Courtesy: Romses Architects

So how often have you seen an image like this?  It’s what’s called a vertical farm.  Think of a skyscraper where the building isn’t offices or condos, but farm.

Maybe it’s hydroponic farming, maybe it’s built to support the weight of soil.

Either way, Treehugger has an article quoting some experts who suggest that this will never be a reality because the yield of these concepts could never be enough to pay for the skyrocketing costs of urban land prices.

The article includes the following:

“But the fact is, the existing land sprawling out around New York and the US and gasoline to transport the goods from the heartland to NYC is still far cheaper when an accountant crunches the figures.”

The writer then gets a tad defensive of these critics, suggesting that the focus in any case should be on all the unused rooftop spaces in metropolitan areas.  Then maybe at some point, we’ll see skyscrapers are built that could allow limited farming on each floor on the south facing side.  In other words, start moving to incrementally more urban farming in whatever way possible.

You thoughts?

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So I’ll give props to a blog from the LA Times about this story.

Basically, man drives often on a certain street.  That street it getting popular with bicyclists.  Some of the bicyclists are bad apples.  So when two bikers ride abreast, driver gets upset, drives ahead of them, then slams on his brakes.  The bicyclists smash into his car.  At least one had a broken nose among other injuries.

That physician was convicted for assault with a deadly weapon and mayhem.  Sentencing to take place later.

I can already hear the arguments about issues like this, even in the Madison area.  Reading the comments that follow the blog, there are sympathizers of the driver who have posted their thoughts.

Reading about this in LA though reminded me of the recent trip I made to Southern California.  I was amazed at the number of roads with fast speed limits where bicycling was taking place.  Many of these roadways had limits of 50 to 60 mph, winding through canyons to get from the inland to the beach.  They were basically 2 or 4-lane roads, with a wide shoulder where the biking was taking place.  At first I thought the cyclists were brave.  Then I noticed that these roads had those green “bike route” signs posted, just like the ones we see in the Madison area.

So even in an area that’s very auto-centric, there was likes of biking being encouraged all over the place there… even on roads that didn’t seem terribly safe.  I know I wouldn’t feel terribly comfortable riding on something like that unless I was part of a large group (ala the AIDS Ride) where collectively we were more visible.

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So hopefully you got a chance to watch part of Brett Favre versus Packers’ fans twisted emotions Part Deux yesterday.  A blowout became a furious comeback, that then fizzled toward the end.  Favre gets the best of his former team.  If he plays against the Packers again, it would have to be in the playoffs, or possibly next year (if you can bear the retirement drama for another off season).

In any case, I had the pleasure of doing the typical “news-side” of the story yesterday by talking to fans.  Will they cheer, boo, or something else when Favre walks out onto the field. (Click here to watch yesterday’s report).

As  part of the story, I made the effort to only interview fans who were wearing some version of a Favre #4 jersey.

It was when I interviewed this fan from Waukesha when the topic of recycling came up.  This is clearer when you watch the video, but he doctored his #4 Favre Packers jersey to now be a #41 Spencer Havner jersey.  For someone who roots for the green and gold, this fan said he wanted to be “green” and recycle his jersey. 

Obviously, this is all in good fun. 

Here’s another example of a Favre jersey that was turned into something else:

There were many more examples of this everywhere you looked. 

Remember when these teams played last month in Minnesota?  There was a bar owner in the Eau Claire area who was organizing a bonfire at halftime of that game.  He wanted people to throw their old #4 Packer jerseys into the fire.  Once that got publicized, the Department of Natural Resources stepped in and said no because of possible environmental impact, no permit, etc.

That makes me wonder exactly what these jerseys (regardless of the player) are made of.  I also just find it amusing that even at an event like an NFL football game with emotions over issues like  “loyalty” and “respect”… the environment was still a peripheral matter.

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The three-wheeled, all-electric Aptera.

In the race to build an electric car that’s relatively affordable (about $30,000) and certainly eye-catching, a California company is building the Aptera.

This is a company that’s hoping to get these autos out in the next few years, and the federal government recently made some changes that might (… might…) make it easier in a landscape that is increasingly cluttered with alternative and electric vehicles.

Wired magazine is reporting that President Obama is allowing two- and three-wheeled high efficiency vehicles can become eligible to apply for Dept of Energy loans that some of those other companies have been eligible for.

However, the Aptera (and some other 3-wheeled companies) are still stuck meeting safety standards for motorcycles, not cars.  That’s not necessarily a good thing.  While those standards can be easier to meet, it also makes the cars less credible in many peoples’ eyes.

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I received a picture of the following in my email this morning:

Apparently this person will be making an appearance at the Monona Copps on Broadway around 9:30 p.m. tonight on his way to Freakfest.

If you can’t read the sign in the pic, it says “1 year, 1 shopper, 500 bags.”

According to an accompanying release:

PBM (Plastic Bag Monster) only kills a billion sea birds every year….you don’t need that many sea birds, right?…

PBM only takes up 30% percent of the landfills, there’s another 60% left to throw away other crap…..

and PBM says it is only 100 years old, it’s family has another 1000 years to live…..

it’s not easy living the life of someone who NEVER decomposes…..

On top of everything else it has to worry about…..it’s very hard for PBM to find a date…..

I guess this shows that even on Halloween, you’ll easily find political statements in Madison.

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My apologies to environmental consultant and Dane County supervisor Brett Hulsey.  Over the past couple of weeks, he has been notifying me about an effort in Wisconsin to honor the environmentally-friendliest grocery stores, and I’ve been unable to staff these events.

So here’s a chance for me to give some props to a local store.  Earlier today, around 10 a.m., the McFarland and DeForest Pic-N-Saves were named to be the latest green grocers.

