greenhouse gas emissions

Living sustainably means more than recycling. It also means cutting back on all that stuff that lands on those railroad cars that get sent to landfills in central Oregon from Seattle or barged across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii.

Striking a blow for citizens who want to do their part, the Seattle City Council Thursday passed a resolution urging the Legislature to create a Do Not Mail junk mail registry akin to the Do Not Call registry for home phones. Yes, it will probably take federal action to get results. But it's also true that you have to start somewhere. So take a stand, Seattle!

The resolution would keep catalogs, ads, direct mail and other unwanted solicitations out of your mailbox.It claims the "production, distribution, and disposal of unsolicited direct mail contributes to climate change by producing 51 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually - equivalent to that of 10 million automobiles.

The population of Seattle rose 16 percent since 1990, but the city's overall energy consumption climbed only slightly. Amazingly, greenhouse gas production is down 7 percent.

That’s a goal the city is meeting two years earlier than it had hoped, admittedly aided by a declining economy that took vehicles off the street and pushed down energy consumption, but also a sign of steps the city has taken, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels says. Read the city's report here.

Reporting on the Nickel’s determined drive to push the city meet the international Kyoto Protocol capping carbon dioxide and other gases after the Bush administration backed off, Seattle Times reporter Craig Welch writes of challenges to come. The biggest issue remaining will be driving, with emissions from road vehicles rising 5.5 percent in the past three years. Most of the growth in emissions came from commercial truck traffic. Still, the city sees reasons for optimism.

"The encouraging news is that on a per-capita basis it [transportation] is going in the other direction," said Jill Simmons, senior climate-policy adviser for the city. City officials also said recent efforts to boost transit, build walkable neighborhoods, make parking more expensive and add bike lanes will help get more people out of their cars in coming years.

The city is measuring its greenhouse gas emissions every three years in three categories -- homes, commercial buildings and heavy industry.

Somebody forgot to tell the transportation bureaucrats to switch it off.

Seems Portland’s green goals – everything from increasing bike commuting and telecommuting to ensuring jobs and groceries are close to homes – have met up with the city’s ambitious $20 billion transportation “wish list.”

Darn it. A new study shows that the city’s population growth coupled with the goals in the proposed Regional Transportation Plan would result in so much increased traffic that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles will jump 49 percent. That’s 49 percent. And it was just a couple weeks ago that Portland and Multnomah County adopted its Climate Action Plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. And just a couple weeks before that the city vowed to get 25 percent of its commuters on bikes by 2030, as InvestigateWest reported on and heartily endorsed here.

The Portland Tribune reports:

Environmentalists say the new Metro analysis confirms the folly of spending $4 billion on a new, wider Columbia River bridge – the largest project in the Regional Transportation Plan – as well as projects to widen some suburban roads to seven lanes. “We need solutions that don’t lead to more driving,” says Mara Gross, policy director of Coalition for a Livable Future, which represents about 90 organizations.

In the "wish list," roads, bridges and highways would get 57 percent of the $20 billion in the Regional Transportation Plan.

Not too long ago, InvestigateWest reported that woody debris was being paraded as a viable source of renewable fuel for the Northwest. But it seems there's another alternative energy source gaining popularity in the region and it may be even more abundant: garbage.

The Portland Business Journal writes that a $10 million garbage plant in McMinnville, Ore. may be able to generate enough electricity to power 2,500 homes. While the facility will not be finished until next year, the solidiwaste company that developed the technology to convert waste-to-energy already has plans for a second plant in Arlington, Ore.

Vancouver, B.C. has commissioned for a garbage-to-energy incinerator too, promoting the technique as an ideal way to cope with the overwhelming volume of garbage the city receives each year. City officials have recently displayed fierce efforts to curb the amount of waste hitting landfills, heavily promoting composting and recycling with hopes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, the area has seen public opposition to the garbage-to-energy plan, with 65 percent of polled Vancouver residents fearful that waste incinerators will negatively affect air quality, writes Jeff Nagel of BC Local News. The plants are not pollution-free: One hour of incinerator emissions is equivalent to 20 cars traveling two miles, said Dr.