Global News Archives - Pagina 24 di 65

Home » Global News

Climate Tools Seek to Bend Nature’s Path

The solution to global warming, Olaf Schuiling says, lies beneath our feet. For Dr. Schuiling, a retired geochemist, climate salvation would come in the form of olivine, a green-tinted mineral found in abundance around the world. When exposed to the elements, it slowly takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Olivine has been doing this naturally for billions of years, but Dr. Schuiling wants to speed up the process by spreading it on fields and beaches and using it for dikes, pathways, even sandboxes.

Un mondo di smart city: stimati investimenti per 174 miliardi di dollari nel 2023

Maggiore efficienza e città “più intelligenti”. Vanno in questa direzione centinaia di progetti “smart” che stanno prendendo vita. Da sola Milano finora ne ha promossi 70, per un valore complessivo di oltre 200 milioni di euro di investimenti. Questo le ha permesso in soli tre anni di scalare la classifica dell’indice ICityrate (che mette a confronto 106 capoluoghi di provincia in base a 70 indicatori), passando dal 5° al primo posto nel 2014. Più in generale, il mercato mondiale delle tecnologie intelligenti potrebbe triplicare il proprio valore nei prossimi nove anni.

IPCC report: six graphs that show how we’re changing the world’s climate

On Sunday the world’s top climate scientists are expected to reiterate their warning that humanity’s influence on the climate is unequivocal, with wide-ranging impacts across the planet, from rising seas to melting ice. The UN’s climate science panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is currently meeting in Copenhagen to thrash out the final wording of its so-called ‘synthesis’ report, the most comprehensive account of the state on climate science in seven years.

Fracking: In the path of the ‘shale gale’

The oil company had hoped that by taking only written questions from the residents, it could keep a lid on their emotions. But it was only seconds after the chief executive of Great Western Oil & Gas began the Q&A with the people of Windsor, Colorado, that the lid blew off. Before Rich Frommer could read out the first submission, Connie Reifschneider rose from her fold-up chair to interrupt him. “I’m shaking because I’m angry,” she said.

Mexico’s State-Owned Oil Giant, Pemex, Is in Uncharted Waters

The computer screens lining the bubblelike control room on this giant floating platform monitor pressure levels in a narrow shaft cut through bedrock to a reservoir of valuable natural gas three miles below sea level. For six months, an international team hired by a contractor for Petróleos Mexicanos, Mexico’s state-owned oil monopoly, has been drilling an exploratory well here. Now, the work is nearly done. Drill pipes are stacked like sentries. An underwater robot has been pulled back up from the deep seafloor. A wireline sensor is gathering data to determine how much oil and gas lie below.

Green architecture: how low can a low-carbon building go?

When is a green building a green building? Does it need to bristle with wind turbines and photovoltaic tiles, and sprout Sedum plants from every available plane? In a world packed with “greenwash”, outlandish claims and confusing information, there are two very different approaches to assessing the criteria of what constitutes a low-carbon building.The BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology) system has been in place since 1990, and is used in more than 60 countries. The assessment rates buildings from “pass” to “excellent”, based on criteria including the use of renewable technology, super-efficient insulation and passive design features.