The city of Anjo in Aichi Prefecture, as part of its promotion as a eco-friendly township, announced in 2007 the launch of its Eco-Cycling City Project, which incorporates the advantages of bicycles into city development. The project aims to make bicycles safer and more comfortable for people to use in the place of cars, while also reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) set up a study group in June 2008 in preparation for the introduction of a Green Power Certification System using solar heat, and formulated its final plan in August. The TMG's new system, modeled after the Green Power Certification System, is expected to deal with the environmental value of solar heat and to bring economic benefits to those who install solar power devices.

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About 140,000 houses will be weatherized with public help this year, a total that President-elect Barack Obama has promised to raise to one million, to reduce energy consumption and cut energy costs for households and taxpayers, who often absorb those costs for the poor. This would represent a historic shift in emphasis for the federal and state governments, reducing poor people’s energy bills instead of helping to pay them. Weatherizing a million homes annually would also create about 78,000 jobs for a year, according to the federal Energy Department’s weatherization project director, Gil Sperling.

A report compiled by Helena officials and the city's Climate Change Task Force shows that the Capital City's government reduced its energy usage between 2001 and 2007 by 22.1 percent and its carbon dioxide emissions by 18.1 percent. City officials knew the energy-saving changes they'd made in those years - everything from using more efficient light bulbs to installing smarter temperature controls - would make a dent in Helena's energy usage, but they were surprised to learn they'd outpaced the Kyoto Protocol's 20-year goals in less than a third of the time.

As of this week, Phoenix has light rail, and metro Atlanta mass transit boosters are jealous. “I continue to be frustrated that we can’t seem to move in that direction,” said Sam Olens, chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Cobb County commission. “We’re losing our competitive advantage.” Two years ago, the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce invited reporters to hear officials from Phoenix and other cities talk about their new transportation initiatives. The message was clear: Atlanta and Georgia could be left in the dust. On Wednesday, Sam Williams, president of the chamber, said in a statement that “cities that have made transportation a priority, like Phoenix, Dallas and Charlotte, continue to leapfrog Atlanta with respect to regional mobility. … While these areas make progress, we seem choked in congestion with little leadership to get us out.”

Government and business leaders here and around the world are looking toward weaning the country off its reliance on oil. That means some Whatcom County residents are looking to generate their own power as well as their own food.

EPA requirements to update a coal plant leaves PGE, its 814,000 ratepayers and the public a stark choice between economics and the environment: Should they spend hundreds of millions of dollars -- perhaps more than a billion eventually -- to keep the old workhorse going, albeit with a smaller stream of the pollutants that belch from its 656-foot stack today? Or would it be better to shut the plant now, eliminating the largest stationary source of air pollution in the state, but leaving its largest utility more dependent on natural gas and its customers exposed to higher, more volatile rates?

In terms of climate, "The kind of energy we use, in other words, while important, may not be anywhere near as important as three other considerations: whether we use the energy we create at all; how we use it; and how we live."

We easily forget that large parts of our cities (yes, even Australian cities) grew up before mass-motorisation. These older areas are not just 'inner-city' areas but include villages that have been swallowed up by urban sprawl. They have many of the ideal characteristics for what, in the modern jargon, are urban villages. Some of these have been 'discovered', although often in a very one-dimensional way through concentrations of cafes and restaurants. Many others are home to marginally-viable businesses and have a run-down feel to them. These centres can (and should) be the focus for relocalisation.

Under pressure from the unusual weather, the Portland transit system has closed 2/3 of its routes, but kept open and reinforced routes that account for 76 percent of peak weekday bus ridership. Commenters also laud the extraordinary work and good attitude of drivers.

Our online brethren at The Tyee in Vancouver, B.C., are tossing out good ideas for the new year, and one is the "slow cities" movement, which grows out of the "slow food" concept hatched in Italy. The idea is for cities to adopt a different ethic, one not focused on growth but slower evolution, quality of life, history, tradition, local food and drink, sustainability.

Of those surveyed, 32.7 percent said they knew what an LCS is. In response to a question asking if it was important to realize an LCS should, 90.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed. In answer to a question of what respondents thought living in an LCS would be like, 41.4 percent said they thought it would be possible to keep living an affluent life due to advances in technical innovation, while 31.7 percent said it would be impossible to maintain an affluent life because of the need to cut back on consumption.

In resource-poor Japan, which imports 90% of its fuel, Kuzumaki is a marvel of energy self-sufficiency. Atop Mt. Kamisodegawa, the 12 wind turbines have the capacity to convert mountain gusts into 21,000 KW of electricity — more than enough to meet the needs of the town's residents. The excess is sold to neighboring communities. Of course, the wind doesn't always blow. At Kuzumaki Highland Farm, 200 dairy cows share the power load. Their manure is processed into fertilizer and methane gas, the latter used as fuel for an electrical generator at the town's biomass facility. Nearby, a three-year project sponsored by Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's New Energy Development Organization (NEDO) uses wood chips from larch trees to create gas that powers the farm's milk and cheese operations.

All of that could be changing. The engineering company CH2M Hill is now joining hands with the U.S. Department of Energy to provide Internet solar maps of 25 American cities, using Google Earth technology to chart the precise solar potential of neighborhoods, literally rooftop by rooftop. The company has just finished mapping all of San Francisco, allowing residents to enter their address and take the solar measure of their own home. "People in San Francisco think we don't have any solar potential,' says Gavin Newsom, the city's deep-green mayor. "But the map shows we have a lot more sun than you'd believe."

Documentation and contact information for the Haines Borough Energy & Sustainability Commission; meeting information, conservation plan, municipal energy bills, etc.

Deep retrofits are expensive, even if they save the most money over the life of a building. They are less sure to generate monthly energy savings during the term of the loan that pay for their loan servicing costs. Deep retrofits may pay for themselves over 20 years, rather than the six years or so that's typical for existing conservation loans. When a loan term is as long as 20 years, many property owners will wonder whether they'll ever see the financial benefit. Will they still own the building in 20 years? This concern in particular is what inspired the creation of meter loans and local improvement districts, both of which allow conservation loan debt to transfer from one building owner to the next.

The mounds of sawdust that fair officials have provided at no cost have been shrinking in recently, thanks to higher demand for a material once considered waste. Compounding the problem this year was a slump at lumber businesses and forced some local sawmills to shut down. Less work means less sawdust -- and higher prices for the sawdust that could be found. The sawdust was being used for boiler fuel and to make stove pellets, as well as manufacturing.

It's a depressing reminder of the toll from a stubborn Southern drought that only recently began to abate with replenishing rains this fall. Much of the region has recovered, but a ring stretching from northeast Georgia to the western Carolinas remains stuck in "extreme" drought. The lake's water is used to supply a number of towns, as well as to produce electricity.

A nicely thorough look at biomass, a relatively little discussed form of alternative energy generation that has many complexities. Nearly all of the renewable power in Florida comes from biomass.