17 April 2009

David's Green Picks of the Week

A handful of items this week. Envirobloggers, brace yourselves for the avalanche of lousy Earth Day email pitches from PR flacks...

A New, Open Source Model of Car Design Emerges by Paul Smith. Paul is one of those people who stays a step ahead of everyone else on environmental entrepreneurship. He's looking at collaborative design ideas for the next clean car - and frankly, I'm not sure why we didn't think of this before.

Florida Announces World's First Solar-Powered City by Ariel Schwartz. Obviously cool but the drawings have sort of a "Logan's Run" look to them. Creepy. And while I think it's great that we're building things that rely on renewable energy, two things come to mind. First, Florida is kinda overbuilt right now anyway. Second, even if the power you use is renewable and clean you don't want to depend on just one form of energy. One of our problems right now is we're too reliant on oil. Solar is better, but a diverse portfolio of renewable energy is best. The whole "solar-powered city" seems a bit gimmicky.

Environmental Politics On Twitter: Who To Follow by Tim Hurst. Yeah, ok, so I like the guy. But you have to admit this is handy.

Future Now: Solar Plug-in Stations by Preston Koerner. Yeah, ok, so I like this guy too. But maybe the solar-powered city guys might want to take a look at this.

A Vision for High Speed Rail by the White House. There's already $8 billion in the stimulus bill for this. Ten high-speed rail corridors will compete for this funding. If they pull this off, it's going to make a difference for years to come.

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