trees
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Critical List: Climate change could reduce plants’ power output; Texas power prices could triple
Power plants depend on river and lake water to keep their operations cool. Climate change is going to make that water warmer and keep plants from making as much power. Power prices in Texas may triple. Utility commissioners worry that without higher prices, the state will consume too much energy and face summer blackouts. Activists […]
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World’s oldest trees face country’s worst smog
Sequoia National Park can lay claim to two superlatives — its redwoods are the oldest single organisms on the planet and its air quality is the worst of any national park in the country. The smog pollution in the park is so bad that levels reach L.A.-worthy heights. The park might seem like it’s in […]
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You can identify poor neighborhoods from space
Tim De Chant at Per Square Mile has noted that rich urban areas have way, way more trees than poor areas in the same city. In fact, the difference is so stark that income inequality can be seen from space. The satellite images above are low-income West Oakland and high-income Piedmont, and I probably don’t […]
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Tree poachers steal 800-year-old red cedar
A decade ago, British Columbia had 40 full-time park rangers who monitored 1,000 parks. Today, it only has 10. And they don’t often make it out to faraway parks like the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park, which is on the southern end of Vancouver Island. With no one around regularly, it must have been easy for poachers […]
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Elm caretaker to be buried in coffin made from beloved elm
Frank Knight spent decades keeping Herbie, New England’s tallest elm tree, alive. The tree lived for 217 years and under Knight’s care survived 14 bouts of Dutch Elm diseases. Two years ago, the tree had to come down. At the time, Knight was 101. As the Associated Press reports: “His time has come,” Knight told […]
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Critical List: Gas prices drop; Mount Fuji’s on top of an active fault
Gas prices are falling. Americans are willing to deal with a 13 percent hike in electricity bills if it means more of their power will come from clean energy. Twenty-six states are fighting for schools to teach evolution and climate change — a welcome change from school reformers who want to tear down those ideas. […]
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The most beautiful illegal treehouse you’ve ever seen
OK, I had always understood that Canadians build tree forts with little tiny fridges in them if, and only if, they have a million dollars. But Vancouver-area software developer Joel Allen built his insanely beautiful HemLoft when he went financially bust. And because he was broke, he built it by hand, illegally, on government-owned land.
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City-dwellers’ allergies are so bad because they don’t have enough bacteria
This allergy season has been terrible. It seems like everyone I know has been running around with leaky eyes, even those of us who aren’t typically pollen-sensitive. Granted, there was an unusual amount of tree sperm in the air this year, but it seemed strange that everybody — really, everybody! — was afflicted. But a […]
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The coolest church you’ve ever seen is inside an 800-year-old tree
This oak tree in Allouville-Bellefosse, France, up near the country’s north coast, has been alive for at least 800 years. In the late 1600s, a bolt of lightening hollowed out the center, but the tree survived and kept putting out leaves and acorns. And when they see something like that, 17th-century Frenchmen think about the […]