In the next few months, San Francisco will lose some of its a lot of admired burghal farms.
The City-limits Hall achievement garden is now bargain to dirt. The grants that kept afloat Quesada Area Initiative, which creates association area in Bayview, were acting and are now dehydration up. Kezar Gardens, adjourned by the Haight Asbury Neighborhood Council recycling center, is adverse boot by the city.
Time is up for Hayes Valley Farm, on the old freeway ramp, area developers are now accessible to body condos.
St. Paulus Lutheran Church has aswell appear that it wants to advertise the acreage that the Free Farm uses at Eddy and Gough.
"There's the old antic about developers," said Antonio Roman-Alcalá, co-founder of Alemany Farm and the San Francisco Burghal Agronomics Alliance. "God accept to be a developer, because they consistently assume to get their way."
At the aforementioned time, new burghal agronomics projects accept sprung up beyond San Francisco. Legislation authored by Sup. David Chiu will actualize a city-limits Burghal Agronomics Program, with the ambition of analogous efforts throughout the city.
So is the movement to abound aliment in the city-limits progressing? It's a catchy catechism that gets down to one of the oldest conflicts in San Francisco: The best use of scarce, big-ticket land.
The San Francisco Planning and Burghal Research Association lauds the amount of association gardens. An April 2012 SPUR address addendum that burghal agronomics connects humans "to the broader aliment system, offers accessible amplitude and recreation, provides hands-on education, presents new and abstinent business opportunities, and builds community."
According to the report, the city-limits had "nearly 100 area and farms on both accessible and clandestine acreage (not including academy gardens)," two dozen of which started in the accomplished four years.
But that's boilerplate abreast abundant for the demand. "The endure time cat-and-mouse lists were surveyed, there were over 550 humans waiting," Eli Zigas, Aliment Systems and Burghal Agronomics Affairs Manager at SPUR, told us. "That acceptable underrepresents appeal because some humans who are absorbed haven't put their name down."
Changes in zoning endure year, and the contempo authorization to actualize the Burghal Agronomics Program, appearance a admeasurement of city-limits abutment for burghal agronomics and gardening.
"We accept one of the a lot of acquiescent zoning codes for burghal agronomics that I apperceive of in the country," said Zigas.
One zoning change from 2011 makes it absolute that association area and farms beneath than one acre in admeasurement are acceptable anywhere in the city, and that projects on beyond plots of acreage are accustomed in assertive non-residential districts.
More contempo legislation is meant to accumulate the action of starting to abound aliment in the city. Applying to use abandoned accessible acreage for a garden can be an backbreaking process, and every accessible bureau has a altered approach. The hoops to jump through for acreage endemic by the Police Department, for example, are absolutely altered than what the Accessible Utilities Commission requires. A new Burghal Agronomics Affairs would alike efforts.
"The abstraction is to actualize a new affairs that will serve as the capital point of entry. Whether it will be managed by absolute bureau or nonprofit is to be determined," said Zigas.
If the timeline laid out in the authorization is followed, the plan will be implemented by Jan.1, 2014.
By then, if all goes according to plan, no San Franciscan searching to garden will delay added than a year for admission to a association garden plot.
2012年8月23日星期四
2012年5月22日星期二
Clean Energy 101
Our world’s energy challenges, as any loyal Dot Earth reader already knows, are intimately intertwined with our great environmental, economic, health, and social challenges.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that energy is one of the world’s largest industries, our society is woefully energy illiterate. Few people — even hardcore climate and clean energy advocates — stop to think (or to really understand) what’s happening behind that light switch or ignition (Let alone think for a moment about the energy it takes to deliver that Facebook page to their Macbook screen or a tomato to their plate.)
I’m working with Focus the Nation to help change that. We’re creating a resource that aims to demystify energy — the science, the economics, the technology, the history. You can consider it a primer or a user’s manual. Or a sort of 21st century textbook. Basically, we want it to be a complete Energy 101 education in language and charts and graphics that we all can understand.
The basic mission here is to combat energy illiteracy, with the basic reason being that you can’t properly advocate for what you don’t fully understand.
A really short history of how the project came to be should pretty well illustrate why we feel it’s necessary. For a few years now, Focus the Nation has been training young student leaders, developing their practical skill sets to drive clean energy solutions on their campuses and in their communities. Last January, when I was on staff at Good Magazine, I helped produce their Energy Issue, which was heavy on the infographics and the basic explainers. Garett Brennan, the executive director of Focus the Nation, reached out and asked if they could use the issue in their trainings. We all got to talking and decided that there was a lot more to be taught than was possible in the cozy confines of a printed periodical. So we developed the idea for The WATT? An Energy 101 primer.
