“I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss …” ~ Elton John, Your Song When I’ve been in downtown areas, particularly in the summer, I try to walk on the side of the street in the shade, since the temperature on the sunny side rises considerably. On the other hand, in the […]
Category Archives: heat
“Blue spaces are outdoor environments, either natural or manmade, that feature water prominently and are easily accessible to people. They can be anything from an ocean coastline, river, or lake, to a town pond, a harbor, or even a fountain. They are the aquatic equivalent of green spaces, a subset of the broader concept of […]
Hello wall, (hello, hello)How’d things go for you today? ~ Hello Walls, Faron Young and Willie Nelson Humans seem to need walls. We build them to separate things and ourselves. We put up walls to keep our things inside and to keep other things out. We put up walls to establish ownership and create boundaries. […]
This is how it typically goes with solar arrays: We build them on open space rather than in developed areas. That is, they overwhelmingly occupy croplands, arid lands, and grasslands, not rooftops or parking lots. ~ Richard Conniff I live in the shadow of Lookout Mountain, part of Colorado’s Front Range, and from the top […]
Carbon dioxide, that fizzy stuff in our ‘carbonated’ beverages, is our climate’s enemy. Not the beverages, but the amount of CO2 that we have been emitting since the start of the industrial age. While many people try to ignore the science of human-induced climate change, others are trying to figure out what to do about […]
My small town on the outer edge of the Denver metro area is beginning to experience a push for more housing — particularly for affordable housing. This is driving developers to construct dense multi-family apartments and condos on vacant lots and on clusters of what would have been single-family home lots. There is much concern […]
“It is 2050. Beyond the emissions reductions registered in 2015, no further efforts were made to control emissions. We are heading for a world that will be more than 3 degrees warmer by 2100. The first thing that hits you is the air.” ~ Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac The Earth is getting […]
“Few serious scientists doubt that climate change is happening, or that it is man-made. But the fact remains that many still have a hard time grasping global warming, partly as a convenient way of ignoring the destructive impact it is predicted to have. “ ~ Frank Jacobs “But for simpletons like me, keeping Earth mostly habitable […]
If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back? ~ Stephen Wright Actually, we did. Growing up in Texas, summers were hot and humid, and one thing you could do was fan yourself — not unlike waving at the heat. We also learned to stay in the shade, wear cool, light clothing, drink lots […]
“Cities are the 21st century’s dominant form of civilization — and they’re where humanity’s struggle for survival will take place … Half the planet’s population lives in cities. They are the world’s engines, generating four-fifths of the global GDP … As the economist Ed Glaeser puts it, ‘we are an urban species.’” ~ Robert Muggah […]
Writes of Nature 