Category: Environment
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A QUICK RESPONSE TO LYLE
On the IT WILL TAKE MORE THAN LINT At 3:19 PM, Lyle said… Ed, let me express the foundation for my optimism on your two concerns. 1: A number of excellent ideas are brewing, being tested, and implemented. Congestion pricing is one of them, but there are many, many more such as local food systems,…
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Conservation: Not Just for Democrats Anymore
The Virginia League of Conservation Voters has released its annual legislative score card, which ranks General Assembly members on the basis of committee and floor votes crucial to the conservation community. The House of Delegates improved its score considerably in 2007 compared to the year before, outperforming the state Senate by a wide margin. The…
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Every Silver Cloud Has a Dark and Gloomy Lining
Let’s see if I get this straight. From a national environmental perspective, ethanol is good: A “green” alternative to gasoline, it burns more cleanly and emits fewer pollutants, including carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, toxic emissions, particulates and greenhouse gases. But from a local environmental perspective, ethanol is bad. Most ethanol is processed from corn,…
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Conservation Easements in Isle of Wight County
Isle of Wight County has garnered national recognition for its rural landscape preservation program. The National Association of Counties has named the rural economic development program the “best overall program” in the country, reports the Daily Press. What’s so special? Isle of Wight has $2.2 million, and plans to add $500,000 a year to the…
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The Emerging Conservationist Majority
Environmentalism isn’t just for Democrats anymore. Strong support of environmental priorities cuts across party lines, according to a statewide public opinion survey sponsored by the Virginia League of Conservation Voters Education Fund and the Piedmont Environmental Council. The conservation coalition that emerges is as diverse as the electorate itself, ranging from Republican-leaning audiences, such as…
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On Track for 400,000 Acres Conserved
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine isn’t waiting for others to act in order to meet his goal of conserving 400,000 acres of open space in the Commonwealth by the end of his four-year term. Meeting with local leaders to celebrate the easement of 4,000 acres along the Rappahannock River recently, he told the following story, according…
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THOSE LIVING IN OLD GLASS HOUSES …
Under the post “A YARD WHERE JOHNNY CAN RUN AND PLAYAt 8:46 PM, Anonymous said… “M. Risse’s comments about settlement patterns have a deep foundation of irony for me because he lives in one of those giant houses in a small lot in a modern subdivision rather than in the city or in a place…
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A YARD WHERE JOHNNY CAN RUN AND PLAY
The front page of today’s WaPo features “Getting Lost in the Great Indoors: Many Adults Worry About Children Losing Touch With Nature” by Donna St. George. It is enough to make you cry. It should make a lot of BaconsRebellion bloggers wince. All those champions of dysfunctional Autonomobile driven settlement patterns who claim they are…
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WEEKEND READING
Every so often WaPo editors of one section or another strike gold with their front page stories. The 15 May issue of the Business Section could be called “The Ides of May for Autonomobiles.” You will hear more of that later. Today the Business Section hit a grand slam. The stories provide perspectives on why…
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Millipedes and Moon Tigers
Steve Nash, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Richmond, may be the best environmental writer at work in Virginia today. In his newly published book, “Millipedes and Moon Tigers: Science and Policy in an Age of Extinction,” he explores a complex of issues of immediate concern to Virginians: the virtual disappearance of…
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The Best Talent that Money Can Buy
Dominion has bolstered its formidable lobbying team with another prize hire: Ann Loomis, chief of staff to U.S. Senator John Warner. Loomis, who had served as Warner’s legislative director for 18 years before taking on her current position, focusing on Warner’s work with the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. Loomis reached retirement…
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Wetlands Controversy in Virginia Beach
In Virginia Beach, developers Steve and Art Sandler want to build 1,063 homes on a large stretch of waterfront property. Although their Indigo Dunes project would destroy 1.5 acres of wetlands, the Sandlers would create 6.09 acres of wetlands on site and treat some of the stormwater runoff from the nearby Ocean Park neighborhood as…
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The High Cost of Irrationality
George Mason University’s Don Boudreaux offers some topical examples of irrational economic and political thinking, one related to this Wall Street Journal op-ed on environmental Catch-22s in Washington state, and the other, a Robert Samuelson column on price gouging and global warming. His general thesis: When the personal material cost, at the time of individual…
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No More Excuses Not to Exercise this Summer
Air quality in Richmond and Hampton Roads now meets federal ozone standards, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have proclaimed. Air quality in the two regions has improved since the federal government listed them in 2004 among localities with unhealthy air. Said Kaine in a prepared statement: “This is a huge…
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The Excesses of Affluence
I had a fun time with this week’s essay, “The Excesses of Affluence.” My research took me to strange and exotic places I’ve never set foot in before — like Mikasa, a store that sells stemware and china, Claire’s, a shop that caters to the tween girl demographic, and Dollar Tree, an emporium for cheap,…