Culture
Bundanoon: a new verb—and green movement—from Oz
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“Bundanoon” is a new green verb referencing an Australian town that prohibited bottled drinking water in 2009.
Culture
The retrofitting of suburbia
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“We tend to think that downtowns should be dynamic, and we expect that. But we seem to have an expectation that the suburbs should somehow remain frozen in whatever adolescent form they were first given birth to. It’s time to let them grow up.”
Democracy
Bhopal gas victims still searching for justice after 25 years
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Activists cite a double standard in the U.S. response to Gulf Oil Spill versus the U.S. response to Union Carbide’s Bhopal Disaster, which killed up up 23,000 people.
Environment
Niger Delta oil spills dwarf BP, Exxon Valdez catastrophes
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Thousands of spills across decades have ravaged the Niger Delta region.
Environment
Trashy hotel built from beach debris
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Rome is home to the Pantheon and the Colosseum, but last week the city added something entirely different—and trashier—to its architectural repertoire.
Environment
Alaska on fire while Lower 48 girds for summer wildfires
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Fairbanks is smoky. Anchorage is smoky. To be in Alaska this early June is to see skies of haze, mixed with the scent of burning forests.
Economy
Way up north, another kind of oil controversy
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Not many people have heard of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, nor the Athabaskan Tar Sands. Not these days, anyway, with the Deepwater Horizon disaster spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But in Fort Chipewyan, the ongoing effects of bitumen oil extraction continue as the top news of the day.
Economy
Urban planning in the Brazilian rainforest
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A vast experiment in urban planning is underway in Brazil’s urban jungle metropolis of Manaus. At the center of the urban expansion is the construction of a 2.2-mile bridge that is to connect the city to industrial cities and towns across the Rio Negro—the largest left tributary of the Amazon.
Economy
Yosemite’s Range of Light goes solar
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Yosemite National Park, the gemstone of John Muir’s “Range of Light” in California’s Sierra Nevada, has agreed to a $4.4 million solar panel installation at its El Portal entrance.
Featured
Study: A mother’s voice does wonders for girls
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During stressful times, girls might turn to ice cream and chocolates for comfort. But, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, something else can comfort them during times of stress: their mother’s voice.