Clean energy day: patterns for a conservation economy and, for the news-minded, a clean energy blog.

The death toll from France’s heat wave is widely being blamed on vacations distorting otherwise strong family ties. Still unanswered is the extent to which social capital and urban design mediated the impact, even in the absence of air conditioning.

Time to commit consumercide?

City Repair, a volunteer group in Portland, gets local and (kindly) takes back public space.

What may be conclusive proof that sprawl causes obesity — it is controlled for (demographic) selection bias, at least, which explains a lot of the apparent difference between slender New Yorkers and porky Alabamians.

Now you can get a (usually bad) digital photo of any property in Cook County, courtesy of the Cook County Assessor (search by address, and click the camera icon). Kinda neat.

Ecotopia lies not on the Pacific, but on the Hudson — but only because New Yorkers don’t drive (much).

Newly posted: photos from the Promenade Plantée.

“Maybe Americans should be paid consumers.” Walter Kirn

Perhaps this “singing scoopers” thing needs to be reevaluated: I headed to a local Ben & Jerry’s to get a cone, only faintly realizing something was amiss. Once inside, I shared the space with a very confused tourist family, a few panhandlers asking for ice cream, and… two dozen voices packed behind the counter — the cast of “The Lion King,” playing down the street — who broke into “The Circle of Life” at top volume, including clapping, and at very close range. One singer managed, somehow, to take my order, and I escaped largely unharmed.

Found on the sidewalk outside: shards of glass, from a bottle of South Australian shiraz. I’m not sure whether this beats the Frappuccino bottle or the discarded Ann Taylor suit.

Overheard, as maybe a dozen men left a packed elevator: “whew, that was hot in there.”