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Climate change already killing baby polar bears

Climate change isn't just killing polar bears, it's killing baby polar bears. YOU MONSTER.

A study that tracked polar bears swimming long distances found cubs that swam more than 30 miles at a time were more likely to die than cubs that didn't. Baby polars have a hard time making those swims because:

Sunlight can disinfect water

Turns out the nonsensical yuppie idea that bottled water is “cleaner” is actually true, in very very specific circumstances. In areas where it’s hard to find drinkable water, plastic bottles and sunlight can save lives.

SODIS, or solar water disinfection, is a fancy way of saying, "Leave germy water in a plastic bottle out on your hot roof and eventually all the bad stuff will die." It's a simple idea, but remarkably effective at dealing with water contamination.

The $50,000 playhouse that oil built

Ever wonder what oil executives do with all the money they make from wrecking the planet? Well, take a tour with me through the playhouse that oil exec John Schiller ($7.7 million in compensation in 2010, including a $2.6 million bonus) had built for his 4-year-old. That's an artist's conception above, not the actual blueprint, but all the features -- air conditioning, running water, fireplace, 32-inch flat-screen TV -- are for real. (The New York Times has pictures, too.)

Critical List: DeChristopher sentencing today; Gingrich invests in renewables

Activist Tim DeChristopher's sentencing is scheduled for today. He could go to prison for as many as 10 years.

Congress is still hard at work cutting funding for all manner of environmental programs.

With the West out as a customer, Iran is selling its natural gas to Iraq and Syria.

Green is the new red: environmental activists under attack

Will Potter on the eerie parallels between the Red Scare and the kind of repression and paranoia the green movement faces today.

25 days of dares: Planet pictures, tossing toxins

In the third week of Umbra's month of dares, she dresses up like a bee and stops to smell the planet.

Nissan Leaf Orphan Finds New Home

You can read my earlier Leaf posts here, here, here, and here. The Leaf I ordered is not due to arrive for another two months. Another engineer that I work with called me up (while he was on vacation) to tell me that he had just test driven an orphaned (the ordering party decided not […]

Universal health care and the medium chill

Is U.S. economic policy currently biased against medium chillers? Or is it biased against killers? Or both? The big problem is health care.

Norway terrorist is a climate change denier

Anders Breivik, Norway terrorist, is a climate change denier, like many American conservatives.

Cooperative South Dakota wind farm nets 600 local owners

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. With the right renewable energy policy, hundreds of individuals can have a stake in a renewable energy future.  That’s what happened with a cooperatively-owned wind project in South Dakota, where 7 turbines from a larger wind project […]