Archinect - News

Federal 2007 ban on fossil fuels in government-owned buildings finally kicks in

2024-04-28T08:00:00-04:00

Fossil fuels will be banned from new and remodeled federal buildings under a rule finalized by the Department of Energy this week. The rule stems from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). Section 433 of that law says new federal buildings and those undergoing major renovations have to phase out "fossil fuel-generated energy consumption" by 2030. But that provision never went into effect because the Energy Department failed to finalize regulations, until now.

All buildings (and vehicles) owned by the U.S. Government are currently under mandate to run on renewable energy by 2050. The EISA mandate was not fully effected until now because the DoE never finalized its regulations, NPR reported a year ago.

Now, the enactment will save an estimated 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions and another 16,000 tons of methane emissions within three decades. That's equal to 4.92 billion kWh of electricity (enough to power a city the size of San Diego for a year) according to standard conversions.

COP28 deal agreed amid controversy over ‘phasing out’ of fossil fuels

2023-12-14T11:44:00-05:00

A climate deal has been struck by global leaders at the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai following days of negotiations. The agreement calls for all countries to move away from using fossil fuels, though stops short of phasing them out. The final text, signed by 200 countries, recognizes a “need for deep, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.”

The pact calls on countries to “transition away” from fossil fuels for energy systems but not for other sectors such as plastics, transport, or agriculture. At the beginning of the conference, the hosting UAE president had proposed a deal to “phase out” fossil fuels entirely; language explicitly called for by a coalition of over 100 countries. However, an initial draft of the deal removed the reference to “phasing out” fossil fuels, as did the final agreement, leading one delegate representing small island states to claim the final text contained a “litany of loopholes.”

Among the commitments in the deal are a tripling o...

EU member states agree to major building emissions cuts at COP28

2023-12-12T18:21:00-05:00

If approved in its current form, the deal struck on Thursday night will also force member states to put solar panels on more buildings, starting with new public buildings and offices and expanding to include new homes by 2030. [...] It is a compromise on the European Commission’s original proposals to renovate the leakiest homes, which member states had fought fiercely.

The EU’s pledge mandates that all new buildings will have zero emissions from fossil fuels in that timeframe, with heating systems derived from fossil fuels phased out by 2040. The expansion of heat pump subsidies will be a decisive factor, along with the mandatory installation of solar panels on everything except heritage architecture, churches, and agricultural buildings by the decade’s end. Also at the conference, six other member states joined the U.S., Canada, and UK in pledging their commitments to the UNEP Buildings Breakthrough challenge that will further reduce emissions by 2030. Signatories will also have until 2035 to cut emissions in residential structures by at least 20%.

Still, the Climate Action Network’s Eva Brardinelli, told the Guardian: “The final agreement on the directive missed a significant opportunity to lift millions out of energy poverty and cut our dependence on fossil fuels.”

The changes are likely to be formally adopted via the European Parliament in th...

Washington State effectively bans fossil-fueled appliances in new construction

2023-11-30T13:39:00-05:00

It will soon become nearly impossible to install fossil-fueled appliances to heat new homes and businesses in Washington. [...] The codes will require new homes and buildings to meet the same total energy performance as those built with electric heat pumps while allowing builders flexibility to choose appliances. Basically, if builders choose gas appliances, they will need to make up the efficiency losses elsewhere in the construction.

The state’s building code update puts them in league with California, Maryland, and major cities New York, Los Angeles, and Boston to have adopted similar policies.

The new amendments offer a “watered-down” alternative to a proposed electric heat pump mandate that was abandoned in the wake of a federal ruling against Berkeley, California’s natural gas ban from 2019.

The state’s building and construction industry is one of many being targeted by lawmakers in an effort to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Boston has officially banned fossil fuels in all new city-owned buildings

2023-08-07T15:57:00-04:00

Boston is officially ending its reliance on fossil fuels in government-owned buildings after Mayor Michelle Wu signed a new executive order banning their use in all new municipal construction and renovation projects across the city.

In a press statement released on July 31st, Wu told reporters: “Week after week, we see the signs of extreme heat, storms, and flooding that remind us of a closing window to take climate action. The benefits of embracing fossil fuel-free infrastructure in our City hold no boundary across industries and communities, and Boston will continue using every possible tool to build the green, clean, healthy, and prosperous future our city deserves.”

