Miscellaneous
Poo-bus gives biomethane a good name in Bristol
What could be more renewable, local and green than biogas made from sewage? The new Bio-Bus that rides through Bristol successfully showcases the feasibility of harnessing energy from waste. The city's vision is to wean the fleet off fossil fuels, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and Read More...
Liberland now open for business as the latest state experiment
As separatist tendencies are brewing in the troubled European Union, a libertarian Euro-skeptic Czeck politician, his girlfriend and a third like-minded friend have planted a flag in Liberland, an empty 2.7- square-mile Serbo-Croatian no man’s land by the side of the Danube. The world’s newest Read More...
Girls in Kabul learn self-confidence on their skateboards
In a country where women are not allowed to drive bicycles, skateboarding has become the favorite sport of many fearless girls and young women. 45% of the students of Skateistan, the education non-profit created by Australian skateboarder Oliver Percovich in 2007, are girls. London-based Read More...
How sustainability-minded accounting can shift government decisions
Sustainability typically doesn’t show up as a neat row of dollar numbers to be added to a cost-benefit spreadsheet. As a result, decision-makers routinely ignore it. That may be about to change if the NPV+ method already applied by Martin O'Malley, a potential Democratic presidential candidate Read More...
What can we learn from the world’s happiest countries?
The third World Happiness Report was released yesterday by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations. New Zealand is the only newcomer in the top 10 happiest countries, joining Canada and Australia as the only non-European contestants in this lucky cluster. What they Read More...
Audi captures CO2 from the air to produce green diesel
While renewables are beginning to make a dent into the carbon intensity of the power sector thanks to the plummeting price of technology, the automobile industry has been exploring green fuels so as to lower its dependency on fossil fuels. Audi has been pushing the envelope, exploring ways to Read More...
Cyclists in NYC have tripled over the past 10 years
Is the Big Apple on its way to becoming even more delicious, as in more livable and less polluted? The latest numbers released by the NYC Department of Transportation tells a most encouraging story: cyclists are taking over the streets (relatively speaking.) Already, expectations are high that the Read More...
Seed bank devoted to cultivated biodiversity in dry areas saved from destruction in Syria
Wars destroy lives, communities, cultural artifacts, historical heritage and biodiversity. For the second time in less than a century, individuals committed to preserving cultivated biodiversity have displayed heroic courage to save a seed bank from the ravages of war. The International Center Read More...
Cuba’s artists soon to get their place in the sun
Cuba has been teeming with artists since its cash-starved government encouraged art in the late 1980s as a way to bring in foreign currency. The 53-year-long US trade embargo on Cuba has done little to promote strong relationships between the American and the Cuban art communities and markets. And Read More...
Vienna's boutique hotel offers view over refugees’ lives
The plight of thousands of people drowning in the Mediterranean in a desperate attempt to find asylum in Europe is currently on everybody’s mind. While the European Union is struggling to find the delicate balance between providing humanitarian aid to populations fleeing hell while not appearing Read More...