Sometimes it's nice to stop worrying about the fate of the planet and just appreciate it for its beauty -- and it doesn't hurt if its beauty is slightly enhanced by being part of a massive environmental art project. Sonja Hinrichsen's snow drawing looks like it could be a Marimekko fabric design, but it's actually a large-scale arrangement of snow crop circles that took five people three hours to complete.
Man, I can barely raise a plant from a seedling without killing it, and scientists have managed to grow viable plants out of seeds from 29,000 B.C.? So unfair.
Photo by Neil Cooler.
DRUNK PEOPLE OF NEW ORLEANS! We know you need that plastic flotsam in order to see some boobs, because of I guess longstanding tradition dating back to before you could see boobs on the internet without even trying. But it's basically an ecological nightmare, so if you can't find some ladies who are willing to take their tops off in exchange for tofu or offset credits or something else environmentally responsible, at least be mindful about how you dispose of your extra beads.
If you're like me, you watch this video and think "my house is 10 times as big as this apartment and only slightly more functional," and then curse the day you moved to the suburbs.
This is the smallest studio apartment you can build in California, by law -- 160 square feet -- and it includes a bevy of space-saving measures.
Photo by Rob Stone.
In the course of writing my two recent posts on vegetarianism, I came across some interesting data. According to a 2011 poll conducted by Harris Interactive:
In addition to the vegetarians, 33 percent of Americans eat meatless meals on a regular basis, the poll found.
Send your question to Umbra!
Q. Dear Umbra,
How can I get “free,” “environmentally” friendly business cards? I am starting to network with my new credentials, LEED GA and BPI certification. So I need an eye-catching business card.
Dee R.
Philadelphia, Pa.
A. Dearest Dee,
First of all, congratulations. For those who don’t speak eco-acronym, Dee here has become something of a green-building expert, proving her chops as both a LEED Green Associate -- someone with expertise in environmentally friendly construction and design -- and a Building Performance Institute professional, chock-full of knowledge about home energy performance and efficiency. Go Dee!
Non-artist's rendering of artist's rendering of houses in a tank
World's richest artist Damien Hirst, best known for preserved sharks and diamond-encrusted skulls and having his assistants make all his artwork, apparently owns an obscene amount of land in Ilfracombe parish, Devon, England. And he wants to use it to build a development of 500 "eco-homes."
You may have heard that Rick Santorum financial backer Foster Friess proposed one weird old trick for birth control: an aspirin between the knees. (If you don't get it, try holding an aspirin between your knees, and then imagine that you only knew one sex position and it was missionary.) We found some file photos of Friess explaining his theory, which he put forth on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports.
Maybe you've heard that we're now using more trees for toilet paper than for newsprint. (Not least because the newspaper industry is even more in the toilet than toilet paper.) But did you know that because of Americans' demand for super-soft TP for our bungholes, 98 percent of the pulp used to make the stuff comes from virgin wood?
You know where your coffee beans come from -- so why not your gasoline? Did your $3.50 a gallon go to prop up our tar-sands-addicted frenemies in Canada? Perhaps that tank of gas was originally shipped out of Venezuela and is propping up Hugo Chavez.
