Naturalpath

Our allies at SPUR recently released a report, Growing green: How San Francisco can become a leader in the cleantech boom, which while focused on San Francisco (as you might have gleaned from the title) makes some points worth considering by anyone looking to drive economic development strategies in their cities in a bright green direction:

Every region has an “innovation pipeline.” This pipeline is the aggregate of public and private research, study and discovery; the development of discoveries and innovations into new technologies and products; and the deployment of these products into the marketplace.

The discovery portion of San Francisco’s innovation pipeline consists of research universities, institutes and laboratories. These institutions are centers of research, and generate scientific publications and intellectual property. They also train students and workers. The development system is made up of companies that harvest discoveries from their own research as well as research by outside sources, from which they develop technology and products in their own laboratories. The development portion also includes startups — companies that are newly founded upon the potential of one or more discoveries. The deployment system consists of companies and their marketing, sales and distribution partners.

Innovation is the key requirement for the growth of many cleantech firms. Over one third of firms surveyed for this study indicated that proximity to innovation centers was extremely important to their location decisions. Over 40 percent stated that it was somewhat important.

Watching the U.S. presidential debates felt like an exercise in describing the problems of another planet altogether.

Consider this exchange:

QUESTION: Sen. McCain, I want to know, we saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?

MCCAIN: Well, thank you. Look, we are in tough economic times; we all know that. And let's keep -- never forget the struggle that Americans are in today.

But when we can -- when we have an issue that we may hand our children and our grandchildren a damaged planet, I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue. I traveled all over the world looking at the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, Joe Lieberman and I.

And I introduced the first legislation, and we forced votes on it. That's the good news, my friends. The bad news is we lost. But we kept the debate going, and we kept this issue to -- to posing to Americans the danger that climate change opposes.

Now, how -- what's -- what's the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power. Sen. Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that.

Look, I -- I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it's clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs.

And -- and I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And we can do it, too. Sen. Obama has opposed that.

Because there's no such thing as clean coal.

by Eric de Place

Apparently, everybody loves clean coal. Barack Obama loves it and John McCain loves it. Joe Biden really loved it during his VP debate -- and Sarah Palin loved it too.

But here's the problem. Clean coal is very much like a unicorn: it doesn't exist.

And because it doesn't exist, it will not save us from climate change.

Via Kate Sheppard, Carolyn Auwaerter of 1Sky nails it:

"Clean coal" is a contradiction in terms. Conventional coal-burning power plants are the leading cause of global warming pollution in the United States. Coal lobbyists will immediately reply that they can develop coal plants in the future that will capture and sequester carbon pollution.

But this is misleading. Carbon capture and sequestration is unproven, dangerous, and exorbitantly expensive. At best, the technology will not be commercially available until 2030 and the U.S. Department of Energy calculates that installing carbon capture systems will almost double plant costs, which won't provide any relief to Americans' soaring utility bills.

Exactly.

The excuse for my visit to Paris was SmartCity, a conference organized in the frame of the festival Emergences. Emergences is an 'international festival of electronic cultures and new art forms'. However, one must accept that in a city like Paris the word 'international' doesn't necessarily that tacit rules will be respected and that the activities and conferences will be held in any other language than french. That's probably why i enjoyed the event so much. While both the issues discussed and the quality of the speakers invited to the panels were definitely of international relevance, the festival had a homely feeling with an audience ready to participate and dialog, un-refrained as they were by any lack of knowledge of the ubiquitous english.

The conference focused on urban activism and artistic interventions in public space, a theme which offered a splendid contrast with the venue of the conference: the very chichi Maison Internationale at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris.

Perfect venue to discuss alternative uses of urban space

Polymeme, my favorite source for news that’s not all Palin, all the time, led me to a fascinating set of photos this morning. They’re from Ilakaka, Madagascar, a town that’s grown from little more than a truck stop into a wild west mining town in about a decade. Ilakaka is currently the source of roughly 50% of the world’s sapphire, and it’s a fascinating case study in what happens when something very valuable can be pulled out of the ground without much capital investment - you get a gold rush.

