Archive | Climate & Environment RSS feed for this section

Embracing Impermanence: Why Some Architecture Should Be Temporary – NYTimes.com

20 Dec

Kronenburg made a compelling argument that the experimentation inherent in such structures challenges preconceived notions about what buildings can and should be. The strategy of temporality, he explained, “adapts to unpredictable demands, provides more for less, and encourages innovation.” And he stressed that it’s time for end-users, designers, architects, manufacturers and construction firms to rethink their attitude toward temporary, portable and mobile architecture.

This is as true for development and city planning as it is for architecture. City-making may have happened all at once at the desks of master planners like Daniel Burnham or Robert Moses, but that’s really not the way things happen today. No single master plan can anticipate the evolving and varied needs of an increasingly diverse population or achieve the resiliency, responsiveness and flexibility that shorter-term, experimental endeavors can.

via Embracing Impermanence: Why Some Architecture Should Be Temporary – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , ,

Warming Arctic Permafrost Fuels Climate Change Worries – NYTimes.com

17 Dec

The problem of atmospheric carbon (CO2 and methane) may be much worse than we’d feared:

Experts have long known that northern lands were a storehouse of frozen carbon, locked up in the form of leaves, roots and other organic matter trapped in icy soil — a mix that, when thawed, can produce methane and carbon dioxide, gases that trap heat and warm the planet. But they have been stunned in recent years to realize just how much organic debris is there.

A recent estimate suggests that the perennially frozen ground known as permafrost, which underlies nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, contains twice as much carbon as the entire atmosphere….

If that permafrost melts because of global warming, it will release even more carbon gases into the atmosphere and so further accelerate global warming in a vicious cycle of positive feedback.

The experts also said that if humanity began getting its own emissions under control soon, the greenhouse gases emerging from permafrost could be kept to a much lower level, perhaps equivalent to 10 percent of today’s human emissions.

Even at the low end, these numbers mean that the long-running international negotiations over greenhouse gases are likely to become more difficult, with less room for countries to continue burning large amounts of fossil fuels.

In the minds of most experts, the chief worry is not that the carbon in the permafrost will break down quickly — typical estimates say that will take more than a century, perhaps several — but that once the decomposition starts, it will be impossible to stop.

via Warming Arctic Permafrost Fuels Climate Change Worries – NYTimes.com.

Intel’s woes expose a rickety new world order – U.S. Economy – Salon.com

13 Dec

Ever since an earthquake in Taiwan in 1999 disrupted Dell’s supply chain, it’s been clear that the relentless search for flexibility, cheap labor coasts, and just-in-time manufacturing has a significant downside. Knock one link out of the chain, and the whole mechanism comes to a complete hall. We witnessed this on a huge scale when the Fukushima earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster disrupted all kinds of supply chains and slowed global economic growth. Thailand is just the latest case study.

But there’s another story here about climate change. Thailand has long been prone to disastrous flooding….

But the worst flooding in decades happens to be exactly what scientists have predicted will happen in Thailand as a result of rising temperatures. In the future we can expect even greater climate-related disruptions. So what happens when you mix a global economy built on fragile globe-spanning supply and production chains with increasing incidences of extreme weather events? You get chaos.

via Intel’s woes expose a rickety new world order – U.S. Economy – Salon.com.

Could the desert sun power the world? | Environment | The Guardian

12 Dec

In 1986… [Gerhard Knies, a German particle physicist] scribbled down some figures and arrived at the following remarkable conclusion: in just six hours, the world’s deserts receive more energy from the sun than humans consume in a year. If even a tiny fraction of this energy could be harnessed – an area of Saharan desert the size of Wales could, in theory, power the whole of Europe – Knies believed we could move beyond dirty and dangerous fuels for ever….

Last month, at its annual conference in Cairo, Dii [Desertec Industrial Initiative] confirmed to the world that the first phase of the Desertec plan is set to begin in Morocco next year with the construction of a 500MW solar farm near to the desert city of Ouarzazate. The 12sq km project would act as a “reference project” that, much like Egypt’s own project at Kuraymat, would help convince both investors and politicians that similar farms could be repeated across the Mena region in the coming years and decades.

