIBLE about waste. Forget about composting, no one seems to even recycle.

San Francisco is a green mecca with temperate weather and industrial city-wide composting. But the public transit still isn't great. And also, sorry, but San Francisco just isn't that awesome a city compared to LA, London, or New York.

But there are many ways in which almost all cities excel. Most cities, though not all, have good public transit. Cities pack lots of people in dense areas. And contrary to what some people have argued, cities also have places to garden (our neighborhood has two community gardens within walking distance), places for kids to play (they are called parks and playgrounds and they are better than backyards, fer reals). In some cities, you even have space, or rather "space." You are rarely going to get a five bedroom house in the city (unless you are a gajillionaire) but in some cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, you can buy actual houses. You will have to sell your right kidney on the black market to pay the down payment, and your master bedroom will be the size of a medium-sized walk in closet in suburbia, but you will get your house, maybe even with a garden and a deck for your dog to lay on.

My point is that cities (where I live) is awesome (I am also awesome.) Plus, according to Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis, people's happiness is greatly affected by short commute times. But overall happiness is actually relatively unaffected by having more space. So if living in a city reduces your commute, but living in a suburb gives you more space, you might want to think about the city over the suburb.

But if you recoil at living in a city and love the suburbs? Then, find a suburb where you can be happy (ideally one with SOME public transit and one that is not TOO far from your work) and don't worry about it. Because in the end, when people claim that cities are more sustainable or suburbs are more sustainable or farms are more sustainable?

We're often just trying to validate the preferences we already hold.

Is Moderation More Difficult than Deprivation?

The title of this post may at first seem ridiculous. How can moderation ever be more difficult than deprivation?

But I submit to you that we Americans as a society have a hard time with moderation.

We understand how to give things up entirely. We know how to diet. We know how to save money when we get laid off. We get that the best way to get over an addiction is to abstain entirely.

But when we've lost the weight or get a new high paying job, we become unsure of how to find balance.

I can have a box of chocolates next to me for a month and I will not eat a single chocolate. If I open the box to eat just one, suddenly the box disappears in two days. It's easier to give up chocolate because after a while, you forget how much you liked it. You adjust to a chocolate-free life. But eating just one chocolate a day? Requires a level of will-power that I'm not sure I have.

When I was an eco-nut, life was easier in a way. My life was defined by the environment and my environmental choices. I gave up heat. I gave up convenient frozen dinners. I gave up air conditioning. I gave up shopping.

And gradually, that just became my life. I forgot what life was like with air con. I forgot how convenient it was to just pick up a Trader Joe's salad.

Now I'm trying to find middle ground, and yet I often worry that I'm sliding too far back. I turn on the space heater, fully intending to turn it off in twenty minutes, and then ... I don't. Because it's so lovely and warm and I LOVE HEAT. I plan to cook, but then the conference call that was supposed to last twenty minutes lasts for an hour, and I've run out of cumin, and it's raining outside.

In a way it would be easier for me to say, you know what? Screw it? I can't find moderation, so I better just abstain. But I'm not sure that's the better answer. The healthier answer. The sustainable answer.

In the comments of the post on dieting that I linked to above, one woman talked about how she craves sugar. And how she was wondering if she could have cake to celebrate her PhD or if, knowing her cravings, she should forgo the cake. And another commenter pointed out that a life in which one cannot have cake to celebrate one's Ph effin D is a little sad.

And yet, somehow, cake in moderation is more difficult to achieve than it should be.

No Longer Over-Ambitious and Challengicious

For a couple years now, the tag-line under the title of my blog has read "over-ambitious and challengicious." I like the tag. It's cute, it's funny, it's pithy, but it no longer describes this blog.

At the time that I started using the tag, I was in the early stages of my eco-journey. I constantly was challenging myself to do more, new things. To cut my carbon footprint lower, lower, lower! I was going without heat, not buying stuff, and even making my own butter.

But that level of eco-intensity was unsustainable, for me, anyway. The truth is, I can go nearly freegan for a month, but over the long term, things get much more difficult. Looking over my past several blog entries, a constant theme has emerged: balance. How do we balance our environmental concerns while still living the rest of our lives?

So from now on, that's what this blog is going to mainly focus on. There will still be other things here and there. I'm sure I'll get irritated about some policy proposal and write a long-winded post. There will still be book reviews and the occasional rant. But the thrust of the blog is going to focus on what it means to truly live the sustainable life.

I will continue to be honest with you about what's been working for me long-term and what hasn't. What's easy and what's not. Where I'm slipping and where I'm succeeding. And I'll count on you, dear readers, to ensure that I don't slide too far back. Balance is one thing, but it's no excuse to just get lazy.

So, join me on my continued ride as I try and figure out how to balance eco-awareness with my friends, family, work, and play. Cheer me on, commiserate with me, and call me on my s**t.

And thanks, as always, for reading.

The Sustainable Life

There has been quite the response to my post, "Is Living Sustainably Unsustainable?" If you haven't read the comments in that post yet, I'd encourage you to do so. The comments, as well as subsequent posts by Jess, Green Bean, Melinda, and Chile suggest that finding balance is something we all struggle with.

I have remarked on this before, but it's really easy to assume that everyone else in the eco-blogosphere is always perfect. That no one else slips up. That all the other bloggers are local food eating, recycling, never driving maniacs.

But having met and talked to several bloggers personally, I've realized that that's not the case.

None of us are perfect. All of us mess up. And all of us consciously decide, "You know what? Here's my limit. I'm just not going to attempt X."

********

The other day, I got to see Michael Pollan speak. (It's rather hilarious ... going to a Michael Pollan lecture in the Bay Area is kind of like going to a rock concert in atmosphere.)

