China used cloud seeding to generate rain and clear pollution ahead of the Communist Party’s July 1 centenary celebration in Beijing, according to a new study. In the days leading up to the event, officials shut down factories and halted cargo trucks in and around Beijing to minimize pollution, but stagnant winds did little to clear skies, the South China […]
Ecuador’s constitutional court has blocked plans to mine copper and gold in Los Cedros, a protected cloud forest, ruling that the plans violate the rights of nature. “This is a historic victory in favor of nature,” Natalia Greene of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature said in a statement. “This sets a great juridical precedent to continue with […]
The U.S. generates more plastic waste than any other country, producing roughly 287 pounds of plastic per person per year, according to a new congressional report. That adds up to an enormous volume of plastic waste — about 42 million metric tons in 2016 — which is nearly twice the amount of plastic waste generated in China, with its 1.4 […]
Last February, the Toyota Motor Company broke ground on what it calls Woven City, a built-from-scratch futuristic urban center on 175 acres in the shadow of Mount Fuji. Woven City is a reference to the way the project plans to weave together cars, robots, data, and computers to create a city that the builders say, is highly efficient, pollution free, […]
A tale of two continents: Europe’s emissions rose by one fifth in the spring, as manufacturing and construction rebounded from the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, in China, emissions scarcely grew in the spring and fell in the summer amid a shortage of coal and a slowdown in construction. Carbon emissions from European Union countries were 18 percent greater in the second […]
Over the next five years, Nissan Motor Company will put 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) toward developing a cheaper, more powerful battery to serve its expanded lineup of electric vehicles, the company announced Monday. Nissan plans to unveil 15 new EV models by 2030, as well as an additional eight partially gas-powered models. Such vehicles will account for half of […]
No country has managed to meet the basic social needs of its population in the past 30 years without putting undue pressure on the Earth’s supply of natural resources, according to a study. Looking at a sample of 148 nations, research by the University of Leeds found wealthy countries were putting the future of the planet at risk to make […]
A decommissioned coal-fired power plant in a Toronto suburb will be developed into a small town with 8,000 housing units, as well as office buildings, shops, parks, and other amenities all within a 15-minute walking distance. The site on the shores of Lake Ontario was home to a massive power plant that cut the community of Mississauga off from the […]
Fly into Orlando, Florida, and you may notice a 22-acre solar power array in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head in a field just west of Disney World. Nearby, Disney also has a 270-acre solar farm of conventional design on former orchard and forest land. Park your car in any of Disney’s 32,000 parking spaces, on the other hand, and […]
A new study maps out the old growth forests, peatlands, and mangroves that must be preserved to prevent catastrophic climate change. Though these areas cover only around 3 percent of land, they contain vast stores of carbon that, if unleashed, could not easily be recovered. “The consequences of releasing this stored carbon would stretch on for generations, undermining our last […]