Story Search Results

Advanced Search

There are so many ways to search the solutions journalism stories in this database. Explore our searchable fields:

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 197 results for your search. View and Refine Your Search Terms

Poisonous haze: Why the air we breathe could kill us

Innocent Eteng

July 13, 2018 |

Bhekisisa |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Nigeria, Port Harcourt

Doctors are waging educational campaigns to warn Nigerians about the dangers of air pollution. Doctors say they are seeing increased respiratory disease, but the government is struggling to regulate emissions. Their educational efforts are fueling activism campaigns, which led to an order for an environmental audit from Nigeria's Parliament.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Undercooked: An Expensive Push to Save Lives and Protect the Planet Falls Short

Sara Morrison

July 12, 2018 |

ProPublica |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Washington, District of Columbia

An international effort to supply developing countries with low-pollution cookstoves fell short. Efforts failed to consider to what degree their new stoves really solved the problem—and whether or not people would actually use them.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Cheap Sensors Are Democratizing Air-Quality Data

Jason Plautz

July 09, 2018 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Fresno, California

Spurred by growing health concerns related to air quality, companies and communities have turned attention to creating affordable, portable air-quality sensors. This new development allows citizens to monitor air quality as it directly relates to them, whether it be on a school-ground or even in their own backyard.

Read More
Go to Original Story
At Last, the Shipping Industry Begins Cleaning Up Its Dirty Fuels

Maria Gallucci

June 28, 2018 |

Yale Environment 360 |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Houston, Texas

A lack of sulfur caps has lead to negative health impacts for those living along ship channels. After Emissions Control Areas proved successful internationally, however, this protocol is now being expanded to impact more regions that suffer from pollution created by the global shipping fleet.

Read More
Go to Original Story
3 Far-Flung Cities Offer Clues to Unsnarling Manhattan's Streets

Christina Anderson Winnie Hu Weiyi Lim Anna Schaverien

February 26, 2018 |

The New York Times |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Sweden, Stockholm

Cities like New York that are trying to decrease traffic congestion are looking to Stockholm, London, and Singapore. These three cities have all implemented forms of congestion pricing, in which they charge drivers a fee to enter a core congestion area during peak commuting hours. Despite challenges in implementation, the congestion taxes have decreased traffic and increased driving speed in each of these cities.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Tracking The Air We Breathe

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

January 19, 2018 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Louisville, Kentucky

While asthma has a large impact—including being the most common reason for school absence—data on the disease can be difficult to collect. An app called Propeller has been developed which tracks medication use among people with asthma and analyzes usage against 30 different environmental factors that can impact air quality and respitory health.

Read More
Go to Original Story
How Bourbon and Big Data Are Cleaning Up Louisville

Arthur Allen

November 16, 2017 |

Politico |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Louisville, Kentucky

The city of Louisville, built and sustained largely by pollution-inducing industries such as rubber factories and bourbon distilleries, is grappling with how to make the city air cleaner. The novel Air Louisville study integrated a partnership between a technology healthcare startup and a government-sponsored initiative that tracked incidence of asthma in different areas of the city. The results are already leading to healthier residents, but it is also just the starting point for long-term change.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Can these 'stovers' finally crack the clean cooking problem?

Catherine Cheney

October 26, 2017 |

Devex |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: India, New Delhi, Delhi

It's been proven within the cookstove industry that providing free cleaner-energy stoves to those cooking with traditional stoves or over open flame does not work as planned. Inyenyeri, a Rwandan cookstove company however, is adding a twist to that method by giving away their cookstoves that reduce emissions by 98 to 99 percent compared to wood or charcoal stoves for free, as long as the consumer agrees to buying their wood fuel pellets.

Read More
Go to Original Story
Smoke and Mirrors: Inside Malawi's untold health crisis

Ingrid Gercama Nathalie Bertrams

October 26, 2017 |

New Internationalist |

Multi-Media |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Malawi, Pitala, Nkhata Bay District

'Unclean' cooking - rudimentary, open-fire cooking practiced by millions of people around the world - is one of the leading causes of respiratory disease and death, especially for women, in developing countries; it is also a serious contributor to deforestation, air pollution, and continued poverty (due to the cost of fuel). But a solution has been gaining momentum in Malawi with help from the UN, in the form of clean, more efficient cookstoves that not only emit less smoke, but use less fuel and reduce the risk of burns to family members.

Read More
Go to Original Story
China's Crazy Plan to Keep Sand From Swallowing the World

Vince Beiser

October 01, 2017 |

Mother Jones |

Multi-Media |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Mongolia, Duolun

Overfarming, over-grazing, climate change and population growth are all to blame for turning Duolun County in China's Inner Mongolia region into a bigger desert than it was to begin with. With 87 percent of the area turned into desert, sandstorms began to be the norm and would often engulf the neighboring region of Beijing. The Duolun project attempts to stop this by embarking on a tree-planting mission. Not without it's limitations and criticisms, this solution is by no means perfect, but it's somewhat of a start that has seen Duolun reportedly increase to 31 percent forested land.

Read More
Go to Original Story