One of the first things I noticed was that Michael Pollan of all people was drinking bottled water. "Et tu, Michael Pollan?" I thought, feeling incredibly smug and judgey. Here was Michael Pollan, the man who tells America how to eat, drinking some damn bottled water. Doesn't he know better?!!!!

And then I snapped out of it. Yes, he probably does know better. In fact, he probably avoids bottled water as much as possible just like the rest of us. But he probably also accepts that when he gives lectures, sometimes he'll be provided with a bottle of water instead of a glass of tap water. And when that happens, instead of eco-divaing out, he just drinks from the damn bottle.

Later that evening, he told a story about being accosted in the grocery store in Berkeley for having a box of Froot Loops or something of the like in his cart. (For the record, it was his son's weekend cereal.) The poor man literally cannot grocery shop without being judged.

And that's when it hit me. In order to find the Sweet Spot of Sustainable Living, we must put aside the judging. Judging of others. Judging of ourselves. Judging of our significant others.

Instead, we need to open ourselves up to experiment, to fail, to backtrack, to succeed, to grow, and to be human.

Pollan says, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." To that I add, "Live sustainably. Do your best. And enjoy life."

Is Living Sustainably Unsustainable?

The other day I was talking to an old blogger friend, one who hasn't been posting much in a while. This is not unusual. In fact, of all my old blogger pals, only a handful still regularly post. The rest have mostly retired or post on rare occasion.

Blogging is tough, make no mistake. Writing day in and day out can be a chore, and at a certain point, you get to a place where you wonder if you have anything left to write. After all, how much can one write about not shopping?

But I think with eco-bloggers, there's more to it than that. Many of us started blogging at the beginning of our journey. Our first posts were about how proud we were for giving up plastic grocery bags. Gradually, we started increasing the eco-difficulty: giving up paper towels, going to the farmers' market, cooking more, making our own butter. Some of us line-dried our clothes. Others started gardens. Others gave up toilet paper. Others gave up their fridge.

And then ... time goes by. Life catches up to you. Work gets busier. You move house. You break up with your partner. Or maybe you get married. And you realize that living this so-called sustainable life is HARD.

So you start to back slide. You start throwing loads in the dryer again. Just once, one time, because you're on a tight schedule and your son needs his soccer uniform in a couple hours. And then because you're going out of town, or someone is visiting, or because it's Thursday, damnit and you're tired. And pretty soon you're back to using your dryer all the time. And you feel really guilty about it, but you also just don't have the energy to use the dryer.

Or if you're me, you go from cooking all the time to cooking almost never. And I do feel guilty about it, very guilty about it actually. And yet, somehow I rarely have it in me to prepare a full meal.

It's not just the cooking I've backslid in. I've gone back to using toilet paper (though I buy 100% recycled, and honestly I personally think the giving up toilet paper produces such minor eco-benefits that it's more of a bragging point than anything.) I use my space heater more often than I should. I take longer and hotter showers than I should. I drink more soda than I should. I use a face wash with bad chemicals. The list goes on and on. On rare occasion, I've even committed the ultimate sin of getting a plastic bag at the store.

I think the issue is that so much of eco-blogging was or has been about challenging oneself to do MORE, MORE, MORE. Meanwhile, we live in a world where everyone else is doing ... pretty much nothing really. Where it's more of the same from our elected officials. Where Copenhagen is a big ol' bust.

So it's very difficult to be busting your ass trying to live this eco-life. You start wondering what you're doing and why. And you question whether you can really maintain work, friends and family, and your eco-nutty life. AND blog about it every day.

So my question to you is this: Is living sustainably actually unsustainable? If you think not, how do you do it? How do you find the right balance? What is your right balance? And how long have you been keeping this balance going?

Spotlight on Sustainable Cities: Amsterdam

A while back I was talking about how I thought a truly sustainable country was one in which both human welfare and environmental concerns were taken into account. Thus, it isn't enough to have one or the other, we need both. And EJ asked if there had ever been a welfare state that had been sustainable for several generations.

Well, the answer to EJ's question is no, mostly because the modern welfare state came into existence after World War II. So while there has been state welfare for a long, long time, our current concept of a welfare state is only about 60-odd years old.

However, if ever there was a contender for a sustainable welfare state it would be the Netherlands. Given the Netherlands' affluence, its greenhouse gas emissions are quite low and they have ambitious plans to further reduce reductions. It's also got the full complement of government programs: health care, public housing, etc.

So how do they do it? Well, a look at Amsterdam provides a clear indication of one important means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions:

Everyone bikes. Everywhere.

In fact, there are now, on average, more trips taken via bike in Amsterdam than via car. But a bike culture doesn't occur in a vacuum and the city is designed for bikers with bike lanes and bike parking in abundance, and car parking is seriously restricted. Moreover, speed limits are relatively low in order to increase safety.

And it works. Even though no one I saw biking around in Amsterdam was wearing a helmet, their bike fatality rate is extremely low ... lower than in the U.S. where everyone seems to wear a helmet, knee pads, and reflectors among other things. (Side note: do you think people would bike more if it weren't such a freaking production every time you needed to get on your bike? Why can't people bike in jeans anymore? Why must we wear lycra and spandex every time we hop on our bikes? Why am I saying we as if I've been anywhere NEAR a bike in the past ten years?)

But it's not just the bikes. Amsterdam's approach to the environment is integrated into all their policies. In housing, Amsterdam has been working with housing associations, who supply over half of the housing in Amsterdam, to make the housing more efficient. And one of their recent programs trained unemployed young people to become efficiency advisers to housing associations. People got jobs, other people got more efficient houses, and less carbon was emitted. Win, win, win.

