Columbia University Center for Children’s Environmental Health performed a study on children and obesity recently and found that obesity afflicts 17 percent of America’s children. In inner-city neighborhoods, this number is closer to 25 percent. The study found that pollutants in the air contribute to obesity – especially a commonly found indoor pollutant in urban [...]

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A country’s air pollution index is a good measure of its recent economic growth. In South Asia, the winter has brought some major air pollution woes. Smog in some cities is so thick that it is wrecking havoc with mobility and air traffic. The burning of fossil fuels, biomass, as well as diesel transportation, factories, [...]

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Based on US air pollution measurements in Beijing, Chinese officials appear to be incorrectly reporting air quality data.

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Five months out of the year, from November thru March, the California Central Valley experiences a mix of airborne toxins that exacerbate an otherwise natural phenomenon known as Tule Fog: This breathable toxic soup contains the product of ‘development’, such as diesel emission particles (DEP), ammonia, methane, pesticides, herbicides, and other particulate matter trapped in fog.

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A report published recently in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences by a group of Harvard scientists led by Paul R. Epstein, entitled “Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal,” unearths some rather alarming truths about the “externalities” associated with the extraction, transportation, processing and combustion of coal for the [...]

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By Connie Kwan Using local waste materials to clean air and water makes good sense.  This video from the recent Going Green 2010 conference with Shane Keaney, the president of Bord Na Móna, profiles their water and air treatment technologies using local materials such as peat and seashells.  Bord Na Móna is an energy utility [...]

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Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands evaluated a paving material made with titanium dioxide that consumes those pesky NOx particles, and converts them into a benign nitrate that can simply wash away.

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Volvo just launched a campaign, Emissions Equality, which Volvo says will increase consumer awareness of the entire emissions picture when purchasing a car. While carbon emission levels may be consistent among makes and models, other emission rates are all over the map, including nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). apparently thinks so, and is asking their companies to look beyond a car’s CO2 footprint.
The Swedish automobile manufacturer just launched a campaign, Emissions Equality, which Volvo says will increase consumer awareness of the entire emissions picture when purchasing a car. While carbon emission levels may be consistent among makes and models, other emission rates are all over the map, including nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter (PM).

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By Wendy Lyons Sunshine A sea change is underway at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and its effects have reached Texas. Under the Obama Administration, scientists are being appointed to top administrative positions and with them comes a renewed appreciation of hard data—a trend that worries the business community in Texas. Consider the appointment of [...]

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Climate change isn’t only about carbon dioxide. So that’s why, in a world that is stepping close to a steep precipice, doing more to reduce non-CO2 climate change contributors such as black carbon, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), as well as expanding bio-sequestration through biochar production, might  head global warming off at the pass, according [...]

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As the public debate continues on whether greenhouse gases contribute to global warming or whether we are going through a natural cycle, enormous political pressure and investment dollars are streaming into the solutions aspect of the debate. Discussions in North America on environmental policy and economic benefits are steaming ahead at all levels of government [...]

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