Researchers at MIT have just announced that you can sort of have it all: they’ve developed roof tiles that change color depending on the temperature. Hot summer day? The tiles turn white. Cold, drizzly autumn day? Black, which absorbs as much as sun, they say, as the white reflects.
Category Archives: Environment Blog
Taking Your Environmental Aspirations to Work
“Global revenues from climate-related businesses such as energy efficiency rose by 75 percent in 2008 to $530 billion and could exceed $2 trillion by 2020, HSBC Global Research estimated on Friday.”
A Different Kind of Tour
Several dozen Louisvillians boarded a bus this morning at St. William Church in West Louisville. They set off to view and learn about the kinds of sites you wouldn’t want on a sight-seeing tour: a garbage dump, a chemical factory, a sewage treatment plant. But these were no unusual tourists. These were participants in Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light’s Environmental Health and Justice Tour.
Climate Change Could Cost Us
Developing and developed nations could lose up to 12 percent of their GDP because of climate change. That’s the finding of a new report from consultancy McKinsey and Co., in cooperation with the European Union, nonprofit groups, and businesses. In other climate change news…Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar signed an order today establishing a department-wide approach to coordinating responses to climate change.
No More Migration?
Some bird species once commonly found in Kentucky and surrounding states are moving farther north each year, according to the Audubon Society. Take the Red-breasted Merganser, for example. This fish-eating duck, the society says, has moved its range northward over the past 40 years more than 300 miles. They’re apparently more abundant in Minnesota now than they once were here. The reason? Climate change.
Does Coal Have Something to Hide?
The latest in a series of high profile protests of mountaintop removal coal mining ended with the removal and arrest of 12 activists, a filmmaker, and a documentary photographer from a Massey Energy site in West Virginia. On Thursday, they went before a judge in Boone County. I’ve been alerted by a colleague of the filmmaker that during the arrest, Massey Energy company employees confiscated the photographers’ equipment.
Big Climate Meetings Before End of '09
This week, they’re meeting in Geneva, Switzerland for the World Climate Conference-3 (WCC-3). The administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jane Lubchenko, heads the U.S. delegation. At the conference, she and the other delegates will be learning more about how best to share climate information with those who need it to make decisions.
Madoff in "Green" Prison
Bernie Madoff’s investment strategy was far from sustainable. But his prison is!
That’s right. Madoff’s clink is the nation’s first LEED-certified prison.
EPA to Update Air Quality Standards
The EPA has announced it will revise standards for nitrogen oxides, or NO2, by early 2010. NO2 is a harmful-to-your-health gaseous emission from burning fossil fuels, and the major sources are vehicles and coal-fired power plants.
PR Push for Hormones & Grain for Cattle
The Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues has launched a public relations campaign to boost the image of conventional meat production versus grass-fed and organically produced beef.