Cascadia Scorecard Weblog

Still Pulling Apart

I'm a couple of days late on this, but it's still worth mentioning the new 2006 "Pulling Apart" report that's just out. Even if you're not a data-geek, it's worth a glance, as it's easily the single best source for income inequality trends in each of the 50 states. Not dying to read it yet?

Are you sure?

It's chock full of fun facts like this one:

On average, nationally, the incomes of the poorest fifth of families grew by $2,660 over the two decade period [early 1980s to early 2000s], after adjusting for inflation. By contrast, the incomes of the richest fifth of families grew by almost that much ($2,148) each year over the course of two decades, for a total increase of $45,100.

You can find out how your state fared. And you can find out which Northwest state ranked 3rd in the nation for the greatest increase between the wealthy and the middle class. But you'll have to read the report for yourself--the full version and state-specific fact sheets are here.

The report is subtitled, "A State-by-State Analysis of Income Trends," which pretty much says it all (though perhaps not in the most sparkling language imaginable). It's researched and written by economists at the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Food vs. Shelter: The Planning Debate

In the debate over growth management, it's easy for the parties to forget that it’s never us against them, it's us against us. For just one example, planners must strike a balance between our needs for food (in the form of nearby farmland) and shelter (in the form of decent housing for a growing population). And promoting density, while important in many respects, is not the whole answer to problems of growth.

Oregon's land-use task force is beginning to study what the state’s citizens want, and The Oregonian is running a good series on planning that addresses the balance between desirable housing and fertile farmland. The articles offer some goods insights and they got me thinking.

Density done wrong does no one any good. Urban village development (and their traditional counterparts) must attract buyers, not be foisted on them. A subdivision crammed with more houses is not a real solution. It’s still auto-dependent and segregates homes from shops and services. It adheres to the letter of planning for density, but ignores the spirit—density ought to empower residents with choices, not just wedge people together. Intelligent planning is required to build attractive homes that also offer privacy and a sense of space, as well as easy access to amenities. The point of smart planning should not to force people into the city, but to create more good places there for those who want it.

Even with good density alternatives, some people may still want a house with a big yard. I think that it’s important to offer a mix of housing types, but these larger more distant lots come with all sorts of hidden costs to society: higher costs to supply public services like water, sewer, and emergency response farther out—not to mention negative externalities like air pollution, road-building, and possible watershed deterioration from the added impervious surface. And it’s also important, as The Oregonian article notes, that we preserve farmland and other green places.

And space is not the only reason people may want to move into rural areas: they also may want to be closer to nature. I think it's important to ask how best to connect people to the natural world without sacrificing the very nature they crave. I worry about getting caught in a vicious cycle as people move farther and farther out until there's scant rural land left and our cities are so sprawling that most people must rely exclusively on cars for transportation.

I favor setting aside space within cities for neighborhood parks, community gardens, and large semi-wild areas like Forest Park in Portland, Discovery Park in Seattle, and Stanley Park in Vancouver. Unlike fenced-off backyards, these areas let people connect both to nature and to their community.

But really, I see growth planning and development disputes as a symptom of a larger issue: population growth. Our grandparents could reasonably expect to build a house on a half acre lot outside the city because land was plentiful, but people weren’t. Sprawl and population growth have reversed that equation to the point where we need to change our housing expectations if we want our grandchildren to have access to nearby farms and local produce.

Just a few thoughts sparked by the Oregonian series. Take a read and see what you think.

A Post-mortem For Coastal Birds

Cascadians suffering through this winter's unending rain may hearken back to the balmy winter of last year, when the rains didn't really begin until spring. Last year's freak weather, however, together with changes in ocean current behavior, may have been an advance signal of climate change with decidedly unpretty results for coastal ecosystems, particularly for birds. 

By summer of 2005, food was so scare that murres starved to death by the thousands on the Olympic Coast, while Washington's colonies of glaucous-winged gulls produced less than 1 percent of their annual chick numbers. Up and down the West Coast, from Vancouver Island to central California, researchers reported bizarre ocean conditions, bird die-offs (with no analogy in historical records), and extremely low stocks of some key fish. 

A cadre of 45 scientists recently convened in Seattle to figure out what caused the bird deaths. It's possible that last summer's ecological catastrophe was just a freak alignment of several weather factors, but there's increasing evidence that it bears the fingerprints of climate change. Read all about it in a top-notch piece of journalism by Robert McClure in the Seattle P-I.

Bio-Fuel's Progress

Interesting timing:  this study (subscription only, except for the abstract), just published in the journal Science, may give a boost to the biofuels bill that's currently working its way through the Washington legislature.

The study addressed itself to the issue of whether ethanol from corn really reduces greenhouse gas emissions -- which has been an area of fairly intense interest among both supporters and skeptics of biofuels.

To me, it looks like the authors really did their homework, and have done their best to be conduct a fair analysis that takes the best points from all sides of the debate.  Their final answer: compared with gasoline, filling your tank with corn ethanol reduces total GHG emissions by about 13 percent.  Score a point for ethanol!

As fair as the paper seems, it probably won't end the controversy; David Pimentel, one of corn ethanol's main detractors, has already dismissed the study as "another pro-ethanol paper".   

And, as with everything, the devil's in the details; and for a system as complicated as corn ethanol production there are a lot of details.  For example -- and pardon me if this is getting too geeky -- I'm not sure whether the authors accounted for the 1 percent or so of nitrogen fertilizers that are applied to cornfields, but then get volatilized and released into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide.  NO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, about 310 more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, so even small releases can make a difference.  If the authors haven't accounted for that, then the GHG gains of ethanol may be substantially lower than the paper suggests -- perhaps a 3 percent improvement rather than 13 percent.

But one thing that the paper does make clear is that cellulosic ethanol -- made from woody material or straw -- at least has the potential to be lead to really substantial reductions in GHG emissions.  If a modest biofuels bill can help jumpstart interest in cellulosic ethanol, it seems like it could be well worth the effort.

The Roads Ahead

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

A History of Selling the Suburbs

"Making Headway: A Little Logic Along Life's Journey." That's the helpful title of an advertising brochure--circa 1930 or so--promoting what was then ex-urban development in north Seattle. I thought the ad copy was so intriguing that I just had to share some excerpts...

No one who is normal can be content to remained imprisoned within the four walls of the modern stuffy apartment, with its lack of yard, grass plot, flower beds and garden for the kiddies' play and the family food.

Life to you must mean more than that. It must have freedom of both air and area to fully develop.

These, too, without the penalty of city taxes and with less expenditure of travel time than is experienced in many massed and narrowed neighborhoods.

Get your feet off the hard, distressing pavement of the city for at least the evening period of the day.

