Environment

Water saver or environmental hazard? Questions are compounding about artificial turf as more homeowners ditch their grass for fake lawns. Contradicting city policies muddy the issue in the arid Southwest.

Policies that encourage density as a way to reduce carbon emissions won't be able to play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions in time to counteract global warming, according to a new report from the National Academy of Sciences.

Director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs Adolfo Carrion, Jr. visited Kansas City on Tuesday to visit the site of the city's new "Green Impact Zone". The inner-city Zone will be a laboratory for energy-saving techniques.

Water restrictions on farms in the state have atrophied jobs in the fertile Central Valley, giving communities some of the highest rates of unemployment in the state. As jobs dry up, the need for aid is surpassing what's there to give.

A new report from the National Research Council seeks to establish the scientific basis for the relationships among development patterns, VMT, and energy consumption. So what did they find?

Rapid urbanization and dense cities with inadequate infrastructure are being cited as leading causes in the spread of dengue fever throughout Southeast Asia and the rest of the world.

The failing world economy put many large eco-developments on hold, but many projects like the Amsterdam's 'smart city' and Germany's Eco City Hamburg-Harburg are on track and forging new ground in sustainability practices.

A new study from the Asian Development Bank predicts that 20 years from now, Asian cities will be responsible for more than half of the world's greenhouse gases.

A new study from the UK Royal Society has determined that geo-engineering techniques are technically feasible approaches to address high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting global warming.

As the new school year starts, Chicago Public Schools yellow buses will be upgrading to new technologies including GPS, mobile data terminals (MDT), and adding hybrid buses.

LEED-certified buildings may be constructed with little energy, but some are just as energy-intensive as non "green" buildings once they're in use. This disconnect is prompting the U.S. Green Building Council to change its rules.

The population is expected to climb to 9 billion within the next 50 years. As a result, crucial natural resources will dwindle. This article looks at four that will be much harder to come by in the future.

As wildfires rage in Southern California, some experts are calling for a revision of policies that encourage controlled burns to reduce fire risks.

A new HVAC system for a building in Minnesota that was expected to meet high environmental standards was going to come in at almost three times its originally estimated costs. So city officials are delaying.

This video from the BBC looks inside some of the 200 urban farms that provide vegetables for Havana and the rest of Cuba.

A Sacramento judge has ruled that the environmental review for California's high-speed rail has failed to fully account for right-of-way delays involving Union Pacific trains.

A Dutch hydrological engineer has developed a new way to measure the environmental impact of humans: the "water footprint".

A brewery in Ashland, Oregon decided that the best way to incentivize employees to commute differently was to buy them bikes. A 15-minute on-street parking space was removed and replaced with a large bicycle rack to accommodate the bicycles.

Architecture and biomimicry are joining forces. A new city being planned in a flood-prone region of India is using the concept of mimicking nature to build a city that better responds to its environmental conditions.