Blogs

Saved by Soils?

This post originally appeared at Emily Monosson's blog: Evolution in a Toxic World We live in an age of pesticide and antibiotic overuse. One outcome is resistance, increasing pesticide use and contamination and fears that we are entering the “post-antibiotic era”. We are addicted to all sorts of commercial chemicals.

Small town parking vision in the big city

Why do so many good parking management ideas encounter resistance? For example, charging for curb parking is a no brainer. Priced spaces are used more times per day and better serve customers and visitors. Pricing encourages people to use less-known off-street spaces, reducing pressure to build expensive new parking facilities. Moreover, pricing provides revenue for local improvements. The most successful business districts charge for curb parking; the lagging ones do not.

#ForewordFriday: Fortune Edition

Is there an economic value to nature's services? Should this value be incentive enough for us to fund conservation? Can lessons from the corporate world come to the rescue? In an age of increasing environmental degradation and risk, The Nature Conservancy CEO Mark Tercek believes environmentalists need to incorporate business as a partner in making the world sustainable—and that corporations need a healthy environment to stay in business.

For U.S. Cities, Every Week Is “Infrastructure Week”

The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, supported by the Kresge Foundation, is working to promote a holistic understanding of resilience that is grounded in equity and sustainability. It’s Infrastructure Week in Washington, D.C., and thousands of leaders from business, labor and government have converged on the city. They’ve come to ask Congress to invest in the unglamorous but essential systems of modern life — including transportation, clean water and the electric grid.

Tackling the “Wicked Problem” of Urban Street Planning

The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, supported by the Kresge Foundation, is working to promote a holistic understanding of resilience that is grounded in equity and sustainability. This post, by Ben Plowden, was originally published at NextCity.org

How Local Food Systems Build Resilience for Turbulent Times

Consider, for a moment, that lettuce leaf on your plate. It probably traveled a long way to get there—about 1,500 miles, on average.1 In fact, your dinner has probably seen more of the world than you have: the average American meal contains ingredients from at least five countries outside the United States.2 The complex, globalized system that puts food on our plates is a technical and logistical marvel, delivering unprecedented quantities of food at historically low prices.3,4

Climate Impacts: The President, Pope & health experts agree

The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, supported by the Kresge Foundation, is working to promote a holistic understanding of resilience that is grounded in equity and sustainability. The president of the most powerful nation in the world, the leader of a major world religion, and one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals agree: Climate change is a major threat to human health, and immediate action is critical.

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