The point here is that Amsterdam isn't just green because the people there are just better. Amsterdam is more sustainable because the city has been designed to make it easier to live sustainably. Because care has been put into making institutions sustainable. Because it is an incredibly dense city that has done an effective job of developing mixed-use neighborhoods. Because the environment is integrated into all types of policy. Because Amsterdam aims to link livelihoods with the environment.

The point is you can have a high population of relatively affluent people living fairly sustainably if you do it properly. Amsterdam seems to be doing a pretty job of getting things right, and they are also getting better.

We can learn a lot from their example.

Good News For Moms

Apparently, a couple weeks ago a bill was submitted in Congress that would allow all mothers the ability to take time off to pump breast milk while working, and would offer a tax credit for companies to set up proper facilities for nursing moms.

Now, I probably don't have to tell most of you about both the environmental and health benefits of breast feeding. I think those benefits have been fairly loudly publicized. Still, I was shocked by some of the stats in this New York Times article. The percentage of moms in the top income bracket who breast feed is about 25 points higher than the percentage of moms who breast feed in the bottom income bracket.

There is no reason that wealthier parents should breastfeed more than poorer moms. Breast milk is, among other things, free.

But in fact, wealthier moms do breastfeed more because poorer moms are 1) less likely to take time off for leave 2) more likely to work in jobs where they have no place nor time to pump.

We live in a culture of blame.

When a mom doesn't breast feed, she is blamed for not doing so. She is castigated as selfish and uncaring. When another person drives to work, they are refusing to sacrifice. They don't care about the Earth or they would take the bus. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

And we fail to take account of the socio-economic, legal, and political institutions that influence our behavior. You can't breast feed if you have to work and you aren't allowed time or facilities to pump. You can't take the bus if the bus triples your commute time and lessens your already precious little time with your family and friends.

Yes, we are back to my favorite topic. It's the institutions, stupid! I think I'm going to make tee-shirts.

Personally, I think this act seems like a good step forward, though clearly not enough. I'd love to see more comprehensive legislation for parents in the future including paid parental leave for both mothers AND fathers. But until then, time to pump is a start.

Living Car Free Should Not Be Challenging

So, the other day Beth, who all of a sudden is going challengicious on everyone's ass, challenged people to live a week without a car and then blog about it.

Now I decided to rise to her challenge because I am hard-core like that.

Heh.

But it is true that I have been car-free since September. And guys, I have to tell you, it's so freaking awesome.

But here's what's really awesome about being car free in London. It's not a challenge. Not even a small one. Not even a teensy tiny challenge.

Because the truth is the fastest way for me to get to school is ... to walk. There's no other faster way. Not kidding. I've tried the bus, I've tried the tube. I haven't tried biking, but given how long it would take me to park my bike, walking still comes out ahead. Walking is simply the most efficient method for me to commute. It's fantastic. I get some fresh air, I get some exercise, and it's about as carbon light as you can get!

Of course, any time I need to get anywhere further away, I rely on the amazing system of public transit that London offers. The tube is beloved by many, and it is a wonderful system (except for the frickin Victoria line. Don't ask me what's up with that line.) But, personally, if I have the time, I prefer to sit atop a double-decker bus and watch the city go by.

So, for me, not driving a car is not much of a sacrifice. In fact, driving a car, that would be the sacrifice, given the insurance, parking, and congestion fees that I'd have to pay. (If you want to drive in Central London during work hours Monday through Friday, you have to pay what's called a congestion charge.) Not to mention the traffic. If I had to drive around in Central London every day, I'd probably go mad. (Well, to be fair, I'd probably die before I went mad because I'd end up driving on the wrong side of the road. But, you know what I mean.)

I think it's great that Beth is challenging everyone to go a week without driving. But from an urban policy perspective, my opinion is, if you live in a reasonably dense area, and it's a sacrifice to take public transit, then that means the public transit system isn't designed correctly and it needs to be fixed. Personally, after living in LA, and attempting to commute via public transit, and then moving to London, I do not think that taking public transit should be challenge worthy.

Fixing public transit doesn't have to be expensive either. There are plenty of examples, like Curitiba, of very inexpensive but well designed public transit systems. What is required is innovative urban planners and some political will. Los Angeles has one line (the Orange Line for the Angelenos in the hizzouse) through the Valley that mimics the Curitiba plan. But, frankly, in my opinion, LA could stand to have a few more rapid transit bus lines in the city. I'd probably add rapid transit bus to Sunset, Wilshire, La Cienega, Sepulveda, and Vermont. You could do that at a fraction of the cost of the planned subway to the West side, and if you had rapid bus transit on those five streets, you could get from Los Feliz to Santa Monica in half an hour. Villaraigosa, do you hear me?!

Anyway, forgive me for rambling on about rapid transit buses like a rapid transit bus maniac, but in the end, here's my basic take away point. Colin once wrote a very nice post about how living sustainably should be like falling off a log. That's how I feel about public transit. Taking public transit, should be like falling off a log.

To paraphrase former Bogota mayor, Enrique Peñalosa, we can design cities to support people not cars.

All it takes is our will to change.

P.S. If you are car-free in general, or willing to go car-free for a week, please do join in on Beth's challenge, and blog about your experiences.

Spotlight on Sustainable Cities: Curitiba

Okay, new plan. Instead of whining about my exams every day, I'm just going to tell you stuff I'm studying. I win: by blogging about this stuff, I'm reviewing it. You win: you get to read about some cool stuff. So here is my first installment in my potentially ongoing series on sustainable cities.

Curitiba, Brazil. Population: 1.6 million


Many of you may be familiar with Bogota, a city now famous for its rapid bus transit system. But in fact, Curitiba was the inspiration for Bogota's bus system.

