Nature
ArchiveOur weekly roundup of the quirky, bizarre, entertaining, and astounding news from the world outside. Here's the stuff you should click on this week. Now You See It, Now You Don't:Then and Now: Repeat Photography Captures Changing Landscapes (…
Courtesy of dobak on Flickr. Wolves in the Rockies will remain on the Endangered Species List despite growing controversy over their protection, the Associated Press reports. Negotiations between the Obama administration and lawmakers in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming…
Clif Bar & Company was among the top three Best Places to Work of 2010, and for lots of good reasons. But Clif's new headquarters in Emeryville, Calif., could give the energy bar company the extra shot of awesomeness needed to push it even higher on the…
In the age of Prii, An Inconvenient Truth, and reams of 100% recycled printer paper, environmentalism is as much a fixture in American society as football season. That issues like climate change and sustainable fuel are topics of conversation among government officials and citizens alike is taken for granted. Environmental…
Photo courtesy of Flickr. Tigers living in the wild could go extinct in 12 years if countries where they live neglect to take action to protect their habitats and fight poachers, The Huffington Post reports. A…
Obscure sports, a brief history of fossil fuels, “will write for ski swag,” and… Dick Van Dyke? Here’s the stuff you click this week. I Can Ride My Bike with No Handlebars: Those Are ‘Shrooms, Dude!Making Plastic from Mushrooms (…
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a list of most wanted criminals and apparently the authority to make membership meaningful. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the EPA had Albania Deleon, 40, tracked down in Santo Domingo and extradited from…
Seven years ago, Florida resident Hitesh Mehta embarked on a journey that took him through 46 countries in six continents. The purpose of his trek? To find the world's greatest ecolodges–places where tourism and sustainablility combine to create one-of-a-kind, environmentally friendly vacations. The result?…
The following dispatch is from extreme kayaker, Ben Stookesberry. He and members of the First Ascent kayak team are currently on an expedition in Africa. Their goal: to make a first descent on the…
A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization casts a foreboding future for California’s National Parks, which could become poster children for the likely detrimental impacts of climate change. The study found that 10 parks in the state, including Yosemite, Death Valley, Redwood, Joshua…
Photo courtesy of Flickr. The Volkswagen Passat BlueMotion set a Guinness World Record for “the longest distance traveled by a standard production passenger car on a single tank of fuel,” TreeHugger.com reports. The Passat began its trip…
Courtesy of matthewlrigdon on Flickr. On October 9 Malibu's Surfrider Beach and its vicinity will be officially declared the first World Surfing Reserve, Transworld Surf reports. The area has been plagued by poor water quality over the…
Photo courtesy of Flickr. Last night, divers from the European conservation organization The Black Fish cut the nets of six holding pens in Taiji, Japan, their Web site reports. The freed dolphins had recently been…
Alternative, ecologically-friendly transportation is getting a lot of lip service this days, but we rarely see these ideas come to fruition. Next in the line of dreamers? The Shweeb transportation system, a pedal-powered recumbent bicycle capsule that hangs from a…
September 17 marks the sixth annual PARK(ing) Day, when people around the globe reclaim metered parking spaces as public spaces. According to Parkingday.org, the “project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted…
Photo courtesy of Flickr In July, eco-adventurer David de Rothschild and his crew ended their 130-day voyage across the Pacific from San Francisco to Sydney in Plastiki, crafted from 12,500 plastic bottles. Their journey…