The main street of Ilakaka, October 2008. Photo by Roberto Schmidt, AFP

What I appreciated about the Globe story - and, as it turns out, several other stories I found on Ilakaka, is that most of the authors avoided, “this is terrible, something must be done” narrative that characterizes so much northern reporting about Africa. Ilakaka is clearly a tough place - Jonny Hogg writing for the BBC focuses his narrative primarily on the dangers of the town - but Schmidt’s photos are much less predetermined. He’s got shots of kids working the mines, which are hard to see, but also shots of kids playing, a reminder that mining in these towns is likely far more lucrative than other forms of employment in Madagascar, which helps explain why families are drawn to Ilakaka. I appreciate the ambiguity of the photos and of the frame Alan Taylor puts them in for the Globe.

A Chilean wine palm, one of the world’s southernmost palm species and endemic to Chile, spills sweet sap as it is cut. It falls to the ground, where up to 800 litres of the sugary liquid are then extracted and boiled to concentrate the sugar, making seventy kilograms of 'Miel de Palma', or palm honey.

The indigenous peoples of Chile once extracted the sap while leaving the palms intact. But shortly after European conquistadores colonised the wild austral land, this destructive method of cutting the trees began. Although there have been improvements in management, the felling of palms for this purpose still continues. But the humble honeybee could just end this practice... depending on its tastes.

By Scott Smith

Worldchanging ally Andy Lubershane believes that comics are a Worldchanging medium. A childhood fan of educational cartoons like Larry Gonick's "The Cartoon Guide to…" series, Lubershane values comics for their unique ability "to provide information quickly and humorously" to audiences of all ages.

Combining his artistic talents with his passion for sustainability and innovation, Lubershane created an original series of comics called Earthly Ideas, designed to explain popular concepts and inventions clearly and with a hefty dose of imagination. Worldchanging is thrilled to be the first to publish these entertaining and informative pieces of artistic storytelling.

We'll be releasing one of Lubershane's original comics each week from now until the end of the year. While many of the issues covered in the comics have been discussed on Worldchanging in the past, we hope that you'll be able to use this new medium in a different way … whether it's in your classroom, on your office wall, or to help explain ideas to friends and family.

This first illustration looks at the concept of carbon footprint labeling. Want to read more about this idea? Click for Jeremy Faludi's post on the Eco-Nutrition Label.

(click image to enlarge)

Andy Lubershane researches, writes and cartoons about sustainability from his home in Boston. He can be reached at alubershane[at]gmail[dot]com.

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Thanks to everyone who attended our 5th Anniversary bash on Wednesday night at the Sole Repair Shop! We were thrilled to celebrate with so many old and new friends.

We'd also like to share our enthusiasm for the standing-room-only crowd at Cafe Presse both last night and last Friday evening, where we gathered to watch the first of the debates leading up to the November election (photo above). We were truly impressed by the turnout, but even more impressed by the way everyone stood in (mostly) silent attention listening to our presidential and VP candidates discuss and disagree. It's exciting to see the public so engaged, informed and involved.

This week on the local blog, we've been excited to discuss two very specific plans for new sustainable developments – a rural methane digester for Skagit County, and plans for the country's largest urban swale in South Lake Union. We've also posted some notes on designing cities for car-free living, and followed up with a few more profiles from our Seattle to the World series of best local innovations. Check out the details:

Lecture Notes: What to Do About the Automobile?
The classic ideal of personal car ownership is tumbling from its pedestal. Last Friday, Worldchanging editor Julia Levitt heard Seattle policymakers, designers and developers discuss solutions for building communities that are less auto-centric.

Manure-to-Energy in Skagit County
Renewable energy startup Farm Power Northwest was recently awarded a $500,000 grant from the USDA to help fund a methane digester that will turn dairy farm refuse into power for the local grid.

The urbanist journal Next American City is on my short list of critical urban resources. In comparison to many policy- and planning-oriented magazines, it's routinely intelligent, passionate and forward-looking -- I sometimes disagree with the perspectives they offer on the future of cities, but I nearly always learn something from the experience.

It's also a good looking pub, so I was glad to read that it's just won an Ozzie.

Congrats, NAC! Keep up the good work.

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(Posted by Alex Steffen in Urban Design and Planning at 8:54 PM)