Back in the 1960s, Curitiba's planners decided to develop a city that would service the bulk of the city's transport needs. So instead of building the city for cars, which would only service the minority of the population that could afford a car, they decided to design the city for efficient bus transit. Thus, the city was designed to promote equity. Buses were chosen for a simple reason: they're cheaper. (Los Angeles, take note.) The designers of Curitiba recognized that they could build an efficient, well-designed bus system at a fraction of the price of a subway system.

The bus system was designed and refined over the years so that there are now three different types of buses. The rapid transit buses, the inter-district buses which run the long haul trips, and the local feeder buses that feed into the rapid transit and inter-district buses. Everyone pays a single fare which includes transfers. This means that the poorer people who often live on the edges of the city are not forced to pay more than the richer people who might be able to afford to live within the city center.

Now, you may think that the bus system alone is enough to make Curitiba awesome. And it is. By the 1990s, two-thirds of Curitiba's population used public transit!

But public transit isn't the only area that Curitiba excels in. It's also won two awards from the United Nations Environment Programme for waste management. Curitiba has come up with an innovative solution for dealing with sanitation issues in the favelas, or squatter settlements. The government instituted a program that allowed residents of favelas to turn in their trash in exchange for bus tickets or food. This greatly improves the quality of life for the urban poor. And the program doesn't cost anymore than it would cost the government to hire out a private contractor to collect the trash.

Curitiba also boasts an amazing rate of recycling: approximately 2/3 of the city's waste is recycled! The money that the government makes from the recycling gets funnelled into social programs for low-income sectors, including environmental education for children. Children learn how to recycle and grow vegetables. The teenagers can use their gardening skills to earn money for their neighborhood associations.

Think this sounds great, but what about the parks? Well, Curitiba has loads of those too! And not only are the parks there for recreation and green space, but they also serve a vital need. Many of the parks contain artificial lakes, and these lakes serve as flood control for the city.

Now, certainly, every major city has its problems, and Curitiba is no exception. It's not a perfect city. But it is an example of innovative and inexpensive urban design. It's an example of a city that has learned to harmonize environmental sustainability with people's welfare. In short, it's an example well worth emulating.

Picture courtesy of flickr user xander76

Fear and Self-Loathing in London

Exams are coming up (boy are you guys going to get sick of hearing about THAT) and that means that competitive studying is on!

You know what I mean ... it's when your friend Z spends the whole day studying and you feel like a failure because you slacked off and played Lexulous on Facebook all afternoon and clearly Z is so hard working and going to kick ass on finals whereas you are only barely going to pass IF you pass at all, so the next day you study like a maniac and Z freaks out because today she's been looking at places to travel to on her next holiday. And so on. Vicious cycle of fear, self-loathing, and manic studying. Bear with me, I have a point.

And that point is that, many of us, for better or worse, are really into the comparison game. I for one, am not immune to this game. In this game, you say things like say....

Crunchy Chicken is better than me because well she's a super hot chica who makes her own butter and fancy soaps and freezes her buns off without even swearing about it.

Or...

Chile is better than me because she can make anything from scratch, including fancy pants condiments and chocolate truffles. And also she uses hand powered blenders and other non-electric things for everything. And she bikes around everywhere. Basically, she's like an Amish vegan superhero!

Or...

Beany is better than me because she RODE A BIKE CROSS COUNTRY. I mean who does that? Aside from Beany?

Or...

Green Bean is better than me because she consistently produces delicious food porn while simultaneously saving her son's school singlehandedly. (Try saying that five times.)

Or...

Melinda is better than me because she brings boatloads of passion to her environmental practices. How she has that much passion never fails to amaze me.

My point is that I'm surrounded by super-heroes and they're all better than I could ever hope to be. So basically, I should probably just eat worms and die.

No, I'm kidding! That's not my point.

Are these women super-heroes? Yes. Are they better than me? Uh, probably. Should I eat worms and die?

No. Partly because, well, I'm trying to be a vegetarian most days, and that wouldn't be very vegetarian of me.

And partly because comparing yourself to others is just ... missing the point.

Living a sustainable life isn't about trying to outdo one another in a bid to be the greenest of them all. It is, fundamentally, about trying to achieve balance. Balance in your life. Balance between you, society, and our environment. Balance between what you really need and what's kind of superfluous.

After all, you can only be living sustainably if you can, in fact, sustain it.

So, lately, I've had to come to terms with the fact that I am not the superest greenest superhero. Instead, I'm just a gal with a lot of s**t on my plate who does the best she can.

And while there are a lot of people out there who are way better than me, that's okay. Because at some point, you have to let go, and stop comparing yourself to others, and just focus on yourself.

But meanwhile my mythical friend Z has probably read 150 pages while I wrote a blog post, so, back to my routine of fear and loathing.

Getting Myself Through Exams

Yesterday, my friend B told me that she really liked my vegetarianism because I just try to do the best I can.

It's true. In the weeks since my six week vegetarian experiment ended, I have eaten meat about once a week to once every two weeks. And it's been great. Flexible vegetarianism, or as its called, flexitarianism, has allowed me to stay mainly vegetarian, but still enjoy a few pieces of sushi, or try a friend's famous burgers at a barbecue. I feel healthy, I have less guilt, I'm eating significantly less meat, but I don't feel deprived. Good for me, good for the planet.

As you might have guessed from my personal challenges followed by my great wave of soda drinking, I tend to be an all or nothing kind of girl. I'm either fully committed or not. And it's hard, sometimes for me to accept compromises and find balance.

But I'm trying.

