London Mayor Boris Johnson has come under fire for his recommendation that municipal trucks spray saline solution along streets to reduce air pollution levels.
The arguments over what’s livable and sustainable will always drone on; but they are screeching in Asia, where cities are reaching their tipping point. The transformation from rural to urban has had enormous consequences for the Pacific Rim; Tokyo has long been a mega-city, but the Seoul of 1950 would be unrecognizable today, and the rural poor still stream into cities like Jakarta and Manila.
Despite its proximity to the oil-rich Arabian peninsula, Djibouti has no fossil fuel sources of its own. Lack of resources in general has led to high unemployment, almost no industry, and a huge national debt.
I miss my bicycle. Years ago, I lived in Gainesville, Florida, and as a poor graduate student, a car was out of the question. I had just moved from Baltimore, where I got by without a car because downtown was compact enough to walk around, and when venturing out, I could take water taxis to [...]
The La Canada Flintridge fire, along with the other fires consuming California, has been devastating. Here are some pictures I took yesterday along CA-2. (more…)
When one thinks of Los Angeles, palm trees immediately come to mind. Hardly a city block lacks a business with Palm in its name, and whether you’re in affluent Brentwood or the effluent neighborhoods near downtown, palms line the streets. When visitors send postcards home, most likely they’re showing off palm trees. We’ve got a [...]
Last Saturday morning, I was walking Cosmo before it got too hot for him . . . forgetting that the problem with walking him in the morning is like playing dodge ball—we are always avoiding the neighborhood nemesis, the leaf blower. Discussions on pollution often focus on cars, factories, and LA, the ports: but these [...]
Los Angeles is often the straw man when you read about California’s environmental problems. The left screams bloody murder at the thought of offshore drilling. Conservative farmers ask why “their” water is going to swimming pools in Southern California. LA = smog, which is the view of many people, including one former college pal who [...]