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Short awesome video explains why oil companies suck to people who already know

This nifty/depressing video explains how yes, technically, there’s more oil, but the financial and environmental costs of reaching it make it so that it really might as well not exist.

Fruits of old: Chicago gears up for an urban heirloom fruit orchard

Urban orchards are the new staple of second-wave urban agriculture. Now Chicago is upping the ante with one geared entirely toward heirloom varieties of fruit.

Melon madness: How my food waste obsession took over my weekend

What do you do when someone brings a dozen melons to a family holiday getaway? If you're worried about preventing food waste, you get creative. Very creative.

Obama to college students: ‘Denying climate change won’t make it stop’

Obama doesn't like to talk much about climate change -- except to select audiences of those who will suffer the most from global warming: college students.

Friday music blogging: Rizzle Kicks

The year is more than half over, which means it’s time for me to start thinking about my end-of-the-year mix. (Yes, I’m slightly obsessive.) One dilemma I face toward the end of every year is that I’ve found tons of good indie, twang, folk, and … well, let’s just say it, white-dude music, but too […]

As you enjoy your Labor Day, here’s something to worry about

The negative feedback loop of greenhouse-gas release from thawing permafrost is in full swing in Siberia.

World Forest Area Still on the Decline

By Emily E. Adams Forests provide many important goods, such as timber and paper. They also supply essential services—for example, they filter water, control water runoff, protect soil, regulate climate, cycle and store nutrients, and provide habitat for countless animal species and space for recreation. Forests cover 31 percent of the world’s land surface, just […]

As Romney mocks climate, Obama mocks Arctic

President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise…is to help you and your family. – Willard Mitt Romney, August 30, 2012 The moment Mitt Romney mocked the climate crisis will be cursed, rued, and lamented by future generations. It might even be cursed, rued, and […]

Hurricane Katrina caused a baby dolphin boom

Hurricane Katrina was irredeemably terrible for everyone involved — except, it turns out, baby dolphins. (And presumably adult dolphins, who got to enjoy making baby dolphins.) In the years after the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, these cuties multiplied like excuses at a BP press conference, Scientific American reports: Around two years after the hurricane […]

One-fifth of creepy spineless animals could disappear forever

Most species are spineless piles of goo. That’s not a value judgment: About 80 percent of the world’s species are invertebrates, which actually do lack spines. Metaphorically, though, it is we who are the spineless piles of goo, for standing by while these creatures disappear. A new report from the Zoological Society of London found […]