This is a refreshing breath of fresh air. According to the LA Times, a student in Utah bid on oil leases he couldn’t buy to run up their prices. Apparently, he was sick of the government selling leases to land in his state for oil exploration and extraction so he turned to a tried-and-true method to attack the problem: civil disobedience.

A college student was charged with two federal felonies Wednesday for what he contends were acts of civil disobedience — making false bids to run up auction prices on oil and gas parcels on public land near Utah’s national parks.

How great. How inventive. Yeah, this could cause some serious issues if everyone does it, sometimes, serious issues with normal operating procedure are what’s needed. For example, Birmingham, AL circa 1955.

It seems the guy isn’t the only one with a problem with these leases either:

Weeks later, new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rescinded 77 of the leases, saying they were too close to national parks and never should have gone up for sale under the Bush administration.

But the real kicker is the end result of his actions:

“Tim DeChristopher is a guy who walked in the auction without a penny and cost our company $600,000,” Gunnell said.

via Student is charged with obstructing Utah land auction – Los Angeles Times.

For a long time now I’ve thought it would be very cool to be from Japan. Or at least to live there. (I actually don’t think I would be very happy as a Japanese person.) I’ve always been enamored with the culture, the history and the cutting-edge technology of all types. This seals the deal though: speedy, secure, space-saving underground bike parking.

Giken’s ‘Eco-park’ parking structures are secure, simple, and useful. They’re also quite cool. Unmanned by attendants, they are defined by a small garage outpost coming out of the ground that would be mistaken for aerodynamic ATMs if you didn’t know anything about them.

[snip]

Within 10-25 seconds, your bike has descended into the deep machinery abyss underground. But don’t worry, it’s safe and sound. The locking base is switched underground and suspended in place in its own railway. Each garage includes 144 railways for bikes, which must abide by a certain length, height, and tire size (at 28-inches). Still, it’s definitely a space saver.

via @usingbicycles Now, there are some issues with the contraption and business model: why pay for bike parking? What if someone tries to grab their bike as it flies in and gets their hand ripped off? People are stupid after all. But I can imagine some great applications for this. I don’t think we need one on every corner, but install one at a baseball stadium, at the mall, on the campus of a big company or college, or at park and ride transit centers and I bet more people do ride their bikes.

Plus, our cities would be that much cooler.

In a word, oy.

Religious leaders In the Williamsburg Hasidic community are calling for a ban on bike lanes in their neighborhood because of bikers passing through in revealing clothing. One Hasid says, “It bothers me, and it bothers a lot of people.”

I’m all for religious tolerance and respect and all, but I’m sorry, the needs of the many are generally supposed to trump the wishes of the few especially when the action really doesn’t cause an inconvenience, loss of life, loss of home or really anything except a few flushed cheeks.

At least, no matter their anger, there’s no worry that Williamsburg the Hasids will be running bikers off the road, at least on Friday nights, as drivers in Seattle have been wont to do.

Via CEOs for Cities.

Energy is on my mind this week. Take a look at my Google Reader feed (It’s also in a box there to the right) to see a great post on Biden’s energy/climate history. Looks good if you ask me.

What looks even better is the below map created by Earth2Tech. It shows the death of coal plant by plant.

View Larger Map

How great. One can only hope that those white flags will multiply faster and faster.

Environmentalists (like me) like to talk about how the U.S. needs to be a leader in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if it expects developing nations like China and India to reduce theirs. It seems to make sense since the argument China and India like to give is that if we’re not doing it, how can they, poor little developing nations that they are, afford to change their manufacturing processes and lifestyle choices to cut back on GHGs?

A new study out last month points the finger for a large chunk of China’s emissions right back at us. According to an article in New Scientist, 33% of China’s GHG emissions come from exports. That’s right, the crap we buy everyday accounts for a third of china’s GHG emissions. That’s equal to 6% of the world’s total emissions.

Yikes. Now, I’m not saying China should be let off the emissions hook. China is dependent on coal for 80 percent of their electricity and erected almost two large coal-fired power plants a week in 2006, according to the Pew Center for Climate Change. But, we here in the West do need to take some responsibility. You may feel that you need to shop at Wal-Mart because of our current recession, and that’s a valid concern (I guess. Wal-Mart? Really?) but how can we honestly expect China just to drastically raise its cost of doing business if our government (and those of the rest of the West) is not willing to help ease the pain a bit?

After all, our addiction to Ipods is feeding theirs to GHGs.

hat tip: Earth2Tech

As Zeke pointed out below, “green” trade shows are not the only ones that produce amazing amounts of waste. Though, as I said before, it’s still kind of shocking how much the “green” ones do produce.

Apparently there’s at least one company that’s working to make the trade-show industry a bit more sustainable. According to Sustainable Industries, where I write too:

Eco-Systems builds its portable-modular exhibits using bamboo plywood,
low-VOC stains and finishes, LED lighting, and polyester fiber made
from recycled soda bottles. Eco-Systems also offers an internal
recycling service called Reincarnation, which collects retired exhibit
materials for use in new displays. The company’s shipping cases are
also made from recycled materials.

That’s pretty great. Unfortunately, their products come at a premium price, but the cost is dropping. Hopefully it’ll come inline with the cost of standard display booths soon.

