Climate Cities
All Stories
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Arup and at ‘Em
China hires British engineers to create self-sufficient urban centers Remember Logan’s Run, the futuristic 1970s sci-fi flick where sex-crazed twentysomethings lived in a self-contained city sealed off from the ravages of a devastated environment? Seems reality might be catching up with fiction: China’s hiring British firm Arup to design and build up to five “eco-cities” […]
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Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na — Batwing!
Radical design might help curb greenhouse-gas emissions from aircraft Under pressure to reduce fuel use and greenhouse-gas emissions, the airline industry may turn to a futuristic airplane design sketched by Sir Frederick Handley Page in the 1960s. The delightfully dubbed “batwing” would be built of plastic rather than today’s heavy aluminum, and would be covered […]
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Umbra on diesel vs. standard gasoline cars
Dear Umbra, I’ve always heard bad things about diesel fuel. However, I know someone who has a diesel VW that gets 50 miles to the gallon. I’m wondering if you could do a cost-benefit analysis for me. I know I can’t afford a hybrid anytime soon, and was wondering if it would be better to […]
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Umbra on bicycle commuting, again
Dear Umbra, So what about bike commuting? Is it safe? Is it good? Is it encouraged? P.K. BorzoSt. Paul, Minn. Dearest P.K., Yes, yes, yes. Lungwise, biking is at least as safe as driving, if not more so. It’s true, as many readers pointed out after my previous column, that we breathe more heavily when […]
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Put a Turkey in Your Tank
Biofuels from odd sources gain new fans Just about anything organic, from turkey entrails to cow dung, can be used to make biofuel, and with oil over $60 a barrel, just about everything is. Changing World Technologies’ refinery uses the feathers, bones, fat, and other bits from a nearby turkey-processing plant to make up to […]
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Top green-building system is in desperate need of repair
This piece is excerpted from the essay “LEED Is Broken; Let’s Fix It.” The full essay can be found here. Pan of green gables. Once the narrow province of hippies in beads and Birkenstocks, the green-building world has in the last five years blossomed and taken on a professional sheen. That’s thanks in large part […]
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LEED green-building program confronts critics and growing pains
“I didn’t like the ‘LEED is broken’ part, but I did like the ‘Let’s fix it’ part,” said U.S. Green Building Council President and CEO Rick Fedrizzi, referring to a critique of his organization’s building-certification program that has been much discussed in green-building circles. Green building is growing up. Published this spring by somewhat sympathetic […]
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Let My People Slow
Katrina revealed longstanding “automobile apartheid” One of Hurricane Katrina’s many lessons is that those who walk, cycle, or ride public transit instead of owning a car get treated like second-class citizens. Getting stranded during a natural disaster is an extreme example, but it’s of a piece with public-policy decisions across the country that prioritize the […]
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Brian Hayes’ Infrastructure offers a tour of the “unnatural” side of America
Transmission accomplished. The unprecedented hurricane season that flooded New Orleans and flattened much of the Gulf Coast this summer brought both catastrophe and an historic opportunity: building more-sustainable cities and infrastructure has suddenly become a hot topic. New Orleans doesn’t need only restored wetlands and stronger levees to offer protection from future hurricanes and rising […]
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In which we ask a mess of smart people what should happen in New Orleans
Unless you’ve been living under a rock — and these days, we can’t say we’d blame you — you’ve probably put at least a smidgen of thought toward the fate of New Orleans. It’s a rare thing to reconstruct an American city from scratch (though we can think of a few more cities we’d put […]
