Transportation For America » Webinar wrap: Transportation, energy and climate change

Webinar wrap: Transportation, energy and climate change

April 3, 2009
By Stephen Lee Davis

Download the second in a series of policy briefs from T4: Transportation and Climate Change: A Critical Linkage (pdf)

Nearly 150 transportation practitioners, environmental advocates, and green energy supporters signed up for our second webinar yesterday, focusing on Transportation and the Environment.

Transportation is the second largest and fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to producing many other benefits, public transportation, rail, and bike and pedestrian infrastructure already help reduce greenhouse gas pollution by millions of CO2 tons each day.

Transportation for America held this online discussion to explore how building the second half of our transportation system and reforming our local, state and federal transportation policies can help conserve oil and contribute to meeting the nation’s energy goals.

Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, moderated the discussion and provided an overview of the greenhouse gas reductions possible from the transportation sector and the potential benefits of a U.S. cap-and-trade system.

John Holtzclaw, of the Sierra Club’s 21st Century Transportation Committee, discussed the costs of sprawl versus the benefis of compact, walkable develoment patterns. Joshua Saks, with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation presented an overview of the impacts of transportation on water quality. Finally, Michael Replogle, Transportation Director for the Living Cities Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, discussed the impacts of the transportation system on climate change and opportunities to ensure a low-carbon transportation system is possible in the future.

For those of you who attended the session, check out the Transportation for America Policy Brief on the issue and view a transcript of the presenters’ responses to your questions. This policy brief (available for download now), Transportation and Climate: A Critical Linkage, covers three basic ideas:

The transportation system no longer supports the American Dream – a dream of livable communities free from pollution with less time spent in traffic, less oil use, and less global warming.
Poorly planned transportation spending out of step with local needs has restructured America’s landscape and put enormous pressure on our natural resources
While federal legislation has done much to mitigate environmental degradation, the benefits of these efforts — especially in air quality and water quality — are gradually being overtaken by growth in motor vehicle traffic and urban sprawl.

Download it now and feel free to pass it along to friends and colleagues. And be sure to join Transportation for America to help us tell Congress that smarter transportation investments should be part of any climate solution.

Webinar resources:

Audio and video recording of the entire webinar (click to launch in a new window)
A summary of the questions asked and responses (pdf)
T4 Policy Brief on Transportation, Climate and Energy (pdf)
Register for more upcoming webinars

Filed under: Campaign Blog
Tags: climate change, energy, energy security, policy briefs, webinars

http://abqgahp.org Louis Kolker

I attended the webinar and I am now trying to download the slide presentations and can not find the appropriate link. I do not want the audio or the video just the slideshows. The same for the last webinar on housing. Would you please send me the links to those presenters’s slideshows.

Thanks,

Louis Kolker