The initiative is part of a larger Green New Deal for Boston, which takes aim at various issues surrounding topics in the built environment. Boston’s stock of municipal buildings is currently responsible for only 2.3% of emissions city-wide, and proponents say the new mandate will help speed their overall decarboniz...

New York State set to ban natural gas appliances in new buildings

2023-05-01T17:02:00-04:00

A handshake agreement between New York Governor Kathy Hochul and lawmakers in Albany is on the cusp of banning natural gas in most new buildings statewide as part of a $229 billion budget deal that looks to broadly reduce the use of fossil fuels in the building sector.

The proposed ban covers appliances in most new construction and would take effect by late 2026 for smaller buildings under seven stories. The move puts New York in league with Washington state as the first two to legally bind builders to the use of either all-electric heating or kitchen appliances, which pave the way for an influx of new technologies such as heat pumps and induction stoves.

Cities like Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Jose, and Berkeley, California have joined twenty-one others, including New York City, whose own 2021 ban provided a model for the state’s new law, which was opposed by Republicans who are bolstered by legal challenges in the U.S. Court of Appeals’ 9th Circuit.

Earlier on Archinect: NY...

New York City is still slow in meeting its 2030 solar pledge

2023-04-14T17:48:00-04:00

New York City has pledged to reach 1,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2030 — enough energy to power 250,000 homes, according to the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Justice. But state data shows that its current pace of installation will land short of that goal, leaving officials and advocates looking for ways to break down barriers to installation.

As Gothamist reported, 90% of the city’s energy grid is derived from fossil fuels. The effort to counteract this with rooftop photovoltaics is being stymied by the building codes and cost of installation, despite remarkable gains in solar capacity overall.

A proposed new program called Public Solar NYC could offer solutions, along with a slate of regulatory changes. The city’s tax burden is notoriously tough on low-income families, adding to the frustration that the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance's Daniel Chu and others feel as the deadline draws near.

“Most of the power plants in New York City are located within environmental justice communities with overwhelming numbers of affordable housing or NYCHA projects,” he told the blog. “They are currently missing out on the opportunities that other folks in wealthier communities and non-disadvantaged communities can take advantage of. We need to prioritize disadvantaged communities in the process of transitioning out and building t...

Sustainable design trends are already outpacing One Vanderbilt's once-lofty green goals

2023-02-16T17:07:00-05:00

It is also the rare skyscraper designed with climate change in mind. It holds a self-contained, catastrophe-resilient power plant capable of generating as much energy as six football fields of solar panels. The building captures every drop of rain that falls on it, and reuses that runoff to heat or cool its 9,000 daily visitors. But One Vanderbilt is also something else. It is already out of date.

New York City’s recent ban on fossil fuels is making the green technology built into the merely two-year-old KPF-designed tower obsolete in terms of energy sources, the NYT's Ben Ryder Howe writes. Foster + Partners’ nearby 270 Park project is cited as an example of the forthcoming delineation triggered by the new mandate.

Speaking to the Times, SL Green’s director of engineering Jonathan Wilcox said it remains “to be determined” which elements, including a set of powerful natural gas-burning turbines, will be replaced in unison with city and state guidelines in the future.

A heat pump revolution could bring much-needed building decarbonization

2023-02-06T12:09:00-05:00

By 2030, around a quarter of UK buildings should be heated using them, according to the UK government's climate advisory body, rising to 52% by 2050. Electrifying heating will also be key to decarbonising buildings in the US, says Melissa Lott, director of research at the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. One study in San Francisco referred to heat pumps as the "single most impactful lever" to reducing emissions.

Communal heatmains can be used to overcome the challenges of digging expensive boreholes for heat pumps in private homes and urban apartment blocks where most of the UK’s population resides. The country’s push to heat half of its homes using heat pumps, which are evolving, puts it squarely in line with Germany and other states looking to leverage the technology in the interest of achieving sustainability goals.

A recently-announced New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) design contest is also attempting to tackle the affordability issue with window-frame prototypes that cost no more than $3,000 per unit and can be installed in less than two hours.

On the benefit and challenges of designing all-electric affordable housing

2023-01-19T13:28:00-05:00

In a few short years, policymakers and building designers have gone from pushing energy-efficient design and products—which saved folks money—to targeting carbon emission reductions, even if it costs more in the long run. This paradigm shift is rapidly changing expectations for the development and operation of affordable housing.

