Arturo Vittori, Andreas Vogler, and whether Warka Water could be the future in the developing world

The state of running water and sanitation in the world isn’t great, and while big names like Bill Gates and Matt Damon have donated time and money to the efforts, they can still be costly. The newest version of the Gates toilets… Continue Reading

Can we generate electricity from the oceans? Well, for damn sure China is going to try.

Actually this does happen around the world, but very rarely is it ever successful. Here’s the essential challenge: Their quest has been to create a machine that’s tough enough to withstand the constant pressure of surging water, yet sensitive enough to harness that… Continue Reading

72 percent of the Earth is covered by ocean. So desalination seems like a logical answer to drought, right? Not so fast.

California droughts right now might be the worst in 100 years, and Lake Mead’s at a fairly dangerous level (which threatens tourism mecca Las Vegas), so clearly we’re moving to the “answers” stage of our water problem. It would seem… Continue Reading

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A company from Israel is saving the Alps for skiing and tourism (with an idea from a Siberian gulag)

Depending on your particular political ideology, you may embrace or deny climate change — that’s all well and good, but the science behind it is there and rather indisputable. Now it’s a question of who benefits and who loses, which Shell (oil… Continue Reading

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Ultimately, does China or Russia (or the USA or Chile or someone else) stand to benefit the most from Antarctica?

Everyone is staking their claim to Antarctica these days; China just built its fourth research base there, which is shaped like a lantern. China’s now spending about $55 million per year on the Antarctic; 15-20 years ago, they were spending $20… Continue Reading

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“Without Lake Mead, there wouldn’t be Las Vegas” — so are we eventually going to lose Las Vegas?

The above clip is from CBS Evening News last night; it deals with drought levels in the Western U.S., specifically in Lake Mead, which is the primary water source for about 20 million people in southern Nevada and southern California. They currently… Continue Reading

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Because we’re getting more liberal about marijuana laws, we may have to sacrifice a bit on the salmon front

In 2013, we saw a shift in marijuana legalization viewpoint — more people approved it than not. That led to legalization in Colorado, which led to the first person ever to buy it legally in Colorado, which led to this epic… Continue Reading

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What exactly is happening with the contaminated water situation in West Virginia right now?

You can find pretty good summaries all over the Internet (including here, here, and here), but the basic situation is this: a company called Freedom Industries — which actually works with water treatment chemicals — spilled 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or… Continue Reading