Climate Cities
All Stories
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The Fat of the Land
Study Links Obesity to Suburban Sprawl No, it’s not a national thyroid problem: The U.S. obesity epidemic is caused in part by suburban sprawl, according to a study released yesterday by the National Center for Smart Growth. The study, which involved more than 200,000 people in 448 counties, was the first comprehensive examination of the […]
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Lessons from Blackout 2003
Things started to go awry near Cleveland at 3:06 p.m. on Aug. 14, more than an hour before the largest North American blackout in history. A transmission line carrying 345 kilovolts of power overheated, sagged into a tree, and automatically shut off to protect itself from melting entirely. Instantaneously, the colossal current of electricity it […]
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Summer Hummer Bummer
Hummers Destroyed by ELF in Southern California Dozens of Hummer H2s and other large SUVs were burned and defaced on Friday, the result of arson and vandalism at four car dealerships in Southern California. The Earth Liberation Front, a loosely knit association of militant activists, claimed responsibility for the actions, saying they were intended to […]
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At a Loss for Birds
FCC to Investigate Why Millions of Birds Fly into Cell-Phone Towers The Federal Communications Commission is launching an investigation into the reasons why high numbers of birds are killed by flying into cell-phone and broadcast towers in the U.S. Each year, an estimated 5 million to 50 million birds die this way, says the U.S. […]
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Lessons in environmentally friendly living from New York City
In 1975, Ernest Callenbach published a slim book called Ecotopia, in which the Northwest secedes from the United States and establishes itself as an ecological paradise. The text became a counterculture classic, and the term “Ecotopia” entered the lexicon, embodying the American tendency to think of the continent’s forested far coast as a land of […]
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Arson Ick
Radical Environmental Group Claims Responsibility for San Diego Fire Saying it was trying to send a message about “rampant urban development,” the Earth Liberation Front has claimed responsibility for a $50 million fire that destroyed an apartment complex in San Diego two weeks ago. No one was injured in the fire. The destruction of the […]
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Grid and Bear It
Conservation, Alternative Energy Get Boost from Blackout In most of the U.S. and Canada, last Thursday’s history-making blackout is little more than a memory: The lights are on, the AC is cranking, transportation systems are running, and it’s business as usual. Still, some officials, including New York Gov. George Pataki (R) and Ontario Premier Ernie […]
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Let the Games Be Green
Enviros Accuse 2004 Athens Olympic Organizers of Green Failings Organizers of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens are already getting poor scores from environmentalists, who say the Greeks have missed numerous opportunities to make the games more eco-friendly. Greece won its bid to host the games in part by pledging to protect vulnerable natural and […]
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Flexible Fools
Automakers Can Dodge Fuel-Economy Rules with Flex-Fuel Vehicles U.S. automakers are dramatically boosting production of “flexible-fuel” cars and trucks that can run on either gasoline or E85, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gas that results in lower greenhouse gas emissions — but this trend is more likely to harm the environment […]
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Pigs in Open Space
Developers Preserve Open Spaces to Lure Clients and Please Regulators Multimillion-dollar houses, spas, golf courses, tennis courts, open space — sounds like the old Sesame Street game of “one of these things is not like the others.” But it turns out that untrammeled wilderness is one of the hottest new amenities people look for in […]
