In an op-ed a few months back I alluded to the coming diatribe against parking lots. As a form of land use, parking lots make no sense to me. Conversely, most parking garages are eye-sores. I understand that underground parking is expensive and laborious to construct. There are some wonderful advances in “parking lot technology,” [...]
Archive for the ‘Featured Posts’ Category
I Don’t Understand Parking Lots
May 13th, 2012 
Eric Wilson 
Posted in Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Transportation 
Tags: Cars, Natural Capitalism, Urban Planning 
1 Comment »The Angry Pedestrian: An Introduction
May 12th, 2012 The Angry Pedestrian Let me say first off that I own a car. I drive. I don’t drive a ton, I don’t drive everyday, I don’t drive to my job, but I understand the role of the car in today’s society (in America at least). I can’t walk everywhere and I cover four miles in an hour, not [...]
What Will It Take to Make Mass Transit the Norm?
May 6th, 2012 Eric Wilson Will people start consistently riding mass transit when gas prices stay above $5 per gallon? $10? What about when we are paying the true cost of driving (i.e. emissions, disposal)? What if we had to swipe a credit or debit card every time you drive? How about charging for access to roads, like the congestion [...]
Posted in Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Transportation Tags: Bus, High Speed Rail, Mass Transit No Comments »Designing Cities with People in Mind
April 29th, 2012 Eric Wilson I’m not a city planner. I took one class in college, so I don’t even pretend to be qualified. However, living in a city and trying to commute without a car has led to some insights that I would not get out of a book. Last year I wrote a piece called “The Hegemony of [...]
Earth Day 2012
April 22nd, 2012 2nd Green Revolution Celebrating the 42nd Earth Day and 4.5 billion years of earth. Image from NASA Johnson Space Center
What Does the Natural Gas Boom Mean for Sustainability?
April 15th, 2012 Eric Wilson Both NPR and the New York Times ran stories last week that highlighted the role of natural gas in the U.S. energy economy. NPR interviewed Amy Myers Jaffe, director of Rice University’s Baker Institute Energy Forum. Jaffe predicted that natural gas prices would remain low for the foreseeable future, specifically 5-10 years. The New York [...]
Posted in Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Transportation Tags: Biomimicry, Fracking, Natural Gas, Solar Energy, Wastewater No Comments »Building for the Next 500 Years
April 8th, 2012 Eric Wilson While attending a United States Green Building Council (USGBC) meeting recently, someone mentioned that a local university was building to a 500 year standard. I had never heard the term prior, but the idea was all too familiar. The university was constructing buildings to last the next 500 years. This is incredibly difficult to fathom [...]
EPA Closer to Approving 15 percent Ethanol-Gasoline Blend
April 5th, 2012 Chris DeArmond The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently gave approval to 20 fuel and fuel additive manufacturers registering ethanol to use in the production of E15—a gasoline blend containing 15 percent ethanol. Since the fuel may only be used in vehicles model year (MY) 2001 and newer, the approved manufacturers must also develop a misfueling mitigation plan [...]
Learning to Embrace The Slow Life
April 1st, 2012 Eric Wilson I was washing dishes the other day and bemoaning how time consuming it was. This sparked one of those internal conversations that seem to dominate my thoughts when doing mindless chores. “How much time would I spend going to a restaurant, not to mention money, to have a meal prepared that may or may not [...]
You Won’t Believe the Size of This Chameleon (If You Can Find It!)
March 26th, 2012 Justin Manger In case you haven’t seen it, this incredibly tiny chameleon is worth a look. The diminutive creature would fit on your thumb’s fingernail (see picture at left). Found in Madagascar off the southeast coast of Africa, the Brookesia Chameleon is a full adult reptile about 1 inch long. Some of the species in this genus [...]
