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Suburban sprawl could destroy up to 34 million acres of forests, says new study

Scientists at the US Forest Service and partners at universities, non-profits and other agencies predict that urban and developed land areas in the US will increase 41 percent by 2060. Forested areas will be most impacted by this expansion, with losses ranging from 16 to 34 million acres in the lower 48 states. The agency highlighted the results of a new study in a press release issued last month.

The researchers also concluded that, over the long-term, climate change could have significant effects on water availability, making the US potentially more vulnerable to water shortages, especially in the Southwest and Great Plains. Population growth in more arid regions will require more drinking water. Recent trends in agricultural irrigation and land­scaping techniques also will boost water demands.
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<a href="http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/suburban_sprawl_could_destroy.html">http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/suburban_sprawl_could_destroy.html</a>;
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Study: Electric Cars Not So Green Unless Powered by Renewables

&quot;The Victorian government’s ongoing “electric vehicle trial” found that electric cars powered by coal may actually produce more carbon emissions than petroleum-fueled cars over the lifetime of the vehicle, from manufacturing to junkyard. This is due in part to the added environmental impacts of the lithium batteries that electric cars require.&quot;

<a href="http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/12/05/study-electric-cars-not-so-green-unless-powered-by-renewables/">http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/12/05/study-electric-cars-not-so-green-unless-powered-by-renewables/</a>;
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How to have a yard you can eat

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Via: Blue Water Baltimore
Permaculture and edible landscaping expert Michael Judd, founder of Ecologia: Edible and Ecological Landscaping, is making a special visit to Baltimore to talk about how to have your yard and eat it too. December 4th at 7pm.
http://bcmastergardeners.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/december-lecture-have-your-yard-and-eat-it-too/

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Film Screening: Fixing the Future

Join us for a screening of Fixing the Future, a David Brancaccio (NPR, PBS) production about local groups across the country who are working to create a sustainable future. The BNote and BGCA are featured!

We are honored to announce that Edgar S. Cahn, the “father” of time banking, the creator of Time Dollars, the founder of TimeBanks USA, and the author of several books including “No More Throw Away People: The Co-Production Imperative” will be joining us and will be on hand for our discussion after the film. Mr. Cahn’s development of Time Dollars is just one achievement in a career that, since the early 1960′s, has been dedicated to achieving social justice for the disenfranchised. Here’s a short clip of Edgar Cahn speaking briefly about money for another upcoming film about the need for creating a new people-centered economy: “Money & Life.”

WHEN: Thursday, November 8, 2012 at 7:00 – 10:00 pm

WHERE: Creative Alliance at the Patterson, 3134 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224

TICKETS: $10 Admission

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http://baltimoregreencurrency.org/fixing-the-future
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The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.

B' Spokes: This is an interesting read if you are interested in clean air and what the EPA can do about the lack of it.
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BY MAX KENNERLY, ESQ., Litigation and Trial

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The EPA finalized their plan, in August 2011, known as the Transport Rule or the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. It’s a great program, one that will help avoid tens of thousands of premature deaths and illnesses — including over 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma over the next two years in the Eastern United States, something of not-so-slight importance to me while I sit here typing and listening to one of my daughters coughing — and reap hundreds of billions of dollars in public health benefits. Every dollar of costs in the CSAPR will be made up by a hundred dollars in public health benefits.
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...As Judge Kavanaugh concluded:
[T]he Clean Air Act affords States the initial opportunity to implement reductions required by
EPA under the good neighbor provision. But here, when EPA quantified States’ good neighbor
obligations, it did not allow the States the initial opportunity to implement the required reductions
with respect to sources within their borders. Instead, EPA quantified States’ good neighbor
obligations and simultaneously set forth EPA-designed Federal Implementation Plans, or
FIPs, to implement those obligations at the State level. By doing so, EPA departed from its
consistent prior approach to implementing the good neighbor provision and violated the Act.
***

Re-read Section 110 of the Clean Air Act and see if you can figure out how on earth they reached that result. The States aren’t entitled to any “initial opportunity” at all, because the EPA can cut those three years short if it so feels. Moreover, the States already had their “initial opportunity” and they failed to use it, so the EPA did exactly what the Clean Air Act required: it made its own Federal plan. That’s what the statute says, and that’s what the Court should have followed; instead, the Court created a completely new procedure, literally two decades after the fact, to punt the case further down the field and delay the regulations even longer.
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<a href="http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2012/10/articles/series/special-comment/federalist-society-judicial-activism-by-federalist-society-members-on-the-d-c-circuit/">http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2012/10/articles/series/special-comment/federalist-society-judicial-activism-by-federalist-society-members-on-the-d-c-circuit/</a>;
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Carmageddon Improved Los Angeles Air Quality During 2011 Freeway Closure, Study Shows

By James Gerken, The Huffington Post

On the eve of &quot;Carmageddon II,&quot; researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles revealed that last year's July 15-17 closure of Interstate 405 resulted in significant air quality improvements in the vicinity of the freeway.
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The researchers also found that with an overall decrease in traffic across the Los Angeles area during the Carmageddon weekend, &quot;air quality ... improved 75 percent in parts of West Los Angeles and Santa Monica and an average of 25 percent regionally — from Ventura to Yucaipa, and Long Beach to Santa Clarita.&quot;
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Yet the air quality improvements disappeared with the return of heavier traffic the next week....

<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/29/carmageddon-los-angeles-air-quality_n_1925523.html?utm_hp_ref=green">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/29/carmageddon-los-angeles-air-quality_n_1925523.html?utm_hp_ref=green</a>;
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