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Collection: Weekend Reading

Weekend Reading 10/24/14

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Alan

A passionate and surprisingly plausible argument that “douchebag” is that unheard of epithets: a slur used to delegitimize white males.

Affordable owner-occupied housing inside city limits? Hard to come by in Cascadia’s big cities, especially in Vancouver, BC, where bungalows commonly list for $1.2 million. But what if we allowed divided ownership in single-family zones? Patrick Condon dares speak the “subdivide” word in The Tyee.

Split that average home into smaller more affordable parts. Currently subdividing homes into separate ownerships is prohibited in RS-1 zoned areas, and RS-1 zoning covers over 60 per cent of all residential lands in the city. But if you could split a single family bungalow in Killarney or Dunbar into five units of various sizes, the purchase price would be, in simplified terms, $250,000. A figure much more approachable for families earning the average wage.

Kristin

I made a video about how pursuing human well-being, rather than stuff, can make us happier and also avoid global catastrophe. Yay!

Sometimes I wish Elon Musk would expend more of his brilliance on helping us get our act together here on earth instead of trying to colonize Mars. More of his brain and money on Tesla type moon shots, less on actual Mars shots. But I respect that he has a mission to make humans an inter-galactic species.

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Weekend Reading 10/17/14

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Editor’s Note: Recently, we invited board members to contribute to weekend reading when they like. Chris Troth took us up on the offer this week! And our fall communications intern, Keiko Budech, also added a couple pieces to this weeks picks—enjoy!

Alan

This article, which filled my heart with happy, is about librarians on cargo bikes in Portland who deliver customized reading piles to people who live outdoors. “Street Books has no return policy at all, except a kind of when-you-are-done-reading, next-time-we-meet handshake agreement.”

A fascinating discussion in Vancouver, BC, about the relative merits of mid-rise and high-rise housing.

Clark

Satellite data has found a methane emissions hotspot in the Southwest US—likely natural gas leaking from coal-bed methane projects. If the scientists are right, the emissions had the same global warming impact as all of the carbon dioxide produced yearly in Sweden.

Chris

Just how important is the connection between diversity in the workplace and the quality of the work that results? Objective research shows that when we collaborate with partners dissimilar from ourselves, we up our game, and slack off in the company of those who are more similar.

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Weekend Reading 10/10/14

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Alan

Julia Roberts as Mother Nature. Kinda heavy-handed? How ‘bout this?

Eric

This week brought more evidence that the oil-by-rail industry is out of control. Another train derailed and exploded, this time in rural Saskatchewan. The next day, CBC aired an investigative report on the punishing labor conditions for locomotive operators who are being stretched thin by railway cost-cutting. It’s the same story we’ve seen in the US.

Just so, both of Canada’s major railroads, CN and CP, are fighting new safety regulations.

Today, the New York Times reported that oil trains have severly impaired passenger rail service, especially in the northern US. The Empire Builder route, connecting Chicago to Portland (and Seattle), is now late 70 percent of the time.

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Weekend Reading 10/3/14

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Serena

This InFocus photo collection of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrations is stunning. The ones with the cell phones seem out of some future dystopian political thriller.

And from a very different time, a team of Yale researchers has indexed by county ten years’ worth of Depression-era photographs by government-hired artists. The database is here, and High Country News gives a little more background on the project.

Eric

I think Manuel Quinones is one of the best energy reporters in the country, so I’m intrigued by the new book, Turning Carolina Red, that he’s a contributing author to, along with others from Environment & Energy Publishing. It’s a look at the way that the fossil fuel money influenced and then captured state politics in North Carolina. I’ve had the pleasure of talking about Northwest coal and oil exports with the good folks at E&E on several occasions, and I expect their treatment of the subject will be very good.

Clark

You may have heard of the “resource curse,” also known as “the paradox of plenty,” which is the observation that regions with abundant natural resources (oil, gold, diamonds, etc.) actually see slower economic development than places where resources are scanty. Apparently, over-specializing in resource extraction can have all sorts of unwanted effects, including undermining the competitiveness of other industries; encouraging the “best and brightest” to fight for a slice of the resource pie, rather than focus on innovation; and subjecting an economy to a disruptive cycle of booms and busts.

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Weekend Reading 9/26/14

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Alan

My favorite wrap-up of this week’s UN Climate Summit.

We put this in the Daily—about how Cascadia could become a climate refuge, attracting immigrants from harder hit locales—but have you considered this? The region’s cities all have comprehensive plans that assume certain amounts of population growth then indicate where they expect those people to live. The projections may all be way too low, and unless cities plan to accommodate climate refugees in compact, walkable urban zones, they’ll end up adding to sprawl, and compounding carbon pollution.

Kristin

My husband read the Felix Salmon article about gender pay gap and came away confused about whether there is really a gender pay gap problem… so I decided to write something clearer about why women get paid less than men. It got long so I broke off two smaller pieces about choices and solutions. That was my weekend…

The Atlantic had a great issue this month. Starting with the implications of everyone living to be 100, followed closely by an argument for quitting at 75. Not euthanasia, just stopping all preventative care at that point and only accepting palliative care. The argument being that your time after that is most likely to be slow, painful, and not fulfilling. This made me think about the only all-nighter I ever pulled—I promptly decided it was a terrible idea. I let the task expand to fill the time available, didn’t get much done in the early hours of the morn, and the next day was sort of shot. Throughout law school I set myself a hard bedtime of 10pm, and I was much more productive because I knew I had to get it done. Would setting myself a life deadline of 75 make me take more advantage of the time I have? 

