Green A City

Water on the brain: 4th Annual CA Climate Change Conference

By Ken Ott, Research Associate, SustainLane
Sustainability research, Government Division

I rode Amtrak to the 4th Annual California Climate Change Conference in the state capitol on Tuesday, September 11th. By doing so, I enjoyed nice views of the San Francisco Bay and farmland in between the two cities. I also read more about the event before arriving.

This was my first California Climate Change Conference and it was a nice refresher course, in addition to a source for reams of new information which I still haven't finished reading. The California Energy Commission and California Resources Agency put on this conference and are the state's primary policy and planning agencies for energy and natural resources, respectively.

* * *

I'd like to share what I learned at the morning session on water in this post. Instead of merely reading about climate change issues, in contrast, it was great to speak with panelists and other attendees in person. Although magazines or online articles can be important resources, there is no substitute for conversation and one-to-one dialogue.

The morning panels focused on probable climate change impacts such as: water (flood risk and mitigation) and air quality (soot effects on snow melt rates). I was able to listen to and speak with a great number of people who are experts in their fields.

Some of them included Michael Dettinger, Scripps Institution of Oceanography who works on observing increased flood vulnerability, and Sam Earson, Desert Research Institute, who studies groundwater supply issues, using gas tracers. All of the panelists do good work and contribute to a greater  understanding of climate change issues as they affect the Western US as well as the global community. All of them are supported by state agencies or deparments and in turn report back to these bodies.

Below are synopses of most speakers' presentations with their respective conclusions as well as mine. If you are already knowledgeable in general you can skip my commentary and just read the indented text boxes. These contain much of my verbatim notes. You can also attend the sessions virtually. Sessions are archived in PDF and streaming audio/video for your convenience: Conference Home.

* * *

CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER RESOURCES IN CALIFORNIA
Session Chair: Jamie Anderson (California Department of Water Resources)

The early morning sessions were well attended and very clear in assigning further certainty to likely extreme weather events in the future. The main culprit in all cases was a human induced warmer biosphere. 

“California Flood Risks in a Changing Climate”
Michael Dettinger of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography presented a model in which a global climate +3 degrees Celsius warmer leads to “flood friendly” conditions in California and along the entire West Coast. These conditions include increased winter snow melting and a stronger phenomenon of “Atmospheric Rivers.”

West coast more likely to get more rain
More rain than snow
Double area of rain --> double flooding
Additional winter melting: much wetter soils in northwest, slightly drier soils in CA --> but doesn't reduce flood risk
"atmospheric rivers" -- the storms to worry about. warm pacific storms.
"pineapple express" -- source of big storms/floods
More flood risk: rain rather than snow; wet snows & soils; more large storms; need to have better flood management through increase observation of snow, weather patterns...

Michael Dettinger gives his presentation. Click for larger photo.

Jerry Brown to California Cities: Curb Greenhouse Gases or I'll Sue You

California Attorney General Jerry Brown gave members of the California League of Cities convention yesterday in the state capital the threat of lawsuits if the state's 400+ cities don’t account for the greenhouse-gas producing activities related to their planning processes.

The former California governor and mayor of Oakland earlier this year in his new role as self-proclaimed "top cop," sued one hyper-growth California county for not calculating the impact of its extensive development plans on greenhouse gas production.

Brown used the state's groundbreaking 2006 AB 32 global warming mitigation legislation as precedent in a now-settled lawsuit against San Bernardino County. His office is compelling the county to inventory its total greenhouse gas emissions and to come up with a greenhouse gas reduction action plan for reducing emissions tied to new development, through a long-existing regulation known as the California Environmental Quality Act.

"We've got to adopt feasible measures to reduce greenhouse gasses through public processes--every city and county in California can do it," Brown told the gathering of hundreds of mayors and city managers. "I want to join with you to help. If you don't, I'll sue you. You have your roadmap, your threat, and the carrot of good things you'll achieve and bad things you'll avoid, so let's do it!"

The “bad things” he referred to that could be avoided included more smog and forest fires because of higher temperatures and broken levees because of increased flooding risks attributed to global climate change.

Brown, in his gruff San Francisco "Out-the-Mission" accent (which to this native Chicagoan always sounds more Chi-Town than anything), lauded Republican Gov. Schwarzenegger and the state's General Assembly for its far-reaching global climate change emission reduction targets.

"What California has done in adopting AB 32 is more comprehensive than the greenhouse gas reduction goals in any state and in some ways is more complete than anything accomplished by any nation."