Ok. So you know me. I’m a “greenie” or an “enviro” or a “Hippie Tree Hugger.” Whatever you call it, you know what I mean: I care about the environment and espouse that view most any chance I get and love to show off the impact “green” living can have.

But as a journalist, I also need to show when the best of the best aren’t actually so good.

To whit, the U.S. Green Building Council 2007 conference generated tons of waste:

How much trash does a “green” event produce? Evidently, a lot if you’re
the U.S. Green Building Council’s GreenBuild 2007. The annual
conference, held in Chicago last year, created 44 tons of waste.

Not such a good metric for a “green” event, is it? Not even when you consider that 40 of those tons of waste were diverted from landfills, as the DJC Green Building Blog also noted. That’s nice and all, but as the post points out, and the CEO of CleanScapes told me yesterday in an interview, it’s still wasteful even if it’s recycled or composted. Seriously, did all of that waste need to be generated in the first place? So much of what is created and used is not necessary. Even if it is recycled or composted, when you get rid of it, it’s still wasting resources such as energy and the materials.

We all need to change and we all need to be continually improving. As someone who works for Boeing that I interviewed today said, “It’s not enough to just be compliant anymore. We need continual improvement. That’s an excellent standard.”

I don’t go to Burning Man and I never will. Mostly that’s because I went to more than my share of festivals in the middle of nowhere when I was traveling around to see Phish in my youth. After checking out Coachella in 2004, I realized my time sitting in the desert with tens of thousands of other people was over.

That said, I’ve learned a bit about the festival because my wife’s sister (it’s so hard to say sister in law) has been a few times and is involved in Seattle’s “burner” community. In my idealistic brain, I always imagined Burning Man to be some Utopian event where everyone shared the same slightly hippie tendencies which would no doubt translate to a festival full of peace, love and all things good. Then I learned that people who go to Burning Man don’t necessarily have environmental cares or even think much about the environment. Apparently some truck in their art projects and camps, literally. They use 18-wheel semis and set up air conditioning systems in their desert camps.

Needless to say, I was disgusted.

The next year, Burning Man’s theme was “Green Man.” Not that I expected much, but I hoped for something.

An article on the Sierra Club Web site about Burning Man’s environmental credentials dashed those hopes.

Most notably, the comments of the festival’s “environmental manager” infuriate me. He’s the guy
who’s supposed to be in charge of all this stuff and instead, he gives up responsibility for making real change, saying in effect, it’s too hard.

“It’s ridiculous to even consider eliminating [this type of] art from
our lives,” he said, surveying a sea of revelers. “I mean, should we
recycle the Eiffel Tower? We don’t really need the view, right?”

The two are not even close to comparable. While putting the resources used in the Eiffel Tower might be considered wasteful today (not a position I advocate), they are not impacting the environment now. Burning Man, on the other hand, is a type of art that is disposable in almost every aspect. From the materials, to the transport to the burn itself. It’s a piece of art created BY consumption and to be disposed of

“The idea of building a sustainable, temporary city in the middle of nowhere is preposterous on its face,” Price said.

Exactly the problem! It is and that’s what makes it so disgusting to so many people. Unfortunately, he seems to decide that this is a reason to take token steps (30-kw solar array and donating 50-kw arrays to a few places? Whopdey Fucking Do) and then rest on his pathetic laurels.

“Because we build the city from the ground up, we’re able to change
whatever we want to on a dime. We’ve looked at transportation, solid waste, materials, energy, art, media–everything, all aspects of the event.”

People still truck in tons of bottles of water, drive semis in and air condition the desert. They can’t change that except by ending the practice. I’m sorry, but in my opinion, if the most privileged people in the world can’t change when the problem is so desperate, the world needs to live without this art.

Burning Man image courtesy frankenspock. Eiffel Tower image courtesy Marcio Cabral de Moura

I’ve just started trying it out, but if EcoSearch.org works as advertised, it’s gonna be pretty neat. In short, it’s supposed to use Google’s search and return the same results as Google, but when you click on a sponsored link, part of the ad revenues go to EcoSearch, which is a non-profit. They, in turn, donate most of that money to eco-minded non-profits.

I’ll try it out for a few days (you can even integrate its search into your browser’s search bar same as Google) and if it is as seamless as promised, I may even start clicking on sponsored ads.

From time to time when I’m in a car with someone, we’ll pass a gas station and the exorbitant price of gas will come up (currently seeing prices over $4 for regular unleaded in Seattle is not uncommon) and I’ll say something about how great I think it is because it’s finally starting to reflect the true cost of oil, as it should.

In yesterday’s Times, Tom Friedman posited the same thing:

the long-term answer is to go exactly the other way: guarantee people a high price of gasoline — forever.

YES! I love it. I also love the main point of Friedman’s column about gas prices which is about how great it would be if candidates for president had the balls to tell American’s the truth about these things. As he points out at the end, Obama told half the story when he called Clinton and McCain on the stupidness of their gas-tax holiday idea. When he’s elected, he needs to tell the whole story, and raise the gas tax so the price never drops below $4 again. I know people will hate this, but it’s still 1/2 the price it is in Europe, and they’re doing just fine.