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I live out in the rural fringes, toward Damascus, where biking makes great sense. You can't WALK anywhere to any store! But I've nearly quit using my bike to get places on our rural roads. People zip by at 45 to 50 mph without making any allowance for my presence on the road. It's simply too dangerous. Even where you have bike lanes (Powell/26) people use them as 'passing lanes' to get around left turning cars. Too bad. This is where we could use an increase in cycling to reduce the use of cars!

posted 5 years ago
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I am so delighted to see this topic! I'm a self supporting writer (read 'poor') and I've been growing all my fruits/veggies/meat on my 2.5 acres on the outskirts of Portland for more than 20 years. It's not just a matter of selling produce locally, it's a matter of eating seasonally. We are so used to cooking what we want for meals, and that usually includes ingredients from three seasons and two or three continents. Eating with the season -- and we are blessed with near year round fresh produce here -- takes more creativity, especially this time of year.

Mary Rosenblum

posted 5 years, 1 month ago
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I have been writing about global warming in my near future SF for about 15 years and I'm SO glad to see it gain some national attention. But what I worry about is that it's easy to do something small -- use energy efficient light bulbs or cut out a trip in the family SUV and feel complacent. It is going to take a lot of small steps...every one helps, but don't stop there!

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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One of the problems we're facing as a country is that we've been educated to live beyond our means, using credit card debt. Is the answer to encourage more spending? Is it maybe time for us to rethink our spiraling trend of buy more, get more debt? The tax rebate, nice as that money will be, is to encourage more spending, not less. We're simply slapping a temporary patch on the leaky boat, we're not fixing the hole.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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