Sustainable Futures
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Things to do, consider and act on to create a sustainable future for people and planet
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Green Car Congress: Shanghai to spend $1.63B over next 3 years to target air pollution, especially PM2.5

The city of Shanghai, China will spend 10.3 billion yuan (US$1.63 billion) on 53 projects targeting air pollution, especially for PM2.5 control, over the next three years. The city will begin publicly reporting PM2.5 in June.

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Invention of the Day: Shoes That Generate Power From Your Steps

Invention of the Day: Shoes That Generate Power From Your Steps | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Soon there will be a windmill for your exhale, too.
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Djenne: An Evolving Cultural Landscape

Djenne: An Evolving Cultural Landscape | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Who manages a cultural landscape that has global importance? Does the United Nations have final say or the local community? It turns out a complex web of interests shape these evolving cultural lan...
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Rooftop Revolution

Rooftop Revolution | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Solar power's detractors have been proclaiming that the collapse of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra proves solar is just a hippie pipe dream.
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Smart Power Opens Minds, Opens Markets | Sustainable Business Forum

Smart Power Opens Minds, Opens Markets | Sustainable Business Forum | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
When companies combine their hard and soft power in "smart power" partnerships with government agencies and non-governmental organizations, everyone benefits.
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Joshua Harris' 3D Clothing Printer Recycles Old Garments to Create New Apparel

Joshua Harris' 3D Clothing Printer Recycles Old Garments to Create New Apparel | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it

The Clothing Printer is conceived as a wall-mounted personal appliance that could be connected electronically to retailers. Fashion designers and apparel companies could sell digital designs to be instantly printed at home using material cartridges. T-shirt worn out? Tired of last week’s fashion? No problem, just feed it back into the Clothing Printer, where the old garment gets broken down into thread for reuse.

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Microgrids: A Utility’s Best Friend or Worst Enemy?

Microgrids: A Utility’s Best Friend or Worst Enemy? | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
A recent data roundup by renewable energy industry analyst Paul Gipe shows that variable renewables are meeting much larger percentages of grid power than previously thought possible in some European countries.
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Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space: Recycling, waste streams, plastic bags, and bottle bills

Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space: Recycling, waste streams, plastic bags, and bottle bills | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it

Bag taxes/charges as a way to encourage environmentally sound practices.  While DC isn't generally a leader in innovative government initiatives, there are three exceptions, and one concerns waste--the passage a couple years ago of a bill requiring a charge of 5 cents for each plastic bag given to a customer for food sales.  This has resulted in a serious reduction in the use of plastic bags and a reduction in litter as well.

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New round of arts grants help revitalize and animate city neighborhoods | Kaid Benfield's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

New round of arts grants help revitalize and animate city neighborhoods | Kaid Benfield's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
  It’s no secret, unfortunately, that many American downtowns and neighborhoods were disinvested, some severely, over the past several decades.  The consequences were devastating, as homes and storefronts were abandoned and once-thriving...
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Green Landscape Economy » Green Landscape Economy

Green Landscape Economy » Green Landscape Economy | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
landscape architecture &sustainability's curator insight, May 17, 4:25 PM

Un nuovo modello di sviluppo verso la Green Landscape Economy

Un nuovo approccio alla sostenibilità, nella quale il paesaggio, elemento di indubbia identità soprattutto in Italia, possa giocare un ruolo di primaria importanza.
Partendo dal presupposto che ogni nuovo progetto di trasformazione del territorio possa diventare un tassello di recupero ambientale, cercando di trarre il maggior vantaggio possibile dall’esistente, mettendo a sistema il contorno. Il paesaggio, perduta la sua connotazione ornamentale – passiva che una logica compensativa gli attribuiva, diventa un elemento centrale nelle nuove politiche di sviluppo, alla ricerca di un rinnovato rapporto con il nostro territorio.