Lately my eating habits (aside from the lack of meat) have been a total disaster. I feel like I have no time to cook or shop, but I also feel like I can't give up on cooking from scratch or buying from the bulk food store. Thus I continue to order my organic veg delivery which then sits on my counter and rots as I put off going to the bulk food store for the other ingredients I would need. The end result is that my vegetables rot, I eat Subway all the time because when push comes to shove, I have to eat something from somewhere, I spend more money than I need, and I throw away a ton of garbage. Bad for me, bad for the planet.

Today I was at a coffee shop studying, and I decided to pop into the grocery store and pick up some milk. As I walked into the store, something clicked. I grabbed a cart, ganked some plastic bags from the store's recycle bin (don't you love that trick when you don't have any bags handy?), and started loading up my cart. Cereal, trail mix, dates, hummus, crackers, bread, peanut butter, jelly, pasta, sauce, stuff I can drum up in a matter of minutes.

I mean, look. In a perfect world, I wouldn't have bought pasta in plastic, but would have managed a trip to the bulk food store. In a perfect world I might make my own hummus. But I'm not perfect, neither is life, and I have to get myself through the next month and a half in one piece. Is the organic Green and Black version of Nutella that I bought the healthiest thing for me or the planet? Probably not, but it beats buying chocolate bars at three in the morning from the vending machine.

On Monday I'm cancelling my veg delivery until exams end. I'm disappointed that I can't make myself cook these days, but I recognize that feeling guilty, beating myself up, and then continuing in the same cycle of bad habits isn't a particularly good strategy. I can't make the perfect the enemy of the good enough for now.

Man, I can't wait for exams to be over.

Optimistic Thought For The Day

I have a professor who once said, "We didn't leave the Stone Age because we ran out of stone."

His point, was basically, that we, as human beings, have a long history of adapting and coming up with new forms of technology.

Of course, I think it's arguable that we've never had to adapt in such a pressurized condition before. While we might have innovated our way out of the Stone Age, no one was holding a gun to our heads and saying, "Adapt, damnit!!"

So here's the million dollar question. How adaptable are we, exactly? How innovative? Can we build a world based on renewable carbon-free technology? Or is our modern way of life doomed when the oil runs out?

I don't know the answer. But we live in a world with 6.7 billion people on it. And more than I believe in anything else, I believe in human beings, and our capacity to innovate and adapt.

Well, What Do You Know

I was doing some research on Amsterdam for a presentation on sustainable cities, and somehow I came across this article in the Economist. Without being able to examine the Brooking's Institution's methodology, I'm a little suspicious, but frankly it doesn't surprise me as much as it probably surprises others that Los Angeles came out fairly green.

The authors make a good point that the weather works to LA's advantage. If you remember, I went without both heat and a/c for a whole year in LA with no problems whatsoever. Obviously most people are turning on their heat and a/c a little, but you need surprisingly little of either in LA. The coastal breezes keep things cool in the summer, and the desert climate means that the temperature drops substantially at night.

As for the length of commute, anecdotally I think it's probably true that a good number of Angelenos don't actually commute that far. I commuted about 10 miles a day to my job, and that is, I think, fairly average.

Like I said, without looking at the Brooking's report myself, I can't really critique their methodology ... excluding industry is also a problem, and given LA's aviation industry, that would probably make LA's numbers worse. But I imagine the report also ignored average food miles, which would probably work to LA's benefit.

Hmmmm ... I may have to move back to Los Angeles after all. :)

Caught in the Storm of Cap & Trade

Yesterday, I ragged on cap & trade, and how I was so tired of seeing climate change framed in economic terms, and that it needs to be framed in terms of human institutions and human welfare.

Anyway, I got a comment that I thought was particularly interesting where the author of the comment basically argued that the reason climate change has been framed in economic terms is that people understand "costs" and "taxes" and "incentives."

...Really?

Because, I have to be honest, I think what most people understand is: how much is this going to currently cost me? How much more money will come out of my paycheck NOW? And for businesses I think it's: what are the short term costs and the short term paybacks?

Basically I think the way we've been arguing climate change is bass-ackwards. Because what we're arguing for is economic incentives/disincentives and then we assume that from THAT, societal change will flow.

But it don't work like that.

Take the sadly demised congestion charge for New York City. There were a lot of problems with the congestion charge, and a lot of specialized interests that caused its death. But one of the problems was simply that policy makers were putting the cart before the horse: the economics before the social change.

If you read this great article by Sarah Bunting, she mentions several societal problems with the congestion charge that weren't addressed by economic means:

1) People like cars & driving.
2) Many people may not technically need to be in their office to do their job, but their place of work might not allow them to work from home.
3) Trains into New York City are already filled to capacity

Now in my mind, the third is the most damning for policy makers. If you're going to charge a congestion tax, I think you have to build the public transit first and make sure it can handle the uptick in volume. But one and two are important to deal with as well.

Now, I don't entirely agree with Bunting's entire assessment. I think had the congestion tax gone through, you would have seen a down tick in people driving into New York City. But the salient point here, for me, is that the congestion tax DID NOT go through. And I would argue that it did not go through because policy makers were trying to deal with something from an economics point of view, and not dealing with the social ramifications.

I could name any number of examples, because environmental policy is rife with them. From carbon taxes to cap and trade to gas taxes at the pump to fees on plastic bags, policies have failed to be widely implemented. Why? Because people don't like 'em. Why don't people like 'em? Because people see it as money out of their pocket for an abstract concept: climate change.

Raise your hand if you know how 2 degrees or 4 degrees of global temperature rising will affect the weather in your hometown. Raise your hand if you have any real conception of what 2-4 degrees of global temperature rising even means.

The truth is, we don't know what a 2-4 degree temperature rise in global temperatures will do. We have some models, and good ideas, but basically, we don't entirely know what for sure will happen. So we're telling people we're going to charge them more to drive their ass to their work when they're already struggling to get by because some scientist at NASA says we need to have only 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere. And we expect them to go along with this because ... why now? Because Al Gore said so?