“It’s all systems go in Morocco,” announced Paul van Son, Dii’s CEO, to the visiting delegates. Talks, he added, were – given their shared close proximity, along with Morocco, to western Europe’s grid – already under way with Tunisia and Algeria about joining the “first phase” of Desertec. Countries such as Egypt, Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia would be expected to join in the “scale-up” phase from 2020 onwards, once extra transmission cables were laid across the Mediterranean and via Turkey, with the whole venture becoming financially self-sustaining by 2035.

via Could the desert sun power the world? | Environment | The Guardian.

Tags: ,

Air Quality Difficult to Gauge in Dustier American West – NYTimes.com

11 Dec

The survey said that 13.6 percent of the adult residents in the deeply rural and mostly undeveloped region suffer from asthma, compared with about 7.5 percent nationally, according to federal figures.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said there was no clear explanation for the increase.

Scientists caution that links between asthma and dust are not certain. Other air problems in the West, like ground-level ozone in natural-gas drilling areas that has plagued some places in Wyoming and pollution from coal-fired power plants, complicate the air story as well. Asthma rates have also gone up in many other parts of the country.

But a study this year looking at dust generated by off-road vehicle use at the Nellis Dunes Recreation Area near Las Vegas found dust samples with naturally occurring arsenic and palygorskite, a mineral similar to asbestos, which could under certain circumstances pose potential health risks. The study, commissioned by the Federal Bureau of Land Management, said that four-wheelers and bikes stirred up as much of the mineral-laden dust as wind did.

via Air Quality Difficult to Gauge in Dustier American West – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , , ,

Underground: The next urban frontier – Dream City – Salon.com

10 Dec

Underground development, done the right way, could be a perfect fit for this new mode of thinking. Historically, developers have spent a lot of time trying to make underground spaces feel like they’re not underground. But the weirdness of an underground park is exactly why we like it. It’s intriguing and strange and a little bit spooky. “The underground can be claustrophobic, but it can also be this cozy, Fantastic Mr. Fox layer of reality,” says Barasch. So, rather than turn underground spaces into sterile retail or prefab food courts, ablaze with primary colors and piped-in pop music, developers could instead embrace the natural state of these spaces — their “undergroundness” — when designing for them. This doesn’t mean making them cheerless, it simply means respecting their subterranean identity, much like the High Line kept in place some of the former railroad’s industrial decay.

via Underground: The next urban frontier – Dream City – Salon.com.

The Wall Street-climate change connection – Global Warming – Salon.com

10 Dec

…a new study by Urgewald, a German environmental organization, establishes a strong link between large multinational banks and the coal industry, one of the biggest contributors to climate change.

The study (.pdf), “Bankrolling Climate Change,” identifies the top 20 “climate killer” banks by the amount of financial support they give the coal industry. Number one is JP Morgan Chase, followed by Citi and Bank of America. That’s despite lofty rhetoric from these companies about their work to address climate change.

via The Wall Street-climate change connection – Global Warming – Salon.com.

Gravsports: Lama, Red Bull, Cerro Torre

9 Dec

Elite mountain-climbing is a very esoteric sport that doesn’t show up much on TV. But it has it’s own culture, and ethics and aesthetics. It’s about nature and the environment, but it’s also about ecstasy and peak experiences. This is is passage from a longish article about a climbing incident in Patagonai (do you know where that is?):

5. As a climber I’m increasingly looking at my “ethics” not as just what I do while climbing but what my travel to go climbing and my other sports does to the atmosphere and the wilderness places I visit. This is a much bigger problem than whether I use a pin or a bolt, and to pretend otherwise is selective ignorance.

via Gravsports: Lama, Red Bull, Cerro Torre.

Tags: , ,

E.P.A. Says Hydraulic Fracturing Likely Marred Wyoming Water – NYTimes.com

9 Dec

The energy industry has long stressed that fracking and water contamination have never been definitively linked.

“When considered together with other lines of evidence, the data indicates likely impact to ground water that can be explained by hydraulic fracturing,” the draft study said. And perhaps just as crucially, the evidence also suggested that seepage of natural gas itself had increased around the drilling sites. Natural gas is often mixed with other elements, including methane, which can taint water supplies.

“Data suggest that enhanced migration of gas has occurred within ground water at depths used for domestic water supply,” said the draft study, which will now be sent for scientific peer review and public comment.

via E.P.A. Says Hydraulic Fracturing Likely Marred Wyoming Water – NYTimes.com.

E.P.A. Implicates Fracking in Pollution – NYTimes.com

8 Dec

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.

via E.P.A. Implicates Fracking in Pollution – NYTimes.com.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →