Germany is raiding its clean energy piggybank to pay for dirty coal. The country is looking to withdraw millions of euros from a fund for promoting clean energy and climate change mitigation, and wants to spend that money on new coal-fired power plants. The plants, which could cost $218 million per year in 2013 and 2014, are being billed as a stopgap maneuver while Germany weans itself from nuclear onto other renewables. But in that case, it's not clear why they don't just spend the clean energy fund on, you know, clean energy. There will still be plenty of money …

This short film, called "Blind," imagines what would happen if the gas masks that so many Japanese bought after Fukushima had ended up being necessary in Tokyo. It shows the mundane realities of a radioactive life -- the blinged-out schoolgirl respirators are a particularly nice touch -- but also touches on the bigger issues of what a nuclear accident can do to lives and families.

In the post-peak-oil, post-automotive world, we'll have to do something while we're huddled around our campfires in Bartertown. And we'll need to do something with the parts of our now-useless vehicles. Sure, we'll have to build shelters with the metal carapaces, and we'll need some of that tire rubber for shoes and things. But there are a billion cars now! Surely we'll have more spare tires than the survivors will have feet. Belgian artist Wim Delvoye has a vision for the art we can make from this extra rubber. His tire carvings are sort of a miracle of creative reuse …

Shwetak Patel is revolutionizing home energy use, and people are noticing. Patel was just awarded a MacArthur Fellowship -- affectionately known as a "genius award" -- for his work creating user-friendly ways for people to monitor and control their utilities consumption. In other words, this is what certified energy genius looks like. To allow residents to track their energy usage down to the level of individual appliances and fixtures, Patel's distinctive approach leverages existing infrastructure — such as gas lines, electrical wiring, plumbing, and ventilation ducts — and requires only a minimal number of small, wirelessly connected sensors attached to …

There has not traditionally been a lot of military presence in the Arctic, given as how it's mostly ice and seals. But now that the ice is melting, it's just mostly seals, and those little buggers are shifty. So Russia is sending in the troops. "Our northern border used to be closed because of ice and a severe climate," said Anton Vasilev, a special ambassador for Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "But the ice is going away we cannot leave 20,000 kilometres unwatched. We can't leave ourselves in a position where we are undefended," Vasilev said, in an interview with …

Sure, the High Line is great and all -- abandoned rail line turned into a beautiful outdoor leisure area, what's not to love? (Plus, reportedly you can see people getting undressed in the windows of one of the hotels that straddles the park.) But what it's really missing is an element of Neil Gaimany beautiful creepiness. I know! Let's put it UNDERGROUND. That's the thinking behind the Low Line, a proposed park that would turn two acres of abandoned Lower East Side trolley terminal into an underground Eden. This pastoral underworld would have plants, water features, and even natural sunlight …

The Corn Refiners Association has noticed that "corn syrup" is becoming kind of a dirty word. They could improve the product, perhaps, but that would be hard, so they decided to just rename it "corn sugar." But the FDA, which is in charge of things like what counts as "sugar," is having none of it.  So far, the FDA hasn't yet ruled on whether HFCS can be called "sugar," but in the meantime the corn refiners decided to just go ahead and do it because it sounded good. They've been comparing corn syrup to sugar in all their ads, despite …

Jesus, is nowhere safe from cars? On Tuesday, a woman drove her Cadillac right into a California bike store at 30 to 40 miles per hour. Nobody was seriously injured, but as the video shows, it was a close shave. Perhaps literally. The two people standing my the counter may actually have had the hair scraped off their legs. Here's another point in favor of bikes: Think about what a video of a bike running into a car dealership would look like.

Here's the thing about apocalyptic droughts: They are bad for people and livestock and all other living things, but they are ESPECIALLY bad for fish. Texas minnows can't wait for Rick Perry's prayer meetings to alleviate the state's record dry spell -- they're already in dire straits as the water shortage robs them of their ability to eat, move, respirate, and reproduce. So scientists are evacuating them, moving the tiny fishlets from the shrinking Brazos River into safer fish hatcheries. Minnows obviously need water to live; that's where they catch their food, get their oxygen, and keep their stuff. But …

According to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, 83 percent of people now believe that climate change is happening. That's up from 75 percent last year. What's behind the change? Partly heat, and partly hot air. Folks historically have a hard time differentiating weather and climate, so it's not a surprise that after a very hot and drought-riddled summer, more people believe in global warming. They're right, of course, but they may be right for the wrong reasons -- i.e. because it's been unusually hot in their locale, not because the climate's getting weird all over. But whatever. If this is a …