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New York City's Solar Windfall Illuminates America's Clean Energy Future

This post adapted from Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. A recently released solar map of New York City found enough room on building rooftops for solar panels to power half the city during hours of peak electricity use. Taking advantage of this solar windfall could allow […]

This park would turn an abandoned subway into an underground paradise

Sure, the High Line is great and all -- abandoned rail line turned into a beautiful outdoor leisure area, what's not to love? (Plus, reportedly you can see people getting undressed in the windows of one of the hotels that straddles the park.) But what it's really missing is an element of Neil Gaimany beautiful creepiness. I know! Let's put it UNDERGROUND.

That's the thinking behind the Low Line, a proposed park that would turn two acres of abandoned Lower East Side trolley terminal into an underground Eden.

Where do your 42 pounds of corn syrup come from?

You know how people say Americans are gross? Americans are gross. An average one of use eats 42 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup each year. GOOD points out that that's the same weight as six newborn babies (Austin Powers was prescient).

I think at this point, we all know corn syrup is bad, even when it's called "corn sugar." But it sneaks into everything. 

Swimming pools don’t have to be insults to the planet

Swimming pools — so awesome and fun, but so not actually good for the environment in any way. But KB Custom Pools, a pool company in Texas, has a sorta-kinda-more-like-a-real-body-of-water alternative. Their Eco-Smart pools match the topography of your backyard, use a filtration system that doesn't require harsh chemicals, and can be heated using solar panels. Gizmodo goes so far as to say it's positively lake-like (minus, of course, the mucky bottom and the fish).

 

Oceans kept the last decade from being even hotter

Occasionally, as in the past decade, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to increase, but the increase in average world air temperatures seems to "pause." (Not that the past decade wasn't the hottest on record -- it's just that climate scientists thought it could have been even hotter.)

Now, scientists are figuring out where that extra heat went: into the oceans. Specifically, into the deep oceans, below 1,000 feet beneath the surface. The world's oceans can hold vastly more heat energy than the atmosphere, so this isn't a big surprise, although it's nice to have some confirmation.

World population could just keep on expanding, says expert

"Leading demographers, including those at the United Nations and the U.S. Census Bureau, are projecting that world population will peak at 9.5 billion to 10 billion later this century and then gradually decline as poorer countries develop. But what if those projections are too optimistic?"

Cool vintage footage of Canada's tar sands

1942 wasn't so different from the present — wars were raging, the U.S. military was hugely dependent on oil, and Canada had some, in the form of tar sands. Back then the only problem was that conventional oil was still far too abundant to make extracting oil from the tar sands economically viable. (U.S. production […]

Another urban garden bites the dirt

Just when you'd finally forgotten the story of the woman facing jail time for the veggie garden in her front yard, another urban gardener -- this one a teacher who uses his plot for hands-on lessons -- is under fire.

Critical List: Solar installations increasing; giant snails invade Miami

The number of non-residential solar panel installations is growing.

Disasters connected to weather or climate made more than 30 million people in Asia refugees last year, the Asian Development Bank reports.

Oil industry consultant Daniel Yergin wrote a new book about energy. It'll probably annoy you.

A professor in Canada made a machine that could suck carbon out of the air.

In Utah, cyclists on a mission

Weirdly, Provo's bike renaissance is missing just one thing: controversy.