Environment

Roof gardens, porous pavement: Kansas City plans green sewer system

By Karen Dillon and Lynn Horsley | The Kansas City Star

Kansas City and federal officials are collaborating to turn the sewer project looming in the city's future into a showcase for ways to make a sewer system environmentally friendly.

Instead of $2.3 billion of concrete, they're talking about using such things as pocket wetlands, vegetative median strips, rooftop gardens and porous pavement.

All that could turn Kansas City into the kind of national role model it hasn't been since the boulevard and parks systems were designed at the turn of the 20th century, said John Franklin, assistant city manager. » read more

Posted on Fri, July 18, 2008

Family tries for a month to cut water, energy, fuel by half

By Cynthia Sewell | Idaho Statesman

Pete Skenandore has a new perspective on grocery shopping.

Before, he'd push a cart full of groceries from the store to the car and drive home with his air-conditioner blasting. Now he's loading them into a cart attached to a bicycle.

The new lifestyle began July 11, when the Skenandores embarked on a monthlong quest to reduce their fuel, energy and water use by half. » read more

Posted on Fri, July 18, 2008

Scientists in Arctic monitor North America's 'air conditioner'

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg | Sacramento Bee

Beyond the Arctic Circle, teams of scientists measure widening slumps as ice melts beneath the tundra. They scuff through tussocks blackened by unexpected fires, and search for fish in drought-depleted streams.

The researchers are taking the pulse of a warming Earth in a landscape supremely adapted to cold, one that may be an early-warning zone for lands far south.

"It's not just an Alaska thing," said Syndonia "Donie" Bret-Harte, associate science director at Toolik Field Station. "What goes on here has a potential to influence the rest of the Lower 48." » read more

Posted on Fri, July 18, 2008