Summer is both a challenge and an opportunity for energy efficiency, given that consumption patterns for tourist establishments and homes change. Although this is the period with the highest number of hours of natural light in the year, energy consumption skyrockets because high temperatures force more intensive use of domestic and industrial air conditioning systems. As…
Read MoreWildfires and Water
Right now, we’re in springtime, with moisture and cool temperatures. But just like every other year, summer’s wildfire season is right around the bend. Science and experience indicate that wildfire policies should shift efforts from firefighting toward prevention and restoration all year long. Fortunately, strategies with this focus are increasingly widespread, many of which draw…
Read MoreRangelands and pastoralists. Guardians of life and knowledge
For millions of years, rangelands and humans have evolved together. Today, we are both judges and actors in climate change. Through the FAO, the United Nations has declared 2026 the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. with the aim of focusing attention on this vast biome on which two billion people directly depend. Rangelands are…
Read MoreClimate summits. Dialogue and consensus matter
We’re going in the right direction, but at the wrong speed. Once per year, the environmental clocks of practically every country on earth stop to sync at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP): an international summit whose purpose is to define, specify, and assess execution of efforts to protect the climate. Global commons, limited…
Read MoreResponsible Consumption
Thanks to the technological, economic, and social progress of recent decades, we are surrounded by comforts that would have been unthinkable at other points in history. Yet this welfare society is accompanied by consumption patterns that reveal an unsustainable system with great regional differences, raw materials that run out, waste that is difficult to reuse,…
Read MoreNature and Health
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” (John Muir) We Are Nature Nature improves our health. Contact with the environment benefits us in many different ways, both directly and indirectly. On the one hand, biophilia, as an evolutionary response, explains why we seek to ‘return to our origins’ and perceive…
Read MoreHeat Islands
When we think of the cities of the future, we think of friendly spaces, with people at the heart of their design and activity. However, many urban hubs today are not very inhabitable. Especially during the summer, they are both the victim and the cause of the heat island effect. Despite this, the solutions lie…
Read MoreLiving Soils
Soil is much more than mere dirt. We refer to soil as the surface of the earth or the foundation for other activities, but it is so much more. It is where everything begins. Soil plays an essential role in planetary balance. Plants and animals (including ourselves), agriculture, and even the climate depend on it…
Read MoreLet’s Save Our Glaciers
Glaciers speak to us. Are we listening? These long-lasting ice and snow masses very slowly slide along the ground they sit on. We can find glaciers both in mountainous terrain and in large flat zones, on every continent all around the planet. In Aragón’s Pyrenees, in the La Maladeta range, we have one of the southernmost glaciers…
Read MoreMore Purified Water
More Purified Water Thanks to technological innovation, wastewater treatment is evolving to successfully handle application of European regulations, which are increasingly stringent. Tertiary treatment or regeneration of wastewater in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is an additional process to purification, aimed at providing the treated water with quality so that it can be used for new…
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