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(((Matthew Lewis))) fourplexes in yer parking Profile picture
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6 Apr, 6 tweets, 2 min read
So, oddly, I have a personal stake in this. It's about climate action. The Portland cement industry ain't fucking around.

About 5 years ago we launched a campaign to get carbon out of supply chains, working w/ @RobBonta on the Buy Clean California Act. buyclean.org/2017/02/01/bro…
Basic concept was built around the fiasco of the Bay Bridge, which was not only wildly over budget, but relied on low-cost, high-carbon-emissions steel from dirty factories that were more than twice as polluting as the cleanest steel mills.

The bill did pretty well, until ...
... the cement industry found out about it. See, California's cement industry is among the dirtiest in the world -- it's the only industry in the state that is somehow still allowed to burn coal.

They *hate* Buy Clean. buyclean.org/2019/02/04/rep…
They got themselves exempted from Buy Clean, so we thought, hmm, if we can't clean up cement, maybe we can switch to engineered lumber/cross-laminated timber, which was at the time on the cusp of ISO certifications for fire safety & tall buildings (it's since been certified).
So, naturally, now the Portland cement industry is concerned. They make a junk product that can not continue to exist under a clean climate regime (you can make other cements, but Portland cements have to die).

There are only ~ 7 cement factories in all California, and yet ...
... they can somehow get a whole city to ban their low-carbon competitors' products?

It's gloves off time for the legislature and climate activists. California's Portland cement industry is a bad actor operating in bad faith. Shut them down.

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(((Matthew Lewis))) fourplexes in yer parking Profile picture
6 Apr
A couple years back, a certain someone was feeling frisky enough to appoint me to a temporary seat on the Berkeley planning commission while we considered parking reform to eliminate parking mandates.

Here is my proof. Short thread. Image
The arch-NIMBY-old-white-dude on the plan com opposed parking reform without "value capture" because -- like many aspects of NIMBY logic -- he believed parking should be mandatory for community benefits, but also, if you eliminate parking, you should extract community benefits
My first comment as a planning commissioner (I think I made ~ 5 comments total) was, reducing number of cars in Berkeley was itself a community benefit:

Not only are cars the leading cause of catastrophic injury in Berkeley, they're also the leading cause of climate pollution.
Read 5 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) fourplexes in yer parking Profile picture
12 Mar
Someone on here posted an amazing piece a few weeks ago about how US environmental movement would find itself increasingly hog-tied by the rules it helped establish.

This has got to be one of the stickiest Gordian knots in the whole tangle. grist.org/climate/the-we… @themadstone
On one hand, you have a massive push from environmental movement to electrify cars; this faction is doing little to promote transit and land use reform.

On the other hand, you have a massive push from environmental movement to protect sensitive habitat; this faction is ... same
Gordian Knot: "An intractable problem (untying an impossibly tangled knot) solved easily by finding an approach to the problem that renders the perceived constraints of the problem moot"

Hmmmm ...
Read 4 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) fourplexes in yer parking Profile picture
12 Mar
The very-high-end cost of nationwide high speed rail comes to roughly what Americans spend on cars every ~ 18 months - about $4 trillion.

The difference is, we’d pay for high speed rail over 30 years. So, it’s ~ 15 times cheaper.
The biggest trick the car industry ever pulled was convincing the world “freeways” means they are “free.”

Second biggest trick was convincing Americans its normal to spend $10,000 a year to provide the vehicle you have to have in order to use the highway you already paid for.
One reason I love trains is, the transparency of it all: It costs x to build, then you pay a small user fee, and here is the schedule.

With cars: “Oh who knows what it costs, and who cares?!? Vroom vroom! That SUV makes you look skinny!!”
Read 4 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) fourplexes in yer parking Profile picture
9 Mar
The thing about the "cars versus homes" debate is, housing and transportation aren't separate issues. They're one issue. You can't talk about them as though they had distinct solutions that can be pursued in silos.

So, if you say "affordable housing," inherent in the phrase ...
... is "affordable transit" and then you have to admit if the housing is not transit-accessible, it is not actually affordable.

This is very difficult for people who've never been poor to understand: The cost of car ownership breaks people, all the time. Daily. Broke me, once.
You can try to subsidize car ownership, if you like, but that comes at expense of housing, because for one thing, cars suck 25% of the money out of the economy, but more importantly, cars are most useful for mobility when housing is in a sprawl pattern, which is ...
Read 6 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) fourplexes in yer parking Profile picture
8 Mar
Berkeley CM Kate Harrison has done more to set back city's progress on climate change than any elected official in the city.

Berkeley's climate plan, adopted in 2009, called for dense, infill housing, especially downtown in Kate's district, to reduce VMT. cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/… Image
Kate Harrison led a fight to overturn the voter-approved downtown plan for dense housing.

She consistently votes to block efforts to legalize multi-family homes, & supports bogus efforts to landmark "views" & dilapidated shacks to block infill. berkeleyside.com/2017/03/01/op-…
In large part due to Kate's NIMBYism, transportation emissions in Berkeley have been rising in both absolute & relative terms. 59% of city's climate pollution comes from cars.

berkeleyside.com/2018/10/10/opi…
Read 7 tweets
(((Matthew Lewis))) fourplexes in yer parking Profile picture
6 Jan
Immediate tension on climate policy:

America's largest source of climate pollution is cars, and it's set to worsen for ~ a decade as carmakers wind down Giant Truck SUV-palooza.

Carmakers have set up situation where it's already too late to address car pollution w/ EVs alone.
So, a significant & growing share of the things we need to do to solve cars for climate requires less driving: Literally, we have to reduce the absolute number of miles people drive, regardless of drivetrain.

AND every car sold has to be an EV, ASAP. But ASAP is, like 2035.
The deep challenge in transport decarbonization: The car industry is like the defense industry. It has established manufacturing centers in states that look like a map of states we all hate to watch for electoral college: Ohio. Michigan. Pennsylvania. North Carolina. Wisconsin.
Read 13 tweets

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