May hasn't gone so hot for some of the sharing economy's most promising entrepreneurs. 2012 might have hinted of challenges to come, but so far 2013 has overdelivered. In the last two weeks, New York regulators and courts have essentially shut three of these companies down, at least temporarily.

SideCar Technologies, a donation-based rideshare start-up, ceased its New York business after a judge said even free rides from the company would violate the city's laws governing cars-for-hire, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Then last week, RelayRides, which allows car owners to rent out their vehicles, came under fire from the state Financial Services Department for what officials called "repeated false advertising and violations of insurance law, which are putting the public at risk." Basically: RelayRides told car owners that the company's insurance policy covered them 100 percent in the case of a car renter, say, mowing down a pedestrian, but the car owners could actually be found liable.

But the issue really came to a head this week, when a New York judge deemed vacation rental middle-people Airbnb illegal in New York City and New York state. Airbnb's services violate laws against underground and underregulated hotels, as well as a state-wide ban on short-term rentals enacted in 2011. Airbnb is now lobbying in Albany to change the law, but the East Village host who rented out his apartment for a few days and was made an example of got slapped with a $2,400 fine.

Last year, California cracked down on ridesharing and car-hire start-ups. The state hasn't shut them down -- it's looking for a way to regulate them within the current system -- but it's asking a lot of the same questions about insurance and liability that are vexing New York.

It was a quiet year for tornadoes -- until last week, that is. A string of twisters has ravaged the middle of the country over the past several days, culminating in a two-mile-wide tornado tearing up Moore, Okla., Monday afternoon. So far at least 37 people have been confirmed dead in Oklahoma, and that toll is expected to rise.

The weather has twisted a few of our fellow greenies on the internet into a tizzy. "Extreme storm, climate change, OMFG!" they cry. We almost had a seizure reading this missive from the Wonkette folks, and we're fairly sure they had one while writing it.

Wishing the best for tornado victims in OK. Hope this sells at least a few on consequences and importance of climate change.

— Wesley Starnes (@WesleyStarnes) May 20, 2013

But the science on tornadoes and climate change isn't clear enough to OMFG about it just yet.

Grist is currently in the middle of our spring fundraising drive. We're aiming to collect 2,500 of your generous gifts of support by tomorrow, and then we won't bug you about this again for a while! If you're reading this, you're probably already familiar with the great green work Grist does every day. But don't take our word for it. Just listen to your conscience. Susie Cagle

What do you do when the federal government won't let you plant a sustainable, super-useful crop on your own land? Well, if you're Ryan Loflin, you do it anyway.

As of this week, Loflin has planted America's first real crop of industrial hemp in more than a half-century.

The 40-year-old farmer from Springfield, Colo., has been scheming for months. "I believe this is really going to revitalize and strengthen farm communities," Loflin told the Denver Post in April. Now he's leased 60 acres of his father's alfalfa farm to plant and tend the hundreds of hemp starters he's already been grooming.

Hemp, for those who aren't familiar, is a variety of cannabis that -- sorry kids! -- won't get you high. Strong, nutritious, and super sustainable to grow, hemp is used for everything from rope to cereal. It requires few herbicides, and has even been called carbon negative by some boosters. And while it's illegal to grow it in the U.S., it's not illegal to sell. Right now imported hemp -- the only legal kind -- accounts for about $500 million in annual U.S. sales, according to the Hemp Industries Association.

So what if it were homegrown, Loflin-style?

Smokey the Bear always seemed like a pretty reasonable bear-dude to me. He doesn't appear to have any other politics beyond encouraging campers to douse their fires. But that's not how artist Lopi LaRoe sees Smokey. Last fall, LaRoe radicalized the U.S. Forest Service's stern spokesbear in artwork and merchandise.

"This is Smokey waking up and saying, 'Oh you didn’t do that to my environment.' Smokey wants to fight the corporations and protect the air and the water and the plants and the animals and the people," LaRoe tells Waging Non-Violence.

