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  • 155 mph on batteries

    KillaCycle sets a world record for EVs. Video below the fold.

  • A review of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Sixty Days and Counting

    Sixty Days and Counting, by Kim Stanley Robinson. I waited for the release of Kim Stanley Robinson’s new book, Sixty Days and Counting, like a computer geek awaiting the release of the PS3: standing outside the door of the store, in the snow, having cleared my calendar for a few days so I could dive […]

  • Good new blog on climate science and communication

    Climate scientist Michael Tobis has started a blog, not so much about climate science itself as about the challenges of communicating about it and the bizarre notions about it that remain puzzlingly persistent. Off to a good start.

  • Crafting a culture of change

    Yale University students, staff, and other community members crowded a university conference room yesterday to watch Erika Lesser, director of Slow Food USA, give a talk on the Slow Food movement in America. Lesser spoke pretty generally about Slow Food USA's goals, philosophy, and achievements. The talk was interesting in itself, but there were two aspects that I found particularly significant:

    • Lesser made some very interesting connections between Slow Food and American environmentalism (more on this below).

    • It was a horribly cold, rainy, awful day, the talk was located in an incredibly out-of-the-way part of campus, yet nonetheless the room was packed.

  • A cool video

    More plug-in hybrid goodness:

  • Look, Ma, Green’s on TV!

    Discovery and Sundance channels plot green programming Good news: soon you can be green without leaving your couch. Next year, Discovery Communications will start up an around-the-clock channel focused on eco-friendly living. The already-existent Discovery Home channel will be rebranded as Discovery PlanetGreen and beamed into 50 million homes, starting off with a series called […]

  • Greenpeace ranks Apple as least eco-friendly electronics firm

    Are you reading this on a Mac? D’oh. A new Greenpeace report ranks Apple’s environmental record worst among 14 major electronics firms, based on use of hazardous chemicals in production and efforts to recycle products at the end of their lives. The iPod manufacturer was i-poohed for continuing to use several types of harmful chemicals, […]

  • A great chef pimps his name for industrial food

    Mario Batali is a great chef and restaurateur. I’ve never had the chance to eat at his celebrated restaurants Babbo and Del Posto, but I have eaten several times at Otto, his relatively modest pizza joint in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. The food there is very, very good. (Try the gelato — especially the incredibly delicate […]

  • Umbra on aluminum bottles

    Umbra, Are aluminum bottles safer than Nalgene bottles? I’m looking at getting Sigg bottles for my self, wife, and son. Vendor agnostic, are the materials used by aluminum-only vendors safer than those that incorporate Lexan? Chris Webber Seattle, Wash. Dearest Chris, I swear, I pick questions and only then do I notice that yet again […]

  • Sea-dweller stops McConaughey in his tracks

    The recent discovery of Irukundi jellyfish off the coast of Fraser Island, Australia, has stopped production of Fool's Gold, a sure-to-be-Oscar-contender starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. The teensy-tiny toxic creatures ("no larger than a thumbnail") are usually found only in northern Queensland, but -- you guessed it -- warming temperatures seem to be pushing the deadly (and we mean deadly) critters south.

    The upside: Now that global warming has deprived the world of the wacky romantic-comedy stylings of Matt and Kate for a few whole days, maybe the administration will finally have the motivation it needs to do something about global warming.

    Yeah. And maybe Matthew McConaughey will finally go a whole day without taking his shirt off in public.