Very funny video clip from Saturday Night Live showing Al Gore giving a Presidential address. One of the best lines is when he says that there is no need to worry about hurricanes and tornadoes because of the “anti-hurricane and tornado machine I was instrumental in helping to develop.”
Let’s face it, dealing with heavy issues like global warming can get depressing. It takes a cartoonist like Denis Thomopoulos to help us find our funny bones again! Bookmark Hippoworks and visit it often! You and your kids will come to love the characters and appreciate the way Thomopoulos slips in a bit of adult, snarky humor as he brings big issues down to kid level.
There are games and puzzles, coloring pages and support material for educators. [...]
This week, we’ve explored public transportation around the world. To wrap up, we searched the world for the funniest and most unusual public transportation. This is what we found.
Levitating Monorail, Germany. An electric car? Cool. An electric train? Awesome. An upside down electric monorail?? Now that qualifies as unusual public transportation. Believe it or not, this transit system was built over 100 years ago. While Ford was fidgeting with his “quadricycle,” the city of Wuppertal built this transportation marvel that still appears ahead of its time today.
It’s a zero emissions, all electric transit system, and it floats through Wuppertal (the self-styled “German San Francisco”) with over 20 million passengers a year. Photo: Flickr
Mae Klong Train Market, Thailand. Yes, those are train tracks running through that market. One of the shortest train routes in Thailand is also one of the most bizarre. Ambling past windmills and salt flats, the train stops halfway through its route at a river. Right, no bridge. So, people get out and ferry across to a second train, which picks up where the first left off. But wait, it gets better…
In order to arrive at the Mae Klong station, the train must pass right through the middle of a crowded street market. Vendors quickly pull in their stalls several times a day as the train goes by. For an excellent account of the journey, read Steve Van Beek’s article on the Tourism Authority of Thailand website or this article at 2Bangkok.com, or see this video. Photo: Thai-Blogs.
I couldn’t pass this one up. That ugly little fellow in the Reuters photo is an electric eel, and it’s powering lights for a Christmas tree in a Japanese Aquarium.
In a video from Reuters Television, which is available at the bottom of this story, two aluminum panels inside the eel’s tank act as electrodes, capturing the power needed to light the tree. Kazuhiko Minawa, who thought up the idea, spent two months devising [...]
It’s finally happened, good old St Nick is beginning to buckle under to the stresses of an over-abundance of controls and regulations. The jolly old elf just isn’t that jolly anymore, and he explains why in this interview.
This is another of those “I thought I’d heard everything” articles, and it comes to us from Australia. Medical expert Associate Professor Barry Walters has proposed a $5000-plus levy on each new baby born, and an annual carbon tax of $800 for each child in the family. His proposal, according to the article on News.com.au, says Walters idea would tax every family with more than two children to pay for trees that [...]
Well, the residents of that Swedish community have been fighting with the National Heritage Board for a new name, or at least a return to the old name. Globalization has apparently led to rude English-language associations that residents of this small community could live without.
The whole thing apparently started in the 1930’s when the spelling of the name changed from Fjukeby. Embarrassed and finally tired of all the jocularity, a committee of [...]
Well, I’ve read it all, and just after I thought every possible dumb thing had been reported, along comes an article in this week’s TIME Magazine that made my jaw drop.
Community and homeowners associations across the country are trying to ban the use of clotheslines in their communities. According to the article, they seem to think clothes drying in the sun are an eyesore, and could well affect property values. Hello? [...]
Those are the conclusions of one Dr. Dave Mason, owner of a tech site, Dave Mason.com, and host of his own syndicated tech-oriented radio program. It would appear the good “doctor’s” environmental stethoscope has been misplaced into some dark region, and his environmental view small enough to fit through the eye of a needle.
Now don’t mistake this as a personal attack on Dr. Dave, far from it. He is an honorable man with an impeccable past, a fierce defender of family values and all around good guy. I have nothing but the utmost respect for him. He is entitled to his opinion, and I respect that.
