Here’s a cool chart from the New York Times, that has interactive charts for each state showing changes in electricity sources over time. Minnesota’s chart looks like this: The Times follows up the chart with a brief caption: Coal has been the top source of electricity generated in Minnesota for the past two decades. But […]
Here’s some bad news for folks concerned about climate change: national greenhouse has emissions have gone up markedly over the last year. In a New York Times article today, Brad Plumer has a story about the 3% uptick over the last year. Here’s the chart: According to Plumer, there are a few reasons for the […]
Granted, California is different than Minnesota. I suspect our footprint would look slightly different, considering that Minnesota’s electricity sector is generally more fossil-fuel dependent than those on the West Coast (though Xcel is quickly moving away from coal). The other big difference, I am guessing, would be energy use for home heating. But with this […]
Here is a very cool map showing the “average annual carbon footprints” of different parts of the state, down to the level of individual zip codes! It’s put together by the Cool Climate Institute at Berkeley using a carbon footprint calculator developed in an academic paper in the Environmental Science and Technology journal. Here’s the […]
Via the City of Minneapolis, here is a chart of greenhouse gas emissions from citywide activities. Greenhouse gas emissions decreased 3.1% in 2016 compared to the 2015. Increases in emissions from natural gas consumption, solid waste, and wastewater were offset by decreases in emissions from electricity consumption and on-road transportation. The City adopted goals in […]
There have been a lot of posts about the Minneapolis 2040 Comp Plan, including many, many public hearings in which YIMBYs and NIMBYs stand up and fight for more housing, or less housing, or neighborhood character. Every city in the Met Council is supposed to have a 2040 plan. Meanwhile, we are all frogs in […]
Once upon a time, sometime in 1989, the city of Saint Paul drafted a sustainable take-out container ordinance. It wasn’t called that, as the terms “sustainable” and “sustainability” weren’t widely used yet. It was written to help achieve city, county and state recycling and waste reduction goals through increasing the types of take out containers […]
Here’s a fun chart to stare at for long hours. It’s the LIvermore labs energy chart! This is the most recent version available at the state level (though there is one made at the national scale using 2017 info). It might look familiar, as Adam Miller put up a similar chart a year and a […]
What would our community look like if we valued all life forms, not just humans? The experience of walking down the street might be quite different. We’d see colorful yards full of nectary flowers like bee balm, coral bell, meadow blazing star, asters and hyssop. We’d smell fragrant milkweed, honeysuckle, and flowering tobacco. We’d walk […]