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Nanoscale artificial leaf can extract hydrogen from water with just sunlight

Nanoscale artificial leaf can extract hydrogen from water with just sunlight | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has shown what they call the "first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis".
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10 of the top U.S. cities for nature lovers

10 of the top U.S. cities for nature lovers | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
An analysis of the nation's largest metro areas reveals some of the top urban destinations for people who love the outdoors.
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How to Save Water-Starved Cities

How to Save Water-Starved Cities | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
The key, according to a new report, is forming partnerships with farmers.
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Deep Green Jobs

Deep Green Jobs | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
America's green jobs movement parades as many green hues as our national parks, ranging from deep green work to pale green employment.
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How to Build a Rocket Stove Mass Water Heater

How to Build a Rocket Stove Mass Water Heater | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
The home of permaculture news and information - collaborating to spread permaculture design systems internationally.
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For Africa’s Solar Sisters, Off-Grid Electricity Is Power

For Africa’s Solar Sisters, Off-Grid Electricity Is Power | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
U.S. businesswoman Katherine Lucey is working with a network of women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa to sell inexpensive, household solar energy systems.
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Generation MDGs: How Youth are Pushing to Reach the MDGs and Shaping the Post-2015 Framework

Generation MDGs: How Youth are Pushing to Reach the MDGs and Shaping the Post-2015 Framework | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Lauren Greubel and Jenny Perlman Robinson highlight the importance of the youth perspective in crafting the post-2015 development framework and the efforts being made to ensure their voice is heard.
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Unexpected Health Insurance Rate Shock-California Obamacare Insurance Exchange Announces Premium Rates

Unexpected Health Insurance Rate Shock-California Obamacare Insurance Exchange Announces Premium Rates | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
English: Barack Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act at the White House (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Every now and again, a political pundit is required to stand up and admit to the world that he or she got it wrong.
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Technology and the Intelligence of Nature

Technology and the Intelligence of Nature | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Charles Eisenstein shares his concerns about how pervasive the 'technology will fix it' mentality has become, and proposes an entirely different approach to healing our current ecological and social crises.

Via Anne Caspari
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We plant trees, but why?

We plant trees, but why? | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
An interview with Joseph Redwood-Martinez about the documentary 'One day, everything will be free' which explores a reforestation initiative in Haiti, namely Sadhana Forest.
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A Dutch Approach to Flood and Drought Management Takes Root in St. Louis – Next City

A Dutch Approach to Flood and Drought Management Takes Root in St. Louis – Next City | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Like many Midwest cities, St. Louis faces a future where both extreme flooding and drought are more common as a result of climate change.
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First fully integrated artificial photosynthesis nanosystem | KurzweilAI

First fully integrated artificial photosynthesis nanosystem | KurzweilAI | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Arrays of tree-like nanowires consisting of Si trunks and TiO2 branches facilitate solar water-splitting in a fully integrated artificial photosynthesis system

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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists have developed the first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis,  in which solar energy is directly converted into chemical fuels.

“Similar to the chloroplasts in green plants that carry out photosynthesis, our artificial photosynthetic system is composed of two semiconductor light absorbers, an interfacial layer for charge transport, and spatially separated co-catalysts,” says Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, who led this research.

“To facilitate solar water- splitting in our system, we synthesized tree-like nanowire  heterostructures, consisting of silicon trunks and titanium oxide branches. Visually, arrays of these nanostructures very much resemble an artificial forest.

“In natural photosynthesis, the energy of absorbed sunlight produces energized charge-carriers that execute chemical reactions in separate regions of the chloroplast,” Yang says. “We’ve integrated our nanowire nanoscale heterostructure into a functional system that mimics the integration in chloroplasts and provides a conceptual blueprint for better solar-to-fuel conversion efficiencies in the future.”


Via Wildcat2030
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We're Seeing Green

We're Seeing Green | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
In case you missed the memo, climate change is happening. Luckily those of us who wish to wise up and cut down on our energy consumption can do so in style.
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Utilities vs. rooftop solar: What the fight is about

Utilities vs. rooftop solar: What the fight is about | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Utilities are fighting with solar advocates over an obscure but important policy called "net metering." Here's what's at stake, and why it matters.
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Why We Should Build Smart Highways

Why We Should Build Smart Highways | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
High-speed rail is still just a dream in America. But why then aren't smart roads a reality?

 

It is possible to imagine a world in which smart pavement, smart cars, and embedded monitoring and controls would turn highways from gulches that pollute a wide swath of land around them with both particles and noise would become more like rivers.

Read more at the article link...


Via Lauren Moss
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The States That Use the Most Green Energy

The States That Use the Most Green Energy | Sustainable Futures | Scoop.it
Texas leads the nation in wind power; in Washington, hydroelectric dams provide 60 percent of the state’s energy.
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