Tag: ENVIRONMENT
German scientists say that the melting glaciers of Antarctica may threaten coastal cities like New York with higher sea rise than previously thought. A new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research forecasts that Antarctica’s ice melt could raise sea levels between one and 37 centimeters (15 inches), if carbon emissions remain the same. “This is […]
You may have heard of a plastic-bag island the size of Texas floating somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. It even has a name — the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” What you may not know is that scientists actually don’t know what happened to the majority of plastic we know is out there. Of the millions […]
This photograph of Manhattan was taken by the Expedition 39 crew’s remote sensing unit. In it, the tallest buildings in the Financial District and Midtown are casting noticeably long, dark shadows on the city. Referencing the Environmental Protection Agency’s report, NASA explains that concrete and asphalt absorb, store, and release heat, and how the “heat island effect” is reduced by the cooling effect of […]
As of last week, a radioactive stretch of Irving Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens is officially NYC’s third EPA Superfund site (the other two are the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek). Above, watch a short documentary from The New Yorker about how the area got that way (hint: it involves nuclear weaponry and waste dumped directly into sewers) and […]
The solar panel-laden behemoth in the rendering above is P.S. 62, a school set to open in Staten Island next year that will allegedly produce more energy than it consumes. How? Well, there are the solar panels, as well as a wind turbine, exercise equipment that generates energy, and geothermal wells for heating and cooling. […]
The above video from Mother Jones provides an unusual argument for legalizing cannabis: illegal grow operations can be very, very bad for the environment. The short clip follows Mourad Gabriel, a wildlife ecologist who works to battle the effects of weed-growing in national forests. Along the way, we see copious amounts of garbage strewn around, water diverted […]
Yevgeny Vitishko, geologist and outspoken critic of the Sochi Winter Olympics’ devastating impact on the region’s environment and biodiversity, is being jailed for three years in a penal colony. In 2012, the 40-year-old environmental activist spray-painted ‘The forest is for everybody” on a corrugated metal fence around an illegal construction zone inside Sochi’s national park. Behind […]
Here’s a strange proposal for dealing with the looming threat of more devastating floods in Lower Manhattan: stuff a bunch of shipping containers full of garbage, then line the island with them. It comes from designers Ishaan Kumar, Arianna Armelli, and David Sepulveda, finalists in the ONE Prize competition, which seeks to highlight big ideas in […]
The space-age station wagon above is Stella, the solar-powered car that just won a race across Australia. As a competitor in the World Solar Challenge, the car crossed the continent at an average speed of about 41 mph, and with a top speed of about 75. That may seem a little slow, but the Stella […]
When photographer David Maisel chooses industry-blemished landscapes to shoot aerially, he considers not only aesthetics — he is partial to the “bizarre or surreal”-looking — but the story behind the location and its relation to photography itself. “I’m teasing apart different aspects of what compromises photography,” Maisel tells Wired UK. “To print photos, we need paper, so I’ve […]