New York, Boston, and Los Angeles are three of America’s largest cities to have recently adopted some version of law or code changes mandating the design of new buildings (with the occasional exception for certain, typically smaller multifamily developments) be made all-electric.

The challenge for practitioners, according to authors Kimberly Vermeer and Walker Wells, is doing so equitably with a mind to costs, as the price per unit of electricity is typically much higher for consumers than traditional fossil fuels. The implementation of pricier but more energy-efficient heat pumps is also discussed as a huge technical and design obstacle for architects, along with the necessity of learning new vocabularies and more complex building performance metrics in the hopes of girding against the effects of climate change and preparing for the inevitability of electrification at a broad scale.

Boston may soon become the next major American city to ban fossil fuels in new buildings

2022-08-19T17:46:00-04:00

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has announced an ambitious new city-wide plan that would eliminate the use of fossil fuels in new developments and major renovations in an effort to take "every possible step to climate action."

If passed, the Home Rule Petition to the state’s new Bill H.5060 would make Boston the next large city to adopt such measures, following New York, Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle, and Berkeley which have all codified similar mandates into local construction laws in recent years.

Furthermore, the city has announced the formation of a special advisory committee made up of local architects, environmental and public health experts, real estate developers, and other stakeholders who will all be tasked with creating guidelines that will later be recommended by Wu as ordinance to the City Council.

In a press statement, Councilor Kendra Lara said: "Implementing meaningful e...

LA is banning the gas burner in favor of electric appliances

2022-06-01T11:47:00-04:00

Citing the climate crisis, the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to ban most gas appliances in new construction, a policy that’s expected to result in new homes and businesses coming equipped with electric stoves, clothes dryers, water heaters and furnaces. The nation’s second-largest city was late to the game, said Councilmember Nithya Raman, the policy’s lead author — but no longer.

Raman’s motion echoes that of many other cities in the state as well as a recent proposal to phase out non-electric car sales by the year 2035. It also includes a provision that all newly-constructed buildings be emissions-free, a requirement it first adopted for all municipal properties in 2020.

Current estimates have it that 10% of all emissions can be traced to natural gas installations in California, with another 15% being attributed to the electric grid needed for those homes and businesses.

Los Angeles officials plan to make all new buildings zero-carbon

2022-05-31T11:30:00-04:00

The Los Angeles City Council have passed a motion instructing several city departments to begin work on a framework that would require all new residential and commercial buildings in the city to be built to achieve zero-carbon emissions. Passed on May 27th, the motion may see a roadmap to zero-carbon buildings published before the end of 2022.

“We have lagged behind other California cities in tackling our largest source of climate pollution citywide: buildings,” the motion reads. “Over fifty cities and counties in California have already taken action to reduce carbon emissions in new building construction and prepare their buildings for a carbon-neutral future. It is time for Los Angeles to do the same.”

According to the motion, buildings in Los Angeles are the largest emitter in the city, accounting for 43% of L.A. greenhouse gas emissions. The 43% figure is significantly above the average...

Google's BIG + Heatherwick-designed Bay View HQ campus opens

2022-05-17T18:55:00-04:00

Google has announced the opening of its new Bay View campus in Mountain View, California, with the neighboring Charleston East project in its final phase of construction. Together, they form the latest additions to Google's headquarters.

Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Google

The web giant celebrates the first time it led the concept and construction of one of its own major campuses, boasting an extensive list of human-centered, sustainable features.

According to Google's project announcement, Bay View is an all-electric, net-water-positive facility with the largest geothermal installation in North America. Both projects report being the largest buildings in the world to pursue LEED-NC v4 Platinum and the largest to pursue elements of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) Living Building Challenge (LBC) Petal Certification.

Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Google

Designed in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group and Heatherwick Studio, the campus officially broke ground in 2...

California climate action plan calls for all-electric new homes by 2026

2022-05-12T17:11:00-04:00

A new draft plan by the California Air Resources Board was released on Tuesday that lays out an ambitious roadmap for achieving carbon neutrality in the state by 2045.

Called the 2022 Climate Change Scoping Plan, the guide highlights the necessity for a comprehensive shift away from fossil fuels across all sectors, notably households, businesses, and transportation.

The plan suggests the state require all new homes to have electric appliances starting in 2026 and new businesses by 2029. For existing homes, 80% of appliance sales should be electric by 2030 and 100% by 2035. As noted by TIME, this, coupled with the plan’s stringent transportation regulations, would put a significant new demand on the electric grid, which would require California to rapidly scale up solar power and storage options. Hydrogen infrastructure would also need to expand.

