We hit double digits. Champagne all around!
In this episode: A timelapse video of the U.S.'s carbon footprint, a plan to turn pollution into DVDs (and fleece Al Gore?), a warning against nanotoxic socks, and a duel between two green-tech press releases.
Created, written & designed by John Pavlus / Screencasts produced by Smashcut Media / Music by Jeff Alvarez
The polar bear is widely accepted as the unofficial symbol of global warming. Most people would suggest that the poor, drowning, computer-generated creature from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth thrust the plight of the polar bear into the national consciousness. Soon after, with the birth of little Knut in a Berlin zoo, the world had a physical being of heartbreaking cuteness to associate with the problem, though the cub, far from the Dorian Gray of his species, is susceptible to the corruption of age, as are most adolescents.
It didn’t take long for Hollywood to cast them as honorable (and rational) warriors, who’d also star in their own features and rub elbows with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio. So when reports surfaced in 2006 that the shifting climate forced the bears into cannibalism, the public reacted with an outpouring of compassion rather than dismissing them as fearsome predators, as may have been the case in other circumstances. These days, 1993 seems a lifetime ago, when America was captivated by Coca-Cola’s dreamlike Arctic idyll.
China won the right to host the 2008 Summer Olympics after overcoming political worries, environmental concerns and a knockdown-drag-out fight with Paris. China declared of Paris that "certain urban areas leave something to be desired when it comes to cleanliness. In particular, errant dogs and rabid dogs are increasingly numerous." Claude Bebear, the head of the Paris Olympic bid committee, shot back with "dogs are dogs...they do the same thing everywhere... It's just that there are no dogs in China - because they eat them." BURN!
So after that flame war, there's no way in hell China's going to let a little thing like water ruin the opening-day festivities: They've had some success in preventing light rain, as we've previously reported.
But at the same time that China is attempting to stop H2O from falling from the sky, they've also constructed a groundbreaking structure inspired by water bubbles (pictured above). The Beijing National Aquatics Center, or Water Cube, as it's affectionately called, is covered in 100,000 square meters of iridescent, Teflon-like plastic called ETFE. ETFE is only 0.08 of an inch think, but it can hold up to 300 times its weight. The Water Cube is said to mimic nature's way of filling space most efficiently — with bubbles — while also absorbing solar heat to warm the building and the pool. It's said to be one of the most sustainable buildings in the increasingly environmentally-aware China, who want to look good for the world come August.
Check a video of the building after the jump:
Continue reading 'China simultaneously in love and at war with water before 2008 Olympics' >
Rising gas prices are biting everyone in the ass — I initially tried to save costs by diluting my gas with chocolate milk, but my well-tested hypothesis (if: chocolate milk makes me happy, then: chocolate milk makes cars happy) didn't work out so well in the real world.
Luckily, Slate's Brendan I. Koerner explains in his column "The Green Lantern" how a diligent stick-shift driver can improve gas mileage and reduce their carbon footprint by as much as 15 percent. These techniques are collectively called hypermiling, a term which I plan to now sprinkle liberally throughout my cocktail-party conversations because it sounds ultra-cool.
Continue reading 'Stick it to your car's carbon footprint' >
