Climate Cities
All Stories
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Wish Granite
Communities across New Hampshire are invoking the state’s Land and Community Heritage Investment Act to preserve open spaces, even though state funding for land conservation and historic preservation faces extreme pressure from a ballooning budget crisis. Under the terms of the act, New Hampshire matches local conservation funding efforts with state money — an offer […]
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Niceland
The world’s first commercial hydrogen filling station will make its debut next month in Iceland, the country where the hydrogen revolution is expected to first take root. Other hydrogen filling stations scattered around the globe are private or restricted, but starting April 24, the new Reykjavik station will open its doors to the public — […]
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Oinks Per Gallon
The waste from hundreds of thousands of hogs will soon be powering vehicle diesel engines if Smithfield Farms follows through on a plan announced Friday. Smithfield, the world’s largest hog producer, intends to build a $20 million waste-to-energy facility in southwestern Utah that will convert swine manure into biodiesel fuel, which burns more cleanly than […]
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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 […]
