Forty years ago, in 1970, little Lisa Brown was riding her totally rad banana-seat bike through the woods of Cape Cod. She approached the Herring River, but the only way to cross it was a rickety plank board bridge. When Brown started out on the bridge it was two feet wide, but halfway across it narrowed to 12 inches, and she had to turn just a little bit to stay on track.

In a split second, she was in the river.

"I went in with the bike, I floated to the surface, I kicked away from the bike, and I must have pushed it down way into the mud," she told Cape Cod Times.

Brown came out "smelling like a snapping turtle,” and her bike was nowhere to be found. Until one recent day, when her wife Deirdre spotted a glint of metal off a nearby path.

2011 saw a record high in carbon dioxide emissions, with China’s contribution growing the most.

Climate change is a boon for one species, at least: The brown argus butterfly, previously rare, has been staking out more turf for itself as the areas north of its range become warmer and more hospitable.

With the chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on his way out, the president nominated Allison Macfarlane to take his place.

Negotiations for the Rio+20 summit are "painfully slow," says U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

It's great when celebrities get the green bug and decide they want to use their fame to tell people “hey, this climate change thing? It's a problem.” But guys, GUYS, as much as we appreciate the support, we’re REALLY going to need you not to pull stunts like the one will.i.am just did: showing up to a meeting about climate change in a goddamn gigantic helicopter.

The rapper was paying a visit to climate change expert Myles Allen, who apparently is not as exasperated about this as we are. I do believe that, as Allen put it, will.i.am is "committed to the issues." He's written a whole song about this stuff! But. BUT. Riding in a helicopter and then BIKING to your meeting? Does not make sense. Sure, sure, every little bit counts. But that little bit of carbon you saved by biking was pretty much made irrelevant by the gigantic pile of pollution that helicopter dumped into the air.

Now China's accusing the U.S. of violating free-trade rules in clean energy development.

Radiation from Fukushima won't increase the risk of cancer for any Japanese people -- except a bunch of babies from a nearby town. Whatever! Just babies!

Making hydrogen with an "artificial leaf" isn't any cheaper than making hydrogen from fossil fuels.

The Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg is actually braving the Heartland Institute conference this week. And it's totally worth it, because she's coming out with quotes of horrifying callousness, like this one, from Heartland policy adviser John Dunn:

"Warm is good for people, and it's particularly good for people as they get older," said Dunn. "The people that warm spells kill are already moribund." He went on to say that only extreme cold caused extra deaths.

Let us translate: Hey, old people! Sorry about that heat wave that killed you. You were going to die anyway, so no sweat, OK?

The next speaker wanted to revive the use of DDT.

On Monday, 64 Kenowa Hill High School seniors biked to school in Walker, Mich. Nice, right? Well, the principal didn’t think so. She suspended the kids for the day and threatened to keep them from walking in their graduation ceremony. Somehow, this one story manages to encapsulate everything that is wrong with American attitudes towards biking.

The group ride was conceived as a less-destructive alternative to the traditional vandalize-the-school, get-everyone-out-of-class brand of senior pranks. Skipping lightly over the fact that a few dozen students riding bikes qualifies as a “prank” rather than a “Monday,” these kids actually deserve a lot of praise for organizing a group activity that’s healthy for them, the planet, and the community, instead of just pulling fire alarms.

And indeed, they got some praise -- the mayor even showed up to hand out donuts. But when the “bike parade” arrived at school, the principal had a major freakout and sent the kids back home.

Counter to everything Republicans say, building the Keystone XL could raise gas prices.

Please, parents, don't buy your children trendy pets in imitation of popular book characters. In England, hundreds of Harry Potter-inspired pet owls are being dropped off at animal shelters after their owners realized that they're expensive to care for and don't actually carry mail.

A magnitude-6 earthquake in Italy may have damaged 300,000 ripening wheels of Parmesan cheese -- 5 percent of Italy's supply.

There's a bit of news from the G8 summit that might have escaped notice: International leaders agreed to take collective action to decrease greenhouse-gas emissions. And pigs do fly.

The agreement (which, unlike flying pigs, is real -- we promise) could be "the biggest step in years in tackling climate change," as The Telegraph's Geoffrey Lean says. The catch is that it has nothing to do with carbon dioxide. Instead, it focuses on "short-lived climate pollutants" -- all those other pesky carbon-based greenhouse gases, like methane, soot, and ozone.

Like other stuff that is good for your health (not smoking, sobriety, living slow, and dying old), bike helmets are uncool. But you can’t really enjoy your coolness with a giant crack in your skull. How do you protect your noggin without sacrificing your mojo? Swedish company Hovding has the answer: airbag bike helmets.

Unless it’s called upon to perform, this helmet stays safely stowed in a futuristic-looking black collar that you can pretend is a scarf. (Hovding also offers printed shells that go around the collar, to make it even more chic.) But if you get hit, presto, it bursts open like a popcorn kernel:

(Fast-forward to 00:36 for the slow-motion version.)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Gregory Jaczko put in his resignation. Not because word got out that he's a bully! Just because, you know, he had "a feeling now was the right time."

Iran's oil exports are already slowing as the European Union's embargo deadline nears.

The Humane Society went inside a pig farm and found all sorts of abuse.