Brown alluded to the California Environmental Quality Act being signed back in 1970 by then Governor Ronald Reagan and how last year Gov. Schwarzenegger signed AB 32 into law.

"A Republican signed the most far-reaching, invasive measure to make your life more difficult and now I'm the top cop to chase down people who emit greenhouse gasses," the long-time Democrat said, with a hint of irony.

The crowd of city officials, representing every political stripe, guffawed and cheered the former-seminary-student-turned career politician.

World’s Largest Solar Energy Farm to be Built in California to Meet Community Choice Aggregation Demand

As reposted 7/13/07 on WorldChanging -Editor

 

Fresno, California sits at the south end of one of the sunniest and hottest valleys in North America, the San Joaquin. The San Joaquin Air District is also one of the most polluted in the nation, with asthma rates many times higher than the rest of the nation and numerous air quality action days every summer causing significant health and business impacts.

Upon this tableau, the city of about a half million residents along with 11 surrounding communities and two counties announced last week they would together be developing the largest solar facility in the world. It will be more than seven times the size of the earth’s largest solar energy farm, now in Germany.

Map sources: geology.com, WIPP.Energy.gov

The planned 80 PV solar plant, eventually covering one square mile, will be developed by San Francisco-based Cleantech America and managed by the Kings River Conservation District (KRCD), one of the state’s new community choice aggregation districts.

“We’re so excited about what community choice can do for us,” said Dave Orth, Manager of KRCD.

Community choice allows a city, county or group of communities such as the KRCD to band together to build and produce their own energy and then transmit that over lines owned by public or investor-owned utilities. In the case of the KRCD and other California communities following in its path, the goal is to control development of new energy sources, particularly renewables, which can be solar, wind, biomass or other non-polluting technologies. 

Bike Capital of the World?

We repost Warren's June 14th article from WorldChanging this week. -Editor

The Future of Carbon-Free Transport: Groningen, Netherlands

The future of carbon-free transport lives strong in Groningen. This Dutch city of 185,000 proves that bicycle transportation can reign supreme: people there make about 150,000 trips by bicycle every day.

Bicycles and pedestrians entirely rule the medieval-era city hub, cruising along on car-free dedicated pathways and short cuts with no traffic signals in some instances. But people also commute on bikes in large numbers from suburban housing spread out around the city to downtown jobs, via a ring-and-spoke network of paths. Overall, 37 percent of area commutes are made on bikes.

Boasting an official town bicycle planner, Groningen has created an infrastructure it refers to "continuous and integral," which includes massive surface and underground bicycle parking facilities, dedicated bike paths, and two-way bike lanes even on one-way auto streets.

Since the early 1980s, 30 city bicycle parking facilities have been developed, including one underground facility at the central train station that sells bikes, repairs bikes and offers valet and secure parking for more than 4,000 bikes. Parking is financed through a low-cost annual membership program that costs $50 a year, while bike valet positions create significant numbers of jobs at the public parking facilities and also at 15 local schools.

Bike parking and paths, however, are only the physical manifestation of the careful cycling cultural nourishment that has been provided by city leaders collaborating with citizens. In 1986 Groningen developed what is believed to be Europe’s first dedicated bike policy document, which focused on a broad spectrum of bike transportation and awareness programs. Educational programs now include teaching the health and economic benefits of cycling.

"We think we can boost the numbers of cyclists even higher," said bicycle planner Cor van der Klaauw on Josh Hart’s Car Free Blog. "We have programs to introduce new immigrants to cycling. Many of them came from places where the car is the ultimate status symbol. We need to show them that in Holland, they can get around very easily by bicycle, status symbols aside."

Groningen's bicycle planning has not occurred in a vacuum, but rather complements an integrated scheme that includes low-priced parking facilities for cars, strong public transport and careful public transit linkages between car parking areas and centers for employment and education. With these amenities, cars use, especially in the city center, was successfully restricted without impacting local business.

Other so-called northern European "cycling cities" may be more known (Amsterdam; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Ghent, Belgium) but none can match Groningen for its complete vision and high rate of daily velocipedic participation.

The Netherlands averages a 26 percent national cycling rate, Denmark scores just under 20 percent and Germany achieves about 10 percent, according to a report published by Dutch research group Fietsberaad (Number 7).

While bicycles in the US currently comprise only 0.4 percent of all commuter trips, some North American cities are actively promoting bicycle transportation--through planning dedicated mapped routes and facilities--as a way of reducing global climate change-causing carbon emissions. San Francisco, for instance, has announced a goal of having bicycle trips make up 10 percent of all city trips by 2010.