The plan is not final, however. It wi...

The growth of electric vehicles continues to surge

2022-02-09T13:57:00-05:00

Sales of cars powered solely by batteries surged in the United States, Europe and China last year, while deliveries of fossil fuel vehicles were stagnant. Demand for electric cars is so strong that manufacturers are requiring buyers to put down deposits months in advance. And some models are effectively sold out for the next two years.

As noted by The New York Times, the rise of electric vehicles represents the largest shift in the auto industry since the introduction of Henry Ford’s Model T. Their sales account for nearly 9 percent of new cars sold last year, which is up from 2.5 percent in 2019, according to the International Energy Agency. This is just the start, with the auto industry set to invest half a trillion dollars over the next five years to make the transition to electric vehicles.

The move away from fossil fuel-powered vehicles is a step forward in combating climate change and creating a more sustainable automotive industry. However, the jobs of the millions of Americans that produce, sell, and service cars and auto parts are at risk. There are also the issues of rising prices for battery ingredients, such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, along with current limitations of EV infrastructure, namely the lack of public charging stations.

NY Governor Kathy Hochul calls for ban of greenhouse gas emissions in new buildings by 2027

2022-01-10T14:51:00-05:00

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for an end to the use of natural gas in new buildings in a policy blueprint released Wednesday ahead of her State of the State address.

The governor's plan will require that there be zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions from new construction by 2027. It would also require energy benchmarking, a process that requires large buildings of similar sizes or occupancy levels to compare their energy consumption. Hochul’s blueprint would mark the first statewide requirement if passed. This follows a similar New York City bill signed into law in December that bans the use of fossil fuels in new buildings.

Previously on Archinect: New York City Council reaches agreement to require the use of all-electric heating in new buildings

In addition to this new policy blueprint, Governor Hochul also announced in her State of the State address a plan to establish a rail line that connects Brooklyn and Queens dubbed the Inter-Borough Express.

New York City Council reaches agreement to require the use of all-electric heating in new buildings

2021-12-09T17:26:00-05:00

The City Council is poised to ban the use of gas in new buildings, requiring most to use electricity-powered heat and hot water. Lawmakers reached a deal late Wednesday on a bill requiring new buildings shorter than seven stories to go electric on Jan. 1, 2024, and taller ones after July 1, 2027. Projects that get their construction documents approved before those dates will be exempt.

Buildings of less than seven stories and at least half of its units subject to an affordable housing regulatory agreement are exempt if construction documents are approved before December 31, 2025. New buildings that are taller with the same agreement will have two more years. The measure allows the limited use of fossil fuels in new buildings as long as they are not used for heat and hot water and are used intermittently.

The City Council will vote on the bill next week.

New York passes law banning the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035

2021-09-27T17:57:00-04:00

New York is aiming to ban the sale of all gas-powered vehicles in the state by 2035. A bill amending the state's environmental conservation law was passed by the state's Senate and Assembly and signed by Governor Kathy Hochul last week.

At the start of this month, Assembly Bill A4302 was signed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, which would require that all in-state sales of new passenger cars and trucks have zero emissions by 2035. The law also requires that all medium- and heavy-duty vehicles sold in New York be emission-free by 2045.

According to the Governor’s office, this move will help reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent. State agencies will now work together to develop a zero-emissions vehicles market development strategy, which they hope to complete by 2023. New York will also need to install an extensive charging network across the state.

Last year, California also banned the sales of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.

The world's first fossil-free steel

2021-08-23T16:52:00-04:00

Swedish steel manufacturer SSAB has announced that it has produced the world’s first fossil-free steel. As part of a trial delivery, the steel was sent to its first customer, Swedish automaker Volvo Group.

The first-of-its-kind steel was developed through HYBRIT, an initiative formed in 2016 between SSAB and state-owned firms LKAB and Vattenfall, who specialize in energy and mining, respectively. Its aim was to develop a technology for fossil-free iron and steelmaking.

The group was able to replace coking coal, the process traditionally used for steelmaking, with fossil-free electricity and hydrogen. The result is a porous material called sponge iron, which is a combination of fossil-free hydrogen and iron ore. This past June, the team showcased the successful execution of this process at HYBRIT’s pilot plant in Luleå, Sweden. Volvo plans to experiment with the initial batch of steel through the production of prototype vehicles and parts.

