Climate Cities
All Stories
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Sea-cow Tipping
Manatees were killed in record numbers by collisions with watercraft in Florida in 2002, according to the state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The commission found that 95 manatees were killed by watercraft last year, or 14 more than in 2001. By contrast, overall manatee deaths in the state fell, from 325 in 2001 to […]
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Silverado — Why Don’t We Come to Our Senses
General Motors, the largest automaker in the world, announced today that it will sell a variety of gas-electric vehicles over the next four years, a move that could help push hybrids into the mainstream. The company will sell hybrid versions of cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs, thereby creating some competition for Honda and Toyota, currently […]
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There Goes the Neighborhood
Despite pressure from the glitterati in Los Angeles, the Ahmanson Ranch, a proposed 3,050-home development project in Southern California, received a crucial vote of confidence from Ventura County supervisors yesterday, when they agreed in a 4-1 vote that the project would effectively balance the region’s housing needs with its environmental concerns. The Ahmanson Ranch project […]
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Subway Diet
The threat of a transit strike in New York City has been staved off — for the moment, at least — but New Yorkers still have reason to worry about their public transportation system. The more than 4 million people who use the Metropolitan Transit Authority pay more to keep it running than do mass-transit […]
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Filling Up Wide Open Spaces
Forget about urban sprawl; the new menace facing the U.S. landscape is rural sprawl, according to some experts. In seeking refuge from city life, Americans started by moving to the suburbs; then they started building beyond the suburbs, creating “exurbs”; now, they’re gradually expanding into some of the country’s most remote areas. Growth rates of […]
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Dodge Bawl
Looking to minimize your impact on the environment? Don’t buy a car — and especially don’t buy anything made by DaimlerChrysler. The U.S.-based automaker ranked dead last on a survey, released yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists, of pollution levels in vehicle fleets. The survey looked at the environmental implications of the six largest […]
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Bright Lights on the Big City
Residents of New York, rejoice: Your city might be noisy, crowded, and crass, but it’s also the most compact megalopolis in the U.S. That’s right — the Big Apple ranked number one on Smart Growth America’s recently released list comparing urban sprawl in major metropolitan areas. Other cities that did well include, in order, Jersey […]
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Cell-ebrate
In what could be the first significant step toward mass-marketing fuel-cell vehicles, Toyota and Honda put the world’s first such cars on the road yesterday. The cars are being leased to the Japanese government and several public organizations in the U.S. — at the whopping price of between $6,500 and $9,800 per month, meaning the […]
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Wine, Wine, Wine
Napa Valley, Calif., is known as the heart of U.S. wine country, not exactly as a toxic cesspool. But local environmentalists say soaring wine production in the valley has lead to unhealthy farming practices that pollute the land, place heavy pressures on natural resources, and harm wildlife. The county has passed legislation designed to limit […]
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The Shipping News
Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn has announced an agreement in which several of the largest shipping companies in Asia will work with L.A. to clean up air quality in the city’s port. Last year, the port received 2,200 cargo ship visits, each burning about 14 tons of heavy bunker fuel. Under the new plan, the […]
