Climate Cities
All Stories
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Grand Shift Auto
Car Ownership Surging in Beijing The number of registered cars in Beijing jumped to 2 million last month, doubling in just six years. Now one in five households in the Chinese capital owns a car, a huge shift from the situation a decade ago, when most cars were owned by the government and the city’s […]
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Meet the New Mobile, Worse than the Old Mobile
New Snowmobiles to Be Permitted in Yellowstone Are Dirtier Than Old Models A new generation of ostensibly cleaner and quieter snowmobiles turns out to be more polluting than older models, according to tests by the U.S. EPA. In a controversial Bush administration decision, the new snowmobiles were approved for use in Yellowstone and Grand Teton […]
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Community-based forestry takes root in the U.S.
Can a “forest economy” be good for the forest? A new movement known as community-based forestry says yes. Also referred to as community forestry, CBF is dramatically different from most forest management practiced in the U.S., and increasing numbers of environmentalists are championing the cause. Land of the trees, and home of the brave. Photo: […]
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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 […]