This candle holder is the first object mad...

California city becomes first in the U.S. to ban new gas stations

2021-03-03T15:48:00-05:00

Petaluma, California, has voted to outlaw new gas stations, the first of what climate activists hope will be numerous cities and counties to do so. [...] The Petaluma effort inspired groups like the Coalition Opposing New Gas Stations — or CONGAS — which seeks to ban gas stations in Sonoma County, California.

The ordinance will not shut down Petaluma's 16 operational gas stations but prevents them from adding more pumps and prohibits the construction of new gas stations.

It is expected that the move will inspire more municipalities to follow the example, similar to Berkeley's 2019 ban on natural gas installations in new construction.

After years of improvement, air pollution in the U.S. is getting worse again

2019-10-24T14:09:00-04:00

Air pollution worsened in the United States in 2017 and 2018, new data shows, a reversal after years of sustained improvement with significant implications for public health. In 2018 alone, eroding air quality was linked to nearly 10,000 additional deaths in the U.S. relative to the 2016 benchmark, the year in which small-particle pollution reached a two-decade low, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

The Washington Post reports that "concentrations of the pollutant have risen about 5.5 percent since 2016," and points out several contributing factors that the Carnegie Mellon study identified: increased natural gas use and vehicle traffic, risen severity and frequency of wildfires, and the rollback of regulatory enforcement of the Clean Air Act in recent years.

"The health implications of this increase in [annual average fine particulate matter] PM2.5 between 2016 and 2018 are significant," explains the research paper. "The increase was associated with 9,700 additional premature deaths in 2018. At conventional valuations, these deaths represent damages of $89 billion."

Mayors of three Nordic capitals declare their commitment to cleaner construction site practices

2019-10-23T02:00:00-04:00

The push for cleaner construction methods to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution on building sites has increased in recent years due to the worsening climate crisis. Nations across the globe have expressed their intent in finding better solutions for addressing the negative impacts the architecture and construction industries have on the environment.

Earlier this month, the mayors of Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm made a public pledge to enact various policies and regulations to ensure the following issues are addressed. According to a press release from C40 Cities, the mayors promise to:

Purchase biofuels and emission-free machinery for the city’s own use
Demand fossil-and emission-free solutions in public procurement and city supported projects
In Oslo, all city-owned machinery and municipally-owned construction sites will operate with zero emissions by 2025

Executive director of C40 Cities, Mark Watts, shares in a statement, "The world’s cities are growing fast, wi...

Power companies take the pledge to deliver carbon-free electricity — one fossil-fueled plant at a time

2019-08-02T14:02:00-04:00

New Jersey's largest and oldest power company is pledging to deliver carbon-free electricity to fight climate change. To get there, the power company is shutting down its coal plants, betting big on offshore wind and working hard to keep its existing nuclear plant alive. PSEG said it won't build or acquire any new fossil-fueled power plants, including those running on dirt-cheap natural gas.

Announced in July, one of the oldest power companies in the U.S. is taking the next step towards addressing their involvement in battling climate change. The New Jersey power company PSEG has used fossil fuels to power their plants for the last 116 years. As the oldest power company in America, their initiatives to make changes addressing their plants' carbon emissions is a big step.

According to CNN, "To get there, the power company is shutting down its coal plants, betting big on offshore wind and working hard to keep its existing nuclear plant alive. PSEG said it won't build or acquire any new fossil-fueled power plants, including those running on dirt-cheap natural gas."

PSEG is not the only company to address these issues on climate change. Companies like Xcel Energy, formerly a coal-first company, is making moves to provide zero-carbon electricity by the year 2050. Although the Trump administration has made efforts to save the coal industry by promoting fossil fuels and cutti...

Gas-fired power plants are becoming obsolete

2019-06-24T13:28:00-04:00

General Electric Co said on Friday it plans to demolish a large power plant it owns in California this year after only one-third of its useful life because the plant is no longer economically viable in a state where wind and solar supply a growing share of inexpensive electricity.

GE's Inland Empire Energy Center, a 750-megawatt natural gas-fueled plant located in Riverside County, California, built in 2009 is shutting down 20 years early.

The culprit? Affordable wind and solar energy, which are surging in California, and outdated technology.

On most days, California generates roughly 50% of its energy from renewable sources, with new records set every few weeks. See here for an up-to-the-minute breakdown of where California's energy comes from.

