Spokane Sustainability Forum sponsored by the Lands Council

Change your lights, save energy!

2008-07-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

Hey Spokane, here's your big chance to reduce your power bill in time for old man winter to make his annual appearance. With gas, oil, and propane costs skyrocketing to dizzying heights, it makes sense to save money in other energy areas wherever possible. Since we can only turn our heaters down so far without a family mutiny, look to other household energy hogs like incandescent lighting to cut that Avista bill each month. Just changing out all of your incandescent light bulbs with the newest Compact Fluorescent bulbs, your lighting costs drop an amazing 75%!

And, you can get your first CFS bulb absolutely free! Just unscrew one of those wasteful incandescent bulbs, and slip it in your pocket on your way to the Hillyard Festival (August 1-2), Garland Street Fair (August 16), or Friday Aug. 29 at Pig Out, and find the "Great Spokane Light Bulb Change Out Caper" happening at the Lands Council/Northwest Climate Change Center booth. You can swap that energy hungry bulb for a brand new CFS 100 watt equivalent bulb, take it home, screw it in, and start saving! Many retail outlets have good deals on all sorts of CFL's to change out your whole house. You can find mood lighting too! Even black lights for those wild parties on Halloween! All of these new CFLs use on average a quarter of the juice a conventional incandescent. And with that natural gas or oil heating bill, you are going to need the savings!

See you at the festivals!

To Sprawl or not to Sprawl

2008-06-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

Sprawl isn't sustainable. Land, undeveloped natural land is finite. The old saying goes "They just ain't making it anymore". It filters our water and air, provides habitat to birds and animals, and it has remained the same until we came along with our desire to build, and our concept of property. The top of the South Hill used to be very rural. Glenrose, Moran Prairie, and areas beyond 57th used to be virtually empty, beautiful land. But no more. Houses climb the hills replacing the trees and scattered farms. Not just homes and acreages, but full blown lot developments of houses, condos and apartment complexes cover Moran Prairie along with shopping centers, office buildings, and huge assisting living centers. Pressure to develop huge big box centers has mounted to a crisis. Citizens opposing this rampant sprawl are fighting back, but from the looks of the top of the South Hill, the battle is already lost. We have two out of three County Commissioners that support rapid growth, and one Commissioner is a developer himself. And these guys are moving FAST. To save the last vestiges of open space, please join this effort to resist big box development.

Palouse-Regal Neighborhood Workshop, June 6 & 7

Southgate & Moran Prairie Neighborhood Councils have been working for the past year

to implement Neighborhood Planning. A workshop between landowners, developers and the neighbors this weekend will determine the outcome. Southgate Neighborhood is soliciting input from residents about what they need in their neighborhood. Input is needed from residents and those living in other areas of the city and county.

We need YOUR input!

SOUTHGATE URBAN DESIGN WORKSHOP

Friday, June 6, 2008 from 3:00-9:00pm

Saturday, June 7, 9:00-5:00pm

ESD101, 4202 South Regal, Conference Bldg

The public is welcome to observe and will be allowed to ask questions and give input at 9:00 am and 4:00 pm on Saturday. Please bring your ideas and concerns. Do you need big box stores? Which ones? Do you need a safe pedestrian/bicycle route? Do you need a movie theatre? Boutiques? Restaurants? Specialty stores? What is missing in your neighborhood?

What would damage Southgate? What is your dream for Southgate? Your nightmare?

VERY IMPORTANT ---- City Council Hearing, June 9, 6:00 pm:

The City Council will be voting on 3 Comprehensive Plan Land Use Amendment proposals pending for the Palouse & Regal area. A Home Depot is planned behind Shopko; a Target or Wal-Mart is tentatively planned at Palouse and Regal; and a “yet-to-be- determined” development will be next to the soccer field. All proposals request

zoning that will allow big box development.

Plan Commission Recommends Denial of Proposals:

After much input from the developers, Southgate neighbors, and City Planning Services, the City Plan Commission has recommended DENIAL of these amendments to the City Council. Please attend the City Council meeting so that your voice is heard by those you have elected to make decisions about the city you live in.

Write or email the City Council members and Mayor Verner

at City Hall with your questions and/or concerns TODAY

So there is something we can do! Speak up! Vote with your feet and attend meetings, call your Council representatives, and stop sprawl before nothing natural is left of this once rural area!
Other areas are under siege from runaway development--north, south, east, and west--all over rural Spokane County and parts of Stevens County too. Cluster developments, housing speculation developments, McMansions, shopping centers with the same stores over and over again pop up overnight. Do we really want to lose our open spaces forever? What do you think?

Why Sustainability? Sense and survival...

2008-05-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Spokane Sustainability forum for all folks interested in creating a dialogue for sustainability issues facing our city, county, and region. Wikipedia defines sustainability thus:

"Sustainability is a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. The term, in its environmental usage, refers to the potential longevity of vital human ecological support systems, such as the planet's climatic system, systems of agriculture, industry, forestry, fisheries, and the systems on which they depend. In recent years, public discourse has led to a use of "sustainability" in reference to how long human ecological systems can be expected to be usefully productive. In the past, complex human societies have died out, sometimes as a result of their own growth-associated impacts on ecological support systems. The implication is that modern industrial society, which continues to grow in scale and complexity, will also collapse."

