Electric vehicles coming to a street near you

A state legislative committee is meeting in Long Beach tomorrow. I know, sounds like a bore. But the topic actually sounds interesting. They'll be talking about whether California's infrastructure is ready for plug-in electric cars. Will the state have enough charging stations for the Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs soon to be hitting the pavement?

When I read about the meeting, it reminded me of a video I recently watched on latimes.com and now have a reason to share. Times reporter Susan Carpenter  experimented with driving an electric vehicle, using energy generated by solar panels installed on her roof, to be truly emissions free. It made me want an electric car even more, although first I'd need the house and roof on which to install the solar panels.

 

I'm curious about how driving an electric cars works. Would owners charge their cars at home, like Carpenter? Or at public charging stations like they do at gas pumps? And, more importantly, is it really better to be fueling your commute with electricity instead of gas? That's why Carpenter's experiment is so intriguing, she's using just the sun to power her car. Along with the video, she wrote this fascinating column about the intricacies of installing solar panels on her roof to charge an electric car, which answered some of my questions (you can charge them using a standard 120-volt outlet that you'd find in any home, although it's much faster when you use a 240-volt charger that charging stations would have).

I'm hoping I'll learn even more after tomorrow's meeting. Not that I'll be there because I've gotta work, but there should be news coverage of it. I know I'm not the only one who's clueless and curious.

Blue line blues

This Column One story in the Los Angeles Times, Blue Line cuts across L.A. County's invisible boundaries, takes a spectator's view of the Blue Line. As the reporter says, "Five bucks gets you a day pass to one of the most unpredictable shows in town." Wow, how offensive to the people who take the train every day. The reporter describes confrontations, pirated DVDs, people hawking water and gamblers -- "poverty porn" as one commenter aptly called it. It's an unfortunate example of reporting that skims the surface instead of immersing itself in the community it's allegedly covering. I think it's too bad because the paper missed an opportunity to respectfully show its readers, most of whom are probably unfamiliar with the light rail system and have never taken a train in LA, how important it is to many of the people who ride it.

That's what struck me when I first started taking the Blue Line a few years ago to save on gas. I sadly hardly ever take public transportation now since it's faster to drive, but I had never realized how heavily used the rail line, which connects Long Beach to downtown LA and is intersected by the Green Line, is. I saw young people taking the train to classes at Trade Tech. There were workers who presumably didn't have cars and those with cars who chose it's convenience, many like myself with packed lunches. Some of what the reporter describes is true -- people begging or selling candy was an almost daily occurrence. I also occasionally saw people talking to themselves or acting aggressively. But many were probably mentally ill and not a freak show to be made fun of. He may not have intended to make fun of them but that is what his tone implies. The first anecdote is of someone urinating on the train, something I've never seen. And I wonder if his descriptions were from several days of taking the train or one long day, rather than one commute, since he saw more than what I experienced in weeks of taking the Blue Line. On most rides, people mind their own business, are polite and things go smoothly. To the rider, it's not constant theater, as he puts it:

In a place dominated by freeways and the automobile's numbing isolation, the 22-mile light-rail line — the oldest in L.A. County, marking 20 years of service this summer — is a rolling improvisational theater where a cast of thousands acts out a daily drama that is by turns poignant, sad, hysterical and inexplicable.

I'm not sure what the point of the article was. Because of the anniversary? But I'm sure there are better stories to tell, stories of people who are often overlooked in society and by the mainstream media.

A step toward banning plastic grocery bags

Good news on the environmental front. The day after I blogged about a bag ban, the state took a step in that direction. The Assembly on Wednesday approved a bill that would ban plastic grocery bags. The part that makes me a little hopeful that this attempt will become law, unlike ones in the past, is that the governor has said he would sign it.

Click here for the Los Angeles Times story about the bill, AB 1998. It says that if shoppers didn't bring their own reusable bags, they'd have to pay at least 5 cents each for recycled paper bags. 

Heal the Bay sponsored the bill. The environmental group says plastic bags harm marine life and pollute the city's rivers and beaches. Los Angeles County uses more than 6 billion (yes, billion with a 'b') plastic bags a year, with a measly 5 percent being recycled. It's not the first time Heal the Bay has supported a bill to reduce the number of plastic bags. Back in 2008, the group supported a bill that would have charged customers 25 cents for plastic bags. (I found this 2007 op-ed from Heal the Bay that is still relevant and echoes the same arguments against plastic bags being made today). 

I like this bill because it's an outright ban on plastic bags while still giving shoppers the option to buy paper bags, so they won't feel like the government is intruding into their lives as much. But I think the cost for each paper bag should be 25 cents so shoppers feel it in their pocketbooks a little bit. Just 5 cents a bag doesn't seem to be enough to change behavior. Because really, people should be bringing their own reusable bags because paper bags aren't that earth friendly either. They use a lot of energy and water to produce and distribute, so they're not necessarily a better option. 

Heal the Bay has information about the bill on their website. I also learned a lot from Warren Olney's interview yesterday with Heal the Bay's Kirsten James.

In the meantime, I'll be keeping up with what happens with this bill in the Senate. My fingers are crossed.

(No) paper or plastic please

I made the mistake of going to Trader Joe's after work today and it was packed. Everyone who'd put off their grocery shopping over the holiday weekend was there, many with kids with no spatial awareness in tow. It was a madhouse. The lines were long so I spent several minutes with nowhere else to look but at the person in front of me. She was an older, fit woman dressed in workout clothes with an oversized green purse hanging off her shoulder. Maybe she'd just come from a yoga class because all she was buying was a Greek yogurt and an organic banana. When the cashier was done ringing her up, he asked if she wanted paper or plastic, a ridiculous question for several reasons. If you're only buying two things you don't need a giant paper bag. In fact, you don't need a bag at all. Yet she said "plastic please." I would have given her the benefit of the doubt and assumed she was walking, but she still wouldn't need a bag because she had a giant purse!

This is why we need to stop giving away bags for free. The state should pass a law requiring stores to charge for bags or ban them altogether. I haven't decided which one I think is better, but I'm leaning toward charging a fee or tax because that still gives people a choice so they can't complain about government controlling their lives. And it works, as proved by Washington, D.C. They started charging a five-cent tax for bags and drastically reduced the number used. 

This article in the Los Angeles Times looks at why California of all places has yet to pass a statewide bag ban. Only San Francisco and Malibu have bans on plastic grocery bags, even though many other cities, counties and even the state have considered them. One reason is the powerful plastic bag industry, which has been waging war against these types of laws. Among their arsenal: They claim that making paper bags releases three times as much greenhouse gases as plastic bags.

OK fine, lets assume that's true. That argument is a red herring anyway because that's not the issue. We shouldn't be using single-use bags at all, whether paper or plastic. Their life span is so short. Seriously, how much do those bags get used? A one-minute walk from the grocery store to the car, then a short drive home, followed by a brief journey into the house where the items are unloaded. And that's it, that's the life of your bag. Then off it goes, most likely into the trash. The L.A. Times article says 19 billion plastic bags are dispensed each year at supermarkets, drugstores and retailers, and that just 5 percent are recycled.

The government and individuals need to be thinking about the way we use disposable items and asking if there's a better way, instead of automatically answering "plastic please" in the checkout line. Paper or plastic? Don't forget the third option: "No thanks, I brought my own."