This is NOT working. It's not. And it has not been working for seventeen freaking years now.

So let's stop putting the cart before the horse. Let's stop framing climate change in terms of economics. Let's start framing the environment in terms of improving livelihoods. Let's create a social fabric where people bike to work because it makes them happier, healthier, and also because it's the thing to do. Or where people eat local, organic food because it tastes better. Or where people bring their own bags to the grocery store because everyone looks at you squinchy eyed when you don't. Because fear of society's disapproval is probably more potent than a few cent tax anyway.

Let's stop framing climate change ... actually let's stop calling it freaking climate change. No one understands what that means anyway. How bout instead we call it increased flooding in Amsterdam and Bangladesh, and more fires in Malibu and Australia, and more drought in Sub-Saharan Africa. And then, let's figure out how we are going to address these problems in their localized contexts.

Will it work? I don't know. But what I do know is that the other way isn't working, so, frankly, what have we got to lose?

Walking Broadway

As I'm struggling through the end of the Lent Term, I've become increasingly focused on the idea of how we can create a synergy between environmentalism and human welfare. How do we build cities that are both sustainable, and that also make life better for people?

One of the things that I noticed in Copenhagen, besides its plethora of bikes, was that the city center shopping area was entirely devoid of cars. Instead, the area was simply filled with bikers and walkers.

This is an example of what is known as the "pedestrian-mall" concept, wherein a central downtown area is closed to vehicular traffic. These pedestrian malls were a fairly popular urban-planning technique for years, but their track record isn't particularly good, and city after city has given up on them and re-opened up their downtowns to auto traffic.

This doesn't mean that they are doomed to fail; but that pedestrian-malls need to be built carefully. In Copenhagen, it seems that the concept works very well because such a large portion of the population commutes via bicycle. Additionally, the area around the pedestrian-mall is very well linked to the rest of the city by bus and metro.

In areas which are well serviced by public transport, and have heavy pedestrian traffic, pedestrian malls can greatly enhance the quality of city life. They can allow for more sidewalk cafes, street performers, food carts, etc.

The key, then, is to ensure that pedestrian-malls are easily accessible by non-vehicular transport. Which is why I believe that New York City's plan to close Broadway between 42nd and 47th street and 35th and 33rd streets, and create a pedestrian mall in Times Square and Heralds Square is a great idea.

Proponents of Mayor Bloomberg's plan believe that the plan will encourage pedestrians, improve the quality of life in New York City, and have minimal impact on vehicle traffic given that Broadway is not an incredibly efficient road for drivers in New York City.

Detractors of the plan cite failed pedestrian malls in places like Kalamazoo, and ask how people will get to Times Square without cars. Uh ... the same way people ALREADY get to Times Square? You know ... by that thing they call the subway?

I guess we'll all see what happens when the road closes down this spring, but my bet is that Bloomberg's experiment will prove successful. And if it is successful, it will demonstrate that human welfare and environmental sustainability need not be in conflict with each other, but that we can actually increase quality of life and sustainability at the same time.

For more views on the closing Broadway project, read this article in the New York Times.

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

All right, let's get that cranky post off the top of this blog, shall we? Sorry about that, folks, but I'm better today! Also, in order to rectify the balance of the universe after my extremely dismal post, Chile has volunteered to sing "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" in a red Annie-style wig. 

'Volunteer,' 'knows nothing about it and was volunteered by me,' whatever. Same difference right? You'll do it, right Chile? Come on! It'll be fun!!

Anyway, so today, I want to talk some more about Jane Jacobs. Sorry, I can't get enough of her, I think, because it is somewhat amazing to me how relevant a book from 1961 is in the building of sustainable cities. A week ago, I read her chapter on reducing car flow in cities. Her brilliant, yet when you think about it, totally obvious answer?

Make driving a car more annoying.

As Jacobs explains, and any incisive observer of LA traffic patterns could intuit, adding lanes and roads doesn't make traffic flow much better, because more cars end up on the road. Adding lanes/roads etc only works if there is a finite number of cars at one time. Since there is not, adding lanes is unlikely to decrease traffic.

Thus, Jacobs suggests that if we want to reduce car flow, we need to widen sidewalks, instead of narrowing them. This will have the result that some people will find travel sufficiently annoying, and will use another mode of transport.

So in the vein of Jane Jacobs, I have a suggestion for LA.

Get rid of some of the parking lots.

Now I know that many Angelenos reading this blog are likely to think I'm insane. Why would we DECREASE the amount of available parking in LA?

Simply, because it's too easy to park in LA. And because it's too easy to park, people in LA don't walk. Even though LA is a city with weather conducive to walking.

Melinda and I actually had this conversation several months ago about walkability. She listed her walk score for her new neighborhood in Seattle, so I asked her what the walkability was for her neighborhood in LA, because mine was surprisingly high. And she was similarly surprised with the relatively high walkability for her old neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Ever since then, I've formed this theory that part of the reason that LA has such an ingrained car culture is because it's too easy to park. If you can easily pull into a parking spot, might as well drive even if you're only traveling a quarter of a mile.

So here's my wacky suggestion for LA this week that will both reduce parking and strengthen public transit.

On most of the large streets, cars are allowed to park in a way that blocks the right-most lane except during rush hour, when the right-most lane becomes an extra lane for traffic. But instead of letting cars park in the right-most lane most of the time, why not use that lane for dedicated rapid bus transit?  

By cutting parking options (and cutting a lane for cars during rush hour), driving will become more annoying. At the same time, public transit will become LESS annoying, which will push some people out of their cars and into buses.

