China to flatten 700 mountains for new metropolis in the desert | World news A long, long time ago, an old Chinese peasant named Yu Gong decided to move two inconveniently located mountains away from blocking the entrance to his home. Legend has it he struggled terribly, but ultimately succeeded. Hence the Chinese idiom "Yu Gong moves the mountains." In what is being billed as the largest "mountain-moving project" in Chinese history, oneof China's biggest construction firms will spend £2.2bn to flatten 700 mountains levelling the area Lanzhou, allowing developers to build a new metropolis on the outskirts of the north-western city. The Lanzhou New Area, 500 square miles (130,000 hectares) of land 50 miles from the city, which is the provincial capital of arid Gansu province, could increase the region's gross domestic product to £27bn by 2030, according to the state-run China Daily. The project will be China's fifth "state-level development zone" and the first in the country's rapidly developing interior, according to state media reports.
Abbotsford going green with compost in new year The City of Abbotsford has made a resolution to go green in 2013 and it starts this week. As of Wednesday, compostable waste, including kitchen scraps and yard waste, will be picked up every week, along with blue bags of recyclables. Regular garbage will be collected every two weeks, with a limit of three 80L containers per household. There is no limit to the amount of compostable waste containers and recycling bags placed out each week for collection. The city has provided all households with a lidded kitchen pail for collection of all food waste, which includes anything animal or vegetable. Abbotsford set up the citywide composting program to eliminate food and yard waste and other organic matter from the garbage stream. The program's goals are to reduce greenhouse gases and emissions associated with landfills and reduce tipping fee costs for the city, and ultimately, the taxpayer. "It didn't take long. No glass, diapers or plastics are accepted.
Climate Change Is Making Canada Look More Like the United States - John Metcalfe Observant people who've driven through Canada their entire lives may have noticed a shift in their natural surroundings. That is, it's greener: A huge portion of the country, roughly equal to the area of the entire United States, is sprouting thick, luscious new coats of trees and bushland. Scientists monitoring the Northern American landmass from space have seen it happen over the past three decades, and now they've released data fingering climate change for the unusual boom in vegetation. This burgeoning green bandana wrapped around America's forehead is making the landscape surrounding Canadian cities look more like that of their American brethren. The temperature and vegetation at northern latitudes increasingly resemble those found several degrees of latitude farther south as recently as 30 years ago.... How's that? (Source: NASA. So is now the time for Canadian loggers to throw their chainsaws in the air with glee?
Science, not just technology, key to Canada’s success In the past few weeks, Conservative ministers in both the Canadian and Albertan governments have repeatedly stated that we must direct more of our country’s research funding and effort into science and technology to boost the country’s economy. It’s heartening to see government appreciation of the potential economic benefits of science, but truly unfortunate that by “science and technology” these governments appear to mean only technology. Recent events would indicate that Conservative governments remain blind to all that scientific advances in non-technology have done to protect Canada’s bottom line, as well as to improve quality of life for Canadians. A perfect case study is the federal government’s dealing with the Experimental Lakes Area, a world-leading freshwater research centre. Take a recent statement in the House of Commons by Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology. That is not the case. Or take the case of acid rain. This is why we must not lose the ELA.
'My place is destroyed': Albertan in wake of Red Deer River oil spill Gord Johnston’s tranquil life along the Red Deer River in central Alberta was shattered Thursday night as the nauseating scent of crude oil hung in the air and a coffee-coloured liquid lapped the banks near his home. He reported the oil leak and, within two hours, a helicopter dispatched by a local oil company landed on his 57-acre property near Sundre, Alta., to fly him over the devastating scene. Mr. Johnston, who works in the oil patch, could see oil “boiling up” in the river at the site of a pipeline crossing. By Friday morning, the situation had worsened. “My place is destroyed,” Mr. Plains Midstream Canada, which operates the pipeline that was built in 1966, shut a 10-kilometre section of its Rangeland South line. But cleanup and containment won’t be easy and could take all summer, officials said. The already engorged river could flood again as another storm system is in the weekend forecast.
