Are car companies thinking about more than one type of green? Photo by makeshiftlove from Flickr.

The New York Times latest automobile issue takes a dramatic departure from the past and includes several articles on how environmental concerns are shaping the industry. Below, I’ve included some links to the more interesting articles:

Challenging Gasoline: Diesel, Ethanol, Hydrogen – An interesting article about alternative fuels and potential risks. This article quotes our own Lee Schipper, “a former oil industry executive.” We’re not really sure where they came up with that!

Getting to Green – Car manufacturers have switched gears and are focusing on gas mileage and other green touches for their automobiles.

In Europe, a Shift in Tactics – Frankfurt’s International Motor Show, known for emphasizing speed and power, is now trying to play up things like low CO2 emissions and hybrids vehicles.

Marketing Muscle and Guzzle – A look at some of the marketing tricks Hummer is using to sell the most polarizing vehicle on the planet.

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A cut away shot of Lexus’ new hybrid. Photo by Mike Babcock of Flickr.

To date, much of the debate swirling around global warming has focused on how new and improved technologies will save us from the dire consequences of a warming planet. In the context of transportation, this means that a lot of our time, energy, and discussion centers on the idea of fuel efficiency, or alternative fuels and vehicles. Among politicians and talking heads, hybrids, fuel cells, and ethanol are all the rage. But are they right to place so much emphasis on these technologies? Or is it misguided to depend so heavily on new automotive developments to fight global warming?

In the last few days I’ve done some number crunching – back of the envelope type calculations – to see what effect past automotive innovations had on our carbon footprint. The results are quite interesting and provocative. The initial numbers need a lot of review and improvement but I still thought they would be interesting to share. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you live in a suburb like this one in Las Vegas, it might be hard to walk to the grocery store. Photo by ulybug of Flickr.

While surfing the web I found this very interesting website, Walk Score, that calculates the walkability of a residence using an easy to use interface, just like googlemaps or mapquest. All you have to do is enter an address and out comes a rating, from 1 to 100, based on its proximity to nearby services, such as restaurants, parks, and schools.

For the last year I have been more than convinced that I live in a very walkable environment. Yet, I was not satisfied with my score of 78, which according to Walk Score means “Very walkable: possible to get by without owning a car.” Why was my score so low? Does very walkable mean that it’s possible to get by without a car? I would think that very walkable would mean a car would be unnecessary. After doing a little more research I found out that even this great website fails to incorporate things such as availability of public transit, safety, and connectivity, all of which are quite important to what I consider a walkable environment; an environment that supports pedestrian travel in an area. Living close to transit and having a pedestrian friendly design is what motivated me to live where I do and oddly this isn’t even taken into account. Read the rest of this entry »

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This weekend EMBARQ participated in the 5th Annual AltWheels Festival , which is the largest alternative transportation and energy festival on the east coast of the U.S.

Held on Boston’s City Hall Plaza, this year’s AltWheels was a flurry of activity featuring everything from homemade biodiesel cooperatives to web 2.0 ridesharing company GoLoco to plug-in hybrid manufactures to Moonbeam, a contender for the Automotive X-Prize.

One highlight was an appearance by the Mayor of Boston, Tom Menino, who announced a new diesel retrofit grant program for Boston, promised to plant over 100,000 trees in Boston over the next 12 years, and to make Boston the most bike friendly city in the country.

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Photo by Stephane Foulon. From Road and Track.

This week’s addition of BusinessWeek includes an article about Gordon Murray, a celebrated race car designer, who is switching gear and working to create “a compact, fuel-efficient urban vehicle for the masses,” priced around $10,000. One of the perks of Murrays new car, the designer claims, is that its designed to limit carbon emissions during the production process. Our very own Lee Shipper is quoted in the article, challenging the benefits of Murray’s new design, pointing out that much more carbon is emitted during the car’s lifetime on the road than it is during the production process. In short, Lee suggests that Murray’s new business venture is misguided if he is in fact trying to fight global warming.

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Like the release of most Google products, we’re not really sure when Google Transit came out. However, doing of few Google searches showed that as far back as December 2005 Google had already piloted Google Transit in Portland, Oregon.

So what is this Google Transit? It’s an online tool using a Google Map interface which allows users to plan a trip using public transit. Simply type in your coordinates and your desired destination and Google Transit will turn out a detailed plan for you to arrive your destination, using public transit of course. Here’s a sample plan:

Currently Google Transit is only available in the following cities:

We’re hoping that more cities will be available soon. And not just cities in developed countries.

We’re also hoping that someone comes up with a similar service but for cyclists. That is, if you plug in your coordinates and destination you could get the most bike friendly route for getting there.

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A Ford Escape Hybrid. Left: Photo by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News, Right: Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images.

Mayor Bloomberg has finally given the push to something hybrids were created for - stop and go traffic in New York City. As the New York Times reports, the Mayor announced earlier today a plan to phase out the city’s 1,200 Crown Victoria taxis and replace them with hybrid vehicles powered by both electricity and gasoline. My only worry is that the new hybrids that the Mayor plans to add to the fleet will be large SUVs, like the one above, with modest fuel economy, rather than normal taxis with very good fuel economy. But regardless, the change will result in fuel and air pollution savings.

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On May 4, 2007 EMBARQ’s Director of Research, Lee Schipper, gave a presentation at the 17th Annual Regional Planning Assembly held in New York City. This year’s conference, held at the swanky Waldorf Astoria hotel, was entitled, “A Bright + Green Future” and touched on the myriad issues surrounding climate change, energy, and growth in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut tri-state region.

(see complete coverage of Schipper’s talk on the EMBARQ website, including a podcast recorded at the event and slides from his presentation)

The event drew a lot of attention because of the recent announcement (to both fanfare and controversy) of Mayor Bloomberg’s “PlaNYC” proposal. Today, Streetsblog.org had a nice post on some of the conference’s workshops, including a number of quotes from Schipper about the siren song of biofuels and the promise of congestion pricing.
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Will biofuels lead to deforestation? Photo by Mike Warren.

When it comes to fighting global warming, biofuels are all the rage these days. Just ask Richard Branson, the hot-air baloon adventurer, whose post-industrial empire includes Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Limousines, Virgin Active and almost any other word that can come after “Virgin.” That’s because Mr. Branson, after watching Al Gore’s famous PowerPoint, has become “obsessed with alternative energy” and plans to invest up to $3 billion of his personal fortune into bio-fuels. Is this a strategic miscalculation?
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Congestion pricing makes strange bedfellows: Listen below to New York City Public Radio and hear from representatives of the Manhattan Institute and Environmental Defense, both of whom support the Mayor’s plan for congestion pricing in Manhattan.

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