Oh sure, the whole idea is political suicide, and all, but at the same time ... wouldn't it be awesome if you could take rapid transit bus from the Sunset Strip to Hollywood? Or say, if you could go to Sky Bar, not pay $20 to park, have as much to drink as you want, and then take rapid bus transit down La Cienega and across Wilshire to your apartment in Hancock Park? Not every major street would need a dedicated bus transit lane; you could get pretty far if there were dedicated bus lanes on say Sunset, Santa Monica, Wilshire, La Cienega and La Brea. And we wouldn't have to wait 20 billion years for the subway to expand. Hell, we could do this tomorrow if we wanted to.

Sure, I know, ain't gonna happen. But a girl can dream, right?

Unpacking "Affluence"

Those of you who followed the whole debate about the word affluence for our APLS carnival know that I came down heavily in support of keeping the A-word. I believed that it was important for those of us in the developed world to acknowledge our affluence. At the core, I wanted to keep the word "affluence," because I want to work for a world where everyone is an affluent person living sustainably. Where everyone gets the advantages I was lucky to have.

Lately, I've been hearing a lot about 'limits to growth' and how we cannot sustain a world where everyone is affluent. But this begs the question: what is affluence?

In my field of study, we tend to talk a lot about poverty, and how one defines it. Do we define it as income, or do we also include other factors like life-expectancy, health, and happiness?

And most people in my field agree that one needs to approach poverty in a more holistic way.

Thus, it's ironic that very little conversation is had around what it means to be affluent.

What is affluence? How do we define it?

Are another ten thousand cars on the streets of Bombay a sign of affluence?

I'd argue emphatically not.

You are not affluent just because you have a car if your commute takes three hours out of your day.

You are not necessarily affluent if you have the latest tech gadgets and you also lack health care. Or if the purchase of said gadgets lead to enormous credit card debt.

If you are stuck in a job you hate in order to pay the expensive mortgate and car payments, are you affluent?

The truth is that affluence is only unsustainable if we measure it in terms of cars and plasma TVs.

But cars and plasma televisions don't necessarily make people happier or healthier.

Instead, what if we view an affluent society as a society with high quality universal health care, education, and social security? As a society with adequate soup kitchens and shelters for those who are going through tough times? As a society with excellent public transportation, so that a car is not a necessity. As a society where kids can bike up and down the street without fear of getting run over? As a society with walkable neighborhoods filled with small coffee shops, restaurants, book stores, movie theatres, parks and museums?

Is the life of the average cookie-cutter suburban McMansion living, SUV-driving, American sustainable for everyone on the planet?

No.

But who said that that's affluence anyway?

Informal Space

I'm reading The Death and Life of Great American Cities right now by Jane Jacobs, which is a really, really fantastic book. I'll do a review when I finish it, but after 84 pages, I can already recommend it to you all.

It's about building cities, you know, for people. Jacobs wrote the book in 1961, when things like sustainability and climate change and what not were not on anyone's radar. So it's alternatively amazing and alternately life-affirming that what makes cities good for people is exactly what makes cities good for the environment.

The things Jacobs mentions? Lively sidewalks. People out on the streets. Informal gathering places. Small shops.

It's interesting, in retrospect, because the discussion takes me back several years to ... 2003. I had been living in LA for two years, and I really, really hated it. The city seemed to me to be a maze of concrete and palm trees. It was an awful, artificial city, and I leaped at any chance to leave for a weekend or two.

And then, and I honestly, don't remember the details of how this happened, but through a friend, I ended up spending all my time in a neighborhood in LA with lively street life. Where people would hang out at the coffee shop until 2:00 am playing chess. Or drink cheap wine at the Italian restaurant down the street. Or have a cosmo at the hipster Indian restaurant up the street. Where everyone knew the name of the guys who worked at the 7-11, and they, in turn, knew our names.

Gradually, as I started spending more and more time in the neighborhood, I became more and more woven into the fabric of its streets. And as the city started to mean more to me than an assortment of freeways, I became more and more of an Angeleno.

As I got busier with my job, I spent less in the neighborhood. I no longer had time to hang out at the coffee shop, or eat at the Indian restaurant. And yet, my walk from the metro to my apartment continued to take me through the neighborhood. And even though I no longer participated in the 'street culture' per se, I was still a part of the fabric of the neighborhood. I still ran into acquaintances right and left. And the street was still littered with my many memories of Los Angeles.

Now some might think that the point of this story is that love for a city is about forming long lasting solid friendships with your fellow city denizens. But this is emphatically not the point. Instead, the point, as Jacobs explains, is about forming a strong web of connections with strangers, acquaintances, and friendly acquaintances.

Indeed, I have only stayed in touch with a couple of the people who I met on this street. Most of my strong friendships were formed elsewhere. And yet, when I think of LA, when I think of where I left my heart in Los Angeles, I think of this street. And all the assorted people who wandered through it, who wandered through my life from time to time. I think of the sense of belonging I felt as I walked down the street.

And that's what is so interesting about LA, and I think, might have something to do with my LA experience versus ... everyone else's.

My love of LA stems from a neighborhood in LA where everyone walks to the neighboring restaurants, the coffee shops, the bars, the grocery, the bank. A bunch of my acquaintances from the neighborhood didn't even have cars! Sidewalks were wide to allow outside seating at the many restaurants on the street, and pedestrians remained until the wee hours of the morning.

When you find these pockets of LA, there isn't really much that can beat it. Because, frankly, the weather is fabulous, you get local strawberries in January, the restaurants are amazing, and the city is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world.