Leave behind the unattractive canyons of trade and turmoil. Rest your nerves and your soul for the next day's problems.

Do this midst your own fragrant flowers--on your own clover meadows, surrounded by the fruits of your own handiwork. THIS IS REAL LIVING.

All through life the worth-while man and woman yearns for just these things: an acre of rich, fragrant, deep meadow soil--surely a scarce commodity in Western Washington--that responds gladly to the vigorous and intelligent touch of ambitious and loving hands.

Now is the logical time to acquire that "DREAM PLACE." Values have never been so reasonable, and with real soil as the basis, your investment is sure to increase in value.

In a very few years any productive soil ten miles from the busy center will be considered choice and in great demand. VALUES WILL INCREASE considerably.

Hard surfaced highways and automobiles have brought the outer fringes of the city close enough in to suit particular people.

These tracts are but a mile beyond the city limits... YOU ARE NOT TAXED TO THE BONE.

How often have you felt that craving for the larger opportunity, the greater area for expansion, the garden of your dreams, where the wife and kiddies could relax without that dress-parade attitude, secure from public gaze?

This is hardly possible when confined to a midget city lot, and certainly impossible in a stuffy, noisy flat.

Love, health, freedom of action; an environment of lawns, blossoming trees, trailing berry vines, roses, and the succulent vegetable bed--all are a part of that dream, that yearning for better and bigger things. THEY ARE YOURS TO COMMAND.

TWENTY MINUTES in your own car from Pike and Fourth, or not more than a half-hour by comfortable auto bus, over the paved Bothell Highway, will land you at A REAL HOME.

Whether a merchant, manufacturer or salaried worker, you can live, laugh, and "be one with nature" in these fields of growing things, while less than a half-hour away by auto to the busy marts... the "maddening throng" of the stuff and noisy city will have no evening charms for you.

I'm not intending to cast aspersions. One of my favorite things about my new house, is the small backyard. The allure of outdoor space and a connection to nature, however mediated by civilization, is a strong one for home buyers. Still, it's interesting to see how the new developments were sold with promises of restorative nature; while the certainty that those green places would disappear was used to sell the homes' future appreciation. Something of an irony, I think.

(Credit for finding the brochure to Todd Burley, outreach coordinator at Homewaters Project--and former NEW intern extraordinaire. He leads walks through the now fully urbanized Thornton Creek watershed where these homes were built.)

What's the Matter with Canada?

  Oh, Canada … The country that prides itself as the social-policy soul-mate of Scandinavia--with universal health care, progressive drug policies, gay marriage, and yes, even legalized swingers’ clubs, of late--has elected as its leader a former oil-and-gas man from Alberta, the Canadian equivalent of Texas. Huh?

On Monday, Canada’s Conservative Party won the majority of seats in parliament, ousting the once-formidable Liberal Party from power for the first time in 13 years. Paul Martin, who became prime minister in 2004, resigned as head of the Liberal Party.

What’s an American Cascadian to think?

Well, Canada has four major political parties (the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois), so what may look like a sudden and unexpected upheaval is actually a more nuanced election than you typically get in the United States. Mix in the biggest political corruption investigation in years (the “sponsorship scandal,” which involved widespread mishandling of a public fund used to promote federalism over separatism in Quebec), and you have a race that the incumbent Liberal government was itching to lose.

Upon closer inspection, the vote was tight, and the Conservatives, or the Tories as they’re known north of the border, are left with a minority government--only 124 out of 308 seats in parliament--which means they have to reach out to other parties and form a coalition to actually govern. In fact, they only received 36.3 percent of the popular vote.

A mandate it ain’t.

And in Canada’s three biggest cities--Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver--it was a shut out. The Conservative Party won zero seats.

In British Columbia, there was a certifiable progressive resurgence. The New Democrat Party (NDP), social democrats to the left of the Liberals, doubled their seats, largely through scrappy, narrow victories in diverse metropolitan neighborhoods like Vancouver’s Kingsway. (This follows strong gains for the NDP in the provincial election last May, when the NDP recovered from the total annihilation of 2001, which left them with a pathetic one seat in BC’s legislative assembly. In the May 2005 provincial election, many voters were reacting to the sweeping government cutbacks provincial leader Gordon Campbell unleashed on the province after he became premier in 2001.)

The Tories lost BC seats, even in rural regions dominated by resource industries. Areas like Northern Vancouver Island, the Southern Interior, and the North all elected NDP candidates.

How will the election affect environmental policy?

Campbell is still the premier of British Columbia, and most land-use planning decisions will be decided on his watch.

But with only 21 more seats than the Liberals, the Conservative party is in no position to throw out Kyoto. Many Canadians are proud of the leadership role their country has played in finding global solutions to climate change, including hosting the Montreal conference last November.

One hot BC issue is the longstanding federal moratorium on oil-and-gas drilling off the BC coast. The NDP incumbent 33-year-old Nathan Cullen, won out over Conservative Party candidate Mike Scott, who was campaigning on the promise to lift the moratorium.

Cullen campaigned to safeguard the coast from drilling, strengthen aboriginal rights and title, and battle the encroachment of fish farms. The area he represents as a member of parliament is no progressive oasis. Stretching from the Queen Charlotte Islands all the way to Fort St. John, it’s full of cash-strapped communities and forests decimated by Asian pine beetles.

Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the Canadian election is the emergence of Liberal star Michael Ignatieff. This ex-pat--a Harvard professor, frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine and human rights activist--returned to Ontario at the start of this eight-week campaign to run for office and clean up the Liberals. He won a seat in parliament, and he’s now vying for party leader. Some have crowned him the Liberals’ new philosopher-king, and, perhaps, Canada’s future prime minister.

Puget Sound: Cruisin' For a Bruisin'

Washington's leaders have been making a lot of noise about cleaning up Puget Sound. Governor Gregoire wants to boost Sound restoration dollars by $42 million, or about 50 percent. It's earning the governor heaps of glowing media attention.

But the media has turned a blind eye to the astronomical number of cruise ships poised to foul local waters. A single line, Holland America, just announced that it will be increasing its cruises out of Seattle from 37 to 61. In 2006, according to the Port of Seattle, 200 cruise ships with enter and depart Puget Sound (roughly a 30 percent increase from 2005) and they'll ferry an estimated 735,000 people. Those cruise ships are potential ecological catastrophes, especially when their dumping practices are not actually, uh, regulated, as they are in California and Alaska.

What damage can a cruise ship do? According to WashPIRG:

In a day, a typical cruise ship of 3,000 passengers and crew produces 30,000 gallons of sewage, 270,000 gallons of other wastewater, and additional gallons of hazardous wastes, biomedical waste, oily bilge water, and solid waste.

