In any case, Treehugger also recently posted about a Canadian version of green power called Bullfrog Power . A Google of “green power” (in quotes) will get hits from Montana to Florida and back again.

As an aside, Pasadena is not a suburb of LA. Since it’s founding in the 1880s Pasadena has been a metropolitan center in its own right. This is one of the reasons we are a desirable place for fans of a sustainable lifestyle, and the home of the founder of New Urbanism. Pretty much everything you could want is within a 15 minute bike-ride, from entertainment to jobs, Universities to orphanages, corporate headquarters to artistic enclaves and, and, well a whole bunch of stuff of other cool stuff.

I could go on and on (grin) but will spare you the infinite virtues of Pasadena. For now. Mostly, though puh-leeze don’t call us a suburb (eye roll)(grin).

Also, I hear ya about the bummer of renting. I’m pretty sure our refrigerator accounts for about half of my monthly electric bill, which luckily is only about $25-$30 a month. I actually informed my property manager that the fridge was running way too often, and wasn’t even keeping stuff that cold, and he told me that they wouldn’t do anything about it until it flat out died. bah.

But who pays for example for the RETIRE program there in LA? Are rebates only redeemable towards new items of the same sort? Are these programs sustainable - are the waste disposal externalities visible to the customer somehow so they have an effect of steering the market towards less waste generation?

aussie

Yeah — Whatev about the Pasadena not being a suburb ;) Tell that to the mass of commuters on the 110 south every morning. More seriously, I did really enjoy walking around Old Pasadena before my museum visit. Of course, my friend insisted we drive the 3 blocks or so from the Old Pas parking lot to Norton Simon… You have your work cut out for you up there ;)

Russ — I’m not sure about the green energy thing, but here’s new ammo to bug your property manager with: SDG&E will cart away the offending fridge for recycling and give you $35 bucks for it. OK — I guess that news prolly excites me a lil more than your property manager, but just an FYI ;)

avs — I’m guessing that the rebate system is paid for by LA DWP customers, which would mean that basically, some of the money Angelenos pay for utilities are being given back to the green Angelenos for their efforts. But I couldn’t find any more detailed info in the annual report. I’ve sent the program people an email asking for more deets.

The RETIRE program is basically a recycling program — You don’t have to buy a new fridge to get rid of the thing and receive free lightbulbs. As for the rebate programs, the cash back offer is for the purchase of a new product — There’s no mention of the product having to be a replacement of an older one. In general the product has to have the EnergyStar stamp, which is like a certification that shows the product’s energy efficient.

I’m not as sure about the “waste disposable externalities visible” question — I’m guessing you’re asking if there’s consumer education going on to show, say, that there are lots of inefficient machines out there, and that if they’re gonna buy something new, they should get an EnergyStar product? Lemme know, and I’ll try to find out :)

And anon — Thanks :)

More Suburb Rant

Understanding what is, and is not, a suburb, by the by, can go a long way toward helping one make sustainable choices when picking a place to live and to work or go to school. So it is important to get it right, if nothing else so as not to confuse the sustainability neophytes.

A suburb is not merely a place where some of its residents work in a nearby or larger city. The modern suburb is a bedroom community, without appreciable commerce, dependent on a nearby urban core for jobs of all kinds (from high dollar white collar to entry level and low wage work).

That’s not Pasadena. We have jobs, goods and services. We have poor and rich and all in between.

But most importantly, Pasadena has more people who live and work right here than virtually any other city in SoCal. Some 60% of vehicle trips that begin in Pasadena end in Pasadena or a county area that is called Pasadena. In the suburbs, that number is down below 20%. Also, most of the folks on the 110 are headed into and out of South Pasadena or other places along the Arroyo — which are suburbs, as defined above.

The reason this is important at all is that a classic (modern)suburb is an unsupportable, non-sustainable artifact of the 1950-1970 era. In other words, sprawl. See http://www.endofsuburbia.com for a good working example of a suburb and why being a suburb is a bad thing.

But I know what you mean when it comes to people being picky about casually misusing labels and unwittingly flinging stereotypes — all those rich kids with low SATs and GREs at USC sure get worked up over that “Fur Trade” coffee. Whatev’ah.

(Big, but serious, grin),

R,
USC, Jour/Posc ‘82

Of course, this is the question you’re encouraging Pasadenians to ask ;) Have you found this work encouraging? Do you feel there’s “progress” being made?

And you never told me you were a Trojan before!!! Dude! We have so much in common! ;)

The question about externalities - maybe I should expand on that a bit. What I mean with an externality (usually used in its negative sense) is some fall-out that is borne by someone else than the product sourcing chain or the original customer. As an example, environmental damage from a production plant that is caused because of lax environmental laws or lack of enforcement of those - the company gets an unfair advantage when they do not need to invest money in anti-pollution measures. The consequences (negative externalities, in this case, pollution), are paid by someone else than the end customer of that product.

Proper disposal of electric waste is a huge problem. Many people just dump their lead-laden and chlorofluorocarbon-containing stuff in mixed household waste (or worse), because proper disposal would incur costs or effort. These costs (externalities) should be somehow made visible to the customer when the initial buying decision is done, because that would steer the buying patterns to the right direction, or at least “make the polluter pay”. Now, if LADWP just pays for the disposal, the original customer of the appliance won’t see the costs, and the costs become negative externalities borne by other LADWP customers. Hopefully that was at least somewhat coherent explanation of what I had in mind :-)

Ok, probably LADWP is more concerned about energy efficiency than the externalities of the production and disposal of household equipment. So their scheme is basically income transfer to green customers that want new stuff. Plus the energy-saving bulbs :-) (Which probably are problem waste too, at least they used to contain mercury. I guess they still do.)

But here’s a question. Producing household appliances consumes vast amounts of energy. Transporting new washing machines from Taiwan is done with fossil fuels too. I wonder how long one has to use an Energy Star labelled product until one has offset the environmental cost of producing a new appliance and disposal of the old one. Especially if one buys electricity with zero effective emissions, such as wind/solar (you lucky ones have realistic solar energy… here, now it’s still dark when I leave for work and already dark when I get back from work).

Yes, and like Anonymous said above, I love your blog too!

The survey took into account not only the amount of pedestrian travel, but the number of pedestrian injuries per ped.

In 2004 the City was recognized as “Bike Friendly” by the LACBC (Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition) and in 2005 for its “Walkability” by California Walks, which held its statewide meeting here.

We have in the City general plan that “Pasadena Shall Be a Place Where People Can Circulate Without Cars.” This is one of the seven fundamental principles guiding the city.

Still, getting staffers to remember that is sometimes work. And getting folks to take advantage is a chore sometimes. But that is why Pasadena Walks! exists, and why I post things like “Give Your Car the Weekend Off” and “Red-Tag Your Car” — to raise awareness and give people a starting place.

R.

P.S. Fight On!