Unfortunately, too many people in LA get caught in the concrete, unsustainable jungle. They spend too much time in their cars, sequestered away from everyone else. But if people in Los Angeles would just get out of their cars a little, they would find out that they live in a city filled with vibrant, eclectic, creative people. That off the freeways, you smell jasmine, and not smog. And that walking in LA is the only way to you are ever going to hear the heartbeat of the City of Angels, a city, truly deserving of its name, if ever you take the time to get to know it.

Sustainable Cities

Many of you are familiar with former Bogota mayor Enrique Penalosa and his work in transforming the city of Bogota, but if you aren't, I highly recommend this video. Hell, even if you are familiar with him, I recommend this video.

The Eco-First Date

Well, since my post about engagement rings was so popular, I figured that I'd leap to the other end of the dating spectrum and spend some time discussing the first date today.

First dates are tricky enough as it is, but when you're a little eco-nutty they are even harder. You want to be yourself, but you don't want to seem too nutty on the first date. Best to gradually let the crazy come out. Hopefully by the time your sig o finds out that you don't use paper toilet paper, they will already be so smitten with you that they won't care.

On the other hand, you do want someone who will be reasonably tolerant of your green escapades, so if your date spends all his time mocking polar bears, they might not be the one for you. So, you definitely don't want to hide too much. For example, many many years ago, I went out on a date with a guy, and I let him pick the restaurant. Which isn't a big deal, except that I specifically told him that I didn't eat red meat, as at the time I was only eating chicken and fish. Now, I would imagine that as dietary restrictions go, no red meat is a fairly minor one, right? Well, guess where the guy took me. To a steak house. Yes, a steak house. In the Midwest. Know what was on the menu? Red meat. Know what was NOT on the menu? Things that didn't involve red meat. I ended up eating an extremely sad garden salad that literally consisted of iceberg lettuce, croutons, and ranch dressing. As you can probably guess, there was no second date.

So, you definitely want to be upfront about your environmentalism, if not entirely upfront about your specific enviro kooks. A date who is intolerant of said environmentalism is not a person you really want to be with anyway. BUT, this is not to say that you shouldn't say ... date someone who drives an SUV, or someone who eats factory farmed meat, or someone who doesn't recycle. Because the truth is, people change. Remember, most of us weren't born environmentally conscious. It took us time to become so. So if your date isn't Mr. or Ms. Eco, don't let that necessarily be a deal breaker. If you both really like each other, you'll probably adapt.

All right, so in sum, be honest about yourself, but not too nutty, and don't date environmentally intolerant people, but don't make their lack of environmentalism a total deal breaker. Everyone got that? Ok, good.

Now that we've got that out of the way, where are you going to go?

Some first date locales are definitely trickier than others. A coffee date, for example, is a pretty easy date. It's low key, it doesn't have to be too long, and it's not that hard to find local independent coffee shops that brew organic fair trade coffee. Even if you go to that non-independent behemoth, Starbucks, they do have fair trade coffee available. On the other hand, if you really like a person, coffee might not be your first choice in terms of first dates....

Then there's the ever popular drinks option. It's fun, having a drink can alleviate first date nerves, and here in London, it's surprisingly easy to find organic, locally brewed beer on tap. If you can't find organic locally brewed beer on tap, just do your best. I tend to give preference to what's on tap, both because it generally tastes better, and then you're not stuck with a bottle which may or may not be recycled. Then you might go for a local beer, unless your local beer choice is Bud Light, in which case, absolutely DO NOT GO FOR THE LOCAL BEER. If there is no good local beer choice, you might live in a region like California that has excellent local wines, so that's always an option. If you can't find anything local or organic that sounds appealing, don't sweat it too much. It's your first date, you're freaking out a little inside, and really, your choice of drink should be the least stressful part of the evening.

Dinner dates are probably the most difficult first dates to deal with. They involve a longer time commitment than coffee or drinks, and dealing with food is complicated even when you're not an eco-nut! If you're a girl, there's a lot of pressure not to be The Girl Who Eats Half A Salad, but there's also a lot of pressure not to be The Girl Who Eats Like A Pig. Similarly, if you're a guy, there's all this weird pressure to be masculine. Like, if you order a vegetarian entree, then maybe she'll think you're some super sensitive girly boy who likes to take baths while listening to Peter Gabriel. (Not that there's anything wrong with baths or Peter Gabriel per se.)

The point is, we all subscribe, at least a little, to the idea that you are what you eat. Thus, we can see what the other person orders as an indicator of sorts as to what kind of person they are. Not very fair, but thems the breaks on a first date.

So what to do? Well, clearly restaurant choice is important as illustrated in my sad steak house first date story. Many of us eco-nuts would probably prefer to go to the cute place downtown with really good food that sources their ingredients locally. But, your date might have other ideas, which, remember, doesn't necessitate that that person is a bad fit for you. Also, there's the added question of who is going to be paying for said date. Now, I'm not going to go into that little issue, as we all could probably write books about it, but what I'm saying is, if there's a good chance you won't be paying, then don't suggest a place which costs $50 per head.

So here's what I would suggest. Ethnic food, if you both are somewhat adventurous can be a really good option. One, because you can often find good ethnic food inexpensively, and when you're eating at an ethnic restaurant, all those steak/salad issues tend to disappear. What does ordering saag paneer or kung pao chicken say about a person? Nothing really, that I can think of.

Another good option is pizza. I know what you're thinking. Really, pizza? But your local pizza place is a really nice option because almost everyone likes pizza, it's reasonably inexpensive, and there are likely to be plenty of veggie and non-veggie options. Also, then you can throw in that funny story about how you tried to make mozarella, and ended up setting off the smoke alarm, and half the building had to be evacuated.

And that wraps up this week in first dates. Anyone else have some first date advice they'd like to offer?