Residents of Chongqing, China got quite a surprise when they looked out at the Yangtze River yesterday: The river, which usually has a golden-brown hue, had been dyed a deep red-orange, and nobody knows why! The crimson coloration first appeared yesterday where the Yangtze meets the Jialin River, but it was also reported at other points along China’s longest river. Officials are currently investigating the cause of the dramatic color change, but so far they haven’t arrived at any conclusive answers.
During President Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention he mentioned several people who give him hope. One was a high school student doing cutting-edge research in evolutionary biology despite the fact that she lived in a homeless shelter while starting it.
Oil is washing up along the Gulf Coast in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, churned up by Hurricane Isaac. After discovering hundreds of tar balls at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama, a Greenpeace research team joined our allies at the Gulf Restoration Network to investigate the impacts on East and West Ship Island, off the coast of Mississippi. We found tar balls on East Ship Island and several heavily oiled areas on West Ship Island, which are both part of the Gulf National Seashore.
Important Media contributor Charis Michelsen has been given a Mitsubishi MiEV to try out on the mean streets of Chicago, and she’s been putting the little plug-in commuter to the test as a “real world” vehicle. 60-mile round trips in city traffic? Done. Adapting to EV life in an apartment community withOUT specialized EV parking? Done. Loving the little Japanese EV? You’ll have to read her report, reprinted from PlanetSave, below.
Over the past three days, one of Helsinki’s tram lines has been carrying some unusual cargo — living plants donated by passengers for inclusion in an amusement-park-themed urban garden built from recycled timber on a disused industrial site in the Finnish capital.
Tomorrow’s Sunday, which means that many of you will be headed to church in order to commune with, establish, or re-affirm your faith. For those of you headed off to (what my Irish-Catholic father would call) “proper Church”, you’ll no doubt be familiar with his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI. What you may not be familiar with are Benedict’s environmental concerns, leading many people to refer to Benedict as “the green pope“. Helping the Pope further promote that green message last week, Nissan/Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn personally delivered a fresh-and-shiny electric Renault Pope-mobile!