The Loma Prietan
February 2002
Meandering
by John Maybury
Kabulcars
Honor our fighting women and men in Afghanistan by reducing your need for foreign oil. Sell your old polluting vehicle to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District for $500. The retiring car, van, or pickup truck must be more than 20 years old, registered, and roadworthy. You drive it to an auto dismantler who inspects it and writes you a check right on the spot. The car's parts are sold to do-it-yourself mechanics looking for junkyard bargains. What's left by the vultures is crushed and melted down for steel. Info: 888/963-3343 or www.baaqmd.gov.
Roly-poly
Big fat SUVs now sell more units than passenger cars. S.F. Chronicle business columnist David Lazarus visited the International Auto Show at Moscone Center and was sickened by the display of conspicuous consumption.
Lazarus interviewed potential SUV buyers who expressed remorse over their lust for large, wasteful Range Rollovers. With zero-percent interest rates and falling gas prices, SUV sales border on the obscene. Lazarus says the freedom-of-choice argument for SUVs is the same one used by defenders of firearms and cigarettes.
No pit stops
Doing their bit to end our dependence on foreign oil, John Webb and Victoria Mayes of Sacramento bought a Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid, and like the LP's Dale Mead, they love it. "Recently I drove 600 miles on one tank of gas," John writes. "I even had gas to spare when I got home." They like the self-charging battery (no plugging in, no waiting, just get in and go), the price ($22 K), the extended warranties and low interest rates. Honda Insight is another great hybrid; more are in the works. Honda Civics also get super mileage.
Zero tolerance
Canada's largest city, Toronto, Ontario, plans to reuse, recycle, or compost 100 percent of its waste by 2010. Toronto's 2.4 million citizens, who produce 920,000 tons of waste a year, now send 76 percent of it to landfill but hope to scale back to zero by the end of the decade.
See www.city.toronto.on.ca/taskforce2010 and YES magazine, Spring 2001.
Mudbuster
Scott McKellar was one of many volunteers who spent several cold, wet, happy hours in the mud alongside Calera Creek in Pacifica harvesting willow saplings for transplanting to the San Pedro Creek wetlands restoration area. Recently, Scott and company visited the willows at their new home in Linda Mar and was amazed to see how well they have taken hold.
Green rental cars
You can rent hybrid, electric, and natural-gas vehicles at www.evrental.com.
French-fried ferry
Blue and Gold Fleet's new soybean oil-burning ferry Oski reportedly smells like doughnuts or french fries when it's under way. The boat switched from smelly diesel fuel to cheaper, cleaner biodiesel (made from soybean, canola, coconut, corn, or safflower oil, or recycled grease). So take a cruise on the bay and literally help burn off that cheeseburger you ate. Info: www.watertransit.org and S.F. Chronicle.
Rats rumble
Australian bush rats are killing Queens-land's wheat crop. The rats have encouraged a boom in the feral cat population, which has begun terrorizing birds. (Earthweek)
Danish power
A string of windmills in shallow water just offshore provide Denmark with valuable free energy. See www.middelgrunden.dk.
Builders' salvage yards
Architects, contractors, and do-it-yourselfers support recycling by buying building materials at salvage yards. Most are in the East Bay flatlands, but at least two are on the Peninsula: Whole House Building Supply, 1955 Pulgas Road, East Palo Alto, has doors, cabinets, windows, bricks, roof tiles, gates, heaters, plumbing fixtures, lighting, solar and pool equipment, marble, fireplace mantles, and hardware (650/328-8731 or www.driftwoodsalvage.com). Building Resources, 701 Amador Street (near Third Street), San Francisco, has lumber, plywood, marble, bricks, tiles, glass, mirrors, lighting fixtures, plumbing supplies (415/285-7814).
Long life
Sony and NEC are working on fuel cells that can turn methanol into electricity, blowing batteries away and giving laptops and cell phones many more weeks of life between charges. When researchers perfect the recharging technology, this new power source could be available by 2003.
Clean and green
Cleanwatch covers clean technology: transportation alternatives, energy savers, trends and analysis, stock consulting for green investors and innovators. Recent issues include: fuel cells, electric planes, wind farms, hydrogen economics. (www.cleanedge.com)
Department of defense
Campaign to Defend America's Environment covers global warming, dolphin-safe tuna, bird migration, Alaska's shoddy oil safety record, and other issues.
Visit www.defendenvironment.org, and www.defenders.org.
POST script
Thank Silicon Valley for much of the open space we enjoy on the Peninsula. Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) has launched a new $200 million campaign to spare 20,000 acres from developers' bulldozers. A large chunk of that money comes from family foundations whose riches flowed from high technology (Hewlett-Packard, Intel). Info: www.openspacetrust.org.
E-mail Meandering John Maybury at mayburrito@mindspring.com.