A Surprising Historical Source of Sustainability

On the Northern side of Wales, the small town of Portmeirion rises from the hills beside the water into a quaint collection of brightly colored buildings each bearing a percentage of inherently sustainable components. Nearly every building in the coastal spot has been built with pieces of older buildings reclaimed and integrated for a... [read more]

City Lights and Urban Wildlife

City Lights Artificial lighting affects not only our ability to see the stars, but it affects a great many aspects of the ecology of wildlife. Light can impact wildlife directly by streetlights or lit buildings, or more indirectly with sky glow, the light from combined city lights. It can affect many difference facets in the lives of... [read more]

The revival of Main Streets

    The Project for Public Spaces has a great new web feature up highlighting some of their work in improving older commercial streets, with nice images (some of which you can see here).  The feature celebrates PPS’s new partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to provide hands-on assistance to... [read more]

Buy a Torpedo-Testing Facility

[Image: A former torpedo-testing facility, now a £4 million private home; courtesy of Knight Frank].This £4 million property located in the suburbs southwest of London "must be one of the most unique spaces to have come to the market in recent local history," estate agents Knight Frank justifiably claim. [Images: Former torpedo-testing... [read more]

Chief: Go Green

According to today’s Portsmouth Herald, in an article by Rich Beuchesne headlined “Chief: Go Green”, Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui, of the Surui tribe indigenous to the Amazon Rain Forest, is on a high tech quest to help stop climate change and global warming by protecting the rain forest.  “A green economy, we believe, can bring... [read more]

10 painless things you can do NOW for the environment…

<!--break--> With so much going on this week and over the holiday weekend, it has been difficult to post.  I have started to write a blog post on BP and the oil spill several times, but it always ends up with me shouting like a crazy person at an environmental nightmare.  Moreover, I have to find time to finish our urban... [read more]

EU offers special oil recovery equipment to support the US in combating the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico

<!--break--> On 27th of May in the late afternoon, the European Commission’s Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) received a request for assistance from the United States Coast Guard to provide specific types of oil recovery equipment. Within a few hours, the MIC was able to put together a consolidated European offer with... [read more]

Planning for adaptive post office reuse

<!--break--> Mixing public and private uses in St. Louis' Old Post Office. Flickr: Kodamakitty The author of the blog Connecticut River Yankee Out West has raised an intriguing question. Recognizing an art deco post office for sale in Eugene, Oregon, he notes: "... [read more]

Designing for the Full Range of Biodiversity

<!--break--> Kicking-off a two-day symposium on “Designing Wildlife Habitats” at Dumbarton Oaks, John Beardsley, Director of Garden and Landscape Studies and convenor of the symposium, said landscape architecture has always had an “art camp” and an “ecology camp.” There are a few like “Frederick Law Olmstead, and, now... [read more]

Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America

<!--break--> Concern over climate change has led the U.S. to consider a cap-and-trade system to regulate emissions. Here we illustrate the land-use impact to U.S. habitat types of new energy development resulting from different U.S. energy policies. We estimated the total new land area needed by 2030 to produce energy, under current... [read more]

What will become of Pass Christian? The impact of the oil spill on community

<!--break-->       “You’ve probably had your last really good Pass Christian oyster for a while,” Captain Louis Skrmetta of Ship Island Excursions told the (South Mississippi) SunHerald.  “We’re looking at financial ruin from this. We’ve pretty much realized that it is over for us for this summer, maybe even next... [read more]

Pricing Nature

<!--break--> This week, as part of the Radio 4 series ‘Costing the Earth’, presenter Tom Heap interviewed various people who are interested in the idea of putting a price on nature. Ian Bateman from the National Ecosystem Assessment explained how this project aims to use scientific assessment to put monetary value on the natural... [read more]