On Monday, the director of Utah's Division of Oil, Gas & Mining approved plans for the first commercial U.S. oil sands project, the AP reports. Director John Baza gave Canadian company…
Courtesy of NASA Goddard Photo and Video on Flickr. The Associated Press reports that a Mariner Energy oil platform exploded earlier today off the coast of Louisiana, about 200 miles west of the epicenter of…
The first dolphins caught in Japan this season were herded into the notorious Cove at Taiji today, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society reports. The Society, an International non-profit conservation organization whose mission is to end the slaughter of…
The new patriarch of the first family of the sea, Jean-Michel, 68-year-old son of the legendary Jacques Cousteau, is founder and president of the Ocean Futures Society, a nonprofit dedicated to ocean conservation and education. Son of the legendary Jaques Cousteau, Jean-Michel, talks to Anthony Cerretani about his latest…
Guess who's hot in Hollywood? Will Steger. With producers suddenly primed to make environmental films, the legendary polar explorer hit L.A. with a scary pitch about global warming—and he was a smash. In this podcast, Senior Editor, Stephanie Pearson, reads her profile of Minnesota's Will…
Sylvia Earle on stage during Session 1 on the Mission Blue Voyage in the Galapagos. Credit: TED/James Duncan Davidson Sylvia Earle dives into all things blue. She moves equally well through conversations on ocean technology, ocean politics, ocean lifestyle, ocean science, and ocean exploration. In 1966,…
Patagonia has released its Environmental Initiatives 2010 E-book, and you should check it out. It's not just a place for the company to geek out about how many tons of clothing it has recycled since the start of its Common Threads program…
What do you get when you toss award-winning documentaries, artists, activists and adventurers all into Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House? The second annual MountainSummit in Aspen, a four-day celebration of film, adventure and advocacy. A slightly downsized…
Sometimes, when there's a big environmental problem that defies immediate understanding, it helps to resort to fourth grade science experiments. In June, Carl Safina pointed out during a TED talk that he believed bombarding oil with dispersants near the spill likely helped…
Photo Courtesy of Flickr Worldwide CO2 emissions dropped by 1.3 percent in 2009, German-based renewable energy institute IWR told Reuters last week. The institute cited two reasons for the drop in emissions from 2008: the weak status of…
Malibu, California's playground for celebrities and surfers, will become the first World Surfing Reserve this October. The Save the Waves Coalition launched the World Surfing Reserve initiative in 2008 as an effort to “designate and preserve outstanding waves, surf zones and…
A piece of ice roughly four times the size of Manhattan island broke free of the Petermann Glacier in Greenland yesterday, according to the University of Delaware. The last time the Arctic lost a…
A giant bus that straddles two lanes of traffic, letting cars pass beneath it, will be tested in Beijing’s Mentougou District, China Hush reports. The Shenzhen Hashi Future Parking Equipment Co., Ltd unveiled the bus at…
Dung beetles have been around for thousands of years but the one on the streets of Britain is a whole new insect. Well, not exactly. British sustainable energy company…
Volunteers and Nature Conservancy staffers counted bighorn sheep this July to see if efforts to conserve the endangered species' population are working. The 40th annual bighorn sheep census took place in triple-digit heat at California's Anza-Borrego…
Photo by George Boe Two years ago, I joined a group of Los Angeles activists in paddling the Los Angeles River, what, in the July issue, I called “the ugliest river in America.” In early July, the river…
He glanced through the glass and saw Tilikum staring back, with what appeared to be two human feet hanging down his side. There was a nude body draped across Tilikum’s back.