The trend is a long-term one, as California has pledged to eliminate fossil fuels in its energy supply by 2045, and recently met its 2020 emissions and renewable energy goals several years early. That's bad news for natural gas- and coal-fired power plants.

A moment-in-time breakdown of California's energy sources from Monday, June 24, 2019. Image courtesy of California's Independent System Operator.

A representative from GE told Reuters, “We have made the decision to shut down operation of the Inland Empire Power P...

Can the Gulf of Mexico be used to store carbon dioxide?

2019-06-11T11:41:00-04:00

research from American and European scientists suggests that Texas — especially the waters along its coast — could be a pretty good place to store carbon from the petroleum industry.

In an effort to find new methods for storing carbon dioxide emissions, European researchers have been experimenting with injecting liquefied CO2 into the seabed surrounding former drilling sites in the North Sea. Studies so far show that leakages are minor and carbon sequestration potential is high using this approach.

“This is not a solution for climate change, but a mitigation process until we change the way we live,” Doug Connelly, a marine geologist and coordinator of the STEMM-CCS experiment, told Grist.

Even so, lawmakers in Texas, the oil-loving state that produces the nation's highest carbon emissions, are intrigued. The idea is receiving extra attention as a bipartisan carbon capture and sequestration bill gains traction in the United States Senate.

Tip Meckel, economic geologist at the University of Texas at Austin, is supportive of the the idea, he explained to Grist, “When we think of offshore carbon storage in the Gulf of Mexico, we could inject enough to significantly ...

Global heatwave is symptom of early stage cycle of civilisational collapse

2018-08-13T18:59:00-04:00

This summer’s extreme weather has hit home some stark realities. Climate disaster is not slated to happen in some far-flung theoretical future. It’s here, and now.

Penned by Nafeez Ahmed, investigative journalist, recovering academic, tracking the Crisis of Civilization, the article points to a more urgent than urgent times in terms of civilisation and not merely the climate change.

Also an urgent quote from a friend internalizing the article for architecture, "I am surprised that with contemporary conditions that require a radical re-orientation and re-conceptualization of discipline and profession, architecture professors continue to talk about elements, tectonic, "Fundamentals", context, composition, scale, poche, sustainability... Bla,bla... Let's build a new ontology..."

-Alex Santander, Architect. Tijuana, Mexico

Copenhagen divests from fossil fuels

2016-05-17T18:32:00-04:00

The City of Copenhagen will pull its investments out of coal, oil and gas companies. The city council have agreed to divest the fossil fuel holdings of the city’s €920 million investment fund [...] "Copenhagen decided to ban investments in companies that gain more than 5 percent of their revenue from coal, oil and gas. The criteria apply to companies that engage in prospecting, extracting or refining coal, oil and gas..."

Good work Danes! For other urban efforts to curb our collective fossil fuel addiction, check out these links:

A cardboard and carbon-emission economy: the long-term effects of our desire for instant gratification

2016-02-16T14:00:00-05:00

A handful of scientists and policy makers are...grappling with the long-term environmental effect of an economy that runs increasingly on gotta-have-it-now gratification [...] The environmental cost can include the additional cardboard — 35.4 million tons of containerboard were produced in 2014 in the United States, with e-commerce companies among the fastest-growing users — and the emissions from increasingly personalized freight services.

As internet retailers compete to provide as-close-to-instant services to satiate our increasing desire for rapid gratification, our collective ecological footprint grows. The problem isn't just the cardboard boxes piling up on your doorstep, but also the carbon emissions required to get that Postmates or Amazon Prime delivery into your hands.

And according to experts (or at least those profiled by the Times), the responsibility lies equally with consumers as it does with the companies providing the services. In short, we need to "slow down consumption," states Robert Reed, spokesman for Recology, the main recycling processor in San Francisco.

For more on the ecological impact of our consumptive patterns, take a look at these links:

Britain's last deep-pit coal mine closes — the end of the industrial revolution?

2015-12-18T12:25:00-05:00

The last deep-pit coal mine in the U.K. plans to shut its doors here next week, heralding the end of a centuries-old industry that helped fuel the industrial revolution and build the British Empire. The shutdown [...] represents a victory for advocates of reducing carbon emissions after world leaders gathered in Paris to discuss how to combat global warming, with coal in the cross hairs. It also reflects a glut of energy on world markets, from crude oil to natural gas and coal itself.