Like everyone else, we've entered Super Head-Shaking Mode over Rep. Anthony Weiner and his penis picture problem. We'd be sorry to lose him, from a policy perspective -- he's had a pretty good voting record on environmental issues, although his colleages apparently cannot say with certitude that he isn't a dick. But on the subject of bike lanes, Weiner showed his ass long before he showed everything else. Here's Weiner on his goals if elected mayor of New York City, an outcome that we're going to say is off the table for the foreseeable future (try D.C.!): When I become …

If you thought the all-electric Tesla Roadster was fast -- it can go from zero to 60 in 3.7 seconds -- wait until you get a load of the forthcoming electric supercar from little-known Leo Motors of South Korea. Details are sketchy, but the company claims that within six months, it will show off a vehicle that goes from zero to 60 in 2.9 seconds. That level of acceleration would make it the second fastest electric vehicle in the world, after the all-electric Shelby SuperCars Aero EV. (The Areo EV is no slouch when compared to conventional vehicles, by the …

Japanese officials have admitted that the meltdown at Fukushima released almost twice as much radiation as they had initially allowed. ("Did we say 370,000 terabecquerels? Oops, that should have been 770,000.") They also said that the meltdown at the plant began five hours after the quake/tsunami double-punch. The plant's operator had said earlier the meltdown began 10 hours later than that. The radiation release is still only a fraction as bad as Chernobyl, releasing about 15 percent as much radiation. At least, as far as we know now. Wait a couple months, and who knows. (“Oops, did we say 770,000 …

I'm no Peggy Olson, but if someone asked me to put together an ad that would NOT cause anybody to get death threats, I'd probably say something like: "Make it positive and upbeat about the future. Throw a baby in there. Can we get Cate Blanchett? See if we can get Cate Blanchett." Positivity + babies + gorgeous actresses seems like a pretty good recipe for getting people to, if not agree with you, at least not want to KILL YOU. But this ad promotes a carbon tax, and that tends to get people really riled up. Riled up enough to threaten climate …

Global fail: The Kyoto Protocol will expire without a deal to take its place, the top UN climate official said yesterday. China's own Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a report that the country's not doing so hot on the environmental front. The report ticked off problems like acid rain (half of the China's cities are affected) and declining water quality (one-sixth of its major rivers are severely polluted), which we'd also call a "very grave” situation. Rock climbers are being hired to scale wind turbines in order to repair, clean and paint them. Now that's an awesome and potentially …

Everybody knows you're not supposed to get a tan anymore. So what's the point of lying out on the beach, if you're just going to wear SPF 800 sunscreen? Well, if you're sporting designer Andrew Schneider's solar bikini, you can at least be charging your iPod while you nurse your pale yet cancer-free flesh. The bikini is covered in photovoltaic film strips terminating in a USB connector. You can get five volts out of it, which is standard maximum voltage for a USB, which means you can plug in your phone or your music player, or your external keyboard if …

It was supposed to take until 2080 for food prices to double. Sure, climate change can make arable land into irrigation-hungry desert, and increase the likelihood of crop-destroying severe weather (and wildfires). But ironically, increased carbon dioxide also helps plants grow, so this was all supposed to be under control for the foreseeable future. Turns out: Nope. Prices had already doubled or even tripled for some staples before the recession, and they're on their way back up. World hunger is poised to increase at a speed not seen in decades. And climate change is to blame. Changes in weather have …

Natural gas will provide 25 percent of global energy by 2035, up from 21 percent now, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), a Paris-based organization that studies and advises on energy issues. The IEA's report asks if the world is entering a "golden age" of natural gas and answers, more or less, "yes." (Although it seems possible that the organization framed the question that way only to create the perfect acronym for their analysis, which the report calls "The Golden Age of Gas Scenario," or GAS Scenario. Oooh, recursive!)   Natural gas' share in the energy …

A crazy-big forest fire is raging through Arizona, battled by 2,300 firefighters and covering 287 square miles. It's the third largest forest fire in the state's history. But is it a product of climate change? The short answer is that we have no idea until someone digs in to the specifics of this particular event. But the more important answer comes from a document put out by the Arizona Cooperative Agriculture Extension, which notes that a warmer, drier climate and more extreme swings between the multi-year El Nino / La Nina weather patterns are setting the state up for more wildfires …

This image from Information is Beautiful (click to embiggen) shows the biomass of popularly-eaten fish (bluefin tuna, striped bass, all the ones you normally see in restaurants) in the northern Atlantic. On the left is 1900 -- look at all that blue! Blue means 11 or more tons of fish in a given area. On the right is 2000. It is ... distinctly not blue. Not a single part of the North Atlantic shows more than three tons of fish. Of course, 2000 is 11 years ago now, which a) makes me feel really old b) means fish stocks are …