The fabled giant catfish of the Mekong River will soon be driven to extinction if hydropower dams planned for the Mekong River go ahead, ENN reports. The giant catfish is one of the largest freshwater fish…
On Saturday, Iowa’s Maquoketa River washed away Lake Delhi dam, flooding some 50 homes and 20 businesses. It’s not surprising that an 83-year-old dam broke in a flood, but it's a symptom of a bigger problem: America's aging infrastructure. The average age…
Courtesy of shaferiens on Flickr. Commercial and academic laboratories across the country are making significant investments in engineering algae to produce fuel, the New York Times reports. The goal is to develop a variety of…
Brazilian native Indians took 100 workers hostage on Sunday at a construction site for a hydroelectric plant in the southern Amazon region, Reuters reports. The Indians–as many…
The Plastiki, a catamaran built out of 12,500 plastic bottles, ended its voyage from San Francisco to Sydney on Monday, the New York Times reports. The boat was the brainchild of European banking heir, David de Rothschild. He's on…
A Citybank in Hong Kong got a quick lesson in environmental issues when it ran an add offering credit cardholders 15 percent off a “shark's fin and garoupa dinner,” the New York Times reports. Citybank Hong Kong withdrew the promotion last week…
A unmanned solar drone, the Zephyr, stands to set records in a test flight over Arizona's Yuma Proving Ground, the New York Times reports. A representative from QinetiQ, the British company that developed the drone, says that the plan is to land the aircraft…
Google Energy, a subsidiary of Google, signed a deal on Tuesday to purchase 114 megawatts of energy from a wind farm in Iowa, CNET News reports. The deal is the first for Google Energy, which was created last December. The…
Today, BP began testing another cap designed to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the New York Times. Once the new cap is in place, BP officials will conduct a 48-hour test to see if the…
In our June issue, senior editor Grayson Schaffer profiled Summit Series, a group of young CEOs looking to build community through adventure outings. Recently, the group traveled to Haiti to deliver aid to the…
Courtesy of NOAA. Two new species of pancake batfishes have been discovered by researchers in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Reuters. The population of one of…
The Solar Impulse completed its first night flight at 7:00 A.M. GMT, Reuters reports. Andre Borschberg, the pilot, kept the solar-powered aircraft aloft for just over 26 hours before landing at an air base in Vaud, Switzerland.
A Solar Impulse model HB-SIA airplane took off from Switzerland Wednesday morning in an attempt to be the first solar-powered plane to fly for 24 hours, according to CNET news. The plane is designed to fly at night with solar power stored…
tedxoilspill on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free TEDx dedicated a special conference to the oil spill. They sent videographers, photographers, and specialists to the Gulf of Mexico for a week to document the disaster, so they…
NRDC put out this video on the spill featuring surfer Laird Hamilton and volleyball star Gabrielle Reece. The two recently visited the Gulf of Mexico and spoke about how they reacted to the…
The New York Power Authority announced Wednesday that it will be applying for a lease from federal regulators to build one of the nation's first offshore wind farms, according to…
Cruise trips to the Antarctic may end next August, according to The Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald. The article states that the International Maritime Organization is banning the use and carriage of heavy oil fuels, the kinds commonly used by big ships in the…
For the local surf community in Louisiana, conditions are grim, reports Surfer Magazine. At nearly three hundred miles wide and two hundred miles long, the BP oil spill that first began to escape from the pipes of the Deep…
Four years ago, kayakers Seth Warren and Tyler Bradt loaded their gear and some bacon grease into a 1987 Toyota truck (a former Japanese firetruck) that they'd converted to run on biodiesel and started an epic journey from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Cape Horn,…
Greg Grandin's Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City, a Pulitzer-Prize finalist, is a 20th-century tale of industrial ambition, mismanagement, and failure. The head of the whole thing…
ALLAH WAS INVOKED THAT DAY, after a wood-fired breakfast in an 18-degree dawn. The earth was cloaked anew; hoarfrost made the grass crunch under my boots. Wind ripped away the plume of Daniel González’s breath. Winter in southern Chile, one of the southernmost places on earth. The pickup truck, already…
The chart says it all. The website of the automated river gage on the Little Missouri River near Langley, Arkansas, operated by the United States Geological Survey, is bookmarked by…
How frequent are summer thunderstorms in the desert? Can you rely on that as a source of fresh water?—The EditorsSanta Fe, New Mexico
The Wild File: Black Widows