Last fall, we published the first edition, a basic PDF document which was fairly comprehensive, but the production of which was rushed to the point of absurdity. This year, we’re revising and expanding that “Beta” effort, and also — crucially — turning it into an interactive e-book version.
We’re also expanding the audience reach this year. Reactions from Focus the Nation’s student trainees were beyond encouraging, and pretty much everyone who saw the thing said that it should be made more widely available. So here we are.
Like any big, unfunded idea these days, we’ve turned to Kickstarter to build the e-book version of The WATT? If all goes as planned, by September we’ll have a basic PDF version available for free download to the general public, a print-on-demand hard-copy book, and this fancy e-book, chalk full of interactive infographics, videos, “guest lectures,” and everything else constructive that we can think of.
This is a truly open effort, and we’d be thrilled for suggestions and feedback from the Dot Earth community. We know that producing a basic energy primer won’t solve our big energy challenges, but we do hope that we can do our small part to help combat energy illiteracy. First comes broader understanding, and then comes transformative action.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that energy is one of the world’s largest industries, our society is woefully energy illiterate. Few people — even hardcore climate and clean energy advocates — stop to think (or to really understand) what’s happening behind that light switch or ignition (Let alone think for a moment about the energy it takes to deliver that Facebook page to their Macbook screen or a tomato to their plate.)
I’m working with Focus the Nation to help change that. We’re creating a resource that aims to demystify energy — the science, the economics, the technology, the history. You can consider it a primer or a user’s manual. Or a sort of 21st century textbook. Basically, we want it to be a complete Energy 101 education in language and charts and graphics that we all can understand.
The basic mission here is to combat energy illiteracy, with the basic reason being that you can’t properly advocate for what you don’t fully understand.
A really short history of how the project came to be should pretty well illustrate why we feel it’s necessary. For a few years now, Focus the Nation has been training young student leaders, developing their practical skill sets to drive clean energy solutions on their campuses and in their communities. Last January, when I was on staff at Good Magazine, I helped produce their Energy Issue, which was heavy on the infographics and the basic explainers. Garett Brennan, the executive director of Focus the Nation, reached out and asked if they could use the issue in their trainings. We all got to talking and decided that there was a lot more to be taught than was possible in the cozy confines of a printed periodical. So we developed the idea for The WATT? An Energy 101 primer.
Last fall, we published the first edition, a basic PDF document which was fairly comprehensive, but the production of which was rushed to the point of absurdity. This year, we’re revising and expanding that “Beta” effort, and also — crucially — turning it into an interactive e-book version.
We’re also expanding the audience reach this year. Reactions from Focus the Nation’s student trainees were beyond encouraging, and pretty much everyone who saw the thing said that it should be made more widely available. So here we are.
Like any big, unfunded idea these days, we’ve turned to Kickstarter to build the e-book version of The WATT? If all goes as planned, by September we’ll have a basic PDF version available for free download to the general public, a print-on-demand hard-copy book, and this fancy e-book, chalk full of interactive infographics, videos, “guest lectures,” and everything else constructive that we can think of.
This is a truly open effort, and we’d be thrilled for suggestions and feedback from the Dot Earth community. We know that producing a basic energy primer won’t solve our big energy challenges, but we do hope that we can do our small part to help combat energy illiteracy. First comes broader understanding, and then comes transformative action.
2012年4月8日星期日
County residents will use voting centers for first time
Vanderburgh County residents who live outside the Evansville city limits will vote for the first time in the May 8 primary election at new voting centers.
The concept debuted during last year's city election with 15 centers. The centers enable Vanderburgh County residents to vote at any of the locations instead of only at their precinct polling centers. The primary will see the addition of seven new county locations.
Vanderburgh County Clerk Susan Kirk said she feels confident that duplicating last year's publicity efforts will inform voters about the change.
"We're just going to do like we did last year," she said about getting the word out, a year where she said everything went "just fine."
Kirk said the local media "helped out tremendously" in spreading news of new locations in print, on television and online, and she anticipates similar help this year.
She also said the candidates played a big role, as it was in their best interest that voters got to the right locations.
Kirk said candidates distributed literature that contained candidate information and vote center locations.
She expects that this year as well.
