Masdar City backs away from major goal

©MMX Get On Board!PRT NewsCenter

Already forced to reevaluate its construction plans due to the bad global real estate market, the Masdar Initiative has again signaled it is giving up on the goal of Masdar City being car-free.

Although committed to an autumn 2010 launch of the pilot Masdar Institute segment of the innovative Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) peoplemover, future construction of a PRT network across the entire city is now in doubt.

Changes at Masdar - Some perspective

©MMX Get On Board!PRT NewsCenter

It's certainly been disappointing to read reports about a scaling back on objectives by the Masdar sustainable energy effort:

Clean transport not an easy move The National, UAE
Financial Woes Crimp Celebrated Middle East 'Green City' NY Times

But is it time to dismiss the whole undertaking as a failure? I think it's too early to tell. Here's what we know:

The Great Grocery Smackdown

In the March edition of The Atlantic:

by Corby Kummer
photo by Eli Meir Kaplan
Buy my food at Walmart? No thanks... Then, last year, the market for organic milk started to go down along with the economy, and dairy farmers in Vermont and other states, who had made big investments in organic certification, began losing contracts and selling their farms. A guaranteed large buyer of organic milk began to look more attractive. And friends started telling me I needed to look seriously at Walmart’s efforts to sell sustainably raised food.
...

Yes to East Link

On KUOW's The Conversation for Wednesday, Dec. 12, Publicola editor Erica Barnett put on her list of under-reported stories for the year November's election of an "anti-light rail" slate to the Bellevue City Council: Don Davidson (Mayor), Conrad Lee (Deputy Mayor), Kevin Wallace, and Jennifer Robertson. Together the four comprise a majority on the seven member council. This presents a good opportunity to stake out some nuance in the area of Puget Sound personal rapid transit advocacy.

Malevolent energy cloud-beings praise Puget Sound cleanup report

"Glass half-full. Of poison"

A new state report on the health of Puget Sound is eliciting praise from a local environmental advocacy group.

"Decline of Puget Sound good for Zan-Tor and other malevolent energy cloud-beings," said Zan-Tor, spokesbeing for the Seattle Environment, Water & Effluent Resources Coalition (SEWER Coalition).