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On last night's Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert talked about helium and its surprising disappearance from the Earth. Despite being the second most abundant element in the universe, helium is quickly being depleted on Earth, and will soon be lost forever. More »
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Sewage packs more of an energy punch than previously thought. The increase in potential energy could be enough to make sewage plants into energy plants. More »
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The Republican party needs to wake up to the reality that we're causing global climate change before it's too late, warned two former GOP congressmen. More »
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In the 1980s, the Soviet Union built nuclear-powered ice-breakers, hoping to open a shipping route through the Arctic. They needn't have bothered — there's no ice left now in the summer, opening the fabled Northeast Passage to shipping. More »
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Kevin Costner once boasted that he could have cleaned up the Exxon Valdez spill in a week. Now he'll get a chance to show what he can do — BP is buying his oil/water separation machines. [Inhabitat and WWL] More »
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We've done so much damage to the planet, we can't call it "Earth" any more, says environmentalist Bill McKibben. We'll have to start calling our planet "Eaarth" instead. And we have to pronounce it in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5524334&view=rss&microfeed=true Environmentalist, inventor and futurologist James Lovelock (who was the first person to detect CFCs in the atmosphere) says humans may not be smart enough to prevent global warming. And he adds that saving the planet might require putting democracy on hold: More »
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We loved Greg Pak's robot-themed anthology film Robot Stories, and now he's crafted a bizarre, clever short film set in our eco-apocalyptic near future. "Mister Green" is one of 11 movies about future America that you can watch for free. More »
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If the world really does get flooded like in Waterworld, energy supplies will be scarcer than ever. So we'll need this craft, the world's largest solar-powered boat, with 5,382 square feet of solar panels. More »
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Here's your first look at a ground-based cloud-seeding system. With drought hitting the Western United States hard, governments are pushing the federal government to spend $25 million on cloud-seeding technology. Meanwhile, China is already spending $100 million to make rain. More »
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Photographer James Balog is best known for his death-defying trips to Iceland, Greenland and Alaska, where he's documented the melting icecaps using photos and time-lapse images. But he's also made stunning images of cyborgs and "techno sapiens." More »
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Hot enough for ya? Our crazy fossil-fuel orgy is driving the planet's temperatures through the roof. Good thing science fiction books and movies have come up with 10 can't-fail solutions (well, maybe they'd work) for stopping global warming. More »
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In the next year, students at Georgia Tech will be driving cars that run on fossil fuels but don't release tons of carbon into the environment. It's all part of the university's long-term plan to develop vehicles that produce recyclable carbon. Eventually they hope to eliminate fossil fuel from the equation, but in the meantime they are working with an engine that traps carbon emissions for dumping off and recycling at fuel stations. Let's hope they model it on this Swiss zero-emissions car called SAM, which looked cool but was discontinued due to lack of funds. More »
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