Sustainable Ballard

Okay, now the bad news. From Singapore to D.C. to Lagos: Global Thinkers on Ideas That Died in 2018 (CityLab)  Obituary for sustainability (1987 - 2018) Why has sustainability proven insufficient, at least as currently practiced by the majority of us who claim to subscribe to it? Perhaps in part because... sustainability has largely been...

Hey Sustainable Ballard group, we missed this story by one day!  Climate change: 'Right to repair' gathers force (BBC News)  It is frustrating: you buy a new appliance then just after the warranty runs out, it gives up the ghost. You can’t repair it and can’t find anyone else to at a decent price, so it joins the global mountain of...

Today the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU) posted an article about walkability in cities from walking advocate and urbanist, Jeff Speck. His new book is entitled Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places shows how to make communities walkable—and better places to live. Obviously, I am not going to list all 101 steps in this post....

Thanks, Hugh.  I always appreciate your perspective and insight.  I think I've 'been around' the earth a tad longer than you, but you've been 'consciously green' for longer than this Chicago-bred "girl."  Way, way too many quotation makrs for a short post, but you know what i mean.  

Hi team.  I didn't mention in our meeting tonight that the SDOT group I work with is focused on Public Space.  It's messy as it involves permitting (you put this in shared space, now you need a permit) and programming (block parties, festival streets, parklets, streateries, weddings, marketing, food trucks, lots of activation (think...

The Seattle Planning Commission *just today* released a report called "Neighborhoods For All." It can be found at this link:  https://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=c29eb88613f043328d1fbcc1de598701  It features an interactive story-board providing the most up-to-date data and information about housing...

Hi Team -- an organization I mentioned briefly at tonight's meeting:  https://pugetsoundkeeper.org/.   Also, Jenny was right -- the water to our taps all comes from the watersheds rather than any of it being returned from the treatment plant: https://www.seattle.gov/util/MyServices/Water/WaterSystemOverview/index.htm.  It does pass through a...

While flying home from vacation yesterday, I became conscious of the extraordinary amount of plastic cups and utensils 'consumed' on one 5-hour flight.  It's pretty astounding -- why haven't I noticed this before?  Sadly, I was drinking from one such plastic cup when enlightenment arrived. (One step at a time....)

Today I calculated my water footprint.  (You may notice under "Suggested Group Activity" on p 68 that the web address is missing ... I went to www.watercalculator.org).  My footprint is 1,601 gallons / day.  Not bad, I guess -- the U.S. average is 2,220.  Note that this calculator takes into account your direct water use PLUS your...

Oh, sorry fellow team members. I'm going on vacation tomorrow and hate flying in big metal objects so I had extra coffee today and am now out of hand.  Nonetheless -- third post in a row: I hope we can speak in a future meeting (that I can attend), about choices.  I'm staying at a 'school/camp' for a week which I'm not  conflicted about, but...