The Playbook for Green Buildings and Neighborhoods: Strategic Local Climate Solutions, a web-based resource, provides strategies, tips, and tools that counties can use to take immediate action on climate change through: green building, green neighborhoods, and sustainable infrastructure. The Playbook is designed both for communities that are considering making the first steps toward these, as well as for those who want to take existing efforts to a new level.

The mayor of a global metropolis, elected to his first term in 2001, set out to reduce driving and promote greener modes of transportation in his city. Congestion pricing turned out to be unfeasible, because influential political forces in the suburbs believed, rightly or wrongly, that charging people to drive into the urban core was regressive. Undaunted, the mayor found other means to achieve his transportation agenda.

In early 2008, the NACo Green Government Initiative launched this searchable database of county green programs, policies, plans, staff descriptions and more. Meant to be a comprehensive resource on all things green for counties, NACo continually seeks submissions in any of the below green categories from counties throughout the country.

Laurel shares two videos: In one, Santa Barbara's City Council member Das Williams talks about that city's efforts to address energy and climate uncertainty. The other is from the city of Portland's education campaign about bike boxes. Plus, seven other cities using bike boxes to protect cyclists.

In June, 2008, a 5-day national training session will take place at Tufts University to increase citizen and planner leadership capacity in communities and their local governments to initiate and lead a change process to become a sustainable community. This sustainable communities approach has a substantial track record of successful implementation – possibly the most extensive in the world - in over 100 municipalities in Sweden, U.S., and around the world. The objective of the training is to prepare potential local leaders – including citizens, local officials, planners, or municipal staff – to be able to lead a process involving sustainability education, communication, and a strategic implementation process.

Kyoto's Miyako Green Power Certification System aims to promote "local production for local consumption" of solar power as a way of helping curb global warming.

Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition movement in the UK, "transition" being the term for a process of creating more resilient and self-reliant communities. The handbook is a good guide and motivator to making changes at the local level and includes a compelling argument that peak oil and climate change must be addressed together.

Segment of Westerly Town Council minutes at which the council approved the formation of a Peak Oil Task Force.

Louisville, KY and Albuquerque, NM have used the EPA's ENERGY STAR Challenge program to promote improved energy efficiency in public and privately owned buildings and achieve city-wide reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This live webcast session will explain how they launched the program and got people involved.

Oil burst through its all-time record price last week, but this wasn't so much of a surprise as three other things we've recently learned. Which U.S. city is most prepared for high oil prices? (Hint: it's not Portland.) Which city in the world was the first to complete a joint peak oil - global warming task force? And which high-level politician in the news this week is an outspoken voice on peak oil?