May 22nd, 2013 
Stephen Wade 
People are funny, stubborn creatures sometimes. Even as evidence continues to pile up, habits persist. No matter one’s values or decision making process, it is hard to see how biking isn’t the preferred method of transportation. Biking is healthy. A thirty minute bike commute burns 300 calories, reduces heart disease risk by 50%, helps the [...]
Posted in Behavior, Featured Posts, Sustainability, Transportation 
Tags: Bicycles, Environment, Public Health, Stephen Wade 
No Comments » May 21st, 2013 Justin Manger 
Yes, big improvements in air quality have been made over the last several decades. However, there is still some foul air out there, and most of it can be found in California. According to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air Report for 2013, of the top 10 areas in the U.S. with the [...]
Posted in Justin Manger, News Tags: California, Carbon Dioxide, Environment, Pollution No Comments » May 6th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
During Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror, his environmental transgressions were manifold. Among them were chemical warfare, continued oil extraction, and setting wells in Kuwait on fire, all of which were well publicized. Perhaps less well known was the draining of the Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of agriculture. In Iraq, some of the most fertile land [...]
Posted in Agriculture, Eric Wilson, News, Stewards of the Earth Tags: Environment, Los Angeles, Video No Comments » April 22nd, 2013 Sean Connell Progress is a relative thing, its meaning and measure differing depending on people, place, circumstances and era. What one generation sees as a proud achievement, the next may look at quite differently. This is a theme that comes up increasingly in contemporary discussions of “how the West was won,” especially on the topic of development. The engineering [...]
Posted in Site Visits, Sustainable Development, Uncategorized Tags: Cheonggyecheon, Environment, Green Growth, livability, Sean Connell, Seoul, South Korea No Comments » April 17th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports today that despite the impressive increase in renewable energy – energy produced by wind is up 42% and solar 19% from 2011 to 2012 alone – carbon emissions have not abated worldwide. As relayed on Marketplace Morning Report today, rapidly industrializing economies, as well as Europe which has resorted [...]
Posted in Behavior, Economics, Eric Wilson, News, Policy, Renewable Energy, Sustainability Tags: Alternative Energy, Carbon Dioxide, Clean Energy, Coal, Environment, IEA, Natural Gas No Comments » April 15th, 2013 Sean Connell South Korea’s capital city of Seoul, including its surrounding urban area sprawling across the wide Han River, is home to more than 25 million people and by some estimates the world’s second largest metropolis. It is also a scant 52 kilometers south of the world’s most heavily fortified border–the Demilitarized Zone separating South Korea from North [...]
Posted in Policy, Site Visits, Sustainability Tags: Environment, Green Growth, Korea, Sean Connell No Comments » April 15th, 2013 Justin Manger 
From the Ocean Conservation Society, using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), this infographic is full of staggering and somewhat depressing facts like fishing line lasts up to 600 years before it biodegrades. We’ve posted about this before but it is worth remembering. This is especially true as we run around with hectic schedules that leave [...]
Posted in Behavior, Conservation, Justin Manger, News, Oceans, Sustainability Tags: Environment, Water Conservation No Comments » April 5th, 2013 Justin Manger 
The following facts come from a piece in the New York Times on the cost of the break-neck pace China’s economic growth is having on the environment. Political ramifications will be large if the country cannot reign in some of the side effects of runaway development. In 2010, the cost of environmental degradation in China [...]
Posted in China, Five Friday Facts, Justin Manger, News, Policy Tags: Carbon Dioxide, Coal, Environment No Comments » February 23rd, 2013 Justin Manger 
Backed by Bill Gates and other investors in 2009, Carbon Engineering is building a pilot plant at the end of 2014 to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (Nicole talks about geological sequestration in recent post). The machines the company has developed use a “carbon-dioxide-absorbing solution of caustic soda to remove the gas from the [...]
February 22nd, 2013 Justin Manger On Fridays we usually have a post with various facts about sustainability, nature, energy and the like. We have quite a collection after several years. If you’re interested in reading, they can all be found in our Five Friday Facts category. Today, however, we will shake things up a bit with a few quotes instead [...]
