Miscellaneous
Turning off the lights in New York to save migrating birds
It is estimated that one billion migrating birds crash into buildings in the U.S. every year due to disorientation caused by electric lights. Since New York State is a heavy bird migration route, the state authorities have decided to turn off bright outdoor lights at all public buildings between Read More...
3D printing startup bioengineers rhino horn to save wildlife
Illegal wildlife trade is a $20 billion global market. Killed for its horn, the rhinoceros is a primary target. The Western Black Rhinoceros was hunted to extinction and only five known Northern White Rhinoceros remain. San Francisco startup Pembient recently demonstrated it can use keratin to 3D Read More...
Cities are growing smarter, greener, more human-friendly
Pollution, congestion, noise, unfriendly public space… is this what awaits humanity as 70% of the global population lives in cities by 2050? Most likely, the answer is no—judging by recent developments in various European cities and by the visionary work of urban planners, urban designers and Read More...
MIT develops cheap, portable, solar-powered desalination system
Solar-powered desalination plants have been a promising technology for a while, but their prohibitive cost has prevented them from being considered a solution in water-deprived, typically poorer parts of the world. Using the electrodialysis process, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Read More...
Poo-bus gives biomethane a good name in Bristol
What could be more renewable, local and green than biogas made from sewage? The new Bio-Bus that rides through Bristol successfully showcases the feasibility of harnessing energy from waste. The city's vision is to wean the fleet off fossil fuels, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and Read More...
Liberland now open for business as the latest state experiment
As separatist tendencies are brewing in the troubled European Union, a libertarian Euro-skeptic Czeck politician, his girlfriend and a third like-minded friend have planted a flag in Liberland, an empty 2.7- square-mile Serbo-Croatian no man’s land by the side of the Danube. The world’s newest Read More...
Girls in Kabul learn self-confidence on their skateboards
In a country where women are not allowed to drive bicycles, skateboarding has become the favorite sport of many fearless girls and young women. 45% of the students of Skateistan, the education non-profit created by Australian skateboarder Oliver Percovich in 2007, are girls. London-based Read More...
How sustainability-minded accounting can shift government decisions
Sustainability typically doesn’t show up as a neat row of dollar numbers to be added to a cost-benefit spreadsheet. As a result, decision-makers routinely ignore it. That may be about to change if the NPV+ method already applied by Martin O'Malley, a potential Democratic presidential candidate Read More...
What can we learn from the world’s happiest countries?
The third World Happiness Report was released yesterday by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations. New Zealand is the only newcomer in the top 10 happiest countries, joining Canada and Australia as the only non-European contestants in this lucky cluster. What they Read More...
Audi captures CO2 from the air to produce green diesel
While renewables are beginning to make a dent into the carbon intensity of the power sector thanks to the plummeting price of technology, the automobile industry has been exploring green fuels so as to lower its dependency on fossil fuels. Audi has been pushing the envelope, exploring ways to Read More...