February 11th, 2007 by Eric
There are a million jokes about our hometown city of Buffalo, New York. Most are about the snow or the wind or the cold or the Buffalo Bills. Many are even some unusually cruel combination of all four. If you live near here you can laugh. If not, then don't you dare, daddy-o. Most of these stereotypes about our city are untrue, or at least grossly exaggerated. For example, the average temperature is as warm or even warmer in Buffalo as it is in most other cities at that latitudinal line.
One of these joke strikes a bit truer than others. It goes like this:
Q: How can you tell if someone is from Buffalo?
A: They always walk with a lean to the west.
What this joke lacks in humor it makes up for in sincerity. There is a constant strong wind heading from west to east off of lake Erie, averaging nearly 12 mph all year. To this point the only thing this wind has produced is frostbitten ears and frozen moustaches. Not anymore.
Green Gold Development Corporation's Wind Action Group is turning the brownfield left when Bethlehem Steel left town in 1983 into a new source of energy for the region. New parts are beginning to show up for a string of new wind turbines. How much power will the new turbines produce? According to the Buffalo News the turbines could:
supply more than a quarter of Buffalo’s electric power needs from this clean, local, renewable energy source. The price of wind power is competitive now, and it could become the “new Niagara Falls” as other power sources skyrocket.
Clean energy isn't the only good to come out of the project. Buffalo also plans to open a plant to make the turbine parts for distribution around the country. It could be a perfect model of how conservation can be used to create jobs and a clean environment. And we can blow those “Buffalo– jokes back in peoples' faces. Who's laughing now?
To learn more about Progressive Wednesday, just click here, here, or here.
February 11th, 2007 by Matt
I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon; I’ve only seen it from a jet, streaming overhead at some ridiculous speed. Nonetheless, I remember being in awe. No, it was more than awe. It was so beautiful my reaction was like forgetting, for a moment, who I was. I’m determined, one of these days, to make my way back there, to hike to the bottom and camp out under stars, each slightly higher from that lower ground.
And then I read this article on NationalGeographic.com, and let’s just say that the urgency for a real trip has magnified:
Members of a Native American group based in a remote part of Arizona are hoping to entice more tourists by inviting visitors to step off the edge of the Grand Canyon. The 1,500-member Hualapai tribe announced last week that the Skywalk– ”a giant, 30-million-dollar steel-and-glass walkway– ”will open to the public in March 2007.
The Skywalk will jut out 70 feet (21 meters) from the canyon rim, allowing tourists to go for a stroll with nothing between their feet and the Colorado River– ”4,000 feet (1,220 meters) below– ”except for four inches (ten centimeters) of glass.
The Hualapai, or “People of the Tall Pines,” are working with the Las Vegas, Nevada-based Destination Grand Canyon to market the Skywalk and draw in valuable tourist dollars.
As the article indicates, the Skywalk (you can find construction photos here) is linked up with casino tourism (something we find fairly repressive most of the time) and some of the tribal leaders are rightfully concerned that the development will damage sacred ground and graves (something we are also concerned about). Collectively though, this Native nation is allowing the Skywalk to be built, and, well, I’m going to go. I’m going to go and not gamble a dime. I’m going to go and stare down into the gorge below. And I’m going to respect this world of ours even more.
* Photograph courtesy of Destination Grand Canyon (click to enlarge)
To learn more about Progressive Wednesday, just click here, here, or here.
Make this your homepage 
Add this to your favorites