As a safeguard, Kirk said she plans to send flyers to the previous county polling places notifying voters of the new centers. She did that at previous city polling places last year, but she doesn't feel that's necessary again.
"I think the people in Evansville are savvy enough to figure this out," she said.
Kirk said no complaints from the public about the new centers came her way, and the few calls she got were questions about what the changes meant.
When asked about the long lines at popular centers like Washington Square Mall, Kirk responded: "Even with the old polling places, people had to stand in line."
Nevertheless, Kirk said election officials are going to place more voting machines and laptops with electronic poll books at city locations that proved popular or county locations expected to draw big crowds.
Other changes include the addition of one more vote center in the city and a change of location for another one.
A state law that took effect July 1, 2011, allowed local election officials to implement new voting locations.
Local election officials made the changes, and it proved to have two benefits: convenience for voters and a cost savings of about $85,000 per year for local governments.
"We had 132 polling precincts," said Kirk, adding that there was a Republican judge, a Democrat judge, a clerk for each and an inspector. "That's $500 just to pay those people to work."
Under the new system, there is an additional judge and clerk for each party, but they're at only 23 locations.
With respect to convenience, Kirk said Vanderburgh County has a mobile application that might be useful to voters.
It called "VC Election Office," and it allows voters to see locations and estimated wait times in real time.
The free application, available on Apple- or Android-based devices, was created by Mark Rolley Consulting, Inc., the company the city and county contracts with for several information technology services.
Kirk said, "We are the first county — period — to have this kind of an application." Matt Arvay, the city's chief information officer, said that's based on research by the leading geographic information systems (GIS) software company, ESRI.
The concept debuted during last year's city election with 15 centers. The centers enable Vanderburgh County residents to vote at any of the locations instead of only at their precinct polling centers. The primary will see the addition of seven new county locations.
Vanderburgh County Clerk Susan Kirk said she feels confident that duplicating last year's publicity efforts will inform voters about the change.
"We're just going to do like we did last year," she said about getting the word out, a year where she said everything went "just fine."
Kirk said the local media "helped out tremendously" in spreading news of new locations in print, on television and online, and she anticipates similar help this year.
She also said the candidates played a big role, as it was in their best interest that voters got to the right locations.
Kirk said candidates distributed literature that contained candidate information and vote center locations.
She expects that this year as well.
As a safeguard, Kirk said she plans to send flyers to the previous county polling places notifying voters of the new centers. She did that at previous city polling places last year, but she doesn't feel that's necessary again.
"I think the people in Evansville are savvy enough to figure this out," she said.
Kirk said no complaints from the public about the new centers came her way, and the few calls she got were questions about what the changes meant.
When asked about the long lines at popular centers like Washington Square Mall, Kirk responded: "Even with the old polling places, people had to stand in line."
Nevertheless, Kirk said election officials are going to place more voting machines and laptops with electronic poll books at city locations that proved popular or county locations expected to draw big crowds.
Other changes include the addition of one more vote center in the city and a change of location for another one.
A state law that took effect July 1, 2011, allowed local election officials to implement new voting locations.
Local election officials made the changes, and it proved to have two benefits: convenience for voters and a cost savings of about $85,000 per year for local governments.
"We had 132 polling precincts," said Kirk, adding that there was a Republican judge, a Democrat judge, a clerk for each and an inspector. "That's $500 just to pay those people to work."
Under the new system, there is an additional judge and clerk for each party, but they're at only 23 locations.
With respect to convenience, Kirk said Vanderburgh County has a mobile application that might be useful to voters.
It called "VC Election Office," and it allows voters to see locations and estimated wait times in real time.
The free application, available on Apple- or Android-based devices, was created by Mark Rolley Consulting, Inc., the company the city and county contracts with for several information technology services.
Kirk said, "We are the first county — period — to have this kind of an application." Matt Arvay, the city's chief information officer, said that's based on research by the leading geographic information systems (GIS) software company, ESRI.
2011年3月22日星期二
Celtics Vs. Knicks: Kevin Garnett Isn't Messing Around, Boston Blitzes New York
The New York Knicks were eight minutes away from a galvanizing upset over the Boston Celtics, a win that in the immediate could have squelched concerns about the heart of a team led by Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, and in the long run struck fear into the hearts of a potential playoff foe. Alas, it was not meant to be, as the Celtics stormed back in the fourth quarter to blast the Knicks 96-86, preserving fears that the Knicks are, as a crowd of skeptical fans might say, "ov-er-ra-ted" and that there's little hope they'll be able to challenge one of the East's elite in the playoffs.