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is on the move, the Environmental News Network reports. Currently caught in the Loopt, a clockwise current that originates in the Caribbean and travels along the Yucatan, the oil spill will likely travel up to the tip of Florida…
Think you live in a clean country? Think again. Yale, in conjunction with Columbia, recently released their annual EPI (Environmental Performance Index). The U.S. dropped 22 spots in just one year (now ranked at 61, compared to…
Most climbers get a little restless in Base Camp. There’s not a lot to do other than read the latest weather report, eat, sleep, sharpen crampons, take a Sherpa shower, and wait for a decent summit window. Cory Richards, on the other…
A month ago we set out to paddle across all of the channels that connect the Hawaiian Islands. Over the past few weeks we crossed from one island to the next, paddling the channels on our stand-up paddleboards and exploring each island once wearrived. From the beginning,…
ϳԹ has a history of covering big environmental disasters. To understand the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it helps to have an understanding of where it stands in the history of oil spills. That's not to say…
If you didn't know there was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, you haven't been paying attention. But what you might not know is that someone is ready to take responsibility–at least financially. BP has announced that they are willing to contribute to clean-up efforts and will pay…
Can't get outside but want to break a sweat? Fitness centers nationwide are finally jumping on the green bandwagon, as reported by rueters.com. While the health club industry saw an overall increase in business last year, many are aiming to increase that even more–by tailoring to…
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20 has ballooned into an environmental and economic issue of extreme importance. What was at first reported as one of the worst oil drilling accidents of the last 50 years has evolved into an economic…
We set off on our journey on April 7, starting with a paddle across the Alenuihaha channel, which separates the Big Island and Maui. Having delayed our departure due to gale force winds earlier in the week, we were not sure what to expect of the notorious…
We have now completed our run across the Sahara and are in Tunis for a day before we head back to North America. The final total we ran over the past eight days is 268 kilometers! We averaged just under a marathon per day and are very happy with…
The running today was pretty tough. We ran over unvarying terrain: small sand dunes with grasses interspersed, flat as a pancake, except for the dunes. It was quite hot and the footing was difficult so we didn't really talk at all for the first 25 kilometers because we were…
An American imprisoned for the murder of his ex-girlfriend in a Nicaraguan surf town finally clears the air—sort of.
This expedition has been a mix of pushing our physical and mental limits, learning more about water, and learning more about each other and ourselves. It has been an incredible experience that has definitely changed the lives of all of us i2P youth ambassadors. Our sixth day began with…
This morning we awoke to a breeze traveling throughout camp. Connor, Jill, and I thought that perhaps we would need our goggles, and we were so glad we decided to bring them along (unlike Andy who was having sand-in-eye issues). We started off through the dunes for a…
Today we ran a marathon! Although this morning, we all woke up feeling exhausted, stiff, sore, and needing an ice bath. We left camp around 7:30 A.M. and made our way towards the town of Douz. As we continued forward, our legs began to loosen up and our pace…
The conservationists fighting renewable-energy development need to wake up and smell the wind and solar power. Now.
Remember the climate bill? The one that the House passed last year, before all eyes in DC turned to health care reform? Well, it's inching back into the legislative spotlight. A new (and, based on the looks of things today, very weakened) version of the bill could be heard…
Our favorite New Mexico llama/wilderness guide is coming to L.A. Stuart Wilde will lead his team of llamas–of the animal variety–around the city to extol the virtues of walking, in honor of…
After realizing the gaping hole between my convictions about climate change and my own carbon footprint, I embarked on a yearlong experiment in 2008 torediscover the heart of where I live, by the shores of Puget Sound. I traded in my car and jet travel…
When we first contemplated the idea of stand-up paddling across the Hawaiian islandchain, it sounded so simple: All we would need would be a boat, a willing and able captain, and some boards and paddles. What we've learned is that planning a trip like this requires a…
The day started out with a 1.5-hour drive, rocking Arabic/Frenchmusic in Nardeen's car to start where we finished yesterday. After atough day yesterday, we made a collective decision to run 20 minutes,then do a fast walk for two minutes. Our goal was to make it back tocamp, about 36…
We're underway. As of yesterday, on a salt-pan called Chott el Jerid in southern Tunisia (home to several sets from the Star Wars movies), youth ambassadors from North America, ages 17 to 21, and several support people began the…