We can understand wanting to fill your gas tank with vegetable oil. But washing your hands in it? Amazingly, a way’s been found to do just that – and Treehugger has the details.
Time for a hypothetical scenario. There’s a major company on the brink of having one of its genetically modified crops deregulated, i.e. nothing between it and the environment. Fail-safe? An independent full environmental impact study, designed to weed out any dangers. Except…this study has been ditched, in favor of a patchier study undertaken by the company itself. Ludicrous, it would never be allowed to happen…wouldn’t it?
On the 8th of January, Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunge was murdered on his way to work – an event described by the Sri Lankan Mirror as the biggest blow to media freedom the country had suffered. A few days later the Sunday Leader, the independent newspaper where Wickramatunge had previously been editor-in-chief, published an editorial he wrote to be released on the event of his death – and it’s moving, unsettling and uplifting.
Mr. Obama – with all that money being thrown at the economy to make it stand upright again, isn’t there room for reform with the national unhealthy, inefficient, deeply 20th-Century food system? Tom Philpott outlines why such work is a necessity, not a luxury, over at Grist.
Science, not politics, will guide the decisions of the Environmental Protection Agency, promises its new administrator Lisa Jackson. Stirring words – but she’ll need more than just words considering the amount of pressure the organization is under to clean up its act after the difficult Bush era…
…and she could start by taking a look at the disaster unfolding in eastern Tennessee, take a longer, harder look at the practice of using “clean coal”, and pass the findings back to the policy-makers.
What would you do if you found a huge, perfectly circular disc of ice slowly rotating in your local pond? Since Mulder and Scully seem to have retired, feel free to panic a little – but there’s a perfectly rational explanation for it all. As usual, science is a lot weirder than you think.
For every endangered species making a welcome comeback, there are many more that continue to struggle in perilously low numbers. How many of these 44 beautiful endangered forms of life will bypass the threat of extinction?
GreenUPGRADER poses a timely question: with all the power at our fingertips to alter ecological systems, what should we be doing? What is enough, what is too much, and what is right and wrong? Join the discussion and give your opinion on where the line should be.
Speaking of ecologies, the Supreme Court is preparing to rule whether it’s legal and ethical for mines to dump industrial waste into lakes and rivers. It’s very much environmentalists and a few congress members vs. the government of Alaska (not entirely surprising) but the signs are good. Read the full story at Planetsave.
Advocating the practice of “culture blending” in the search for the sum total of the best lifestyle options the world has to offer, we’re proud to link to Suzanne’s Files. She wants quality, not luxury (a topic close to our hearts) and she’s keen to share the wealth of experience that she and her international collective have accumulated. In every sense, a quality outfit.
This one’s for fun. Ladies, if you find yourself clothes-shopping for the man in your life and you want him to look as good as Daniel Craig in a suit (and guys, if you want to look like James Bond), you’ll find the Art Of Manliness guide to a man’s style in relation to his body type to be absolutely invaluable.
Is the modern world guilty of promoting overclaiming? Like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon where “all the children are above average”, do we mainly overestimate our contributions and skills in the spirit of shoring up our confidence and optimism? Gretchen Rubin explores if this is it hurting our happiness in the long run.
Oh PETA, no. No no PETA no. As if they haven’t run enough ludicrous stunts for one lifetime, we’re now faced with the call for the rebranding of fish as Sea Kittens – because that will make them fluffier and more lovable, melting the hearts of illegal fishermen everywhere. Meanwhile, cat lovers everywhere are presumably worried that their beloveds will be relabeled Land Fish. Watch this space.
And lastly, an unexpected new method in the fight against global warming is…crops that bounce back more light?
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