I’ve been surprised to note more calls for raising the gas tax here in the U.S. See, for example, recent columns from Steve Chapman and Charles Krauthammer. Now what’s the chance of this tax increase happening, as useful as it would be? Probably not great. There would be short-term pain and long-term gain, but it’s the former that runs our politics.

We’re doing well in gaining publicity for the October 5 visit of bike/pedestrian expert Steve Clark to Northfield, Minnesota. The Northfield News published a nice front-page article on Saturday about it, and Northfield.org has a long post as well.

This morning Bruce Anderson and I were interviewed on local radio station KYMN as well. The excitement is building!

On May 12 I reported on a talk on biofuels given by Dr. Stephen Polasky of the University of Minnesota. Now Polasky and several others, including renowned biologist David Tilman, have published their findings in an important paper titled “Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels,” published online July 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jason Hill, formerly of the St. Olaf College biology department, also participated in the study. Read the rest of this entry »