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Over the course of the last century, the exponential expansion of industry has seen the production of materials like steel, aluminum, cement and plastics skyrocket. It is estimated that the amount of these so-called energy-intensive materials produced every single year comes to 10 times the total weight of every living person on Earth, and accounts for a fifth of the world's carbon emissions. More »
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Ten years ago today, Chicago developer J. Paul Beitler — who once aspired to build the world's tallest building — told The Chicago Tribune that governments would cease to approve plans for skyscrapers, for fear that they would become "magnets for future terrorism." More »
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When you think of big urban parks, which ones typically come to mind? NYC's Central Park? Vancouver's Stanley Park? Well Mexico City's El Parque Ecologico Lago de Texcoco (Texcoco Lake Ecological Park) makes these classic examples of urban naturalization look like scant patches of grass. More »
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You're looking at a "biomanufactured brick," the creation of American architecture professor Ginger Krieg Dosier. The brick, which is made by mixing sand with a non-toxic bacteria, requires no heat for the hardening process, and could bring this staple of basic architecture to areas of the world lacking modern infrastructure, all while dramatically reducing CO2 emissions worldwide. More »
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What if, instead of using energy once we could recycle it? A new way of generating electricity from truck traffic at the Port of Oakland in California is doing just that, a promising step toward the coming electricity cycle. Nature is defined by cycles — the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and so on. Humans have messed both of those up severely of course, but water still evaporates, turns to rain, and then empties into the ocean or gets sucked up in plants, where it repeats the process. The Port of Oakland experiment might help save civilization by creating an electricity cycle, harvesting electricity from cars, trucks even people (like the AI in The Matrix, except without the human enslavement). More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=385745&view=rss&microfeed=true Mexico City will achieve water self-sufficiency by the year 2020, say the region's local government officials. This city of 20 million people must stop relying on outside sources of water if it's to survive. [TreeHugger] More »
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