If Obama won't listen to the Tar Sands Action protesters, will he listen to nine of his fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureates? Because they've all but told him -- in their very kind and Peace-Prizey way -- that they'll be embarrassed to share the medal with him if he doesn't. Nine laureates, including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have written Obama a letter urging him to nix the pipeline. The night you were nominated for president, you told the world that under your leadership—and working together—the rise of the oceans will begin to slow and the planet will …
ConAgra pulls a dirty frozen-meal trick on food bloggers
Hey, remember those ads where they used to secretly replace people's actual made-from-beans coffee with freeze-dried Flavor Crystals? Those were a laugh riot, right? So obviously the most genius possible marketing plan for frozen dinners -- basically the food equivalent of instant coffee -- would be to make people think they're eating real made-from-food food, and then alert them that they've been baited and switched. It can't fail! You know, unless the people involved are food bloggers who care about eating organic, fresh, and healthy ingredients rather than mass-fabricated sodium-enhanced spun and capped protein strands. Then they might get pissed. …
Toilet-sharing app CLOO' turns your home into a public bathroom
Hey, we all love sharing, right? It lets you live comfortably while limiting consumption and waste. And you have that bathroom, and you're not using it all the time, right? What are you, selfish? Put your money where your mouth is, toilet-hog, and offer up your bathroom to strangers with a deuce to donate. Otherwise the terrorists win. If you're seriously willing to hang an "Open to Strange Butts" placard outside your lavatory (what are you, nuts? We were joking), a new app called CLOO' will let you take shit from just about anyone. CLOO' is a community of registered users …
The Onion nails core dilemma of tackling climate change
As individuals, how can we face the existential threat of climate change when we are continually reminded that everything we do -- the very act of living -- inexorably contributes to our own undoing? It’s sort of the world’s most angst-inducing question, which is why The Onion’s take on it is so genius. Suppose you've just sat down in a crisply air-conditioned movie theater. Why not take the length of a preview or two to consider the building's massive carbon footprint? Imagine those greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere, disrupting ecosystems and causing infectious diseases to spread rampantly, particularly in …
Oil rig escape pods turned into real-life Survivaballs
You remember Survivaballs, don't you? They're the ultimate solution to a planet gone crazy with excess thermal energy, marketed directly to the executives most responsible for all this climate change. Well, now someone has turned oil rig escape pods into the ultimate climate-immune hotel. If you favor adaptation over mitigation, this is the love nest for you! Harness up a few extras for your offspring and you might even stick around long enough to repopulate the planet. Each survivapod is only 14 feet in diameter and sports little in the way of amenities beyond a chemical toilet. But what do you …
Firsthand accounts from inside Texas' raging inferno
Texas, which is rapidly turning into just the sort of desert we were promised it would soon be, has already seen a year of record-breaking drought and out-of-control wildfires. Now the flames are threatening residential areas, even the state capital itself. Kate Galbraith, reporter for the Texas Tribune, just noted on Twitter: There is an intense smell of smoke outside our building in downtown Austin. Residents of Austin and surrounding areas are packing hurricane-style "go bags" in case they have to flee in a hurry, abandoning homes no one ever thought would be threatened by anything worse than a hail …
Bear steals Prius
Here's a cautionary tale for hybrid owners: A Prius-owning family in California lost its car to a joy-riding bear. After wedging itself inside the car, the bear became stuck. Frustrated, hungry and mad, it kicked, scratched, bit and tore at the interior of the hybrid, trying to force a way out as easily as it found its way in. In its behind-the-wheel rampage, the bear ripped open the seats, bit a chunk out of the steering wheel and damaged the Prius' gear box, shifting the car into neutral. From the safety of the cabin, the awakened family watched helplessly as …
Here’s what happens to EPA whistleblowers (hint: it isn’t pretty)
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's new book, No Fear: The Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA, tells about the ordeal she went through while working at the EPA in the 1990s. She told NPR: For me, working at the EPA was a very harrowing experience. … I was surprised that the in environment of the EPA, instead of being rewarded for being proficient in what you do, loyalty was a much greater value. When I began questioning U.S. policy, I was considered disloyal. And at that point, at the minds of many people at the EPA, I had become their …
Even Tea Partiers don't think environmental protection kills jobs
Yale University and George Mason University took a deep dive into the relationships between political identity and views on climate change. In other words, they tried to figure out what the hell is going on in the minds of Tea Partiers. Godspeed, brave souls. Here's what sets Tea Partiers off from the rest of us: They do not believe global warming is happening. Duh. Only 34 percent of Tea Partiers believe in global warming, vs. 53 percent of Republicans. 53 percent of Tea Partiers aren't even wavering: they know global warming's not happening. Those snowstorms last winter made them wonder …
Critical List: Oil industry says it has jobs to offer; Senate could cut clean energy funding
Need a job? Alberta's tar-sands industry wants YOU. But if you want to stay in this country, never fear, the oil and gas industry wants to create jobs here. On the one hand: Yay jobs! On the other hand: Boo oil and gas industry! A European court put the kibosh on honey that contains even a tiny bit of pollen from GMO crops. If we know Monsanto, they’re now working on a genetically modified bee that neutralizes evidence of genetic modification from the genetically modified pollen it collects. London ranks "below average" on air pollution. (That means its air quality …

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