Climate Buildings
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New use for green roof: grazing reindeer
"Santa Claus" (real name: Dave Kavanaugh, entomologist) has brought his reindeer to the green roof of the California Academy of Sciences. Between now and January 16, they'll be grazing its gentle slopes and fertilizing them with bon bons, because everyone knows that reindeer shit delicious Christmas treats.
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California’s high-speed rail gets $1 billion
California is going to have high-speed rail. Despite grumblings about the cost, Gov. Jerry Brown supports it, and now the project, which will link San Francisco and Los Angeles, is getting close to $1 billion from the Department of Transportation. The department came up with this chunk of change and more after other governors (Florida's […]
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‘Mountain tsunamis’ are a thing; threaten Himalayas
The kingdom of Bhutan, famous for maximizing "Gross National Happiness" rather than GDP, is sitting under a gigantic time bomb of water that could burst at any moment, flooding its villages and putting a major damper on all that good cheer. Bhutan has 2,674 glacial lakes, 24 of which are considered unstable. When the ice […]
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Turning vacant lots into parks reduces violent crime
A new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology analyzes a 10-year project in Philadelphia to turn abandoned lots into public parks. As it turns out, the project hasn’t just eliminated eyesores — it’s also reduced crime. Gun-related assaults, vandalism ,and criminal mischief all dropped off significantly in the reclaimed spaces. The researchers theorize […]
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This Texas town could run out of water by Dec. 6
There are 11 towns in Texas that are on a state list of places in danger of running out of water. One of them, Groesbeck, has only until Dec. 6 to find an new supply, the Houston Chronicle reports. The Texas drought has been going on for more than a year now, but what's terrifying […]
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Global warming to swamp one-third of NYC’s streets
Right about the time Miami has turned into a barrier island, a single flood supercharged by higher sea levels and rowdier storms will overwhelm New York City's low-lying infrastructure, including its iconic subway system. It will cost $80 billion to clean up … and then it will cost another $80 billion to clean up again […]
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Making federal buildings green cuts costs by a fifth
Paging Ron Paul: Once you're done transforming the U.S. into a neo-feudal patriarchy whose fiefs are ruled by their respective John Galts, you could make a huge dent in whatever government spending is left by simply making the feds' buildings "green." That's the conclusion of a new report [PDF] from the Department of Energy's Pacific […]
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U.S. roads are built to break
Why do we have to pour so much of our transportation money into highway infrastructure? Well, because 50 years ago, the U.S. decided to structure roads in a way that was cheap to build but expensive and difficult to maintain. It's the infrastructure equivalent of buying a cheap crappy blender and then having to replace […]
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Jane Jacobs and the book that inspired a revolution
If cities are the greenest form of human settlement that we could possibly aspire to, Jane Jacobs left us the owner’s manual for how to build them. Fifty years ago this month, Random House published The Death and Life of Great American Cities, an extraordinary book in which Jacobs laid out the principles for creating […]
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High-speed rail that never was: 1910 proposal for S.F. to L.A. in four hours
If you think high-speed rail is some kind of newfangled obsession of liberal elites who would rather not sit in traffic behind SUVs covered in bumper stickers announcing loyalty to their ideological foes, you're only partly right. As early as 1910, inventor Fletcher E. Felts proposed an elevated, high speed railway system to connect Oakland […]
