Sat.Sep 14, 2019 - Fri.Sep 20, 2019

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Why California is fighting fire with fire

Grist

Slim pine trunks stacked in a mound loomed over my head, curving around me in a partial circle like a dam built by Brontosaurus-sized beavers. I’d followed a long unmarked dirt road earlier this year to see it: One of 48 wood piles in a 12 square-mile section of the Tahoe National Forest outside the town of Truckee in northern California. You can find similar scenes across the western United States, anywhere work crews are clearing brush and small trees from forests.

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Why Amazon's plan to buy 100,000 EVs is huge and hard

GreenBiz

It's a game changer, but it won't be easy.

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Innovative orange juicer 3D prints bioplastic cups out of leftover orange peels

Inhabitat - Innovation

Related: + Via

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What if the Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn’t the ocean’s biggest plastic problem?

Grist

This story was originally published by WIRED and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Humans unleash mountains of plastic into the sea each year, and that rate is only accelerating as plastic production grows around the world. The confounding bit is that scientists know little about where all that plastic is ending up — in gyres like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, yes, but that’s just a fraction of the debris released into the ocean each year.

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Electrofuels Are the Future: The Driving Force to Decarbonizing Heavy Transport

Speaker: Ayesha Choudhury - Senior Vice President, Head of Capital Markets at Infinium

With the first wave of the energy transition, renewable energy sources (such as solar and wind) have begun replacing coal power generation. However, some sectors are lagging behind and struggling to decarbonize more than others, including large-scale transportation like commercial aviation, shipping, and rail transit. Electrofuels (aka eFuels) are the next generation of solutions to help the hardest-to-abate sectors pivot from their reliance on fossil fuels.

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Fairphone 3, a more ethical, reliable and sustainable phone, is released

Treehugger - Technology

Too bad we can't buy it in North America.

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The Shift To Solar, Wind, & Electric Vehicles Is Too Monumental To Overstate

CleanTechnica

Covering solar power, wind power, and electric vehicles obsessively for ~10 years, I have run across some fascinating observations regarding these technologies and the transitions we are going through — and then I've subsequently forgotten many of them. This article is centered around one of the coolest observations I've run across, which slipped my mind for a while but just came back to the forefront this week.

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Attacks on Greta Thunberg Are About More Than Anti-Environmentalism

DeSmogBlog

Read time: 6 mins This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story. . “ Freak yachting accidents do happen…”. That was how British businessman, Trump ally, and Brexit bankroller Arron Banks responded to the news that Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teen who inspired the school climate strikes movement, was sailing to America to attend the UN Climate Action Summit.

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Fab City, the global circular economy movement centered around local makers

GreenBiz

The organizers are striving to build a platform where virtually anyone can share ideas and best practices about urban design, workforce development, manufacturing, food production and more.

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Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant Shuts Down After 40 Years

Jim Conca

Three Mile Island Nuclear Station shut down after generating over 240 billion kWhs over 40 years because the state refused to provide a penny/kWh subsidy, less than half of what renewables get in subsidies, even though renewables generate a fraction of the low-C electricity that nuclear does.

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Ace Hardware boosts efforts to phase out neonicotinoid pesticides

Inhabitat - Innovation

The world’s largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative, Ace Hardware, is becoming more “bee-friendly” by phasing out inventory products associated with neonicotinoid pesticides.

Retail 279
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AR/VR Simulations for Sustainable, Regenerative, Circular Cities

Speaker: Nik Gowing, Brenda Laurel, Sheridan Tatsuno, Archie Kasnet, and Bruce Armstrong Taylor

With 191 country signatories to the Paris Climate Agreement now hard at work in the race to zero carbon by 2050, much of the heavy lifting in ecosystem sustainability falls on the shoulders of the world's densely populated urban centers. This conversation considers how today's AI-enabled simulation media, such as AR/VR, can be effectively applied to accelerate learning, understanding, training, and solutions-modeling to sustainability planning and design.

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Global Electric Bus Adoption to Triple by 2025

GreenTechMedia

Fueled by public policy and declining battery costs, global electric bus adoption is set to triple by 2025. The Chinese market — the most promising in this sector — will surpass the 1 million e-bus mark by 2023 and reach 1.3 million by 2025, according to a new report on the e-bus landscape from Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. China dominates the heavy-duty electric vehicle (EV) segment, accounting for 98 percent of the global e-bus market through 2018.