The Knicks were in a good position in the fourth. 'Melo had scored 17 points through three quarters, and Stoudemire had offered 16. Boston hadn't scored a three-pointer, and despite New York's poor defense, only Kevin Garnett had really blown up (with 18 points through three). With 7-1/2 minutes left, the Knicks led by nine at 82-73. Then it all came crashing down. 'Melo picked up his fifth foul, and Paul Pierce took advantage, scoring seven unanswered. Rajon Rondo lobbed an alley-oop to Garnett. Ray Allen put in a streaking lay-up. Garnett pushed his total to 24. And fin. The damage was done, as the Celtics led by four, and the Knicks managed just four more points the rest of the game.
There's a second side to that fatal 13-0 run, and it's full of bricked jumpers. During the run, the Knicks took and missed five shots. Four of them were jumpers. In the quarter New York shot just 4-16, and by my count 14 of the shots were jumpers. No team can survive taking Js all day against the Celtics, because they will contest and you will miss. Ask the Lakers in the 2008 NBA Finals. Ask the Cavs in last year's Eastern Conference semifinals. You can't settle for a jumper every time down the court against Boston and expect to survive.
The Knicks were in a good position in the fourth. 'Melo had scored 17 points through three quarters, and Stoudemire had offered 16. Boston hadn't scored a three-pointer, and despite New York's poor defense, only Kevin Garnett had really blown up (with 18 points through three). With 7-1/2 minutes left, the Knicks led by nine at 82-73. Then it all came crashing down. 'Melo picked up his fifth foul, and Paul Pierce took advantage, scoring seven unanswered. Rajon Rondo lobbed an alley-oop to Garnett. Ray Allen put in a streaking lay-up. Garnett pushed his total to 24. And fin. The damage was done, as the Celtics led by four, and the Knicks managed just four more points the rest of the game.
There's a second side to that fatal 13-0 run, and it's full of bricked jumpers. During the run, the Knicks took and missed five shots. Four of them were jumpers. In the quarter New York shot just 4-16, and by my count 14 of the shots were jumpers. No team can survive taking Js all day against the Celtics, because they will contest and you will miss. Ask the Lakers in the 2008 NBA Finals. Ask the Cavs in last year's Eastern Conference semifinals. You can't settle for a jumper every time down the court against Boston and expect to survive.
2011年3月15日星期二
London 2012: Oliver Holt recalls his personal favourite five Olympic moments
1. Cathy Freeman only ran in one event at the 2000 Sydney Olympics but she dominated those
Games as completely as if she had been competing every day.
The first aboriginal athlete ever to compete for Australia, Freeman became the conscience of
a nation during the Olympics, a symbol of the guilt many Australians still feel about the way
they treated the continent's original inhabitants.
Freeman lit the flame at the opening ceremony and when she lined up for the final of the
400m, the pressure on her to win was enormous.
The roar in the stadium that greeted the starting gun lasted the whole lap. Freeman, wearing
a hooded body suit, led from start to finish. At the end, in one of the iconic pictures of
those games, she sank to the track and sat down, her face a picture not of joy but of relief.
Usain Bolt of Jamaica celebrates winning the men's 100m final of the athletics competition in
the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (Pic:Reuters)
2. I am not sure that I believe in Usain Bolt but sitting in the Bird's Nest in Beijing and
seeing him
obliterate the rest of the field in the 100m final still took my breath away.
I knew in those startling 9.69 seconds what it must have been like to have been in Seoul in
1988 to see Ben Johnson blow away rivals that included Carl Lewis and Linford Christie.
It was the nonchalance of Bolt that was the most shocking thing of all, the way that he eased
up with about ten metres to go, looked around and spread his arms out wide in triumph.
This was the 100m men's final and he was coasting. Despite the cursed lineage of the event,
the positive tests attached to previous champions like Justin Gatlin, Johnson and Christie,
there is still an incredible thrill about watching the fastest man in the world.
What Bolt did in Beijing, winning gold in the 200m too and breaking Michael Johnson's world
record, made him the star of the Games.
Steve Williams, James Cracknell, Ed Coode and Matthew Pinsent
3. Seeing Steve Redgrave win his fifth Olympic gold medal in Sydney was special but I enjoyed
seeing Britain's men's coxless four win in Athens more.