The Wisconsin Grocers Association started the Green Grocer Program.  It honors stores that make efforts to lessen their environmental impact.  Currently, the effort is focused on ten stores in the state.

To give some perspective, the two Pic-N-Saves (if I’m reading this correctly) made enough changes to their electric loads that they saved enough juice to run about 47 average homes.  Those stores can be big energy hogs, when you think many are open nearly 24-7, and all the constant refrigeration and freezing that’s necessary.

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This isn’t an advertisement for a clothing company (especially one I’ve never heard of)… but it is an idea for people like me who have old pairs of faded jeans that are just sitting, folded up, in a dark recess of your closet.

You’ve heard that one of the cooler eco-trends is to use recycled denim for home insulation.  It’s a way to divert material from going into the landfills. It’s also beneficial to insulation layers, because the materials isn’t itchy like that pink or yellow fiberglass material.

So, if you’re interested, Vanity stories are collecting old blue jeans.  They’ll then be sent to a company that makes the “green jean” insulation, which will then be sent to homes that are still rebuilding along the Gulf Coast.  Apparently, it takes about 500 pairs of jeans to insulate one home.  By a quick internet search, it does appear that there is a Vanity store in both East and West Towne Malls.

The donation drive continues until November 3rd.  There is apparently a reward or bonus for more merchandise there.  I could care less… it just gives me a place to dump my old faded Levi’s.

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Forgive my ignorance on missing this debate last week.  This editorial appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal last Sunday (the day I was traveling back from my California vacation).

The editorial staff there suggested that Madison, and its residents, need to get over their fear of tall buildings.  At the same time, the editor wants to preserve the one-mile rule around the Capitol that says downtown buildings within a mile can’t be taller than the base of the Capitol dome.  That rule, passed by the state in the 1980’s, has always been debatable to me.  Many capital cities in this country have taller buildings near their statehouses, and residents there don’t seem to mind.

What the WSJ is still advocating, though, is nonetheless interesting.  Remember the debate over the Sequoya Commons development on the westside near Tokay and Midvale?  The nearby neighbors fought against that rather vocally, and in the end, were at least successful in getting the developing to change how taller certain sections of the mixed use project were.  I remember some complaining that a fourth or fifth story would “tower” over their neighborhood.  The verbage being used seemed extreme.  I always wondered how three floors was “human scale”, but four floors was “towering”. 

The editorial is asking that the city make it easier for these types of mixed use projects get built if the city is serious about avoiding urban sprawl. 

The online comments to that link, along with the follow-up letters that were printed in today’s paper also made some interesting points that more density won’t prevent people from driving.  In fact, as I discussed before in this blog, by many measurements, the LA/Southern California region is both the densest metro area in the country, as well as the most auto reliant.  It’s a bit of a contradiction in terms.

Let me know what you think about density in Madison, and I’ll post your comments here.

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I have to be limited with what I can say here since this is a family blog.  I first heard about this today on the radio while driving, and apparently virtually every online outlet has included it in their “bizarre news” sections.

The name of the brothel is called Maison d’Envie.  For customers who ride their bike there, or who show a ticket stub to indicate they took mass transporation, they will get a discount of 5 euros.  Here the link from the Guardian newspaper.

The analysis I heard from CNN’s business team about this was quite interesting.  If you look at it from the standpoint of a business owner, they said it’s smart to price discriminate.  The more markets you can create with different pricing strategies, the more likely you will be able to increase profits.

From an environmental standpoint, though, they said this will likely have very little benefit.  I would tend to agree.  So marketing 1, environmentalism, 0.

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The other day I got an email from a contact in the Spring Green area, Jim Birkemeier.  I’ve interviewed Jim before about the concept of selectively harvested forests.  In the process of recent media attention, though, he’s received some unlucky attention.  The sawmill he uses to slice his harvested trees doesn’t have a permit, a technical violation of a Sauk County ordinance.  But earlier this year, a state law took effect that on face value, seems to encourage more people to do what he’s doing.  (Here’s the most recent reporting I did about his situation back in April).

In the process of this dispute, his mother became faced with a ticket since the sawmill is technically on her land. Yet he’s also pressed for a change in Sauk County’s zoning laws.  Looks like he’s scored a half-victory… here’s the text of the email he sent me:

“The Sauk County Board of Supervisors amended the zoning ordinance covering sawmills at their meeting on October 20^th, 2009.

“Added is a definition:

“(86) SAWMILL.   A facility where logs are sawn into wood products.  Sawmills that process only logs from the same farm on which the sawmill is located, as long as the farm is owned or leased in whole or in part by the sawmill owner, are exempt from the special exception permit requirements.

“I like the language saying that a sawmill business that needs a permit is a “facility”.  Zoning director Mark Steward defined facility as something built or installed to perform a purpose.  This apparently means something permanent and easy to see.   He stated that this exempts small sawmills and portable sawmills from needing a permit.

“I like the change that says I don’t need a permit to sawmill my own logs, but object to needing the permit to sawmill a few logs for my neighbors.  No other county requires this expensive permit, this puts Sauk County sawmills at a competitive disadvantage to other mills.  Since the zoning department does not enforce any of this unless you come to their attention, I would likely be the only one to get the permit if I choose to continue custom sawmilling.

“This is all subject to the interpretation of the department, so there is a lot of uncertainty as to how things are enforced in the future.  The Zoning Committee and County Board believed that this amendment “softened” the ordinance and made a step in the right direction to improve the ordinance.

“Sauk County Corporation Counsel Alene Kleczek stated that the County was still “going forward with the case against Helen Birkemeier using the old definition”.

“So we made some real progress, yet there is much work to be done on the subject!

“Jim”

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