Each week, TreeHugger pops up on Infrastructurist to offer up a dose of its finest coverage of the built environment.
Transit: We admired the the strange, beautiful subways of the Soviet Union, and were excited to hear that Seattle is adding 500 diesel hybrid buses to its transit fleet.
Cars: Just as we discover that the Chevy Volt will be rated at 230 MPG, we consider the battery issue: proprietary batteries for electric cars mean faster development — but if they all were to use the same interchangable batteries, electric car costs could drop dramatically.
Meanwhile, at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Bill Clinton suggested that the Cash for Clunkers program could be tweaked to boost electric cars too. Will what’s said in Vegas stay in Vegas?
For now, we point to the 10 most fuel efficient cars that are eligible under the Cash for Clunkers program.
Buildings: We got an eyeful of Marc Porat’s net-zero-energy urban prefabs, and an earful of Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. She explained in a Facebook rant that federal stimulus money for energy efficient buildings would leave the state “tied down by codes which will dictate how we build and renovate homes and businesses.” But with Palin fresh out of the governor’s seat, the Alaskan legislature wasted no time in overturning her veto of the funds.
On the business front, as Green for All launches a program to help companies take part in the green economy, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection kicks off a multi-state Made in America jobs tour.
Monsters: We learned of the urban whale, the result of another new beast: the “ocean sprawl” of shipping, recreation, electricity generation and waste disposal. We also spotted giant rat-eating plants in the Philippines and learned how thinking about how well we’d fare zombie attack helps us also consider how we deal with infectious diseases.
Food: A quiz on Planet Green sheds some light on how your water gets to your tap, and James Reynolds puts luggage labels on produce to illustrate how far it came.
We asked readers for photos of their edible container gardens and got an eyeful: Wee-huggers enjoying the fruits of their parents labor, a rooftop vegetable garden monitored by a solar-powered webcam, recycled tires-turned-gardens growing every-veggie from acorn squash to jalapenos, and many more yummy fruits and veggies, from New York to New Mexico.
Climate change: A new study describes the ancient Mayans as effective forest managers and conservationists. When they abandoned their “green” ways, their civilization collapsed. Can we say history lesson?
But would climate change be more credible to skeptics if it weren’t promoted by people like Barack Obama, Al Gore, and John Kerry but rather by the military? Perhaps…
Two final questions: why aren’t there more drive-through bike lanes, and are flush toilets really appropriate in parts of the developing world ?
August 20th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
In the case of electric car batteries, using the same type of battery for all vehicles would reduce costs dramatically for all manufacturers as would a standard charging outlet/socket combination, what it would then create is a competition amongst manufacturers that would require optimal vehicle designs in terms of efficiency (weight reduction, aerodynamics etc)
An easy way to implement this would be for say the detroit 3 (they ain’t that big anymore) to set up a joint development centre for the development of the batteries and design away boys!
Just a thought.
August 21st, 2009 at 10:12 am
“The Detroit 3″ — I could see this term catching on. Excellent idea re the innovation ctr.
JR
August 21st, 2009 at 10:18 pm
what is the role of the lady with the sign in the Moscow subway?