You do the math. What I mean is: multiply each of those numbers by 200, then multiply again by the number of days each ship is in the Sound, and you'll find the potential environmental impact of just one year of the cruise industry. And the threat to Puget Sound is not just hypothetical. A Norwegian cruise line dumped 40 tons of human waste near Whidbey Island a couple of years ago. Oops.

At present, the cruise industry in Washington is governed with the lightest of hands--unenforceable memorandums of understanding, rather than genuine legislation. What's the solution? Real legislation to prevent dumping with real enforcement mechanisms. Levying a per-head remediation fee in advance of another "mistake" wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Adding to the list of insults, the cruise ships mostly burn low-grade dirty diesel--despite promises to the contrary--and it may be fouling the air in downtown Seattle with carcinogens. I'd welcome additional legislation regulating cruise ship emissions too.

Unfortunately there's scant reason to believe Washington will get real enforcement because the issue has been largely overlooked by the media (and hence it's invisible to most citizens). Perhaps too busy heaping praise on the Puget Sound clean-up proposals, Seattle's media outlets have pretty much ignored the cruise ship catastrophe. I could find only one mention of the Port's announcement to dramatically increase cruises in 2006--and that was buried in a boosterish article in the P-I's business section--and no mention of the additive environmental effects. Have I missed something? Or is it just being ignored?

(Hat tip to Dan over at the Seattlest blog, who's been throwing haymakers at the cruise industry lately. See here and here.)

Peak Oil in Rural Oregon

The Ashland Daily Tidings has an interesting (though brief) article exploring what, exactly, might happen in their corner of southern Oregon if oil prices keep going up.  To me, it's good to see people thinking more about this.  Not just because it will help people prepare for the adjustments that will be needed should oil become progressively dearer -- but also because it might help shift people's thinking about what kinds of transitions might be possible, or even desirable, even if oil prices flatten out or decline.

But I do think that a word of caution is in order -- if energy prices do continue to trend upwards, we're going to have to take a cold and steely-eyed look at our proposed solutions to help people cope.  Some of them, however well-intentioned, just might not cut it.

Note, for instance, this comment by a environmentally inclined local leader in Ashland, who thinks that mass transit would be a great solution for high energy costs in rural areas...

"We [already] have a free bus service, but it doesn’t get you to where you want to go,” he said, noting that it is inconvenient to commute between Ashland and other area towns and that the bus only runs along the main transportation lines.

Most mass transit is based on high-density use, he said. But what Ashland really needs is low density use, he added. He said a system of vans that operate like airport shuttle buses could be the answer.

“Imagine a bunch of little vans zipping around town taking you where you want to go door to door,” he said. “It would be great in our town. The whole key would be a computerized dispatch system” that would alert drivers as to where someone needed to be picked up.

Sounds nice, no?  Instead of driving a car, you just call a van that picks you up at your home and takes you straight to your destination -- and call another one when you need to go home.  Convenient?  Yes. Costly?  Almost certainly -- especially if you have to pay drivers, which is one of the major costs even in dense urban areas.  Energy-efficient?  Not so much, I'd wager, for reasons that should be fairly obvious.

The problem is that it's really, really hard to provide cost-effective, energy-efficient transit service to a population that's spread out over the landscape.  I can conceive of energy-efficient transit between densely populated villages dotting a rural landscape.  (Old European farming towns come to mind.)  But as a general rule, the more elbow room people have around their homes, the farther they have to travel to get to everyday destinations; and the farther they have to travel, the more energy they use to do so.

My point:  high energy prices might do more than force a reconception of how we get from place to place; it may force us to redesign our places.  And--especially for those of us accustomed to both to the solitude of the country and the amenities of the city--a steady rise in energy costs could force a reevaluation of whether we really need so much elbow room.

Toxic Cocktails

Two interesting -- and a bit disturbing -- pieces of toxics news today.

First, several news outlets are reporting on a new study, coming out of UC Berkeley, showing that mixtures of several environmental contaminants (in this case, pesticides) can be far more potent than higher concentrations of a single compound.  The problem is especially bad for frog populations -- which, as frog-watchers everywhere will tell you, are in particularly bad shape.

Second, there's this new report, put together by two breast cancer groups:

As many as half of all new breast cancers may be foisted upon woman by pollutants in the environment, triggered by such items as bisphenol-A lining tin cans or radiation from early mammograms, according to a review of recent science by two breast cancer groups.

No comments here, except that, perhaps--just perhaps--the former study might help explain the latter.

Survey Says...Huh?

Some snippets from an opinion survey of Puget Sound residents, conducted last year by Washington's transportation department, yield a bit of a conundrum: 

• When asked whether there's "enough", "not enough", or "too much" money going into the state's general -purpose roads and highways, 51 percent of respondents say "not enough," and only 9 percent say "too much."  That is, the majority of respondents want to spend more money on roads.
• When asked the same question about transit, 45 percent say "not enough" and 16 percent say "too much." 

Comparing transit and roads, the figures are fairly close -- but still, it seems that survey respondents think that road spending deserves a boost more than transit does.

But...the very next question in the survey asks respondents to choose between two statements:

• "We’ve got enough roads and highways. We need to expand our transit system with more buses, light rail, and other transportation choices to give commuters choices for their commute."
• "We’ve got plenty of transit. We need to maintain the roads we have, expand existing roads and highways, and build new roads to make faster connections for people in our region."

The result -- 51 percent of survey respondents in the Puget Sound agreed with the former statement; 38 percent with the latter.  That is, survey respondents support new transit over new roads, and by a fairly wide margin.

What gives?  How can public opinion tilt towards more funding for roads, when a majority believe we already have enough?

Rather than simply saying that the public is confused on the matter, a deeper dive into the survey results sheds some light.  When asked about specific funding priorities, respondents preferred to devote more money to maintaining and fixing the existing roads than on building new ones.  So the apparent preference for road spending, in all likelihood, largely reflects an overall desire for smoother and safer roads, not more of them.  Which makes sense: new roads almost always go at the urban fringe, since most other places already have a road network -- which means that only a few residents see much actual benefit from shiny new highways.

What's less clear to me is how survey respondents would have thought about road widening projects.  Does, say, adding lanes to I-405 on the east side of the Puget Sound region count as new highway spending (because it adds to capacity)? Highway maintenance (because it's not creating a whole new road, just widening an existing one)?  Or transit (because if current plans go forward, buses will be one of the big beneficiaries of the new lanes)?  It's not clear -- and how people think about any given road project likely depends in no small measure on how its proponents talk about it.

