Climate Cities
All Stories
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Nobody Expected This Spanish Inquisition
Hundreds of thousands of Spanish citizens hit the streets of Madrid on Sunday to protest the national government’s poor handling of the Prestige oil tanker spill, which has been labeled the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history. Hundreds of chartered buses brought in protesters from Galicia, the region whose environment and economy have been […]
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Who Ya Gonna Call? Coast Busters!
The California legislature has passed a bill to alter the structure of the California Coastal Commission, thereby enabling the powerful board to continue regulating development along the state’s coast. Seven weeks ago, a state appeals court ruled that allowing the legislature to remove commissioners at will violated the state constitution’s mandate to maintain separation of […]
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London Bridge Is Clearing Up
Traffic in central London fell by roughly 25 percent Monday, the first day of a congestion-mitigation plan that was the controversial brainchild of Mayor Ken Livingstone. Under the plan, it costs about $8 per car to enter central London from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., with steep penalties for those who don’t pay. About 80,000 […]
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Windy Cities
Wind power is usually generated in vast, open spaces — mountaintops, prairies, or offshore in shallow waters. But the Netherlands is taking wind power to new heights, literally: the rooftops of buildings in metropolitan areas. With light, quiet, efficient designs that often blend into the surrounding architecture, these urban windmills are built to take advantage […]
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Lead Us Not
Ninety percent of the global gasoline supply is unleaded — but the majority of the remaining 10 percent is consumed in developing nations. That’s bad news for citizens of those countries because leaded fuel is associated with neurological damage, particularly in children. Now, though, there’s some good news from the United Nations Environment Programme: Most […]
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Mass. Devastation
Laws designed to protect the environment are only useful if they’re enforced — and in the state of Massachusetts, they often are not. Indeed, the Bay State has one of the nation’s worst enforcement records, according to a new federal website that allows the public to monitor enforcement of anti-pollution laws. Only 27 percent of […]
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Sea-cow Tipping
Manatees were killed in record numbers by collisions with watercraft in Florida in 2002, according to the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The commission found that 95 manatees were killed by watercraft last year, or 14 more than in 2001. By contrast, overall manatee deaths in the state fell, from 325 in 2001 to […]
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Silverado — Why Don’t We Come to Our Senses
General Motors, the largest automaker in the world, announced today that it will sell a variety of gas-electric vehicles over the next four years, a move that could help push hybrids into the mainstream. The company will sell hybrid versions of cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs, thereby creating some competition for Honda and Toyota, currently […]
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There Goes the Neighborhood
Despite pressure from the glitterati in Los Angeles, the Ahmanson Ranch, a proposed 3,050-home development project in Southern California, received a crucial vote of confidence from Ventura County supervisors yesterday, when they agreed in a 4-1 vote that the project would effectively balance the region’s housing needs with its environmental concerns. The Ahmanson Ranch project […]
