Afterlife Afterburners: Crematorium to Sell Energy From Dead People
British environmentalists who worry their contribution to a greener planet will end when they expire can finally rest in peace. This past November a crematorium in Durham, England, announced plans to capture heat given off from its furnaces that would then be turned into usable energy to be sold back to the country’s energy grid. That’s right, Brits. Charred corpses could soon be energizing your streets lights, your toaster ovens, and maybe even Queen Elizabeth’s curling iron.
(Photo: Victor Fraille/Reuters)
War, Huh-Yeah, What is it Good for? The Climate, Apparently
Forty years later, Edwin Starr has been proven wrong. In 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War, Starr shot to stardom with the haunting pro-peace song “War,” in which he soulfully bellowed the lyrics: “War! Huh-yeah. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” According to a study released in January 2011, war is indeed good for something—the environment. Authored by Julia Pongratz of the Carnegie Institution for Science and published in The Holocene, a scientific journal, the study concludes that when war drastically reduces a human population, forests are given the chance to regrow, absorb more carbon dioxide, and thereby lessen the greenhouse effect.
(Photo: Jo Yong Hok/Reuters)
Bloomin’ Kicks: Biodegradable Sneakers Seeded With Life
What to do with old sneakers? Make your dog’s year by adding them to his toy chest? Toss ’em into the corner dumpster? Spruce ’em up with polish and new insoles before donating them to charity? None of these options is as environmentally sound as burying a pair of shoes in your backyard and waiting as they partner with water to grow a new flowerbed. Not only do biodegradable sneakers exist, but they are also made by Dutch footwear company OAT, and each pair comes with seeds embedded in cork soles. Talk about sowing oats!
(Photo: Coriette Shoneaert via Ecouterre)
Will High-Speed Rail Topple Michaelangelo’s David?
“David,” Michaelangelo Buonarroti’s marble ode to victory against all odds, apparently has an Achilles heel—high-speed rail. Engineering experts fear that construction of an environmentally friendly bullet-train tunnel in Florence, Italy, where the 16th-century masterpiece resides, could cause the statue to collapse. The tunnel will pass about 600 meters from the statue, the ankles of which are riddled with microfissures. “If it’s not moved before digging begins, there is a serious risk that it will collapse,” said an Italian engineer.
(Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/Getty)
Vulcans Gone Green
This past August Jordan’s King Abdullah boldly went where no Trekkie fan has gone before by approving a plan to construct a $1.5 billion Star Trek-inspired theme park in his home country. The park’s attractions will be fully powered by a spate of by green technology. Live long and prosper, climate change-deniers.
World’s First Hotel for House Plants
Como se dice “flora flophouse” en Espanol? Beginning in August 2011, residents of Madrid, Spain, could book a room for their house plants in the world’s first plant hotel. Professional botanists provided “guests” with treatment tailored to their specific needs, including water, light, pruning, spraying, and irrigation.
(Photo: Hotel Para Plantas)
Would You Eat an Orangutan Salad to Save a Rainforest?
First things first: no actual orangutans appear in chef Andre Chiang’s salad. But try to entertain the notion that some demented culinary artist has concocted a sick and twisted Sophie’s Choice for ape-loving treehuggers. That’s all Chiang wanted, really—to make you think. By serving a salad that contains only what an orangutan eats—wild ferns, orchid leaves, and durian flowers—the Taiwan-born, French-trained chef hopes to kickstart a conversation and raise awareness about the deforestation that is crippling the apes’ natural habitat.
(Photo: Radovan Stoklasa)
Wanna Stop Global Warming? Get Drunk (So Cows Fart Less)
Just in time for the holidays this year, scientists in Victoria, Australia, gifted the wine industry a preposterously fantastic selling point: “If you consume copious amounts of our fermented grapes, you will help pump the brakes on climate change.” New research found that if cows are fed the leftover material from the winemaking process—stems, seeds, and skins (known as grape marc)—their toxic, climate-killing methane emissions will fall by 20 percent. And yes, by methane emissions we’re talkin’ ‘bout cow burps and farts.
Hogs on the John: Will Potty-Trained Pigs Purify Taiwanese Water?
In January 2011, Taiwan’s environmental authorities stumbled upon a novel approach to cleaning up its six-million-swine pig-farming industry: potty train the pork. After one breeder reduced the amount of wastewater on his 10,000-pig operation by 80 percent by teaching his pigs to use the toilet, the country’s Environmental Protection Administration pledged to go countrywide with the program.
(Photo: Jason Lee/Reuters)
London’s Answer to Air Pollution? Streets of Glue
For the past few months the U.K. capital has been capturing dirty air by spaying an adhesive onto roadways in areas with high rates of air pollution. In the middle of the night, roughly 20 miles of the city’s roadways are swept and jet-washed before trucks spray a brew of calcium and water onto the asphalt. Soot particles from vehicle exhaust called PM10s sticks to the adhesive, helping prevent asthma and other health problems. Officials say that the city’s air pollution has dropped 14 percent as a result of the midnight glue gun sprayings.
(Photo: Romulo Rejan/Getty)
Mongolia’s Answer to Global Warming: Big. Ass. Ice. Cubes.
Mongolia has elected to eschew simple-to-achieve efforts to combat global warming (see: carpooling, taking shorter showers, or inflating your car tires) in favor of an attack plan that’s far more ambitious: they’re gonna cryogenetically preserve winter in the form of a big-ass ice cube. Several big-ass ice cubes, to be precise. At the end of November 2011, a crack team of private-sector scientists began to artificially re-create “naleds”—22-foot thick ice slabs that occur naturally in the country’s northern regions—in the Tuul river, the main waterway in the capital city of Ulan Bator. Officials hope the plan plays out something like this: because naleds are so thick, they’ll last until next summer, when they will melt, thereby reducing temperatures across the city. This will hopefully reduce air conditioner use, regulate drinking water and irrigation supplies, and save energy.
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