Advertisement - article continues below
Maybe it was because it was such an amazingly close race between the British and Canadian
boats, a contest so nerve-wracking that many did not know who had won when the boats crossed
the line.
There was great drama, too, in men like Sir Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell, incredible
sportsmen in their own right, trying to win gold without Redgrave and knowing that silver
would be regarded as a desperate failure.
It was Pinsent's fourth gold and he wept like a child on the podium after the race. It was
sporting drama at its very best.
Olympic sailor Shirley Robertson (Pic:Reuters)
4. I have not included Shirley Robertson's victory in the Europe class of the sailing event
in Sydney in my top 5 because it was one of the outstanding sporting achievements of the
three Olympics I have covered although obviously it was a superb accomplishment by Robertson
that was justly celebrated.
I included it because the moment of her victory seemed to me to encapsulate much of the magic
that the Olympics can bring.
I spent the whole of that day in a small motor boat on Sydney Harbour, being buffeted by
waves and soaked in spray, trying to follow Robertson's exploits.
It was one of the most beautiful sporting scenes I have ever witnessed, a flotilla of boats
in one of the most beautiful harbours in the world on a gloriously sunny day.
And a sport which is rarely given the oxygen of publicity was suddenly centre stage, more
important for a few hours than the Premier League or an Ashes Test. It summed up much that is
best about the Olympics.
Games as completely as if she had been competing every day.
The first aboriginal athlete ever to compete for Australia, Freeman became the conscience of
a nation during the Olympics, a symbol of the guilt many Australians still feel about the way
they treated the continent's original inhabitants.
Freeman lit the flame at the opening ceremony and when she lined up for the final of the
400m, the pressure on her to win was enormous.
The roar in the stadium that greeted the starting gun lasted the whole lap. Freeman, wearing
a hooded body suit, led from start to finish. At the end, in one of the iconic pictures of
those games, she sank to the track and sat down, her face a picture not of joy but of relief.
Usain Bolt of Jamaica celebrates winning the men's 100m final of the athletics competition in
the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (Pic:Reuters)
2. I am not sure that I believe in Usain Bolt but sitting in the Bird's Nest in Beijing and
seeing him
obliterate the rest of the field in the 100m final still took my breath away.
I knew in those startling 9.69 seconds what it must have been like to have been in Seoul in
1988 to see Ben Johnson blow away rivals that included Carl Lewis and Linford Christie.
It was the nonchalance of Bolt that was the most shocking thing of all, the way that he eased
up with about ten metres to go, looked around and spread his arms out wide in triumph.
This was the 100m men's final and he was coasting. Despite the cursed lineage of the event,
the positive tests attached to previous champions like Justin Gatlin, Johnson and Christie,
there is still an incredible thrill about watching the fastest man in the world.
What Bolt did in Beijing, winning gold in the 200m too and breaking Michael Johnson's world
record, made him the star of the Games.
Steve Williams, James Cracknell, Ed Coode and Matthew Pinsent
3. Seeing Steve Redgrave win his fifth Olympic gold medal in Sydney was special but I enjoyed
seeing Britain's men's coxless four win in Athens more.
Advertisement - article continues below
Maybe it was because it was such an amazingly close race between the British and Canadian
boats, a contest so nerve-wracking that many did not know who had won when the boats crossed
the line.
There was great drama, too, in men like Sir Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell, incredible
sportsmen in their own right, trying to win gold without Redgrave and knowing that silver
would be regarded as a desperate failure.
It was Pinsent's fourth gold and he wept like a child on the podium after the race. It was
sporting drama at its very best.
Olympic sailor Shirley Robertson (Pic:Reuters)
4. I have not included Shirley Robertson's victory in the Europe class of the sailing event
in Sydney in my top 5 because it was one of the outstanding sporting achievements of the
three Olympics I have covered although obviously it was a superb accomplishment by Robertson
that was justly celebrated.
I included it because the moment of her victory seemed to me to encapsulate much of the magic
that the Olympics can bring.
I spent the whole of that day in a small motor boat on Sydney Harbour, being buffeted by
waves and soaked in spray, trying to follow Robertson's exploits.
It was one of the most beautiful sporting scenes I have ever witnessed, a flotilla of boats
in one of the most beautiful harbours in the world on a gloriously sunny day.
And a sport which is rarely given the oxygen of publicity was suddenly centre stage, more
important for a few hours than the Premier League or an Ashes Test. It summed up much that is
best about the Olympics.
订阅：
博文 (Atom)