News by Subject Technology & Engineering

A new study published in Environmental Science and Policy shows that without adequate and focused policies, many households will rely on air conditioners to adapt to climate change, thus generating even more greenhouse gas emissions.

Apartment seekers in big cities often use the presence of restaurants to determine if a neighborhood would be a good place to live. It turns out there is a lot to this rule of thumb: MIT urban studies scholars have now found that in China, restaurant data can be used to predict key socioeconomic attributes of neighborhoods.

Sustainable means of mobility are becoming ever more popular. In Switzerland, around 15,000 people have registered with the online platform carvelo2go, which hires out electric cargo bikes. The use of this sharing service in the Basel area is now the subject of scientific investigation. Despite strong growth in member numbers, there are still fundamental barriers. The study by the University of Basel indicates ways that sharing providers and public authorities can promote the use of environmentally friendly cargo bikes.

A new Empa study shows how much work still lies ahead of us if Switzerland is to do without fossil fuels in the future. There are two possible solutions: storing large amounts of energy in summer and limiting our demand in winter, or generating energy in the "sunny south" or "windy north" of the world and transporting it here. The Empa researchers see their study as a thought-provoking impulse for politics and society.

A leading public health expert is calling for a strategic initiative to develop green burial corridors alongside major transport routes because British graveyards and cemeteries are rapidly running out of room. With 500,000 deaths annually in England and Wales, it is likely that there will be no burial space left within five years.

For more than a billion people around the world, running water comes from water systems that turn on and off at certain times. A new paper by University of Toronto Engineering professor David Taylor proposes a model to explain why and how these systems come to be -- and how they fit into meeting international targets for human development and safe drinking water.

Lifestyle changes can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and help protect nature. While some actions offer great potential, some aren't as effective as we think and may even require more land and water, such as shifting to renewable energy.

People agree that bike commuting improves health, reduces air pollution and eases traffic, a recent survey suggests. But that wasn't enough to get most people to commute by bike. New research indicates that a person's neighborhood may play a large role in influencing the decision to commute by bike.