But what is pretty clear is this:  when asked what share of tax money should go to roads vs. transit, the split is 53 percent for roads, 47 percent for transit.  Let's see if the legislature concurs.

Slim City

New studies of King County, Washington find that sprawl is linked to dirtier air and bigger bellies. Walkable neighborhoods (those places with higher residential density, more street connections, and nearby to shops, schools, and parks) appear to be healthier for residents and less damaging to air quality--even when taking into account age, income, education and ethnicity.

A few key findings (liberally excerpted from the full coverage in the Seattle Times):

• On average the Body Mass Index — a measure of height and weight — of residents of the more walkable neighborhoods was lower, and they were more likely to get 30 minutes of daily exercise.
• People who lived and worked in more walkable neighborhoods produced fewer pollutants associated with smog.
• A 5 percent increase in a neighborhood's walkability index was associated with a 0.23-point drop in Body Mass Index. Bigger changes in a neighborhood's walkability would be expected to produce greater differences in weight.

Looks Matter (To Ecosystems)

Oregon State University just won a $3.6 million grant for sagebrush ecosystem restoration. That's good news because sagelands conservation always seems to take a back seat to other landscapes. I wonder if the explanation for sagebrush's short shrift isn't surpisingly superficial (how's that for alliteration?). Looks matter and sagebrush just doesn't sell like the prettier places do.

If so, sagebrush ecology is paying the price for its lack of glam appeal. The American West is home to 100 million acres of sagebrush country, but it is a battered landscape. As the AP story today puts it:

Because of the invasion of non-native plants, increasing wildfires and the expansion of juniper woodlands, sagebrush ecosystems have become one of the most threatened land types in the United States, researchers say.

"We are losing sagebrush-steppe ecosystems at an alarming rate, as wildfires fueled by cheatgrass sweep across the landscape," said project coordinator Jim McIver, an associate professor of rangeland resources.

The ongoing tragedy of conservation biology, with its limited resources, is that large attractive creatures--"charismatic megafauna," in biologist-speak, such as the ivory-billed woodpecker--generate most of the hoopla and therefore receive most of the protection. Less sexy creatures are often ignored, though they may be no less critical to complete and well-functioning ecosystems.

Landscapes tend to go the same way as wildlife. People get animated by old-growth forests, coastlines, canyons, and alpine settings. These are the places that we protect in national parks, photograph endlessly, and write volumes of earnest prose about. Big conservation organizations have little trouble "branding" these ecosystems and drumming up the dollars necessary to protect them from depredations. But sagebrush country is another matter.

At first glance the drab dun-colored world can appear desiccated, windy, even lifeless. And for some reason, the aesthetics of sagebrush country are particularly anemic in the car-centered view of the world. I've never encountered another landscape that looks so dull and hostile from a car at 70 miles per hour but that can be so arrestingly beautiful and complex at pedestrian speeds.

Given their lack of superficial appeal, it's no surprise that sagebrush ecosystems are so badly stressed and under-protected. The list of insults is long: invasive species, biodiversity loss, fire suppression, unsustainable water withdrawals, grazing, cattle ranging, road-building, fencing... In many places, sagebrush country is so degraded that some of the most intact landscapes are where you would least expect them: the lands that were formerly part of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and the Yakima Training Center, a large-scale artillery range, to name just two places in Washington.

It's unfortunate that sagebrush lands are not better preserved because the ecology is worth protecting. They're home to an astonishing array of birds, rare plants, and even the big charismatic critters like elk, owls, porcupines, cougars, and my personal favorite, the sage grouse. (Sage grouse, in fact, may be one of the better simple indicators of overall sagebrush ecosystem health; and, no surprise, grouse numbers are drastically depressed from historical levels throughout most of the West.) Sagebrush landscapes are beautiful too--particularly during the springtime blooms--but to most observers they lack the dramatic flair of other places.

Sagebrush ecosystems should be near the top of the list of good conservation buys. Sagelands shelter rare and endangered plants and animals, they are under-represented in protected areas, they are are often not in high demand for important uses, and the land (or the rights to it) is comparatively inexpensive. In fact, one of the Northwest's recent conservation success stories is the Owyhee Initiative, a collaboration working to protect seldom-visited sagebrush country in southwestern Idaho. It's telling,however, that the group's website mostly advertises the conventionally scenic portions: river gorges and basalt outcroppings.

Sagebrush ecology, and it's comparative lack of conservation, strikes me as precisely the reason why we can benefit from a public biodiversity accounting. I'd bet that dollar for dollar, conservationists--and funders of conservation--could do more good for native biodiversity by protecting sagebrush country than by continuing to help the eye-candy ecosystems.

Predicting the Future

Seems to be a slow news day in Cascadia--so here's something from farther afield.  The economics-oriented Angry Bear blog has a nifty post on economic forecasts, in this case, of US Gross Domestic Product.

To a remarkable extent, economic forecasters from the private sector, the White House, and the US Congress tend to agree with one another about their predictions for economic growth.  Most of their forecasts agree within a few tenths of a percent--a surprising degree of unanimity about something so uncertain.  Which should, perhaps, give us some confidence in their forecasts--when different sets of economic experts tend to converge on the same prediction, it probably suggests that they're all onto something.  Right?

Or maybe not.  As it turns out, even though the forecasters agree with one another, their predictions don't do a particularly good job of predicting the actual econonmy.  In fact, rather than going through all the econometric rigamarole, if they just used a simple rule of thumb -- next year's growth will be pretty much like this year's -- they'd actually make more accurate forecasts.  Sheesh!

What's going on here?  Why are professional forecasters--no doubt very smart folks, and just the sort of people who'd have a handle on this sort of thing--not so good at forecasting? Part of the reason, no doubt, is that the future is inherently unknowable.  Even the best forecasters can't predict the impacts of unknown events, or the "animal spirits" that seem to rule the marketplace.

Or perhaps--as James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, might have argued--the problem is that forecasters aren't a diverse enough group.  As it turns out, groups of people who think pretty much alike tend to do a particularly bad job of sorting out uncertainty.  They tend to make the same kinds of mistakes -- and in a group, those mistakes reinforce one another.  To make better predictions, Surowiecki argues, you'd need to aggregate the opinions of people who are very different from one another, people with very different biases, experiences, and areas of expertise. To the extent that economic forecasters (whether in the private or public sector) all use the same methods and data, and share the same outlook and education, the quality of their forecasts can suffer.

