Movie Review: Radiant City

I really enjoyed this "documentary." The story is told through the lens of a fictional family who has moved to a suburban neighborhood outside of Toronto from a more urban area. They made the move to get a bigger house with more space and to hopefully give the kids a better life. Throughout the movie, all of the major issues of urban sprawl are covered.

The family psychology moves from euphoria to uncertainty to misery throughout the course of the film as they discover that their move to the suburbs is not making their lives easier or happier. 

If you would like to see a movie that gives you a primer on sprawl, check Radiant City out.  You will definitely see a lot of similarities with Atlanta since we unfortunately are a sprawl city.

www.radiantcitymovie.com

Friday is Ride MARTA Day

image courtesy of hyku @ Flickr

If you have the opportunity to ride MARTA, you may want to do it while you still can.  Just kidding, we know MARTA will be around for a long time to come but there are many obstacles to our region's largest transit system.  As you probably, know the legislative session was a bust and has left MARTA in the position that it may need to cut operations by a day in order to sustain its operations and meet its budget requirements.

The group Save MARTA is a growing coalition of organizations, local communities, and individuals who are demanding sensible funding and legislative support for MARTA. They are organizing Ride MARTA Day this Friday.  Here is what their website says about it:

The purpose of Ride MARTA Day is to bring all concerned Metro Atlanta residents into a community building activity that will boost ridership, expose new riders to useful routes, express solidarity with MARTA workers and regular commuters, and demonstrate that, as the backbone of our city´s transportation system, MARTA must be fairly funded.

We hope this will be a successful event.

For more info, check out their website: www.ridemartaday.com

City Sustainability Rankings from SustainLane

It's very useful to compare yourself against others to determine where you need to improve. Knowing where our city stands on a number of sustainability and environmental issues would be very useful. SustainLane does just that for the top 50 metro areas in the U.S. They rank cities based on 16 environmental criteria and then assign an overall ranking. Atlanta was the most improved city from 2007 to 2008 moving up from number 38 to number 19. That's a nice move. Our bright spots on the report are Green Building, where we are #3 overall, Transit Ridership and Local Food. Our low spots are congestion, air quality and planning/land use.

Check out the chart to see how Atlanta ranked on all of the criteria.



Source: SustainLane.com

This Week in Atlanta

This week is going to be a really busy week for green events here in Atlanta. Many Earth Day celebrations will be held on Saturday the 18th. Here's a preview of what is going on this week:

April 13 (Monday)

630pm - 830pm - Beltline Public Workshop - Southeast Study Group

April 14 (Tuesday)

7pm - 10pm - Sierra Club - Metro Atlanta Chapter Monthly Meeting

April 16 (Thursday)

530pm - 7pm - Andres Duany, Free Talk on Smart Growth Principles in Decatur

April 17 (Friday)

730am - 9am - Central Atlanta Progress/ADID Town Hall Meeting - The Ritz Carlton Atlanta
All Day - Georgia Tech Earth Day Celebration

April 17 - 19 (Fri-Sat)

Dogwood Festival at Piedmont Park

April 18 (Saturday)

City of Alpharetta Bulky Trash & Electronics Recycling Day \

Earth Share of Georgia Corporate Green Day Challenge

8am - 12pm - Beltline Earthday Cleanup

9am - 12pm - Trees Atlanta Planting, Location Varies
10am - 3pm - 7th Annual Earth Day Kids Fest - Chattahoochee Nature Center
8am - 5pm - Earth Day at the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center

April 18 - 19 (Sat-Sun)

Sweetwater 420 Fest, Historic Candler Park

The Future of Personal Transport?

GM and Segway unveiled the PUMA experimental vehicle to the public last week. I think this thing is totally cool. I would definitely ride in one of these but I don't know how safe I'd feel. I really don't think the streets of Atlanta are ready for this.

Peach Bites

Mother Nature becomes a dot-com
Atlanta Journal Constitution

We have a new big-time entrant into the green themed website arena. The Atlanta based Mother Nature Network (www.mnn.com) launched recently and it is a very robust offering. The website has eight main sections ranging from business to lifestyle and each section comes complete with its own blogger. The site also has a number of green themed videos and infographics that ou will find interesting.

Atlanta's Greenspaces Inadequate for a Growing Population | Planetizen
Planetizen.com

Not that we didn't already know this but Atlanta has the lowest percentage of green space amongst major American cities. The median amount for the nation's largest cities is 13.6 acres of parks for every 1000 residents. Atlanta is at 7.7. We are working on increasing that with the Beltline. The article also points to Gwinnett as a great example. Since 1997, Gwinnett has raised over half a billion dollars for parks and greenspace development.

Georgia K-12 Schools, Apply to Win a Free Energy Audit
MarketWatch (press release) - USA

Southeast Rebuild Collaborative, a five state energy office initiative to improve energy efficiency by at least 10% in the upcoming year, Southface Energy Institute and the Division of Energy Resources of the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority (GEFA) are offering a free energy audit to one K-12 school in Georgia. Anything that our schools can do to save money that doesn't need to be spend is fine with me. We look forward to seeing what school wins.

Serenbe in the News Again
Chicago Tribune

We recently highlighted an article from the NY Times that featured Serenbe and it's local, sustainable living model. It looks like the community is making news again but this time in Chicago which is home to the community that inspired Serenbe, Prairie Crossing in Grayslake.

