Comic Relief From Steven Colbert... plus the greening of Bellingham, WA

(h/t to Barry Katz at "the future is green"... an excellent blog site)

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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comedycentral.com
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After a good chuckle, read Barry's recent guest post on the greening of Bellingham, Washington by Mayor Daniel Pike. Here's a sample of the Mayor's post:

As a community, we share the challenges and joys common to most communities: tough finances, a rising unemployment rate, businesses struggling, but also a shared sense of place and connection with our neighbors. What makes us a little different from the mainstream, though, is our commitment to a triple bottom line, or TBL, approach to the issues before us. In Bellingham, the conversations are not about jobs versus the environment, rather the community talks about how to grow better. This is a community whose ethos receives notice from authors such as Bill McKibben and Paul Hawken, and that National Public Radio’s “Marketplace,” in its Nov. 15, 2008 broadcast, described Bellingham as “the epicenter of a new economic model for a post-consumerist economy: locally produced goods and services focused on what surrounding communities need and can sustain.”

And more:

Perhaps the most compelling opportunity we have put in practice as a Triple Bottom Line approach is our waterfront redevelopment project. The waterfront project is the largest waterfront redevelopment effort in North America, comprising about 220 acres on Puget Sound, on the site of an old pulp and paper mill. The redevelopment is one of a handful of national Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design--Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) pilot projects. This approach steps beyond construction-specifics to include elements like reduced automobile dependence, housing and jobs proximity, access to active public spaces, and habitat conservation and restoration.

This is our opportunity to thoughtfully and intentionally design a new neighborhood that reflects our deepest values as a community – to make real the vision the community has been articulating and advocating for years