The attitude I’m referring to is best seen in two recent articles by Dr. Dave in his Truth Blog. One post is entitled “NBC’s Sunday Night Football becomes overt left propogandist”, and the other is, “Gore, outright liar, calls dissenting Scientists outlyers”. Besides his vituperative attack on NBC and the individuals involved in the broadcast, he apparently believes that global warming is a myth, at least as proclaimed by Al Gore, scientists and other notables, and that environmentalists are nut cases, or at least badly misinformed.
You’ll have to read his stuff rather than my trying to paraphrase in order to get the full impact of his attacks. Here’s my question to all those people who seem to think the planet is doing just fine, thank you, and that all this posturing about global warming is egocentric, politically inspired, a commercial ploy or any other conspiracy oriented claptrap you can dream up. Is all this acrimony purposely diverting our attention away from real issues, or merely our normal human need to choose up sides and pick a fight, or better yet, stand back, feed the controversy, and let you and him fight?
So, what are the alternatives to this mess we live in, or does the right wing crowd even see one? I’ve heard them say that private industry should be trusted to clean up their own environmental messes, not the government. Golly, haven’t they done well over the past century? God help us if we turn them loose today.
I saw a special on one of the cable programs about the sun and it’s contribution to climate change on earth. One theory is that changes on the sun helped bring about the little ice age of several centuries ago. It’s also been proven that the earth has more than once suddenly turned over and relocated the poles to the equatorial region. The Sahara was once a lush and green paradise, and the list goes on about mother nature’s handling of her domain.
The earth is a living thing, and may be in the throes of some natural change, while reeling from the indignities we’ve imposed upon it for decades. We must remember that we’re guests on this rock, and I wonder if mother nature isn’t telling us that we’ve been naughty little boys and girls.
So why not just use some common sense and support cleaning the air we breathe? I know my failing lungs would appreciate it, and what about the polluted streams and rivers, water aquifers and damage to the earth itself as the result of decades of indiscriminate dumping of toxic wastes and depletion of it’s finite resources? After all, we have children, grandchildren and future generations to consider, not to mention ourselves as long as we take a breath and drink a glass of water.
Happy Halloween Planetsavers! If you’re like me, without fail, you are just now thinking of a Halloween costume for tonight’s festivities. As a woman, you really have only a few options, whore, whore or whore. What’s it going to be, sexy alien version of Alice in Wonderland (Paris Hilton’s Costume choice), sexy bat girl or global warming…aka Hot Earth. Sure men may applaud this, but there’s really a lack of creativity in a simple lack of clothing. This year, I’m going ugly…really ugly. I want to look like a domestic fight gone bad, a zombie past dead and a malnourished vampire all in one.
Regardless of the partying that awaits, we still can have a green Halloween. There are great tips on how to recyle our ghoulish pumpkins long after the holiday has past. When you toss you Jack-O’-Latern into the garbage it ends up in a landfill spewing out methane instead of simmering in your stove. Here are some great tips to keep your Halloween green, think Pumpkin Ravioli in a sage butter sauce.
Pumpkins are surprisingly versatile and people are being encouraged to get in their kitchens and come up with creative cookery to transform them into soup, cakes, pies and even lasagne.
The shell of the pumpkin, which is inedible, can also be transformed into compost and, by adding a few autumn leaves, can help give your bin the right mix.
Ian Monson, the county council’s cabinet member for environment and waste, said: “When pumpkins are sent to landfill, they break down without any oxygen and create methane - a potent greenhouse gas.
“By having a go at using the pumpkin for cooking, much of the waste is avoided. Composting the rest of the pumpkin at home as well is more good news for the environment, as it creates a useful compost to feed your garden.”
Green county councillor Andrew Boswell said he loves pumpkin soup and also eats the vegetable as a casserole with roasted potatoes and parsnips. He said: “Most years we have about two organic pumpkins and we freeze the flesh outwards. It can last you the whole winter. Pumpkin soup is delicious and very nutritious. I would urge people to make use of their pumpkins after Halloween.”
Subscribe to our RSS feed or newsletter