This situation reminds me of the conclusions of this book (on my reading list, but not yet read), which argues that political experts do a lousy job of predicting future political events.  In fact, the author argues that the more knowledgeable and expert is in a subject, the worse her/his predictions.  People who are especially well versed in a subject matter tend to develop biases and blinders that make them overestimate the significance of some pieces of evidence, and underestimate the significance of others.  Which makes one wonder what the value of expertise is, anyway, if it does more to cloud your judgment than clarify it (and also makes me wonder why anyone even bothers to listen to the bloviations of TV pundits, except to reconfirm their own biases).

OK, then -- economic forecasts aren't as useful as we'd like.  Which, to me, raises this question:  if we don't know how to predict the future, should we even try?  Not trying to forecast economic trends could be considered irresponsible -- if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, and all that.  But when the best minds, using the best available data, collectively come up with answers that are effectively worse than doing nothing at all, is there any real point in the exercise?

More Nails In The Coffin

Washington state's health and ecology agencies want to ban PBDEs.  Completely.

Bully for them.  Now, let's see what the legislature says.

(For more info on PBDEs, see here.)

Green Saves Green

A couple of new studies have found that California can meet its ambitious 2010 goals for reducing climate-warming emissions at no net cost to consumers.  And, even better, meeting the even more stringent 2020 goals could actually save consumers money:

"It's basically a very good news story," said Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy, an environmental think tank based in Washington, D.C. "We found you could do this very cheaply."

Now, I haven't looked at the studies--and I might not really be able to judge their quality even if I had.  By their nature, studies like this tend to be speculative: they show what could happen, but not necessarily what will.

Still, this seems extremely plausible to me.  Despite a period of relatively high oil and gas prices, energy is still pretty cheap relative to our incomes.  And as a general rule, cheap energy means wasted energy. Consumers tend to demand very short payback periods for energy efficiency investments--usually, just a couple of years at most.  While most businesses would be ecstatic to take advantage of such fast rates of return, most households, apparently, aren't run to the same fianancial standards.  Which means that there's still a lot of very cost-effective energy efficiency investments out there--things that could easily pay back any initial investment in short order.  That's as true in the transportation sector as in the home:  we already know, for example, how to boost vehicle efficiency without compromising safety.

The benefits to consumers from energy effiency investments are, if anything, likely to compound.  Once you hit the payback period, energy efficiency is like a cash cow -- it just keeps saving and saving. (And saving.)  Plus, since most of California's energy from oil, gas, and coal comes from out of state, energy efficiency investments will tend to keep more of California consumers' money circulating in the local economy--which can be an effective way to boost demand for local goods and services.

All in all, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a push to reduce global warming emissions resulting in a substantial boost to California's economy over the long term.  But we'll just have to wait and see how the state responds to the news.

Burnaby on Peak Oil

Editor's note: This is by Gordon Price, former city councillor for Vancouver, BC, Director of the City Program for Simon Fraser University, and NEW board member.

In my 15 years on City Council in Vancouver, I read a lot of reports. Ninety percent of them were not exactly stimulating: lane pavings, grant approvals, appointment of the external auditor … all the things that keep a city going. Occasionally, a report would appear that grabbed your attention – and on a very rare occasion, would actually change your understanding of the world, or at least your city.

I’d like to say that such a report recently appeared on the agenda of the City of Vancouver. But it didn’t. It appeared in Burnaby – the municipality just to the east. And what a subject: "Global Peak in Oil Production: the Municipal Context."

For those interested in the subject, there’s not a lot that’s new in the report; it’s primarily a background piece. Even on those terms, it makes informative reading. What makes it significant, however, is that it was requested by politicians, prepared by staff and comes with the seal of government –- as far as I know, the first such report of its kind in Canada.

It’s not as dry as you might guess, what with some amusing quotes at the head of each section - "Today no one disagrees that the wolf is out there but differences in analyses and opinions as to when it will attack the sheep still prevail." It provides a Canadian perspective, and, after noting that "It is too late to panic. It is time to plan," it provides an appendix of actions that the municipality might take.

Will action follow? I haven’t heard the results of the debate, but the mere fact that a government body is opening the door to a subject that most leaders would prefer remain firmly shut off is a tangible action all on its own.

Bottle Battle

About yesterday's post on glass recycling -- some astute readers noticed that by focusing on recycling, I'd ignored more important priorities:  reducing the use of packaging, and reusing glass bottles where practical.  That's a fair enough critique.  But it did make me wonder:  what happened, exactly, to the practice of reusing glass bottles?  I can still remember drinking Coke from reusable bottles as a kid, but I rarely see that anymore. How come? And, more to the point, how would a system of reusable glass bottles stack up against recyclable glass and plastic containers?

On the first question -- what happened to reusable bottles? -- there's this recent article that sums up the situation nicely.  In a nutshell:

• Beverage marketers prefer customized bottles, with a unique shape and feel for each brand; but a reusable bottle system is most cost-effective if all bottles are interchangeable.
• Food stores don't like to take back bottles.  It's an administrative hassle and takes up time and space that they'd prefer to use for other purposes.
• Consumers don't like to return bottles.  Given the option, they'd prefer to recycle a bottle than return it for reuse.

Obviously, those barriers aren't insurmountable by any means.  But they also don't seem to be uniquely characteristic of North American consumer culture.  Though Japan's economy is far more energy-efficient than ours, its reusable bottle system, which used to be extremely effective, now seems to be falling by the wayside.  (Sigh.)

Some of the same forces are at play in Japan as in the US -- beverage makers are introducing customized shapes and sizes of many drinks.  But perhaps just as importantly, Japan's beverage delivery services -- which would pick up empty bottles at the same time they delivered new ones -- have declined, with more people getting their drinks from supermarkets.  The decline of reusable bottles is just a side-effect of other economic and social forces.

Of course, there are public policies that could stimulate a resurgence of reusable bottles -- mandatory bottle deposits, requirements that stores accept reusable bottles, perhaps seed money for local bottlers to restart the reusable bottle system.  An uphill battle, to be sure -- but it could have its benefits.

Then again, before we consider that sort of thing we should take a careful look at the possible hidden costs of reinstating a returnable bottle system.  Consumers might avoid reusables; unreturned and broken bottles can eat into the energy savings of a reusable bottle system; it's even conceivable that a reusable bottle system could generate extra car trips, reducing the net-energy benefits. 

Of course, reusable bottles could still save energy, reduce waste, and create local jobs, compared with glass recycling, or even with lightweight recyclable plastics.  But I think we'd owe ourselves a careful accounting of just what these benefits might be before spending all the political capital needed to reboot the reusable bottle industry.

Mind the Gap

The Northwest Federation of Community Organizations just published its annual job gap study, looking at the share of jobs that actually pay a living wage (defined as one that puts healthy food, acceptable housing, and other basic living expenses within financial reach).  Not too surprisingly, it found that only about a quarter of the jobs in the Northwest pay a living wage for a single-parent family with two kids. (See press coverage in Washington and Idaho.)

