In the 2007 Comprehensive Plan, the City of Charlottesville set for itself the ambitious goal of creating a 40% tree canopy. At least it seemed ambitious at the time. After performing an analysis of aerial photos this year, city officials realized that 46% of the area is actually already covered by trees. In response, a new Urban Forest Management Plan has been drafted that calls for yet more trees. City Council has reviewed the plan, and everyone who spoke wholeheartedly endorsed making this a reality.
Every day thousands of cars are driven to and from Swedish airports. Every car holds only 1,2 persons on average which is to be compared with the Airport Coach that takes over 50. Needless to say, this makes no sense whatsoever from an environmental standpoint. To highlight this, an enormous bus was built out of 50 cars on the side of the highway to the airport. On the website, a live camera not only shows the installation 24/7 but also analyses the image and tracks each and every car going by. This data is then being used to highlight just how much emission we could save just by going by bus instead.
Do you spend your days traipsing around San Francisco? Then congratulations, you live in America’s least wasteful city according to a study conducted by Nalgene. The water bottle company questioned 3,750 people in America’s 25 largest cities about their transportation use, waste, sustainability efforts, shopping habits, and reuse of items.
After four decades of false starts, Mr. Chan, a 67-year-old engineer, is supervising an army of workers operating 60 gargantuan tunneling machines beneath this metropolis in southeastern China. They are building one of the world’s largest and most advanced subway systems.
The question is whether the burrowing machines can outrace China’s growing love affair with the automobile — car sales have soared ninefold since 2000. Or are a hundred Los Angeleses destined to bloom?
Los Angeles and countless other cities – Phoenix, Houston and Atlanta come to mind – are far more friendly to cars than people, having been built according to land use policies that all but put people behind the wheel. It’s an unsustainable model, and it must change.
Seeking to improve air quality, an Arlington citizens’ group will study ways to reduce emissions from cars idling in drive-through restaurants.
“We’re just trying to put our heads together and see if there’s any way we can improve the situation,” City Councilwoman Sheri Capehart said Wednesday. “And there may not be.”
Even if your local skyline isn’t hazy with smog, there are a number of environmental factors that impact your daily life but fly under the radar of your senses. Seeking to increase awareness and familiarity with environmental phenomena, Hernando Barragan has conceived of an Environmental Traffic Light that monitors and visualizes CO2 levels, air pressure, humidity and a host of other measurements. One of fifty top entries in this year’s Greener Gadgets Design Competition, these open-source eco outposts are sure to spark increased interest in the environmental factors that affect us all.
A noxious tide of toilet paper, raw sewage and chemical waste has transformed Dubai’s most prestigious stretch of shoreline into a foul-smelling health hazard.
A Toronto study published this month in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that exposure to traffic-related air pollution can cause an increased risk of death overall, and an even higher risk of death due to stroke and heart disease.
