Climate Cities
All Stories
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Italian Nice
The president of northern Italy’s Lombardy region, Roberto Formigoni, proposed on Sunday that only eco-friendly vehicles be sold in the region by as early as 2005. He hopes gas-electric hybrid vehicles and, later, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles can help eliminate the region’s pollution woes. Smog levels in Lombardy have recently surged to five times the legally […]
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Shanty Shanty Shanty
Despite its terrible environmental rap, Mexico City remains one of the greenest cities in the world, with more than half the city’s acreage designated as open space and fully 25 percent blanketed with forest. Unfortunately, all that is being threatened by the city’s uncontrolled urban sprawl, most of it in the form of creeping shantytowns […]
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Long Live King County
How far would you go to stop urban sprawl? That’s the question of the hour in King County, Wash., where a private anti-sprawl proposal is pushing the conservation envelope on several fronts. At issue is a proposed $185 million purchase of second-and third-growth forest just east of Seattle. The land purchase by the Evergreen Forest […]
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Deep Sea Diving
As if all the political strife weren’t enough, here’s more grim news from the Middle East: The Dead Sea, the lowest spot on Earth, is getting even lower. In the last decade, the sea, which already lies more than 1,300 feet below sea level, has fallen an additional 20 feet. Scientists attribute the change to […]
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Tank You Very Much
A technique invented to reduce corrosion of steel components on ships could also prevent exotic species from stowing away in the ballast water of cargo ships. The technique, which was designed by Mario Tamburri of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in collaboration with Japanese scientists, involves pumping nitrogen gas into ballast tanks, thereby virtually […]
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Bad Air Day
As if flying didn’t already make you nervous: Air quality aboard commercial jets can be hazardous to passenger’s health and the airlines, but federal regulators have done little to address the problem, according to a report released yesterday by a panel of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The report said the systems for collecting […]
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Now We're Cookin'
A British supermarket chain said today that it would begin fueling its delivery trucks with chicken waste and used cooking oils. The Asda chain, which includes 258 stores in the U.K and is a part of the Wal-Mart company, generates about 36,500 gallons per year of chicken waste and cooking fat that currently winds up […]
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That's It!
Touting it as an environmentally friendly alternative to cars, inventor Dean Kamen finally unveiled his mysterious creation to the world this morning. The gizmo — which has gone by the codenames “IT” and “Ginger,” but will be marketed under the more prosaic “Segway Human Transporter” — turns out to be a one-person, two-wheeled, battery-powered scooter […]
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Oh Maw Gracious!
More than 31 million acres of forest in the southern United States will disappear into the maw of urban development in the next four decades, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Forest Service in collaboration with other federal agencies. Wildlife and water and air quality will suffer as trees make way for […]
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A Mess In-a Messina
Italy has declared states of environmental emergency in Venice, Milan, and Messina. Venice is beset with water pollution caused by boat traffic in its canals, while road traffic in the other two cities is producing too much air pollution. The country’s parliament may now appoint local commissioners to impose tough new anti-pollution measures, such as […]
