Phone books. I have seven. I hate them. I probably have at least a tree’s worth of paper sitting on my front porch right now, piling up as a monument to the futility of personally trying to save the world by saving paper. I don’t want them. And yet they appear incessantly. Remember this photo? […]
Green
Posted inGreen
Hoes Descend on City Hall
Giant TV vans full of reporters showed up at City Hall for the release of the mayor’s budget (which we’ll blog about asap) but were surprised to find a crew of young ruffians tearing up historic building’s front lawn. Bringing a little bit of Obama right here to Portland, Loaves and Fishes and the Parks […]
Posted inGreen
Big Plastic Boat
If you’ve never heard of the Great Pacific or Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch, it’s an area nearly the size of Texas, that is completely filled with floating and disintegrating plastic marine debris, trapped by the North Pacific Gyre. If you want to know the details, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation is very informative. But the […]
Posted inNews
Get Your Green On At The Ecoroof Fair Tomorrow
I mean literally. Get your green, on. It’s a telling sign that when you tap “ecoroof” into Google, the first three search results come up in Portland. ECOROOF LOGO: NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF EJACULATING BUILDINGS LOGO, WHICH IS TOTALLY DIFFERENT… Want one? Maybe you should check out the ecoroof vendors’ […]
Posted inBooks
The Quiet Monitor
Tonight at 7:30, Gordon Hempton will be at Powell’s to read and talk about One Square Inch of Silence, the book he co-wrote with John Gordon. The book came out in March of this year and chronicles Hempton’s adventures across the country to “capture the sounds of American landscapes” in the name of ecological sound […]
Posted inGreen
Not Cool, Trees. NOT COOL AT ALL.
A five-centimeter fir tree has been found in the lung of a man who complained he had a strong pain in his chest and was coughing blood. The 28-year-old patient, Artyom Sidorkin, came to a hospital in the city of Izhevsk in Central Russia last week, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reports. Doctors x-rayed his chest and […]
Posted inGreen
When Will Phone Books Die?
There are seven phone books at my house. I’ve piled them up in the kitchen so that they now form a convenient side table. But it’s still unsettling. When will phone book companies realize their product is now defunct and wasteful, useless in the age of the internet and cell phones and offensive to people […]
Posted inGreen
BTA Clarifies Anti-12 Lane Bridge Position, Other Green Groups Still AWOL
The Bicycle Transportation Alliance finally issued an official written condemnation of the Columbia River Crossing bridge. The bike advocacy group’s initial position on Mayor Adam’s 12 lane bridge proposal was a little muddled, thanks to wishy-washy comments BTA executive director made on BikePortland.org. Taking no firm stance for or against the 12-lane commuter bridge, Bricker […]
Posted inPuppy
The Urban Farm Store; or, OMG BABY CHICKENS!!
When I was a kid, I made extra cash every year selling baby guinea pigs to the local feed store (to be purchased by nice families who would love them and care for them and change the sawdust in their cages every day and give them lots of carrots and broccoli florets and most certainly […]
Posted inNews
Portland Firm Will Design Green Center
Portland firm Gerding Edlen will design the city’s planned sustainability center up at PSU, after four teams pitched the project to a packed house at city hall two weeks ago. The Portland Development Commission announced its intent to award the contract to the firm this morning. Gerding Edlen built the Gerding Theater, and many of […]
Posted inNews
Green Critics Respond to 12-Lane Bridge
Last February, local economist and activist Joe Cortright submitted a Freedom of Information Act to the Columbia River Crossing task force, requesting any documents or analysis they had done on “traffic projections, tolls or financing of the CRC” since 2007. The reply? “They said they had no publications of that kind,” says Cortright. That’s unsettling, […]
Posted inCity Hall
Bridge: Adams’ Office Defends Green Reputation
70% of Blogtown readers in our lunchtime poll say they expected more from Mayor Sam Adams on the Columbia River Crossing. Can a mayor who travels all the way to China to preach about ‘green practices’ support a 12-lane freeway in his own backyard? Can he now still be considered a “green mayor”? “Sam is […]