Climate Culture

Oil rig escape pods turned into real-life Survivaballs

You remember Survivaballs, don't you? They're the ultimate solution to a planet gone crazy with excess thermal energy, marketed directly to the executives most directly responsible for all this climate change.

Well, now someone has turned oil rig escape pods into the ultimate climate-immune hotel. 

Mom could be arrested for letting her kid bike to school

There are a few factors that make it tricky for kids to bike or walk alone: Bad drivers who face insufficient consequences, lack of sidewalks and protected bike lanes, too few crosswalks. We COULD improve biking and walking infrastructure, and have cops actually crack down on illegal driving maneuvers. But that's hard! Instead, let's just arrest everybody who doesn't drive their kids to school. That appears to be the approach in Elizabethton, Tenn., where Teresa Tryon has been threatened with arrest if she keeps letting her daughter bike to school on her own.

Wicked wicks: Ask Umbra on paraffin candle disposal

How to dispose of toxic tapers? Ask Umbra burns the candle at both ends to find out.

Are vegetarians more fun in the sack?

Apparently vegetarians do eat meat. Data from the online dating site OKCupid indicate that vegetarians enjoy giving oral sex more — or anyway, they say they do. There are all sorts of causation and correlation-based theories we could attempt here, but we'll just let your imaginations run wild. We'll simply note that, inevitable confounding factors […]

Zip decoding: Can one Seattle area serve as model of diversity?

A south Seattle zip code once touted as the most diverse in the U.S. exemplifies the challenges and rewards of cultivating multicultural neighborhoods anywhere in the country.

How dense: Tea Party rages over smart growth

Brave Tea Party members know the United Nations will begin their global totalitarian government takeover at the local level. So they're taking the battle against conspiracies like denser urban areas, linked transit systems, and smart land use to the front lines: regional planning commissions!

Teaching kids to love nature and buy less stuff

Kids are getting the sort of education that guarantees they'll soon be fighting each other, Hunger Games-style, for Earth's dwindling resources. The solution is to cram everyone in America into Berkeley, California, say the authors of the new book The Failure of Environmental Education. (I'm paraphrasing.)

Busting myths about China's one-child policy

Joe Biden's latest gaffe thrust China's population policy into the headlines. Let's seize this opportunity to set a few things straight.

Letter from prison: Tim DeChristopher speaks

From a prison in Utah, climate activist Tim DeChristopher speaks out with a handwritten letter to Grist extolling the power of words.

Biden doesn't support China's one-child policy, and neither does any other American with power

Gaffe-prone Joe Biden put foot firmly in mouth last week while talking about China's one-child policy. Top Republicans jumped all over his goof, but they were just grandstanding.