What’s behind the high rates in Europe, besides the history of bicycle use and culture? According to Fietsbaraad: "Accepting the cyclist as a 'normal' traffic participant with equal rights in the '50s and '60s has been a crucial factor; (so has) the realization of a motor car infrastructure (that) is not at the expense of the cyclist….”

Warren Karlenzig is Chief Strategy Officer at SustainLane, where he directs the company’s US city rankings, and SustainLane Government, an open-source best practices sustainability knowledgebase for state and local government officials and their constituents. Warren is lead author of the newly released How Green Is Your City? The SustainLane U.S. City Rankings (New Society Publishers). His blog is www.greenacity.com

Which city has the Greenest Fleet???

Las Vegas!!

Most are surprised  that Las Vegas has the highest percentage of alternative fueled vehicles in its city fleet--more than 60% of its vehicles are burning biodiesel, or compressed natural gas or are hybrid electric. SustainLane Goverment released yesterday this ranking.

The top other cities are as follows:

2. Honolulu

3. Kansas City, MO

4. Albuquerque

5. Dallas

6. Denver

7. Phoenix

8. Los Angeles

9. Seattle

10. Portland, OR

These cleaner-fuel vehicles cut air pollution locally, but they also reduce carbon emissions that cause global climate change. They push further development of clean technologies that are likely to be rolled out to consumers, and, alternative fuels provide economic opportunities for regional farmers producing fuel crops--or better still ag by-products that can be used as to make fuel, such as used cooking grease. My latest favorite biofuel is bio-butanol, which is way more efficient than corn-based ethanol, and can be made from a variety of crops.

Final footnote: two of these cities, Denver and Albuquerque, vow to implement 100% alternative fuel fleets by the end of 2007 or so.

Top Ten Green Cities: Review of "The Climate Code" Episode on SustainLane's US City Rankings

The Weather Channel's "The Climate Code" covered in-depth The SustainLane US City Rankings yesterday, featuring reports from the top ten cities out of the largest 50 US cities SustainLane ranked in 2006. Look for How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings from New Society Press in April with expanded and updated information on the rankings.

Yesterday (rebroadcast Saturday, January 27 at 3, 5 and 11 p.m. Eastern), we heard about the following cities:

1. Portland, Oregon

Portland provides a great example of what cities, citizens and businesses can do together to improve their quality of life along with the local economy.

Once having some of the nation's poorest air quality, Portland now has some of the best air and tap water quality nationwide, along with free public transit downtown, the highest bike-to-work rate, the most LEED-certified buildings, strong local food and an emerging alternative fuels economy. Plus the real estate community has backed the first residential home multiple-listing service with green features in history.

2. San Francisco

San Francisco is a close competitor with Portland for managing sustainability programs that help provide the nation's best solid waste diversion rate (recycling and commercial composting), and feature bold projects for solar and tidal energy generation. San Francisco's housing affordability remains an issue that forces many to commute long distances into the city. Fortunately the Bay Area features strong public transportation to help make that commuting less polluting and congested.

3. Seattle

Mayor Greg Nickels, who appeared on "The Climate Code," is a strong national advocate for climate change policy, clean technologies, green building and effective sustainability policy management. Seattle, its port authority and King County, have been teaming up on biodiesel ferry and bus initiatives, while the city has strongly pushed for restoring native forests in the Emerald City.

4. Chicago

My hometown, and each time I visit, I'm more wowed by what I see under Mayor Daley's leadership. Mayor Daley, who spoke on "The Climate Code" about wanting to go from #4 in the SustainLane rankings to #1, has been greening streets, freeways and even abandoned industrial sites.

Chicago blends the aesthetic with the technical aspects of sustainability: the world's largest green roof at Millennium Park underlies a Frank Gehry-designed bandshell, all part of an ongoing study to reduce urban heat-island effect.

5. Oakland, California

Oakland is a great "sleeper" in the top ten, with growing public transit use, policy supporting more local food, renewable energy and a move toward energy security. New Mayor Ron Dellums is instituting a "green collar" jobs program for youth and low-income workers, so that the clean tech jobs the city is trying to lure can equally benefit professionals, skilled people in the trades, unskilled workers and students.

