September = Commute Solutions Month

Next month, in greater Austin area, residents are encouraged to try alternative methods of commuting that are less environmentally-damaging such as carpooling, walking, biking, working from home, or using public transportations. To help promote this cause, there will be a Commuter Challenge (including the Weirdest Commute Contest with 3-day ACL pass as the prize!). River Cities Rideshare has a helpful site for keeping a daily log of your commutes. On top of reducing the carbon footprint and saving gas money, you could also win a prize and each alternative commute you log will increase your chance. Even if you can't participate in the contest, let's use this initiative to reconsider the impact of our daily commute and how we can reduce the amount of unnecessary driving. Don't forget it includes driving during lunch hours as well!

Commuter Challenge Resources:

Commuter Challenge Entry & diary log
Capital Metro schedules & maps

September Events:
Commuter Solutions Month Kickoff
Fri, 9/5
Republic Square, 4th & Guadalupe

Festivities include music from Austin Home Grown, food, information booths on commuting options, the UT cheerleaders, Austin Energy's Cody the Clean Air Car, and more. The fun begins at 11:00 AM and goes until 1:00 PM.

The Weirdest Commute Contest will be held at the Kickoff. Commuters with great imaginations and a tremendous sense of fun are encouraged to participate. Contest rules are on the River Cities Rideshare homepage. Judging will begin at noon and the winner will receive a pair of 3 day passes to ACL.

Press Conference
Friday, September 26
Austin City Hall Atrium, 11:30 AM

Mayor Wynn will summarize Commute Solutions participation and benefits (number of participants in the Challenge, miles saved and emissions reduced). Joe Cantalupo, Executive Director of CAMPO, will present the Commuter Challenge Employer Awards. Commute Solutions Partners will be there with information on commuting options.

9th Annual Renewable Energy Roundup & Green Living Fair
September 26-28, 2008
Fredericksburg Market Square on Main Street, between S. Crockett and S. Adams, Fredericksburg, Texas.

This three-day weekend family fair focuses on renewable energy, green building, water use and reuse, energy efficiency, alternative fuel vehicles, and other related matters. For more information visit www.theroundup.org.

Are we being "bio-foolish"?

I just finished reading a very informative article on Biofuels on Time (April 7, 2008). It seemed like an appropriate time to post since I also saw that ethanol is now available at gas stations such as the one on i-35 and parmer. Ethanol is a biofuel - and is derived from corn. Soybean is another form of bio-diesel, so is sugarcane. So couple of things that seem really striking:



- America's leaders today endorse biofuels like ethanol. The consequences: lost greenlands that would hold much more carbon. In addition, ethanol produces even more harmful effects than gasoline to the environment. So, it seems logical that ethanol is not the answer should we want to save the environment.



- This probably has already occurred to you, but I'll go ahead and state it anyway. With corn now being used to run our cars than to feed us, the demand and prices for such food items goes up. Do we want to eat at a reasonable price or keep our cars running?



Thanks for reading!

Connecting the green dots

Growing up in Japan, classifying every single garbage into different recycling bucket was such a normal activity that even here in the States where I live in an apartment complex with no recycling program, I can't just throw away glasses and plastics as trash. It is a little inconvenient to take them to a off-site recycling place, but I believe in individuals doing the part we can and I think this is something I can live with.

When we started the conversation for the vision of this community, we really wanted to focus on small changes that, collectively, would create a big impact on protecting the environment. We also wanted to focus on the local information because we felt there is a lot of general information out there already. We are interested to know - What are some creative ways that Austin people live to preserve this planet? Where are the good places to get locally-grown and fresh food? What changes have you made to your living environment that makes it easy to live a green life? How good is the public transportation in Austin? - among many other topics. I hope this would be a place for native Austinites and new-comers alike to connect through our shared vision for greener, healthier lifestyle.