To me, this news seems about right.  For a family with kids, the cost of living seems pretty darn high, once you factor in housing, health care, child care, rising energy bills, etc. And many, many jobs don't pay particularly well.  So it's little shock that there are lots of families who have to cut corners to get by.

But as plausible as the figures from the job gap report may seem, they're also hard to square with this claim from a recent article in The American Prospect:

[A]ccording to a 2004 Roper Poll for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 93 percent of individuals earning more than $50,000 described themselves as doing well -- many as doing very well -- as did 77 percent of those who earned just $30,000 to $40,000.

So...few jobs pay a living wage, but most people seem to consider themselves as "doing well."  Hm.  I don't think this is exactly cause for scepticism about the "living wage" figures -- but it's certainly evidence that there's more here than meets the eye.  Perhaps jobs below the "living wage" are more common for people without families to support, or where one partner in a family earns substantially more than the other.  Or perhaps people are just reluctant to admit that they're not "doing well," even in an anonymous survey.

One thing is pretty clear, though--as a society, we haven't done a particularly good job of measuring how people are really faring economically.  Part of that is lack of attention -- economic statisticians are generally more concerned with aggregate figures for GDP, productivity, and the like, rather than with the situation of real families.  But part is just that, well, it's just really hard to decide how to measure true prosperity. Surveys?  Fancy economics?  Guesswork?  Any one approach is bound to have its drawbacks--which means that you probably have to look at the problem a bunch of different ways, though a number of different lenses, to get closer to a useful answer.

Take That? Take Back (e-Waste)!

True to its state motto, dirigo, Maine is leading the nation in electronic waste management. Yesterday a law went into effect that requires TV and computer monitor manufacturers to take responsibility for the proper disposal of their products.

TVs and monitors need to be recycled because they contain toxic lead and mercury. But only a few states have e-waste programs where those who profit from the products also pay the disposal costs. In California, consumers pay a small fee at the time of purchase to help defray the cost of recycling later. In Maryland, manufacturers pay a fixed annual fee into a recycling trust fund.

While these are great starts, I suspect that neither of these programs covers the full costs of disposal. Maine's law is great because it places the full cost where it belongs: on makers and users of the product, instead of on general taxpayers. In this way it also creates powerful incentives  (read: market economics) for manufacturers to build products that use less toxic materials in the first place and that are easier to recycle at the end of their life.

Here in Cascadia e-waste producer responsibility is still in the works. British Columbia (pdf) intends to have a program in place by mid 2007. Washington has two bills in the current legislative session. And Oregon (pdf) had a bill in 2005 to charge consumers a fee up front, although the bill died in session. Stay tuned to find out what happens with e-waste recycling in the Northwest.

River of Hope

If the little town of Eatonville is known at all to outsiders, it's probably as a village on the way to Mount Rainier. But it's also a great example of private landowners working to restore salmon habitat in nearby Ohop Creek. The local project was just awarded $1.1 million from the state's Salmon Recovery Fund. (The Tacoma News Tribune has a terrific article).

What's really encouraging about the Eatonville initiative is that it belies the developer-inflamed hysterics that may generate a takings initiative in Washington, similar to Measure 37 in Oregon. There doesn't seem to be much "rural rage" in Eatonville, just plenty of farmers and other landowners who value wildlife--and who are looking for growth management to blend regulation with smart incentives.

Pain in the Glass

A random call from a reporter piqued my interest -- does recycling glass really save energy?  That is, after you take into consideration all of the energy spent to collect glass from people's homes, truck the collected glass to a distribution center, route it to a glass manufacturer, and then melt it down for reuse, does glass recycling really save anything, compared with using virgin materials?

I was actually fearing the worst here.  Obviously, given all of the energy costs of recycling glass, it's conceivable that it isn't a very good deal for the environment.  Plus the reporter was asking specifically because he'd heard some mention that the benefits of glass recycling were overblown.

As it turns out, though, I shouldn't have worried.  From just about every serious analysis I dug up, it seems that glass recycling really does save energy, compared with using virgin material.  Some handy citations: here, here, here, and this extensive lit. review (pdf).

But as with most things, there is a bit of a twist.

As several of the studies point out, glass recycling saves energy -- but much less energy per ton of glass than, say, recycling newspaper, steel, and aluminum. (See, e.g., page 31 of the lit. review.)  And because the theoretical energy savings of glass recycling appear to be relatively slim, it could mean that actual savings could depend on lots of devilish details -- how far the glass is shipped, how dispersed are the neighborhoods from which glass is collected, whether people make special car trips to recycling centers, etc. 

One of those devilish details -- covered here, about 3/4 of the way down the page -- is the type of furnace used to melt the recycled glass.  From the article...

[C]leaner-operating electric furnaces...use less energy and thus create less emissions than natural gas-powered furnaces, [but]  cannot use as much recycled glass, so they are not as efficient.

That is, by using an efficient, low-emissions furnace, you can actually decrease the overall energy efficiency of your glass recycling operation.  Darn.

And then there's this:  even though using recycled glass does appear to have a lower environmental cost than using virgin materials, the environmental cost is not zero.  Obviously--from an energy standpoint at least--it's better to drink water from the tap than water shipped in glass bottles, even if the bottles are made from recycled glass. 

But more to the point, it may be that buying a drink in a lightweight plastic bottle uses less energy than buying a beverage in container made from recycled glass -- even if the glass bottle is re-recycled, and the plastic bottle just gets thrown away after a single use.  This study from Israel (pdf) suggests as much -- though it points out that this is only true for certain types of plastics.  And in the same vein, this analysis from the Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Analysis suggests that paperboard cartons have a lower environmental cost than bottles made from recycled glass.

Of course, I'm no expert here.  All the information I have on the subject comes from a bit of googling -- and much of it seems to be at least a decade old.  But it looks like glass recycling really is worthwhile...and, simultaneously, that the gradual trend among beverage bottlers to replace glass with plastic is in all likelihood a good thing.

A Loonie Comparison

Canada's economy is hot:

The economy is on a roll, the stock market is soaring, jobs are plentiful, borrowing costs are low, consumer spending is strong and real estate is booming.

That's from a bizarre editorial in today's Vancouver Sun; an editorial that goes on to argue that Canada's--and especially BC's--recent boom is a chimera. The piece rightly points out some troubling counter trends, such as strong GDP growth coupled with anemic income growth for workers. But some of the article's assertions are quite plainly wrong--or at least misleading enough that it's tough to buy the anti-tax message the editorial is peddling.

