skip to main content

Natural Resources Defense Council

Switchboard

Scott Dodd's Blog

Issues: Living Sustainably

How Smart Is Your City?

July 14, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
greenliving, planning, smartercities, transit, transportation, urbanism

Last week, Time magazine asked, "Why Are Southerners So Fat?" There's no simple answer, of course. Poverty, culture and climate all play a role in the South's high obesity rates. But one factor that's increasingly blamed by everyone from medical...

Urban Hawks Take Flight on New York's Upper West Side

June 24, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
bicycling, birds, hawks, newyorkcity, parks, smartercities, wildlife

Reason No. 137 that I love commuting by bike in New York City: I get to watch baby hawks go to flight school. Last year, I was fascinated and then heartbroken by a pair of red-tail hawks that built a...

Planning for School Growth Should Be Elementary

June 3, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
charlotte, newyorkcity, planning, schools, smartercities, smartgrowth, urbanism

New York magazine featured a great story last week on school overcrowding in Manhattan. What struck me -- aside from concerns about how my own kid might fare -- was this passage about the city's failure to anticipate that New...

Bike to Work Day: Motivation for Getting Back on the Bike

May 14, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
bicycling, commuting, health, pollution, smartercities, smartgrowth, transportation

Tomorrow is National Bike to Work Day, which is part of National Bike Month, coinciding with Bike Month NYC here in the Big Apple, and I have to admit that it's all making me feel a bit guilty. Last summer,...

Here's What Earth Day Means to You

April 22, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
climatechange, earthday2009, future, globalwarming, takingaction

Earlier this month, I asked readers in my blog, on NRDC's Facebook page and via our online newsletter to share what Earth Day means to them. And you did! Here are some of the responses that made me laugh, smile...

What Does Earth Day Mean to You?

April 8, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
climatechange, earthday2009, future, globalwarming, takingaction

Here's what it means to me: That's my new son, Henry. (Sorry, I can't help showing him off a little bit.) I've cared about the environment for a long time, but while my wife was pregnant with Henry here, I...

NBA and NRDC Team Up for Green Week

April 1, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
basketball, greeningadvisor, greenliving, NBA, robertredford, sports

My March Madness bracket is in shambles. This weekend's Final Four games will be a terrible reminder that -- for the first time I can remember -- I failed to pick even one team correctly. But at least I've got...

Will New York City survive sea-level rise?

February 18, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
adaptation, floods, globalwarming, greenliving, newyorkcity, sealevelrise, smartercities, subways

Sometimes in New York, you get surrounded by steel and glass and brick and brownstone and it's easy to forgot that you live on an island -- and not a particularly big island at that.Then it pours for one afternoon...

Steelers celebrate Super Bowl win in organic T-shirts

February 2, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
MLB, NFL, organic, renewableenergy, sports, steelers

I'm a huge Pittsburgh fan, so I don't need any extra motivation to celebrate last night's thrilling Steelers victory. (You've heard of tennis elbow? Today I'm suffering from Terrible Towel elbow.) If for some reason you were rooting for the...

Obama administration backs smart growth (he should check out our new web tool)

January 21, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
bicycling, changeinwashington, livablestreets, neighborhoods, obama, planning, smartgrowth

Everyone seems to be having fun reading the revamped whitehouse.gov website today and seeing what it says about their top priorities.After writing about the challenges of communicating smart growth earlier today, I was curious what the new Obama administration would...

What's 'smart growth'? New web tool can help communities get the picture

January 21, 2009

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil

Tags:
charlotte, development, growth, neighborhoods, planning, smartercities, smartgrowth, transit

"Smart growth" isn't an easy term to explain. And I speak from experience here. For several years, I covered the growth and development beat at The Charlotte Observer, at a time when Charlotte, N.C., was one of the fastest-growing places...

Share your resolutions for making 2009 the greenest year ever

December 29, 2008

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
greenliving, greenyear, resolutions, twitter

In 2009, I will become a father. That's not a New Year's resolution. It's actually happening (gulp). My wife and I are expecting our first child in early March, so I know this year is going to be an eventful...

NYPD cop indicted in attack on Times Square cyclist

December 15, 2008

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
bicycling, criticalmass, newyorkcity, NYPD, transportation, youtube

Last summer, I wrote about the NYPD officer who knocked a biker to the ground during a Critical Mass ride in Times Square -- and got caught in the act. If you haven't seen the stunning and disturbing video, here...

Cyclists vs. the law (and the hood of a car)

November 20, 2008

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
bicycling, lawenforcement, roadrage, streets, transportation

Just a couple of quick notes about some recent biking stories that I couldn't resist mentioning:In New York, a couple of professors from Hunter College promoted a study this week claiming to show that city cyclists routinely break the law....

Bike commuting soars, but what about 'bikeism'?

November 3, 2008

Posted by Scott Dodd in Living Sustainably

Tags:
bikecommuting, globalwarming, newyorkcity, publichealth, transportation

The New York City Department of Transportation announced last week that bike commuting jumped 35 percent in the city over the past year. That's a lot of new bikers on the streets, and I'm proud to be one of them....

Scott Dodd
Scott Dodd
Website Editorial Manager
New York City
In 12 years as a newspaper reporter, I covered everything from hurricanes to highways to...
more

Switchboard Archives

Scott Dodd's archives