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World Science Festival - Amazing Art Makes Climate Change Conceivable

...On a metal shutter on Broadway between 149th and 150th streets, Australian-born painter Peter Daverington has painted a bald eagle, a species set to lose 73 percent of its current breeding range by 2080, according to the Audubon climate report.

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Urban Ghosts Media - 3 Abandoned Subterranean Ghost Stations of Oslo, Norway

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National Geographic - Wasteland

No one talks much about toxic Superfund sites anymore. But 49 million Americans live close to one.

How close are you to a Superfund site?

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The Guardian - If women built cities, what would our urban landscape look like?

The number of women in UK architecture firms is falling, and many urbanists are worried by the ‘very, very male-dominated’ worlds of planning and construction. So how would cities differ if women designed them?

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Human Nature - The Forest that Fights Climate Change

When we think about causes of climate change, we think smokestacks and tailpipes. Google “solutions for climate change” and you might get recommendations to change your light bulbs, recycle and travel less. Yet a major driver of global warming consistently goes under the radar: the destruction of natural ecosystems, especially rainforests.

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World Science Festival - Eight Animal Plagues Wreaking Havoc Right Now

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World Science Festival - How Climate Change is Already Dooming Some Mammals

Some may adapt to their altered habitats, some may migrate, and some may perish.

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The Nature of Cities - Invisible City Life: The Urban Microbiome

In urban ecosystems, microbes account for most of the biodiversity and are major agents in nature’s material cycles and food webs. Thus the sustainability of cities over the long term is inextricably linked to microbes and their evolution.

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The Nature of Cities - How can different ways of knowing (and of producing knowledge) be useful for understanding and managing urban ecosystems?

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New York Times - In Leafy Profusion, Trees Spring Up in a Changing New York

And since 1995, when the first reliable census was conducted, New York’s street-tree population has verifiably exploded — it is up by 30 percent since then, from about 500,000 to about 650,000. The Bronx has 67 percent more street trees than it did 20 years ago, Brooklyn has 42 percent more, and even Staten Island, where development has raged, has 46 percent more street trees.

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NPR - How Animals Hacked the Rainbow and Got Stumped on Blue

Until about 600 million years ago, seeing colors didn't matter so much to Earth's inhabitants — nobody had eyes.

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The Nature of Cities - The Emerald Necklace: Metropolitan Greenspace Planning in Los Angeles and Beyond

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New York Times - China’s Climate Change Plan Raises Questions

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New York Times - With Bold Park Plan, Mogul Hopes to Leave Mark on New York’s West Side

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Motherboard - The Nation Most Likely to Survive Climate Change

The results come with few surprises. Those nations best equipped to adapt to a hotter, stormier, and more parched world tend to be rich, technologically advanced, more equal, or simply loaded with resources. Socialist, oil-rich Norway, for instance, takes the top spot, despite having miles and miles of vulnerable coastline.

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The Guardian - From eco sex to peeing in the shower: 6 ways students can go green

Students may feel like their sustainable-living options are limited, but there are plenty of ways they can cut waste and live greener lifestyles.

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The Guardian - Climate change denier Jim Inhofe in line for Senate's top environmental job

Obama faces a fight to protect his climate change agenda after midterm results suggest Senate’s top environmental post will fall to Republican stalwart of climate denial.

“I expect we are going to see less headline-grabbing efforts on the EPA and more of simply throttling their budget. If he touches climate denial at all he is going to be ridiculed in public and in the media. If he is smart, he is going to be very quiet publicly, and it will be death by a thousand cuts in the kind of budget battles that people like Jon Stewart don’t pay attention to.”

- R.L. Miller (lawyer; founder, Climate Hawks Vote)