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Weekend Reading 9/19/14

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Serena

Don’t forget to visit your city’s PARK(ing) Day installations TODAY! (I’m dying to stop by Seattle Met‘s SwaPark.) Here are listings for Seattle, but I’m having trouble finding them for Portland, Vancouver, Eugene, Spokane, Olympia, Salem, Burnaby… others? If you have links, share ’em! Better yet, if you visit one today, snap a photo and send it to me!

Alan

Three think pieces this week:

Should we aim to open all borders, worldwide? “Allowing free movement of all people across international borders could double world GDP,” argues one academic. It could also eliminate absolute poverty. Provocative. In The Atlantic and Vox.

A proposal for an overhaul of the US tax system that’s bold enough to adequately respond to climate change, economic inequality, and the need to restructure the economy away from financial speculation and toward innovation and production. The proposal includes pollution taxes, a tax on speculation, and overhauls of the main existing taxes, all from a Nobel Prize-winning economist.

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Weekend Reading 9/12/14

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Kristin

My inbox is always too full. Some of it is my fault (yes, I do want to hear more about kid-friendly restaurants in Portland, thank you Red Tricycle), and some of it is other people’s fault (Kristin Gilbert in Cincinnatti, please remind yourself of YOUR email address and stop signing MY address up for emails from wedding caterers and photographers). So I am delighted to have found a way to magically make the unwanted emails stop: unroll.me. Presto!

Wonder what your lifetime earnings would be if you were a man instead of a woman? Hint: you would earn more. You can test drive your alternate earning realities here.

Serena

Last weekend, I watched the absolutely breathtaking film DamNation, and I highly recommend it. It was an informative, engaging, moving, and visually stunning feat of film-making by some very talented folks, with a generous deal of bankrolling by the company Patagonia. Just wow. (H/t Stephen S.) See it as soon as you can, and enjoy the trailer for now:

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If you missed the Totem Pole Journey passing through the Northwest (or even if you made it!), these photos of the community that came together for it are can’t-miss. Hats off to James Leder for capturing it.

After the Ray Rice domestic abuse video came out earlier this week, a new hashtag began trending on Twitter, bringing together the painful lines of reasoning behind victims’ staying with their abusers: here’s a sampling of #WhyIStayed.

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Weekend Reading 9/5/14

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Alan

This folk-rock video opposing a new apartment building in the town center of Lake Oswego, Oregon, is apparently not intended as a parody of NIMBYism, which may be why it is such an effective parody of NIMBYism. (Hat tip to Patrick Barber.)

A year of changing seasons in a 40-second video.

Jeanette

Ever heard of the Share Wars?  Check out this article from the Urban Land Institute magazine on access versus ownership in the sharing economy.

And for a little dystopian food humor, you might enjoy the Great Kale Shortage.

Clark

According to researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at the University of Michigan, the fuel efficiency of new vehicles sold in the US just reached a record high; it’s now 25.8 mpg, up from 20.8 in 2008. In some ways hitting a new high comes as no surprise: new vehicle fuel economy has been rising steadily for years. It’s mostly good news… yet with the most efficient new cars easily topping 50 mpg, it also shows how far the country has to go…

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Weekend Reading 8/29/14

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Pam

Walking on the ferry to Bainbridge the other night, I was reminded of how much more I see when I’m on my feet instead of on my bike or in a motor vehicle. It’s easier to stop to pick blackberries, to admire some public art, to watch the rush of water under the dock as the ferry lands. Walking’s also a great digestive aid for that huge plate of sweet potato fries from the pub. If you missed it in Sightline Daily on Thursday, check out this profile of an “extreme” walker who travels on foot more than 50 miles a week. There’s also a map that shows the percentage of walk commuters in the Seattle area.

Weekend Reading 8/22/14

by

Eric

My top recommendation this week is Lummi elder Jewell James’ article in the Bellingham Herald:

In August we make our journey from South Dakota to the Salish Sea and north to Alberta, Canada, stopping with many of the tribal and local communities whose lives unwillingly intersect with the paths of coal exports and tar sands. We will carry with us a 19-foot-tall totem that brings to mind our shared responsibility for the lands, the waters and the peoples who face environmental and cultural devastation from fossil fuel megaprojects. We travel in honor of late elder, and leader, and guiding light Billy Frank, Jr., who would remind us that we are stewards placed here to live with respect for our shared, sacred obligation to the creation, the plants and animals, the peoples and all our relations.

There’s plenty of other coal reading this week too.

The tireless folks over at DeSmogBlog bring news that environmental groups are suing a major coal exporter on the lower Mississippi. The photographic evidence they present is completely consistent with my observations when I visited the site a few months back—a horrifying look at how callous and destructive coal terminal operators are.

A new video critique of coal export plans is out on Vimeo. Check out: Coal Road to China.

Rail workers try to put the brakes on coal and oil shipper BNSF Railway’s scheme to have just a single person on some freight trains.

Finally, I think it’s obvious to everyone that we don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about the Roman Empire. So it’s a relief to see Vox publish 40 maps that explain it.

Serena

I am a big fan of donuts. Apparently, so are bears. And some are smart enough to figure out how to get some for themselves. (Alternative possibility: I shape-shifted this past weekend.)

As an alum of a Catholic high school with a uniform code that relegated all us girls to boxy polo shirts and “Dockers-style” khaki pants or to-the-knee skirts, I can’t imagine having been half as self-possessed or thoughtful about our dress policy as this young woman out of Seattle’s Ballard High School. Along with some friends, Annie Vizenor is staging a “style coup” to confront the victim-blaming-inspired dress code policy her school enforces, complete with some DIY shirts with statements like, “My bra straps are not the problem…YOU are the problem.” Get it, girl.

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