Sustainable North

From Yale Environment 360, Thursday, August 19, 2010: With climate legislation dead in Congress and the fizzled hopes for a breakthrough in Copenhagen fading into distant memory, the time seems ripe for fresh strategies — especially ones that do not depend on government action. Here’s a modest proposal: radical transparency, the laying bare of a [...]

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From The Associated Press, Wednesday, August 25, 2010; Sales of new homes dropped sharply last month to the slowest pace on record, the latest sign that the economic recovery is fading.The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new home sales fell 12.4 percent in July from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace [...]

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From The New York Times, Friday, August 13, 2010: The recession is lingering, and so is the unspent stimulus money that was meant to help end it. The latest example is the $3.2 billion that Congress voted in February 2009 as part of an economic stimulus package to simultaneously provide jobs and improve energy efficiency [...]

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From the US Dept. of Energy: The size of new U.S. single-family homes completed in 2009 declined, dropping to a nationwide average of 2,438 square feet and reversing trend of the past three decades, according to a National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). New single-family homes were almost 100 square feet smaller in 2009 than [...]

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From The Associated Press, Wednesday, January 27, 2010: A proposal by Gov. Sean Parnell to suspend Alaska’s motor fuels tax may undermine federal transportation funding, U.S. Rep. Don Young said Tuesday. In a statement, the Republican lawmaker commended Parnell, also a Republican, for trying to relieve Alaskans’ “pain at the pump.” But he added: “By [...]

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From Alaska Dispatch, Sunday, January 17, 2010: An Anchorage lawmaker says he’ll file a bill offering middle class homeowners — strapped for cash and still reeling from high energy costs — a back door into energy efficiency upgrades. We reported recently on the lack of follow through by thousands of Alaskans who started a home [...]

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From CBC News, Tuesday, December 15, 2009: A new study suggests the financial burden of Arctic climate change is already falling on Inuit people and the heaviest costs are hurting those families least able to pay. The study backs demands made by Inuit leaders for a share of global funds being proposed to help adapt [...]

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From Treehugger.com: Let’s face it: With all that rushing, consuming, and bargain-hunting, the holidays can be darn stressful. So this year, following the best of the methodology pioneered by the revolutionary Slow Food Movement, TreeHugger is taking them back. We’re putting the brakes on stress and over consumption and making a return to those idyllic [...]

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From Business Week, Wednesday, November 18, 2009: New housing starts dropped 10.6% in October compared with September, to a seasonally adjusted rate of 529,000, the Commerce Dept.reported on Nov. 18. The number, which was lower than analyst estimates, is a seven-month low. October housing starts were down 30.7% year-over-year. Single-family housing starts were off 6.8% [...]

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From the Alaska Journal of Commerce, Monday, November 16, 2009: A statewide weatherization program with the potential of reducing energy costs in thousands of Alaskan residences will improve some 1,740 homes in 2009 alone, and Alaska Housing Finance Corp. expects to more than quadruple that number by 2011. The goal is to weatherize 4,000 homes [...]

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