There are all kinds of futuristic-looking energy-efficient light bulbs on the market -- not just the traditional piggy-tail model, but liquid-cooled bulbs that look like glass jellyfish, and bulbs with gills like a mushroom or fins like a Cadillac. But for our money, this wooden bulb by artist Ryosuke Fukusada is the most beautiful energy-efficient light fixture going. (And yes, it really is a light fixture.)
We all know, in the abstract, that tar-sands oil is something we should oppose. But seeing the destruction that tar-sands mining wreaks on the landscape really brings it home. Business Insider took some spectacular photos at the Alberta tar sands, and they make the impact viscerally clear.
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.
Photo by Ben Brockert.
Aw shit, it's Loki.
Before the Heartland Institute decided to alienate even right-wing denialists with their OTT billboard campaign, they were already in kind of hot water -- some of their internal documents had come to light, and the light was not flattering. Climate scientist Peter Gleick admitted to obtaining the documents under false pretenses, which absolutely scandalized Heartland, whose policy on document-stealing is "it's only fine when we or our friends do it."
Since then, Heartland's defense has rested mainly on this chain of logic:
Gleick has already apologized for misrepresenting himself to Heartland in order to get the documents. But Heartland has continued to insist that he also forged one of the memos (conveniently, the one that made it look the worst). Well, he didn't. An investigation has revealed that Gleick didn't forge diddly-squat so shut up.
Pictures from the organic, comfort, and control groups.
Finally, scientific confirmation for that suspicion you've nurtured while being shoved around by yoga-pantsed moms in the Whole Foods produce aisle: Organic food makes you rude and selfish. According to a study by a Loyola University professor, people who eat organic are more judgmental and less inclined to engage in altruistic behavior. In short: Maybe you'll live longer if you eat organic, but everyone will wish you hadn't.
After a year fraught with hardship, the climate-denialist Heartland Institute is being rapidly abandoned by its friends and supporters, doomed to wind up friendless and alone, wandering the streets clad only in rags, hawking matches to indifferent passers-by. It would be straight-up Dickensian if they weren't such jerks. But most of this ill will is coming from the organization's over-the-line billboard campaign comparing climate scientists and other global warming believers to legendary mass murderers.
A decade ago, British Columbia had 40 full-time park rangers who monitored 1,000 parks. Today, it only has 10. And they don't often make it out to faraway parks like the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park, which is on the southern end of Vancouver Island.
With no one around regularly, it must have been easy for poachers to come into the park and hack away at an 800-year-old red cedar tree. Well, “easy” is relative, because we’re talking about a lot of sawing -- this granddaddy cedar was so old, its stump measures almost 10 feet in diameter. But there was so little supervision of the park that the tree thieves could return multiple times to hack at the tree and then haul sections of it away.
