Diamond-Cut Life

My carpool has naturally been discussing whether the government should bail out the Detroit automakers. The bailout question reminds me of the short story “The Lady Or The Tiger” in which a woman decides which door to send her lover to, i.e. death or a new life with a new lady.
Carpool opinions may be influenced [...]

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by Alison Wiley
Asking Linda Quirk of Run 7 On 7 to buy carbon offsets for her extensive air travel (see last post) reminded me and my husband to buy our offsets for 2008 (we can estimate the carbon we’ll burn for the rest of the year).
Note: while I think that buying carbon offsets is necessary [...]

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by Alison Wiley
I have been corrected. Supporters of Run 7 On 7 (see earlier post) have told me that Linda Quirk is traveling to all seven continents to run marathons by herself, and is not taking others with her, as a runner here in Portland had reported.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, I think it’s great that [...]

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Yesterday morning I was working at home here in Portland, looking out my living-room window at the cool, misty day. I needed to go down to Metro, just over four miles away, for an afternoon-long meeting.
Like most all people in a city, I had a choice-point: how did I want to transport myself from here [...]

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Governor Kulongoski of Oregon, my home state, has stated a vision of combating global warming with both a state economy and general Oregon lifestyle that is cleaner and greener than the rest of the nation.
“Climate change is the most important environmental and economic issue of our time,” Governor Kulongoski said (the added emphasis is mine). [...]

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I have just a short post today letting people know about an exciting job opening in the growing general job-market of sustainability. Oregon Department of Transportation is recruiting to hire a new Sustainability Program Manager. Click on this link to see the full job description and details. As I am writing on Friday October 10, [...]

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We’ve got lots of blame, anger and flat-out fear flying around in reaction to the collapse of giants like Merrill Lynch — and also the government/taxpayers bailing them out.  I’m feeling calm this morning, myself, which makes it a good time to write.  What does it mean that all these profitable companies, these diamonds, are [...]

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Even when we love our work, it can land us in places we wouldn’t have chosen. I’m currently in a luxury hotel, the Intercontinental Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia, because that’s where the transportation conference I’m attending is being held.
The overconsumption, the wasting of resources, is setting my nerves on edge. It feels plain wrong to [...]

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Too long without a post! I just returned from a trip (via Amtrak, my favorite travel-mode) to Olympia, Washington, where I was researching that state’s outstanding transportation options program. I am so itching to do in Oregon the kinds of trip-reduction programs they are doing in Washington (I work in transportation).
On a separate but very [...]

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Oregon’s new ’solar highway’ project officially kicked off yesterday at the I-5/I205 interchange — yet another intersection between energy and transportation as the fields work toward sustainability (see Electric Vehicles).
Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is partnering with Portland General Electric to install solar panels that will produce 104 kilowatts of energy — equivalent to 28% [...]

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