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In the modern urban landscape, two things come at a premium: a place for flora to flourish, and space for advertising. A German company has approached the issue of cleaning our cities’ air with a unique and multipurpose solution. Their creation, called the “city tree” is a freestanding, self-sustaining structure, which uses moss as a substrate to feed plants arranged using a weighted system. It has its own irrigation system that uses captured rain water and a series of sensors to keep everything growing.

In the modern urban landscape, two things come at a premium: a place for flora to flourish, and space for advertising. A German company has approached the issue of cleaning our cities’ air with a unique and multipurpose solution. Their creation, called the “city tree” is a freestanding, self-sustaining structure, which uses moss as a substrate to feed plants arranged using a weighted system. It has its own irrigation system that uses captured rain water and a series of sensors to keep everything growing.

A French and Dutch design firm called The Cloud Collective  has come up with an amazingly innovative and creative way to extract damaging Co2 from busy roadways and convert it into oxygen, using algae. The algae absorb the CO² emissions, and combined with the absorption of sunlight, converts it into oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. The benefits don't end there. Their superb design allows for the algae to be even more useful once it has matured.

It never fails to amaze me about human ingenuity, if the rules of the game don’t get in the way of implementation. Our last e-Dialogue on waste talked a lot about the importance of reframing the issue, this project converts human waste to bio-methane to fuel buses.

For the most part, we humans are visual creatures. We have a great ability to conceptualize, but there’s no denying the power of imagery when it comes to ‘seeing’ the aggregate impacts of our activities on the environment. NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office has developed a computer simulation model, GEOS-5, that provides a striking visual description of the movements of an invisible gas like carbon dioxide, as it is blown by the winds.

Often, buildings and the infrastructure around us, are designed as if people don't matter. The costs of designing without taking into account accessibility and designing with nature are becoming more and more obvious. For example, many of the tall square building in large urban centres are going to have to be reclad at the cost of millions and millions of dollars and pose a physical danger in high winds until these repairs are made. Integrated design that takes into account the ecological, social and economic imperatives are just a win win for any city.

While it is important to remember that the climate change agreement between the United States and China should be viewed as only a first step in combating what is a very global issue, we must remember to keep a positive momentum surrounding this hot bed issue. It has become a part of our nature to be cautious and analytical when it comes to the workings of our governments and the promises they make.

As a very wintry weekend approaches in the East, and there is less sunlight in the West, it becomes important to find ways to fight off seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Without taking away from the recent tragedies in France, there is always another violent, negative, or sensationalist news story around the corner; they pop up on our news feeds, invade our television screens, and dominate our forums.

Nowadays, everyone has a cell phone. Charging the batteries of over a billion cell phones is only one of many strains on our energy production, but is significant none the less. Cell phone use had all but eliminated the need for phone booths, until Harold Craston and Kristy Kenny had a vision. The iconic red phone booths in London had fallen into disrepair, so they gave them a coat of green paint, installed a solar panel, and Solarbox was born.

Two new appointments, of a very different nature, will make a difference to the planet. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, recently appointed Lieutenant Governor for Ontario, gave a wonderful speech to the Woman for Nature event in Toronto, talking about the importance of sustainable development and especially the conservation of biodiversity for the planet.