Fees to Rise at Georgia State Parks
Peach Pundit

Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources is suggesting state park fees be raised from $3 to $5. Additionally, they are planning to raise the fees for annual passes to $50 from $30. I'm just curious whether they are raising the fee out of necessity or out of opportunity. It is no secret that during recessions, families look for cheaper alternatives to entertainment and the parks have historically been one of those cheaper forms.

Political Roundup - 2009 Legisltative Session

image courtesy of Robert S. Donovan @ Flickr

This letter was sent out to supporters yesterday from the Georgia Environmental Action Network to thank everyone for supporting the issues during the last legislative session. It nicely outlines all of the major environmental issues that were voted on. Unfortunately, we did not win them all but we did win some. Read on for a recap..

Last Friday marked the last day of the Georgia General Assembly’s regular legislative session. Over the last three months, we asked you to take action on several issues being considered by the legislature.

Thank you to the thousands of Georgia Environmental Action Network subscribers who took a few minutes to send a message to their state representatives and state senators. Below is a summary of what happened on those issues and whether they remain alive for next year:

• Cut More Trees For Less - SB 164: On Wednesday, April 1st, legislation sponsored by Senator Don Balfour, that would have expanded billboard companies’ ability to cut down and remove trees along roadsides was defeated in a close vote when the conservation community prevented the bill from obtaining the 91 votes it needed for passage. The vote was 74-89. A motion to reconsider the bill passed quickly afterwards, but the bill was never brought up for another vote on the last day of the session. SB 164 was sent back to the House Rules committee, where it can be brought up for debate again next year.

• Don’t Get Stuck Paying Your Neighbor’s Water Bill - HB 158: Legislation to require new multi-family buildings to put a water meter on each unit rather than one water meter per building passed the House easily and passed out of the Senate Regulated Industries & Utilities Committee, but failed to make it out of the Senate Rules Committee. Friendly attempts to amend the bill onto other legislation failed. HB 158 remains alive for consideration next year.

• Keep Treated Sewage From Being Injected in Our Drinking Water - HB 552: Rep. Terry Barnard led the charge to extend the current moratorium on injecting treated sewage and surface water into the Floridan aquifer, a critical source of drinking water for Georgians living in the coastal plain, for another five years. The bill has been sent to the Governor’s desk for his signature.

• Get Me Out of This Traffic- SB 39, SR 44, HB 277, HR 206, SB 120, SB 200: The Senate passed legislation to allow regions to let voters approve a penny sales tax for listed transportation projects while the House passed legislation that would let voters approve a statewide sales tax increase for transportation. Unfortunately, negotiations to hammer out a compromise broke down at 11:00pm during the last day of the session. Further, legislation to allow MARTA more flexibility in how it uses its current and reserve funds on operations & maintenance failed. However, both chambers approved legislation to rearrange state agencies to give the Governor, Lt. Governor and Legislature more control over transportation revenue and road-building.

• Exemptions from Clean Water Protections - SB 155: The House and Senate passed legislation, sponsored by Senator Chip Pearson, that provides a definition for the smallest, most temporary streams created only from rain and snowfall and then exempts them from 25 foot buffers from development. Conservation groups argued to clarify the definition, but attempts to amend the bill failed. SB 155 now heads to the Governor’s desk for his signature.

• Pay Now for Nuclear - SB 31: Legislation to create a new funding scheme for the construction of nuclear power plants, sponsored by Senator Don Balfour, passed both the House and Senate. The legislation has been sent to the Governor for his signature.

Thank you again for your efforts to urge conservation through the click of a button. We greatly appreciate all of the Georgia Environmental Action Network subscribers.

Sincerely,

Altamaha Riverkeeper
Center for a Sustainable Coast
Coosa River Basin Initiative
Flint Riverkeeper
Georgia Canoeing Association
Georgia Conservancy
Georgia Conservation Voters
Georgia River Network
Mothers & Others for Clean Air
Ogeechee-Canoochee Riverkeeper
Satilla Riverkeeper
Savannah Riverkeeper
Sierra Club, GA Chapter
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper

Movie Review: Hurricane on the Bayou

This was a pretty good, short IMAX film that focused on wetland loss around the New Orleans and southern Louisiana area.  I love IMAX films because they are usually short, in the 45 minute range and often have an environmental theme.  Hurricane Katrina was used as the center of the storyline and the movie followed the life of a young girl who was doing a science experiment about wetland loss.  You see not only the devastation that the hurricane wreaked on the environment but also the personal impact of that damage. 

I would suggest checking this one out to learn a little more about the serious problem of coastal wetland destruction.  Louisiana lost over 100 square miles of wetlands due to katrina.  It has lost far more over the past 70 years due to mismanagement of the Mississippii River.  Had the state and the army corps of engineers utilized smarter river management tactics, much of the environmental and economic damage could have been avoided.  There are many lessons to be learned from this film.

Check out the website here or check out the GreenPeachesAtlanta channel over at YouTube for the trailer.

GreenPeaches - Quiz #1

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

SUV's Bad for Environment & Hearing

image courtesy of Tony the Misfit

Story via ObscureStore.com

Thankfully, this didn't happen here in Atlanta but having cycled around from time to time, I wouldn't put it past some of our drivers.  Anyway, the SUV driver hit the bicyclist in the face, then "took him to the ground, where he struck him some more with his hands, then bit off his ear," says the police report. "[The victim] stated the man then got up and spit his ear out at him," and drove away in his SUV.