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Could planting 1 trillion trees counteract climate change?

GreenBiz

The U.N. suggests that adding 2.5 billion acres of forest to the world could limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. But some researchers aren't so sure.

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Time to get things moving?

Envirotec Magazine

The GasMix system is ground-mounted and fitted to the outside of an AD tank. The anaerobic digestion of sludge for energy generation is a process whose efficiency depends to a great extent on the degree to which the solids in question can be thoroughly mixed. All kinds of tank configurations and mixing approaches are in use, but these vary across a spectrum of sophistication and efficiency.

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Spectacular rammed-earth dome home is tucked deep into a Costa Rican jungle

Inhabitat - Innovation

Located in the idyllic area of Diamante Valley, the House Without Shoes is an incredible rammed-earth complex made up of three interconnected domes, which are joined by an open-air deck that looks out over the stunning valley and ocean views.

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How Digital Transformation will Bend the Curve of the Linear Economy Toward the Circular

Speaker: Bruce Armstrong Taylor, Co-Founder & Managing Director of SmartNations Foundation, Jimmy Jia, Venture Partner at Pi Labs, Fabienne Durand, Senior Advisor to the SmartNations Foundation, & Roger Strukhoff, Executive Director of the Tau Institute

The Climate 4.0 Economy. Climate change is here. We see it in many ways already. Weather catastrophes: Texas freezing over, the wildfires of California, the increasingly unpredictable violence and frequency of hurricanes, the rapid melting and disappearance of polar ice caps. Much more evidence all around us. What can we do in our corporate organizations, in our homes and communities, to change the current course?

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Buying Rooftop Solar Is Complicated, Even for an Expert

GreenTechMedia

I just had a solar-plus-storage system installed at my new home in Tempe, Arizona. It was surprisingly complicated, and I research distributed solar for a living. Don’t get me wrong — I love our new system and take immense pride in all the carbon-free energy it will produce for us and the grid. But as my husband and I read through multiple project proposals, we were surprised by the lack of information that installers could give us about the value of a solar-plus-storage project.

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Mission: Remove a trillion tons of carbon from the atmosphere

GreenBiz

The Terraton Initiative sets its sights on the "most actionable, immediate, and affordable thing we can do to impact climate change.".

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RTD Logistics: Committed to Sustainable Business Practices

Green Business Bureau

RTD Logistics has joined the Green Business Bureau (GBB) to underscore its commitment to operating sustainably, to enact the GBB sustainability framework and to garner further tools and knowledge in its green efforts. The firm’s initial goals focus on educating staff and management and generating solid sustainability goals. The RTD Logistics team has created a green plan for the company’s Boston, MA headquarters that centers upon reducing waste and improving supply management.

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This year's ozone hole could be the smallest it has been in 30 years

Inhabitat - Innovation

For decades, scientists have closely observed the ozone layer, which protects Earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This year, just in time for World Ozone Day, the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) announced the state of the ozone hole — its size is the smallest it has been in the past 30 years.

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GE Wins First Big Orders for 12MW Offshore Wind Turbine

GreenTechMedia

The first big orders for GE’s groundbreaking 12-megawatt Haliade-X offshore wind turbine have come from the industrial giant's home country, with developer Orsted planning to deploy more than 1,200 megawatts of the GE machines in U.S. waters between 2022 and 2024. GE on Thursday announced it has secured “preferred turbine supplier” status for Orsted’s 120-megawatt Skipjack and 1,100-megawatt Ocean Wind projects, scheduled for completion off Maryland and New Jersey in

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Google’s jaw-dropping renewable procurement proclamation

GreenBiz

Its new 1.6-gigawatt solar and wind portfolio represents almost as much capacity as all of last year's corporate deals, combined.

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Sustainability Guide for Retail: Plastic Bag Alternatives

Green Business Bureau

Retailers need to make the switch from plastic shopping bags to eco-friendly alternatives. Plastic bags are not biodegradable and can last over a 1000 years. They can blow away from landfills, trash piles and garbage trucks to pollute the environment and become a serious danger to wildlife since many animals end up swallowing or choking on the plastic.

