When an unprecedented heat wave bore down on Portland, Oregon, in June 2021, Jonna Papaefthimiou, the city’s chief resilience officer, immediately thought of the city’s most vulnerable populations: older people sweltering, often alone, in their homes.
What could a city like New York achieve if it repurposed some of its 3 million curbside parking spots?
It could get rid of rats by moving trash off the sidewalks and into containers. It could create safe, cool play spaces for the more than 1 million New Yorkers without easy park access. It could build bioswales to collect rainwater and prevent flooding during heavy storms.
For hundreds, possibly thousands, of years humans have lived inside a relatively comfortable “climate niche” wherein a large portion of the world’s population have mostly enjoyed liveable temperatures and infrequent extreme weather events. Conditions that have not only been within a healthy temperature range for humans, but for the plants, animals and ecosystems of our […]
The U.S. and Canada have announced the Binational Electric Vehicle (EV) Corridor, a network of charging stations, including DC fast-chargers, from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Quebec City, Quebec to help travelers going between the two countries. The corridor will feature charging stations about every 50 miles (80 kilometers), according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The […]
The biggest fossil fuel companies in the world owe at least $209 billion in yearly climate reparations to communities that suffered the brunt of the calamities caused by the climate crisis, a new study has concluded. While substantial, the researchers consider theirs to be a conservative cost estimate, as it did not put a price […]
More than half of the large lakes and reservoirs on the planet have diminished since the early 1990s due to climate change and human diversion and consumption, an international team of researchers has found. The findings have implications for people who rely on their supply of freshwater for drinking, hydropower and agriculture. The researchers looked […]
The Big Apple is sinking under its own weight, posing a worsening flood risk to the city, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. Already faced with intensifying extreme weather and an increasing threat of flooding due to sea level rise, New York City is […]
Despite their iconic status and long association with humans, Asian elephants are one of the most endangered large mammals. Believed to number between 45,000 and 50,000 individuals worldwide, they are at risk throughout Asia due to human activities such as deforestation, mining, dam building and road construction, which have damaged numerous ecosystems.
Italy’s northern Emilia-Romagna has seen its worst flooding in a century as 23 rivers crested their banks, leaving 13 people dead and forcing thousands from their homes. Many people were still missing after almost every river between Rimini on the northeast coast and Bologna, 70 miles away, flooded, BBC News reported. As many as 300 […]