Air Pollution
Google’s New Tool to Fight Climate Change
In the next decade or so, more than 6,000 cities, states, and provinces around the world will try to do something that has eluded humanity for 25 years: reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, which warm the atmosphere and cause climate change. Read the entire article at The Atlantic. So where will they start? […]
Climate Change Is a Public Health Emergency
Ever since human-caused climate change emerged into public consciousness around the late 1980s, news stories and public awareness campaigns surrounding the topic have predominantly been accompanied by images of polar bears and melting ice, reinforcing common misconceptions that the impacts are far away in space and time and removed from our daily lives. Read […]
Cities Leading the Transition to Renewables
More than 100 cities worldwide get at least 70 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. What can we learn from them? Read the entire article at DW. Cities are responsible for 70 percent of man made CO2 emissions, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Cars, heating, cooling and lighting systems work round […]
Can Paris Exist Sans Gasoline? Its Mayor Thinks So.
If Paris’s socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo gets her way — and gale-force opposition is trying to make sure she doesn’t — one day you won’t be able to drive a gas-powered car through Paris, but you will be able to breathe. That is the choice, and it should be an obvious one. No city should […]
Carmakers’ Letter to White House – “Climate Change is Real”
Automakers urged the White House to cooperate with California officials in a coming rewrite of vehicle efficiency standards, saying “climate change is real.” Read the entire article at Bloomberg. The plea came in a May 3 letter to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the industry’s […]
Paris Mayor Wants Free Transit for All
Leaders in Brussels, Seoul and Salt Lake City have all experimented with free transit to curb air pollution on smoggy days. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wants to take the practice one step further, and offer fareless service year-round. Reuters reports that Hidalgo announced this week that the city will conduct a feasibility study of free […]
Courts are Waking Up to the Costs of Climate Change
When considering the costs and benefits of a fossil fuel project, how much consideration should be given to the project’s eventual contribution to climate change-causing carbon emissions? Read the entire article at ThinkProgress. That’s a question that has plagued regulators, environmental groups, and courts for years. But in a single month this year, […]
Cities Should View Trees as Public Health Infrastructure
Read the entire article at Fast Company. Think of a tree-lined street in the midst of a busy city. It feels like something of a treasure: hushed, cool, and sheltered from noise and sidewalk glare. These leafy streets cannot afford to be seen as a luxury, argues a new report from The Nature Conservancy. […]
Hidden Costs of Climate Change Running Hundreds of Billions a Year
Read the entire article at the National Geographic. Extreme weather, made worse by climate change, along with the health impacts of burning fossil fuels, has cost the U.S. economy at least $240 billion a year over the past ten years, a new report has found. And yet this does not include this […]
Extraordinary Living Chandelier Absorbs CO2 and Emits Oxygen
Read the entire article at Inhabitat. Lighting design has come a long way. Julian Melchiorri, a London-based designer and engineer, created this extraordinary living chandelier that not only lights up the room, but also actively purifies the air around it. Currently on display at the V&A Museum for London Design Week, the Exhale Chandelier […]
