Climate Cities

One Sweet Ride

Umbra on driving in neutral

Dear Umbra, I have a question about getting the most miles per gallon. If you put your car into neutral at stops or going downhill, do you save any gas? My car is an automatic. JeffVerona, N.J. Dearest Jeff, Another great question we have all pondered. Louisa and her fellow mechanics thought you might save […]

Going Dutch

Dutch Car Crosses Finish Line First in Solar Stakes A Dutch-designed solar vehicle dubbed the Nuna II crossed a finish line in Australia yesterday to win the 2003 World Solar Challenge. The race, which covers 1,870 miles from Darwin in the north of Australia to Adelaide in the far south, is seen as a proving […]

Coal-hearted

New Stats On Energy Use in China Alarm Environmentalists The most populous country on the planet may also pose the biggest threat to the global climate, according to recently released statistics about coal production and consumption in China. Until a few months ago, many energy experts hoped that the nation would have a relatively limited […]

Cold, Hard Kashmir

Kashmir Gets an Amusement Park, but Enviros Are Not Amused The war-torn Indian province of Kashmir is hardly a place you’d go for amusement — but now, you can go there for an amusement park. That’s right: On Sunday, a private bank unveiled a brand-new amusement park in the town of Pahalgam in the Himalayan […]

Get on the Clean Bus, Gus

Washington State Cleans Up Its School Buses Washington state has launched an ambitious program to retrofit its diesel school buses with devices that curb pollution. Throughout the country, public health advocates and parents alike have grown concerned about school buses’ dirty emissions, which can contribute to a range of health problems, particularly in children, whose […]

Return of the Smog Monster

Southern California Air Quality Takes a Turn for the Worse After years of gradual improvement, Southern California’s air quality took a tumble this summer, falling to its worst levels since 1997 due to the combined effects of hot weather and increasing emissions. Taken as a whole, the region’s air quality has dramatically improved in the […]

Wheelie Great

Car-Free Day Helps Clear the Air in Europe Citizens in more than 1,000 cities around the world were treated to cleaner air and less congested streets yesterday on the sixth annual car-free day. The event was particularly popular in Europe, where air pollution has had a higher profile since August, when poor air quality accompanied […]

Sake It to ’em

Tokyo High Court Hears Long-Running Pollution Case In the latest development in a seven-year court case, the Tokyo High Court yesterday began hearing a lawsuit that accuses the Japanese government, the Tokyo metropolitan government, the Metropolitan Expressway Public Corporation, and several diesel-vehicle manufacturers of endangering the health of the city’s citizens by failing to stem […]

Taking Leaves of Our Senses

U.S. Cities Lose 20 Percent of Trees Urban sprawl and highway construction have gobbled up greenery at a startling rate, leaving U.S. cities with 20 percent fewer trees than they had just 10 years ago, according to the environmental group American Forests. In a study released as part of the annual National Urban Forest conference, […]