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Yosemite camping site unveils series of ADA-compliant tiny cabins

Inhabitat - Innovation

:os Angeles-based firm, M-Rad have unveiled a Related: + M-Rad Via Dezeen M-Rad cabins, universal design, tiny cabin, tiny cabin design, cabin living, cabin architecture, movable cabin, mobile cabins, X-Suite dwelling, universal design,

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New York City Climate Strike in Photos

DeSmogBlog

Read time: 3 mins Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, inspired millions of students worldwide to take park in climate strikes on Friday, Sept. 20 to demand politicians take urgent steps to stop climate change. An estimated 250,000 strikers marched in New York City from Foley Square to Battery Park. . The global climate strikes took place before the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City.

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Youth are calling for immediate climate action, and majority of Americans agree

GreenBiz

Major CBS News poll released as part of Covering Climate Now, a collaboration of more than 250 news outlets around the world to strengthen coverage of the climate story.

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Former Pittsburgh steel mill is being redeveloped to support solar

Solar Power World

Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Southwestern Pennsylvania (RIDC) has contracted with Scalo Solar Solutions to install what is thought to be one of the largest solar arrays in Western Pennsylvania on the roof of RIDC’s Mill 19 development. Installation begins this week. The array, which will include more than 110,000 sq. ft of solar panels… The post Former Pittsburgh steel mill is being redeveloped to support solar appeared first on Solar Power World.

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Robotic fish offer a solution to controlling invasive species

Inhabitat - Innovation

Invasive species have become a growing environmental challenge, causing serious harm to ecosystems. An interdisciplinary team from New York University (NYU) and the University of Western Australia are utilizing robotic fish to curb the damaging effects of invasive species by scaring the invaders enough so that they reproduce less.

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Investments in sustainable aquaculture point to a greener ‘blue economy’

Impact Alpha

ImpactAlpha, Sept. 16 – Aquaculture has emerged as a vital alternative to wild-caught fish, a major source of the world’s protein, as ocean fisheries are strained by overfishing and climate change. Investors are increasingly interested in the sector, as the range of ocean challenges – plastic pollution, coral bleaching, acidification, rising water temperatures, and overfishing The post Investments in sustainable aquaculture point to a greener ‘blue economy’ appeared first on ImpactAl

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How employee activists inspired Amazon's Climate Pledge

GreenBiz

Both Amazon employees and outsiders say it's a welcome signal, but plan to continue to push the company on its climate goals.

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Amazon orders 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian

Charged

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has announced a far-reaching plan to reduce his company’s environmental footprint. Amazon’s “Climate Pledge” calls for the retail behemoth to zero out its carbon emissions by 2030. Bezos also challenged other companies to join Amazon in meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement 10 years ahead of schedule. As part of the plan, Amazon has agreed to buy 100,000 electric delivery vans from EV startup Rivian.

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Algae Lamps are a work of art and natural shade in one

Inhabitat - Innovation

Algae is one of the newest materials to hit the market as a multi-purpose fiber. While it has been hauled out of the ocean, cultivated, dried, and processed into myriad products, it typically loses some of its allure in the process. So one designer spent years figuring out a way to use algae so that it maintains its natural essence, even when molded into a final product.

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Caribbean Islands Are The Biggest Plastic Polluters Per Capita In The World

Forbes Green Tech

Of the top thirty global polluters per capita, ten are from the Caribbean region and every year, these ten island nations generate more plastic debris than the weight of 20,000 space shuttles.

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China is positioned to lead on climate change as the US rolls back its policies

GreenBiz

Reducing China’s reliance on coal energy is an enormous long-term shift. But it looks like that might change.

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The Week in impact investing: Climate action

Impact Alpha

TGIF, Agents of Impact! Thanks to everyone who made it out last night to our Agents of Impact event in Manhattan. Watch this space next week for more Climate Week coverage. Per usual, please send through any tips, leads or news. Have a relaxing and refreshing weekend. – The ImpactAlpha team The Week’s Agents of Impact Climate The post The Week in impact investing: Climate action appeared first on ImpactAlpha.

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An abandoned market becomes a light-filled homeless shelter in London

Inhabitat - Innovation

We love it when old buildings can be put to good use, but it especially warms our hearts when communities use adaptive reuse to convert empty spaces into spaces specially designed to help those in need.

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