Uh oh. This sounds kind of scary. Why does it affect Spokane?

A little history first. Spokane is rich in history.

Spokane was the model of sustainability when the Spokane people fished the falls, dug roots, and gathered nature's bounty. Horses showed up out of the blue in about 1690. Their coming preceded the Europeans by about 100 years. The horse years were a golden age for the natives of the Inland Northwest but unfortunately, nothing good seems to last...

White Americans conquered the West by rifle, and then by the plow, saw, drill, and bulldozer. They built railroads. They built highways. They mined. They built cities and towns. They dammed wild rivers, channelized and buried urban creeks. They sprayed chemicals and built roads nearly everywhere. Progress was king, and the resources seemed endless. But it wasn't sustainable.

By 1970, this unsustainable lifestyle took a great toll on the environment. Air, water, and soil pollution literally killed Lake Erie, poisoned residents on the Love Canal, and blanketed cities with dense and choking smog. DDT threatened raptor species by thinning eggshells. Wildlife declined as humans encroached on habitat. Acid rain fell in the Adirondack lakes. Cancer rates soared. People protested the foulness of it by marching with signs, gathering at the gates of industrial areas and in Washington D.C. We had soiled our nest.

The government responded. The Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, and Clean Air Act were put in place. And we created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The movement towards cleaner industry, towards a less toxic environment got underway. A long rage plan to reduce oil and gas consumption through clean energy solar, wind, tidal, and other green technology developed. Efficient appliances replaced the old inefficient durables. Air and water slowly improved in part because of smokestack industry regulation and unleaded fuel. Things were looking up.

In 1974, the first World Environmental Expo took place in what would become Riverfront Park, right here in Spokane. But the practices of conserving energy, finding alternative energy to fossil fuels, and reducing our reliance on extraction industries didn't progress as it should have. In fact, by 1981, the President and Congress suspended much clean energy research and development funding, and returned the country to consuming subsidized cheap oil, and put our country back on that unsustainable path to global warming and all the problems we face today.

The mandate to develop clean, efficient, high mileage vehicles ended, the oil and auto industries were deregulated, and we subsidized offshore drilling, oil shale exploration, and massive oil fields in the Arctic. We built the Alaska Pipeline. The legacy of the Exxon Valdez still haunts us today.

Consumption and profits trumped sustainability. The promising technology of reducing emissions and getting tremendous power from modern multi-valve engines was used to move extremely heavy vehicles, rather than making very small, but peppy fuel efficient engines you find in small Japanese cars today. And people bought SUV's, pickups, and powerful fast cars. EPA fuel efficiency regulations conveniently excluded SUV's and pickups from the mandated 30mpg by 1990. SUVs and pickups took over the congested roads and streets like a fleet of armored tanks with airbags and four wheel drive. Light, small cars became more dangerous and SUV’s dominated the highways.

The result clogs our streets with huge vehicles that average 12 to 18 mpg. Semi trucks replaced rail freight as "rolling inventory" as they fill the big box stores and our streets.

Airlines added flight after cheaper flight. Even poor people could afford to fly and did.

Cheap and plentiful goods from China replaced traditional American manufactured goods, eliminating thousands of decent paying jobs. Outsourcing to Asia became the norm.

And then along came 911, an endless and ridiculously expensive war, an "Inconvenient Truth", and the mortgage loan credit crash. The third human air pollutant, after chlorinated fluorocarbons (CFC refridgerant) and ozone were identified and steps taken to mitigate - carbon dioxide began to be taken seriously – global warming began to permeate the American psyche.

The sustainability movement grew from a perceived "left wing" fringe into a mainstream stampede towards sanity. It didn't hurt that gas jumped from $1.89 a gallon in 2001 to almost $4.00. Oil company insiders predict gas prices will top $5 by Labor Day, 2008, and exceed $7 per gallon a year from now! If you drive a rig that gets 18 mpg, that has a 30 gallon tank...that's $210 per fillup. One of those huge pickups that gets 12 mpg with a 35 gallon tank...that's $245 for a fillup. You will be spending 77 cents a mile!

Peak Oil seems to have arrived. The worldwide demand for oil is about to exceed the supply - even according to the International Energy Agency, who denied this a year ago. Now how does that STA bus and light rail project look?

Mayor Mary Verner has stepped up to bring sustainable change to the Spokane city government, after being elected by a constituency ready for action. She took a big first step by establishing the position of Sustainability Coordinator - enter Susanne Croft.

When Susanne Croft was tapped to lead the program, folks exchanged high fives in the corridors of the Community Building and the Saranac. Finally, the way is cleared to turn the page. It is essential for human survival and an inescapable necessity. Reality and hard science have triumphed over politics in Spokane. Could Washington D.C. be next? We can hope.

Spokane may be the first American city to have a commbined peak oil, climate mitigation and climate adaptration program, although King County has an extensive Climate Change agenda with an aggressive strategic plan. Mayor Mary Verner has created a program dedicated to engendering a sustainable Spokane. Check it out. This will link you to the official description from the Green Spokane web site. Be sure to read the press clipping at: Energy Bulletin

Hooray for a Green Spokane! Whether this makes you mad or glad, feel free to opine and comment! This is what democracy, free speech, and citizen action is all about.