6. New York City

With the country's best urban public transit system, New York is not resting on its laurels. Mayor Bloomberg is putting his weight behind city appointments, committees and processes that are making a sustainability plan a reality in 2007. Out of such activities, look for the city to assume a leadership role in developing alternative fueled vehicles, renewable energy (including tidal) and Gotham-scaled green buildings.

7. Boston

The Bean goes Green. Boston is poised to become the leading city for green building with its new zoning requiring that all buildings over 50,000 sq. feet be LEED (the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. Add that to high renewable energy use, great public transit, walkability and low sprawl, and you get a promising future. Weakness: recycling. 

8. Philadelphia

Philly's #8 has been a surprise to some, but the city is a great model for local urban food, with strong networks of farmers markets and community gardens. The city also is riding a wave of interest in sustainability from citizen groups, business (including the local Business Alliance for Local Living Economies), and just plain folks who have been attending large planning and visioning meetings.  From that process the city needs a sustainability plan that city officials buy into, along with more recycling and renewable energy.

9. Denver

When cities claim that they can't build public transit like that of such "older cities" in the top ten, I always point to Denver. The city and 30 surrounding towns in 2004 passed a ballot measure to build out more than 100 miles of new light rail and other new public transit lines.

Mayor Hickenlooper has made sustainability the foundation for the city's future, through economic development that will be integrated with the new public transit. The skinny: 4x current public transit ridership in 15 years and a vital new American city.

10. Minneapolis

Minneapolis wants to increase its energy and food security, as Mayor R.T. Rybak described on "The Climate Code" yesterday. The city will continue being the leader in renewable energy for Midwestern cities, while bolstering farmers markets and community gardens (it's already #1 in that area), and green building. 

Bay Area's Spare the Air Program

Today is the first official "Spare the Air" day for the San Francisco Bay Area. With record heat and corresponding high levels of ground-level ozone, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District uses these gnarly days to get people to ride public transit, all of which is offered free in the region, including 25 different transit agencies. Luna Salaver with the District says about 31,000 people in the region have signed up for email air alerts, which I just did. Good to know when it's going to be polluted so I can limit my exercise to the early morning before it gets too nasty. Thanks, Luna.

The Air Quality Management District on these days tries to get people to not use fireplaces (as if!),  gas-powered lawn mowers or other gas-powered machines, charcoal barbeques, and they advise people to fill up cars with gas in the evening if possible. Driving, filling up in the morning and doing these other things all contribute to local ozone pollution, which as I write is approaching the level of being "unhealthy for sensitive persons." Did you know that when you "top off your tank" and spill some gas, it's equivalent to driving more than a hundred miles in terms of the air pollutants that creates?

Knowing this made me stop doing topping our tank a year back. And I'm now even more smug about our manual lawn mower (free, left on the curbside), especially now that my son realizes how much fun it is to use it.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management district sponsors three Spare the Air days each year during non-holiday weekdays with high air pollution forecast during the period June to September. They get funded by federal grants, while the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission pays out $7.4 million to the 25 transit agencies to offset the fares lost during the three free days. Tomorrow is also a Spare the Air day, so free rides on all buses, subways, ferries, trolleys, etc. will be happening then throughout the nine county Bay Area once more.

My eyes are burning and we have fans blasting in our office. Imagine, those of you in other parts of the country, a 12-storey office building with no air conditioning system. Instead we use large windows that open, operate window shades and use cross ventilation to cool ourselves. It works pretty well as we have little humidity here in San Francisco. Would be so much more difficult to pull this off in NYC, Philly, DC, Chicago, St. Louis or any Southern city.

I wonder what they are doing in Atlanta right now, where the Air Quality Index ozone level of 196 was approaching the "very unhealthy" level of 201 at which "everyone may experience more serious health effects." Besides irritating the eyes, ground level ozone can irritate or even damage your lungs and upper respiratory system. Those with asthma also suffer labored breathing during times of ozone pollution.  EPA's Air Now site has current pollutant levels for all US cities, along with such scary language about the dangers of air pollution. Were the impacts not so creepy, it's a cool site with time-lapsed animations of pollutant levels.

I rode my bike in all the way to work in downtown SF today from Marin County and will now get to take the Golden Gate Ferry for free back to Marin, then I'll ride from there back home after it begins to cool down and gets less polluted. The anti-commute commute, I call it.

Programs like Spare the Air are in a few other locations nationwide, such as Baltimore, Austin, Washington, D.C., and the State of New Hampshire. What a great idea. Now for the Bay Area they need to expand it beyond three days as those might be used up before we even hit July.