Climate Change
Sydney Facing Significant Risk From Climate Change
A new study warns that climate change will bring significant changes to weather patterns and coastlines, with serious planning implications for Sydney, Australia.
Legislation Edges California Closer to True Urban Planning
Recently approved legislation tying land use planning to greenhouse gas emissions is being sold as critically important by both detractors and supporters. But Bill Fulton argues that SB 375 provides only one step in an ongoing evolution.
Berkeley Unveils Climate Action Plan Based Around TOD
In Nov, 2006, the residents of Berkeley approved a measure requiring the city to reduce GHG emissions by 80% by the year 2050. The draft plan has been released, and unlike an earlier version, this one emphasizes transit oriented development as key.
Business Not As Usual
Out in the bar, the world as we know it was coming to an end. In the backroom, meanwhile, smart people were trying to figure out the future of suburbia. The bar was in the lobby of a classic desert resort in Arizona. On the TV, CNN was delivering headlines of imminent doom. It was the last days of September, and the foundations of American finance were cracking under the strains of default and distrust.
Climate Change Tackled by Cities and States
Before the fiscal crisis, there was the global climate crisis. After the fiscal crisis, we’ll still have the global climate crisis — for the rest of our lives.
Climate Protection Jeopardized By Financial Crisis & Recession
The worldwide credit crisis will affect the ability of the developed world to tackle climate change. Businesses in Europe and U.S. are asking for delays in meeting emission reductions mandates notwithstanding the drop in oil prices.
Report from the Congress For European Urbanism
Faith Cable reports on the CEU's 3rd annual conference, held in Oslo, Norway, which addressed cities and their ability to address climate change through urban design.
ARB Climate Change Plan Criticized By Both Sides
The CA Air Resources Board unveiled its final ‘scoping plan’ to meet the climate change targets set in the landmark 2006 law, AB 32. Business groups condemned it for its costs while land use planners criticized it for not doing more to curb sprawl.
Climate Change Actually Is A Matter of Individual Choice
A new study finds that 65% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. are under the direct or indirect control of individuals. However, many of those habits are difficult to change given land uses.
BP's Chief Scientist Advocates Higher Gas Prices
BP's chief scientist provides his insight into solving the energy and climate crises, including the affect of higher gas prices and separating transportation from the heat and power sectors when dealing with strategies to reduce carbon emissions.
Dangerous Pockets of Methane Gas Discovered
Scientists along Russia's northern coast are reporting that methane, a greenhouse gas twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide, is being released into the atmosphere at an alarming new rate.
Please Tax My Carbon
North American (United States and Canada) policy generally favors low energy prices, with low taxes, production subsidies and other types of energy industry support. As a result, North Americans are energy rich: an average worker can purchase more fuel per hour of labor than almost any other time or place. In response North Americans have developed energy intensive lifestyles and industrial practices, have failed to implement many energy conservation practices common in other parts of the world, and consume more energy per capita than most other times and places.
Climate Plan Shows California Can Be A Leader
It has been a long time since the State of California was a public policy innovator. But a draft plan for implementing a greenhouse gas reduction law places California right on the cutting edge.
Climate Change Changing Assumptions on Land Use, Energy
Critic John King reflects on how common assumptions of Bay Area residents about urban growth boundaries and protesting nuclear power are challenged by the growing problem of climate change and energy access.
Mike Davis Reflects on the Meaning of Dubai
Mike Davis wonders if the excesses of Dubai portend a rapidly-warming and deteriorating world of diverging urban fortunes, where a minority live in eco-friendly luxury, while most endure polluted squalor.
The Quest for Energy: The Input/Output Problem
In August of 2006, an unknown Irish company called Steorn took out a full-page ad in The Economist to announce that they had created a magnetic technology that produced more energy than it used- essentially, a perpetual motion machine, the Holy Grail of energy.
Bangla-Doomed?
Rising sea levels caused by global climate change are predicted to swallow the country of Bangladesh by the end of the century.
Will We All Become 'Envirogees'?
Climate change, desertification and resource wars are displacing millions of people, and threaten to turn us all into environmental refugees, warns Scott Thill.
Sweden Tops All Nations As Climate-Friendly
One country stands out in Europe in surpassing the greenhouse gas emission reductions required by the Kyoto Protocol - Sweden. While it used several environmental technologies to achieve those reductions, experts give credit to its carbon tax.
The Next Steps Toward A Sustainable Sacramento
The Sacramento region has become a national model for smart growth planning. But what, asks Bill Fulton, will it take to make the region sustainable for decades to come?
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
