Robert David Sullivan 2

Cape Wind counterpart in Greenfield?

This time it's a biomass power plant rather than a wind farm, but once again residents are protesting a renewable energy source because of local environmental concerns. From the Springfield Republican:

Overwhelmingly, most who spoke opposed the project on environmental grounds, saying the 47-megawatt wood-burning power plant on 65 acres off Adams Street, abutting the I-91 Industrial Park would bring harmful emissions and have a detrimental impact on forests.

Also cited was truck traffic from bringing loads of wood to the plant, and plant noise.

"Nothing makes me comfortable about this project," said Howard N. Stone, a resident of Adams Road.

Rooftop garden pioneer takes key USDA post

Another Bay Stater heads to Washington: Tufts professor Kathleen Merrigan has been tapped for the No. 2 slot at the US Department of Agriculture. Appropos of yesterday's posts on urban agriculture and farmer's markets, it's worth noting that Merrigan has a stake in making cities more green. In 2007, Marjorie Howard mentioned Merrigan in a Tufts Journal piece on the university's experiments with "green roof" gardens in urban areas:

Merrigan ... envisions a green-roof corridor, perhaps along the Mystic River Watershed, a 76-mile area that encompasses 21 communities north and west of Boston. “If we go to [Boston Mayor] Thomas Menino and [U.S. Rep.] Edward Markey, D-Mass., we want to be able to share with them what we think the ramifications are and what are the policy potentials as environmental interventions,” she said.

Will Merrigan's new federal post be a boost to mini-farms atop Boston's skyline?

Air-conditioning costs to rise in Worcester this summer?

If this street is any indication, a lot of homes are losing their natural umbrellas against the summer sun. Thanks, Asian longhorned beetles! (Hat tip: Daily Worcesteria.)

New Bedford gets shout-out from the New Yorker

If you're not a New Yorker subscriber, you might have missed the use of New Bedford as a backdrop (complete with a cameo by Mayor Scott Lang) in Elizabeth Kolbert's profile of Green for All president Van Jones. The description of the city obviously doesn't come from the local chamber of commerce:

A hundred and fifty years ago, New Bedford was the whaling capital of the world. “Nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford,” Melville wrote. Today, the town is filled with empty factories. Its long list of problems — failing schools, high unemployment, gang violence — make it just the sort of place Jones likes to work in. The logo of Green for All, which is based in Oakland, California, is a sun rising over a crowded cityscape. The group’s goal is to broaden the appeal of the environmental movement and, at the same time, bring jobs to poor neighborhoods. Jones often says that he is trying to “green the ghetto.”

Still, there is a ray of hope. Kolbert reports that a company that makes thin, flexible solar-energy cells (Lowell-based Konarka) recently decided to open a factory in New Bedford. And if the New Yorker profile becomes part of Jones's press kit, a lot of people may make a mental connection between green jobs and New Bedford.

Note: The Boston Globe also ran a brief profile of Jones earlier this month.

Asian longhorned beetles and their effects on Worcester brains

A few days ago I linked to a Boston Globe story suggesting that trees help relieve the mental stress of living in large cities. Unfortunately, the Daily Worcesteria reminds us that the Bay State's second largest city is losing a lot of its trees due to the infestation by Asian longhorned beetles. (Additional wood chipper video here.)

Hang in there, Worcester residents! Maybe Boston can send over some cherry trees.

Green mag touts Plymouth Rock Studios

Plymouth's recently approved movie studio is given the once-over by E magazine -- not because of its economic benefits to Massachusetts but because of its "green" qualities:

A few weeks before the [town meeting vote approving the project], Plymouth Rock Studios announced it had registered its entire development project with the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and would be pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. This means that Plymouth Rock Studios, slated to open in 2010, will be the world’s first totally green movie studio.

Ironically, the cover story for this issue of E is about wind power, where Massachusetts hasn't been such a great leader.

The Massachusetts film industry has been given a boost by a tax credit program covered last year by CommonWealth magazine.

Trees, and possibly trains, are good for your urban brain

This week's Ideas section in the Boston Globe includes a must-read essay by Jonah Lehrer called "How the City Hurts Your Brain... And What You Can Do About It." The scientific hook for Lehrer's piece has to do with experiments showing that people exposed to trees and birds are better at mental tasks than are people who have to battle cars and pedestrians:

A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to constantly redirect our attention so that we aren't distracted by irrelevant things, like a flashing neon sign or the cellphone conversation of a nearby passenger on the bus. This sort of controlled perception -- we are telling the mind what to pay attention to -- takes energy and effort. The mind is like a powerful supercomputer, but the act of paying attention consumes much of its processing power.

Lehrer is not recommending a mass exodus to small towns. Besides being oxymoronic, this strategy overlooks the intellectual benefits of being in an environment full of distractions and surprises. But he does suggest that we keep bits of nature accessible for city residents, which strengthens the argument for an "urban forest"  and vindicates Boston's "Emerald Necklace" model of stretching green space all over the city instead of packing it into a Central Park. Though born of necessity, Boston's serpentine Greenway -- expensive as it is to maintain --  also seems to be preferable to what Lehrer describes as savannah-like "expansive civic lawns, punctuated by a few trees and playing fields," which do not seem to have the same mental benefits as arboretums and such.

But I wonder whether there are "unnatural" forms of mental relief from urban bustle.