Among the claims that don't add up:

In 1981, Canadian incomes were more than 80 per cent of American incomes. That figure has dropped to 67 per cent. In other words, our standard of living is now a third lower than that of our neighbours.

To be sure, if those figures are right, that's a worrisome trend for Canadians. But that's not at all the same as saying that Canadian standards of living are a third lower than Americans. Direct international income comparisons can be all but meaningless--like a business looking only at revenues but not at expenditures. To name just two of many items that chip away at Americans' income: health care and education are far, far less expensive in Canada. And in the US those the cost of those essential goods are drastically outstripping inflation. There's probably some North American disparity in the standard of living, but it's almost certainly not a third.

The editorial continues:

While additional spending on social services like health care and eduction are things Canadians desire, they are certainly not getting their money's worth.

Really?

The best single indicator of health outcomes, life expectancy, puts Canada in the top 5 countries in the world. And if BC were its own nation, it would rank second behind only Japan. By contrast, the United States ranks 19th, just behind Barbados. (Other measures put Canada at 8th best and the US at 29th.)

Similarly, international comparisons put Canadian education as among the very best in the world, often in the top 3. Where's the US? Way, way behind.

I'm not saying that the editorial's claims are entirely without merit. There may be reason to be concerned about Canada's economic growth. Rising income inequality, for instance, may point to problems. But the editorial's fawning over light taxation in the US should be taken with a grain of salt.

The Backyard Bog

Not quite two months ago, my wife and I became home owners. We love it. But in additional to the pride of ownership, there are also the worries: Can we really afford this house? Should we get earthquake insurance? Why does a small lake appear in the backyard when it rains?

That last one has been on our minds a lot lately. After 26 consecutive days of rain (and counting) here in Seattle, there's a frighteningly large pool of water that has swamped the roses and turned the lawn into something resembling the Everglades. My dad jokingly suggested that we stock it with trout. But I have a better idea: I'm going to landscape my way out of the problem.

There's a growing movement in sustainable landscaping that emphasizes not only native plants and summer drought tolerance, but also managing water runoff during our many wet months. Lisa Stiffler over at Dateline Earth (the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's environmental blog) puts it thus:

The gist of it is this: By creating some very shallow depressions in your landscaping and planting them with hardy grasses, shrubs and trees in well-draining soil and covering the ground with a thin layer of mulch, you can catch and slow the flow of rainwater. This "rain garden" gives the stormwater a chance to soak into the dirt, helping trap pollutants and preventing the water from harming streams where salmon and other cool creatures chill out.

Lisa also includes a bevy of links to handy resources. Check them out.

In particular, I'm fascinated by some advice from the Puget Sound Action Team. They describe how one home owner in Shoreline, Washington--who was similarly cursed with saturated soils--created a bog garden. He built a retention pond and used a variety of plants to create a yard that can process an estimated 10,800 gallons of water a year on his quarter-acre lot. Total cost? Just $600.

Landscaping for water management helps ameliorate some of the environmental effects of impervious surfaces: less pollution runs off roofs and city streets. And during storms, less water deluges the city drain system that discharges untreated sewage into the Sound when it gets overloaded. Plus, there's another benefit: I won't be freaked out about my basement flooding.

Sounds like a no-brainer to me. I'm going to start digging just as soon as this rain stops.

Prince(ss) of Tides

Since last Friday, I’m proud to announce, the venerable Cascadian news website Tidepool has been a project of NEW. Yep, we’ve completed a friendly takeover!

Since 1997, Tidepool has been highlighting the most significant news that’s shaping Cascadia. Every morning, Tidepool’s editors scan dozens of news sites and assemble the stories that will actually matter in Cascadia a few years hence—the slow news (pdf). It’s an essential service, and it’s one that thousands of Cascadians use every day.

Tidepool was seeking a new home, and its service is a natural complement for this blog and NEW’s other analyses of key trends in Cascadia. So both organizations are excited about the transfer. We think it’ll lead to big improvements all the way around—in the news digest, in the blog, and in our website.

Tidepool has long been a community asset—something kept healthy through the active support of its thousands of readers. This new phase in Tidepool’s development won’t change that fact; to the contrary, NEW will soon introduce more ways to participate in Tidepool’s evolution. If you’re not already a member of that community, please join by signing up for a free subscription.

For more information on NEW’s ownership—really, stewardship—of Tidepool, read this letter to its subscribers.

And meet the new NEW editor of Tidepool: Princess of Tides Kristin Kolb-Angelbeck.

What Washington Conservation Can Learn From Idaho

Consider the similarities. Both Idaho and Washington are this year graced with budget surpluses: $214 million in Idaho and a whopping $1.4 billion in Washington. (Even in per capita terms, Washington's surplus is roughly 50 percent larger than Idaho's.) Both Idaho and Washington are also graced with stunning natural features and a populace that purports to love the outdoors. But both are also cursed by a crumbling infrastructure of woefully underfunded state parks.

Enter Idaho's republican governor, Dirk Kempthorne, who wants to spend $34 million on upgrading and expanding Idaho's park system. Maybe Kempthorne is selfish--he's known to camp frequently in the summer. Or maybe he's just a wise investor--officials calculate a big return on the investment, according to the Idaho Statesman:

The economic benefits of spending about $34 million on construction and improvements of state parks would bring $52.5 million to the state's economy through goods, services, leisure and hospitality and other types of sales, according to state figures.

And what's Washington proposing to do with its park system? That's where the similarities end. Washington's proposing, well, pretty much nothing.

One republican legislator from Chehalis wants to use the money to abolish park entrance fees, though that would leave the parks in the same fiscal predicament they're in now. Otherwise, as far as I know, no one's made a peep about spending some of the windfall on Washington's parks.

In national terms, Washington's state parks are almost laughably underfunded. When it comes to park funding, the Evergreen State is something like Mississippi of the economy. That's a real tragedy in a place that boasts little visited coastlines, lakes, forests, mountains, deserts, canyons, and rivers that would be emblems of state pride in other parts of the country.

And state parks are a public good that protect ecosystems even while they help thousands of people experience nature's bounty. As it turns out, they're a pretty good investment too.

If you're still skeptical, consider the following facts from the Washington State Parks website:

• The backlog of major maintenance needed in Washington State Parks is now estimated at $40 million. Capital facilities needs are estimated at $300 million over 10 years.
• Washington spends only 82 cents per park visitor compared to the national average of $2.82 per visitor.
• The State Parks system is currently expected to generate 37 percent of its own funding, compared to 20 percent a decade ago.
• State spending on parks as a portion of the total state budget has declined in the last decade. It is less than one quarter of one percent of the state budget. Yet, parks contribute more than $1.1 billion to the state's economy.