Turns out the U.S. Forest Service is not super into that, and has threatened LaRoe with legal action if she doesn't stop selling Smokey the Anti-Fracker merchandise plus remove all her images from the web.

But considering how reasonable that Smokey always seemed, it got us thinking: What other cartoon bears might be wishing they could get political, were it not for their overlords? We checked in with a few to get their response.

It's springtime at the Point Reyes National Seashore, about an hour outside of San Francisco, and the cold wind whips off the sea and through the tall grass along the cliffs. Cows wander and graze along the fingers of land that reach out into the estuary’s tiny bays, an area altogether encompassing just over three square miles.

Beyond the estuary, at the outer edges of the seashore, seals sun themselves on the beaches, packed in tightly and squirming along the shoreline.

From March through June, the estuary is quiet. The seashore boasts more than 28,000 acres of agricultural land, most of it for beef and dairy production -- but it’s pupping season for the seals, and the National Park Service has instated its annual ban on the motorboats that usually zip around the estuary, planting and harvesting millions of oysters for the Drakes Bay Oyster Company.

A slew of bills currently in front of state legislatures around the country aims to make it a crime to document what goes on behind slaughterhouse doors. But these bills themselves may be a blessing in disguise for animal rights activists.

Take the example of Wyoming, where a proposed bill recently dropped like a pesticide-poisoned honeybee. The bill would have made any recording illegal without permission from the facility owner, with a penalty of six months in jail and a $750 fine. Pushed by a Republican rancher, Wyoming House Bill 126 seemed set to pass the state senate.

That is, until "PETA had Bob Barker come out against it and it got a lot of media attention," Green is the New Red journalist Will Potter explains. "Bob Barker saves the day."

Potter and activist Andy Stepanian have been two of the most outspoken voices against ag-gag bills. When several bills made their way to state legislatures last year, "the threat was clear and real," Potter says. A domino effect seemed impending: If farm-friendly legislators could push these bills through in Missouri and Utah, what might happen nationwide?

"Each one of these pieces of 'model legislation' is seeing just how far they could push the envelope," says Stepanian. "'We have case law on record in this state, why don't you do the same thing in your state?' In time it chips away at our democratic freedoms."

But ultimately -- oddly enough -- both Potter and Stepanian aren't worried. Sure, if they passed, these laws would be a gut shot to the animal protection movement. But in becoming a national news story, ag-gags may have backfired instead. Every time a publication covers farm protection proposals, it uses the horrible images of abuse that investigators have dug up. That has made these stories a great way for activists to spread their message. And it has made Potter and Stepanian downright optimistic.

"Farm protection" or "ag-gag" laws aim to outlaw the kinds of undercover investigations that have resulted in massive meat recalls, plant closures, and even criminal charges.

Specifically, they're designed to deter the kind of work done by people like Lindsay.

For two years Lindsay (not her real name) has worked for a national animal advocacy nonprofit that sends investigators to take jobs at farms and slaughterhouses across the country, each for a few weeks at a time, in an effort to root out abuses.

"I use a hidden camera to film the day-to-day activities in these facilities while I am there working. I take detailed notes on what I witness and document," she tells me. "With such minimal [government] oversight, these industries are pretty much left to police themselves, so it’s not uncommon to find acts of abuse or negligent behavior that may violate state or federal laws."

When Lindsay works on one of these farms, she acts like any other employee -- except for the secret documentation part. Under a slew of existing and proposed ag-gag laws, Lindsay would be committing at least two crimes: fraudulent employment and secret filming. "I do not work in the states that have passed ag-gag laws already, nor do any other investigators I know," she says. "These laws are clearly intended to stop investigations like the ones that I do, and they in fact have that effect. It feels like a desperate move by industrialized agriculture."

Over the past few years, farm protection or ag-gag laws have sprouted faster than Monsanto Roundup-Ready corn. Some of the laws are highly restrictive, while others are pretty lax. Roll over the different states for specific info on each law.