Posted inPhoenix

Greenscam

The Phoenix Convention Center is the site of the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, involving, the Info Center reports, "thousands of entrepreneurs, sales executives

and marketers in the fast-growing 'green' construction industry." I'm sure every attendee's welcome kit contained a laminated printout of the Rogue post, "Did you hear the one about sustainable Phoenix?" Or they should, as Phoenix is the capital of denial, pipe dreams of hydrogen cars and cooling sidewalks, and the green of sales, sales, sales. It is an international poster child of unsustainability. Put the conferees on buses, drive them around town, say "Don't do this!" and send them home.

In the same edition of the newspaper, oops, Information Center, was a story about shading the new Diamondbacks spring training structure out on the rez. I'm sure this can be spun as "green" construction, and this is one of the big problems with the entire green-built movement. A new stadium on what was rural land, surrounded by a giant heat-radiating parking lagoon and wholly dependent on long drives in automobiles is by its nature not green, not adding to sustainability. This is hardly a Phoenix problem. One sees all these new houses and
buildings in new office "parks" trumpeting their LEED certification.
Unless they are infill or rehabbing an existing (preferably historic) building, they are not really green. They are not green if they expand the urban footprint. Nor can they be divorced from their surroundings, such as walkable neighborhoods, transit, in-neighborhood shopping, etc. Otherwise, they are greenwash. Still, Phoenix takes the destructive absurdity to operatic levels. The idea that the already too-large Phoenix urban footprint can be enlarged by Superstition Vistas, and all those houses will be "green" (without a mandate, sure) is insanity.

The Info Center likely didn't have an article that came out of the European press, where whistleblowers claimed the International Energy Agency, under political pressure, has been inflating world petroleum reserves. It's a charge backed by academics and the reality of peaking production, the only reliable measure of oil. In other words, the world is running out of oil much faster than we're being told. The world is changing fast — don't forget climate change, too — and the biggest casualties will be cities such as Phoenix.

54
Posted inPhoenix

Did you hear the one about sustainable Phoenix?

This week's Phoenix Laff Riot comes from the Arizona Republic, in a story headlined "Striving to be Green:

The Valley is lashed in national surveys for its poor air quality,
derided for its urban sprawl and mocked for its searing temperatures
and growing heat island.

But, despite these challenges, city boosters, business owners,
environmentalists and academics all say Phoenix has a unique
opportunity to become truly sustainable. They also say the Valley could squander that opportunity if it fails
to make smart decisions now about growth, open spaces, wildlife and the
economy.

Later in the story is the kind of cliche sentence editors wouldn't allow, if only they weren't in endless meetings and trying to put together graphics and assorted crap: "But only time will tell if the Valley can pull it off."

I hate to break the news, but time has told and "the Valley" can't pull it off.

7
Posted inPhoenix

Sustaining denial as the old world collapses

The Arizona Republic spent a week writing articles about "sustainability." This was obviously Gannett top-down: the series was relentlessly "positive," aimed at "the average reader" and ultimately useless. Which is too bad, because reporter Shaun McKinnon is as close to an expert on water issues as you’ll find at major newspapers — when he’s allowed to write on them.

This was followed, equally predictably, by the kind of anodyne editorial the Republic has written hundreds of times before. This one had such deep renderings as:

Sustainability: The word is everywhere. Companies from Wal-Mart to Ford
are trumpeting their commitment to it. There are indexes to measure it,
including a Dow Jones corporate yardstick. Bloggers have seized on it.

And, after gently laying out some challenges, then offering soothing praise for the state:

But more needs to happen on the ground. While Gov. Janet Napolitano,
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and other leaders have certainly supported
sustainability, Arizona still seems in the minor leagues. The efforts
need to be bigger, better, faster.

"Seems"? Here’s what was not covered, as far as I can tell:

1
Posted inPhoenix Politics: National

The Republic looks at a tale of three cities

The Arizona Republic’s Chad Graham traveled to Austin and Seattle to report on some lessons recession-slammed Phoenix might learn. Numerous Rogue Columnist readers have asked for my reactions. Chad is a fine journalist and a friend. His story fits into a continuum of sometime efforts by the newspaper to educate the public and policy makers about the real world — this goes back at least to the 1980s. These efforts are ignored as population growth resumes and the nation’s last big factory town returns to churning out suburban tract houses.

The editors tip their hands by, I would assume, inserting this sentence to make defensive "Valley residents" feel better: "Phoenix will never have a gateway seaport to Asia that hums with
activity. Seattle will never have the potential solar power of Phoenix." The sad reality is that the center of solar research, entrepreneurship and use is cloudy Germany. Phoenix literally started the solar power movement in the 1950s and let it get away — therein lies the tale of the town.

Graham’s important point is that Seattle and Austin "have learned the lesson that Phoenix is now being taught: Economic
downturns hit harder when you are overly reliant on one industry."

Rather than go through the story, or even rehash my years of "controversial" efforts to raise these issues, I’d rather make a few key points among dozens that could be discussed. My perspective is as a Phoenician who has lived in Seattle for nearly a year and has seen both close up.

4
Posted inPolitics: National

Making serious economic reform, part II

In a previous post, I discussed economic reforms that should be made in the sick, corrupt financial markets. But this is only the start of efforts the next president and Congress must make to prevent a startling decline that is already evident in America. Whatever the Dow shows, most Americans are suffering and for the first time in generations, young people wonder, with good cause, if they can live better lives than their parents.

Real change is needed, and the question is whether the American people and their elected representatives have the guts to face the truth and move ahead. The laughable gas-tax holiday and much wishful thinking about alternative energy and hydrogen cars represent the school of destructive denial. This is "sustainability" that seeks to sustain the current unsustainable economic and social arrangements. It can’t be done.

Yet much of the current mess was caused, not by inexorable laws of economics, but by policy changes to benefit the rich and transnational corporations, as well as a sprawl economy at the root of the current recession. We can change it.

2