Just My Opinion

Two op-eds in today's Seattle Times worth taking a look at...

• Biodiesel: short-term crush or long-term relationship?  Bruce Ramsey takes a balanced, but ultimately favorable, view of government programs to encourage home-grown fuels.


• The rapid disappearance of America's middle class.  We posted on a similar subject a few days ago, but it's worth repeating -- rising family incomes don't necessarily mean that we're better off.  In fact, after adjusting for inflation, male full-time workers earn $800 less today than in 1973, which means that the rise in median family income is entirely due to increases in two-earner households.  Of course, these sorts of trends are hard to make sense of across decades, since so many things change -- people's expectations, the quality of consumer goods and public services, enjoyment of time at work vs. time at home, etc.  Still, there's ample reason to believe that the well-being of the middle class has become uncoupled from steady increases in per-capita GDP. The money quote of the article. "All the talk about family values is just that — talk — when our financial policies are driving middle-class families to the wall."

I'm not sure I share all the opinions expressed in the op-eds -- but don't really have anything to add to either piece, either.

Go Fish

Over the weekend The Oregonian ran a good short series on the diminishing numbers of hunters and anglers in the state. While the state's population has doubled since 1950, the number of hunters and fishermen has actually declined. [Read the articles here, here, here, and here.] This is not just a Beaver State phenomenon--it's true nationwide--and it may lead to some troubling implications for wildlife protection.

The Oregonian seems mostly concerned that without hunting and fishing, fewer people will want to protect wildlife and natural areas. I think that's not right. Northwesterners are still getting out into nature in vast, teeming, trail-clogging hordes. In fact, wildlife watchers spend generate substantially more economic activity than hunters and anglers combined.

The more important question--and the one that The Oregonian gives comparatively short shrift to--is a basic policy question. As the paper has it:

...who will pay the costs of preserving habitat and managing fish and wildlife? Hunters and fishermen now foot most of the bill, not just through the steep license, tag and access fees they pay, but also through countless hours of volunteer labor, pulling out abandoned fences, cutting down water-sucking juniper trees, planting streamside willows and tending boxes of fish eggs.

In Oregon, as in many other states, hunting and fishing licenses, together with taxes items like ammunition and fishing rods, pay for a huge variety of conservation benefits--everything from fieldwork by professional biologists to refuges like Sauvie's Island on the Columbia River. Without those (declining) sources of revenue, the future of conservation may look even more bleak than it already is. So what to do?

It's hard to know where else that money is going to come from. The putatively eco-friendly outdoor recreationists--hikers, backpackers, skiers, rock climbers, alpinists, mountain bikers, sea kayakers, river rafters, wind surfers, birders, and so on--pay no comparable taxes or fees to those imposed on hunting and fishing. To be sure, recreationists sometimes pay trailhead fees (such as the Northwest Forest Pass), entrance fees to state parks or DNR land, or "sno-park" fees, but these fees only defray the costs of maintaining access. They certainly don't cover the costs of conservation biologists, ecosystem restoration, or wildlife management.

So what's left: An REI tax? Highers fees to park at trailheads?

Obviously, the first idea is a non-starter; and even access fees are extremely unpopular with users. One partial solution may be re-invigorating hunting and angling as pastimes, even though some progressives regard them as retrograde. (In fact, that may be one reason they're in decline: they're not just unfashionable in some circles, they're downright suspect.) But whatever your beliefs about the ethics of hunting and fishing, there are meaningful benefits for ecosystem protection to consider.

Those benefits include not only reliable revenue for conservation, but a legacy of wildlife protection that, in the Northwest, extends back at least as far as the creation of Olympic National Park--a treasure-trove of endemic species that was originally set aside to conserve Roosevelt elk for hunting. Today that ethos lives on in local watershed protection groups as well as in bigger fish like Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited.

But I'll leave it to the latest issue of the Washington Monthly, which has a great article on the politics of hunting--and its potential to preserve open space and wildlife. Definitely worth a read:

This idea of public ownership became the intellectual foundation for America's conservation movement a century ago, when commercial hunters had begun decimating buffalo herds and blasting snowy egrets with cannons in order to sell feathers for ladies' hats. Theodore Roosevelt and a handful of other naturalists--most of them hunters--argued that wildlife belonged to the public and therefore could not be obliterated by business interests. "Public rights comes first and private interests second," Roosevelt wrote in 1905. "The conservation of wildlife and…all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method." He outlawed commercial hunting and promoted measures--such as bag limits and game seasons--to ensure that wildlife could be enjoyed by future generations.

In a reversal of the tragedy of the commons, the American conservation movement has been far more successful, both in garnering popular support and in saving species from extinction, than efforts in countries where a different mentality exists toward ownership of wildlife. Whereas America brought back the elk, antelope, and white-tailed deer, in Britain boars, beavers, and bears no longer roam. Today, however, this heritage faces a new challenge, unfathomable in the days of Penn or Roosevelt. As Todd Bogenschutz of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources told me, "Our forefathers made wildlife public, but they screwed another thing up. They should have made access to wildlife public."

That's Just Not Healthy

Yoiks.  Total spending on health care in the US reached nearly $2 trillion in 2004 -- meaning that roughly one out of every six dollars the nation earns is now siphoned off to pay for medical care.  The growth in health care spending slowed a bit from 2003 to 2004, but medical expenses still grew much faster than the economy overall.  Spending per person across the country averaged $6,280. 

From what I can tell, spending in the Pacific Northwest states is a bit lower than the US average.  In 2000, the most recent year for which state-level data are available, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho's health care expenditures, measured as a share of the states' economic output, were about 10 percent below the national average.  Still, medical care is a huge expense; about $38 billion was spent on medical care in Washington, Oregon and Idaho in 2000 alone.  Given the pace of medical inflation over the last 5 years, that figure has probably topped $50 billion, combined, in the three states.

What all this means is that steps that could shave health care costs, even by just a few fractions of a percent, can reduce overall health care costs by literally hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Is Local the New Organic?

Editor's note: This is the first post from Jennifer Lamson, founding partner in Good Food Strategies LLC. Read her bio here.

Last week, the New York Times ran a feature by Marian Burros on New Seasons Markets, a grocery store chain in Portland that is banking on consumer interest in local, sustainable food--as opposed to simply organic.

The chain recently completed an inventory of the origins of its stock and have labeled everything grown in Oregon, Washington and Northern California “Homegrown.” They’ve already got 6 stores and 3 more on the way but remain adamantly opposed to expanding beyond the Portland suburbs--a testament to their commitment to being grounded in the local food economy.

People concerned about health, taste, and the environment have long sought out organic produ