The Value of Trees "The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way." - William Blake Two hundred years later, Blake's words ring truer than ever. In Santa Monica, city officials are moving forward with a plan to remove 54 mature fig trees as part of a new urban design project. Artist Gillian Ware, who divides her time between the UK and Los Angeles, caught wind of the plan, and made a swift transition to activist, joining the movement to save the trees. On a purely scientific level, there are a number of reasons to want trees in cities. In an article for Soiled and Seeded, Ware lays them out: We know that in an urban environment trees remove carbon dioxide and air pollutants. Ware has a professional interest in the arboreal world, too. That's why, she says, we have plenty to learn from the trees in our cities, and why preserving and respecting them is more important than ever. For more tree love, check out Ware's Tree Aware blog. Photo: Gillian Ware
Edward Burtynsky and Chris Jordan: Visualizing the Ends of Oil Essay: Mark Feldman Edward Burtynsky, Ferrous Bushling #18; Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 1997; from Oil. [Photograph © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto/Howard Greenberg & Bryce Wolkowity, New York] By now most of us understand that oil is powering the rapid transformation of our planet, enabling us to extract resources, intensify agriculture, manufacture goods, and transport people and objects at unprecedented rates and in unprecedented quantities. These questions gained new urgency for me at a conference on art and environment held last fall at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno. The Altered LandscapeThe photographs of Edward Burtynsky and Chris Jordan together make a good starting point for this investigation. Yet our reactions will inevitably be more emotional than intellectual, and for this reason their work underscores as well the limits of photography as an instrument of education and catalyst for change. Let’s return now to that photograph.
River was: 34,131,100 points The U.S. Geological Survey recently posted a LIDAR fly-through of what the Lower Elwha River looked like as of September 2011. The composite of 97 on-the-ground LIDAR scans were made less than a week before the start of dismantling the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams upstream. The spatial arrangement of these particles – digital counterparts to silty, rocky, wooden and leafy things – will then be compared to future arrangements, or what will become of what is now in process: [image courtesy of the Seattle Times]
Free Association Design (F.A.D.) Perspective: How My Firm Saved Brooklyn Bridge Park From Sandy's Fury Two of our recent parks in New York City--Brooklyn Bridge Park (BBP) and Segment Five of Hudson River Park--were both significantly inundated with several feet of salt water during Hurricane Sandy. At mid-tide, with thousands of fellow Brooklynites, I stood on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade above BBP and watched as the violently rushing floodwaters of the East River, which had already subsumed the piers and the shoreline edge, continued to bring what would eventually amount to several feet of salt water over major sections of the park. At that point, when I could see that the flooding would indeed be massive, I went back to my apartment, closed the blinds (went to sleep), and returned to the same view the next day. How Designers Can Prepare For The Next Big Storm Some public infrastructures (the subway, for instance) really need to be protected in a way that affords resistance to external forces such as flooding.
Alberta coal mine spill heading to N.W.T. - North The Northwest Territories’ Environment Minister, Michael Miltenberger, says toxins from a massive coal mine spill in Alberta are making their way north. On Oct. 31, Sherritt International's Obed Mountain coal mine spilled about 1 billion litres of contaminated water into the Athabasca River. The mine is no longer operating. The spill happened when a retaining wall collapsed, unleashing the equivalent of about 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools of contaminated water. The Alberta government says the contaminated water is now making its way through the Athabasca River. It should reach the Slave River and Great Slave Lake close to the beginning of December. MIltenberger says he wasn’t informed of the spill of toxic water until Nov. 4, four days after it happened. “We are going to keep doing monitoring as it makes its way north,” Miltenberger said. The Alberta government says the contaminated water will dilute and be safe once it reaches the Slave River in the N.W.T.