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McDonald’s feeble attempt to encourage walking is short-lived

Hamburglar Comin

McDonald’s feeble attempt to encourage walking is short-lived

By on Aug 18, 2016Share

McDonald’s recent attempt to encourage kids to get exercise beyond lifting fries to their mouths is officially as dead as Grimace, the turd-shaped McD’s villain who met an untimely passing after too many milkshakes.

This week, the company started putting fitness trackers in Happy Meals along with the customary 23 grams of fat. The device, a Step-It, is basically a cheap pedometer. It was included on the premise that kids would love watching their step count increase so much that they would start to take more of them — which is a bleak, burgeoning trend in toys for children.

But it would have taken a lot of steps to work off the food it came with: Gizmodo calculated that it takes about four hours of exercise or 24,000 steps to burn off the 840 calories in the average Happy Meal.

And after reports that Step-Its were causing rashes on the little wrists that wore them, the company announced Wednesday that it is discontinuing the prize.

“We have taken this swift and voluntary step after receiving limited reports of potential skin irritations that may be associated with wearing the band,” said a company spokesperson in a statement.

As for the Type II Diabetes that may be associated with eating loads of McDonald’s food? Well, that’s still something to look forward to.

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McDonald’s feeble attempt to encourage walking is short-lived

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Many of those hit hard by Louisiana rains don’t have flood insurance

In cold flood

Many of those hit hard by Louisiana rains don’t have flood insurance

By on Aug 16, 2016Share

The unprecedented rains that flooded parts of Louisiana and Florida over the last few days have led to at least 11 deaths and damaged an estimated 40,000 homes. While it’s too early to assess all the damages, the cost to residents could be devastating.

The Baton Rouge Advocate reports that in areas where a federal disaster has been declared, the vast majority of homeowners do not have flood insurance. In Tangipahoa Parish, where three people died, only about 12 percent of property owners have it; in St. Helena Parish, where two died, just 1 percent do. Throughout the state of Louisiana, 21 percent of homes are insured for flooding — which is a high percentage compared to the nation as a whole, but low when you consider the state’s low-lying ground and propensity to flood.

FEMA has announced aid of up to $33,000 for those affected by the storm, but payouts for most people are more likely to be between $9,000 and $10,000. And FEMA grants will only be available for those who live in areas where flood insurance isn’t required. For those who should have bought insurance but didn’t — typically people who’ve paid off their mortgages and so aren’t required by a lender to do it (i.e., older people) — the cost of recovery will be theirs alone. And in a state where nearly 20 percent of residents live in poverty, that could be a big blow.

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Many of those hit hard by Louisiana rains don’t have flood insurance

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Koch bros want you to think fossil fuels are great for the whole family

koch machine

Koch bros want you to think fossil fuels are great for the whole family

By on Aug 16, 2016Share

Charles Koch may refuse to spend money on the Trump campaign but that doesn’t mean the Koch brothers are taking their $750 million ball and going home. In addition to spending on congressional elections, they’re also backing a new effort to rebrand fossil fuels. The Fueling U.S. Forward campaign launched Saturday at the 2016 RedState Gathering in Denver.

Fueling U.S. Forward, as DeSmog’s Sharon Kelly reports, is an attempt to change the conversation from the danger of fossil fuels to the benefits of them. Its website features young, attractive stock model families and tries to convey a message that burning oil, gas, and coal is “pro-human.”

The site does not, however, mention climate change, nor the fossil fuel industry’s role in it. And while Fueling U.S. Forward wants you to believe that the industry is an engine of economic activity, it also costs us dearly: The EPA estimates that the economic losses from drought and water shortages could be $180 billion by the end of the century — not to mention the overwhelming costs of deadly storms and food shortages. How’s that for pro-human?

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Koch bros want you to think fossil fuels are great for the whole family

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Finally, a solution to the worst scourge of this scorched Earth: brown avocado

Pit of Despair

Finally, a solution to the worst scourge of this scorched Earth: brown avocado

By on Aug 12, 2016 6:06 amShare

There’s nothing worse than overripe avocados. Bone spurs? Nah. Attack by rabid dog? Uh-uh. 24-hour election coverage? Not even that! Expecting the beautiful green flesh of a perfect avocado and finding brown slime in its place is objectively worse than all the evil of the world combined.

Brown avocados don’t just kill any mortal’s will to live — they’re also wasteful: Americans throw away an estimated 70 billion pounds of food each year. And you can bet your $10 toast there’s a whole lot of discolored avocados on that trash heap.

But from the darkness, a hero must emerge. As Mashable reports, the Natavo Zero — a new machine developed by Australian company Naturo Technologies — uses pressure, temperature, and steam to quench the enzyme that causes avocado to turn brown after it’s exposed to air. If you run sliced avocados through the “time machine,” as Naturo calls it, the precious fruit will stay green for up to 10 days.

Natavo Zero is only available for large-scale food processors. Why? Because you, as a lazy consumer lone wolf, actually have to do very little to keep an avocado green: Squirt it with lemon, rub it with olive oil (debatable, but sure), or leave the pit in. Or maybe just don’t buy too many of the damn things in the first place — you will never make that much guac.

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Finally, a solution to the worst scourge of this scorched Earth: brown avocado

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Enjoy it while you can: Climate change is already hitting the Olympics hard

Hot Bods

Enjoy it while you can: Climate change is already hitting the Olympics hard

By on Aug 8, 2016Share

Sewage water isn’t the only thing competitors may be worrying about at the Rio Olympics: Hot temperatures and air pollution are already interfering with athletic performance. In a preliminary racewalking competition before the games began, 11 out of 18 competitors suffered from heat-related injuries. One athlete even passed out.

But this Olympics might be the best it gets. According to a report from Brazil’s Climate Observatory, as climate records keep falling, outdoor sports records could become much harder to break.

Already, marathon times are 2 minutes slower on average for every 10 degree Fahrenheit that temperature rises. In Rio, the problems are even more pronounced, because poor air quality from vehicle congestion makes high-performance outdoor sports difficult — even deadly. Each year, thousands of Rio’s citizens die from complications of air pollution, which is tied to lung cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and asthma.

“On hot days in polluted areas, it is healthier to go out and have a beer (in the shade) than to practice sport outdoors,” said Luzimar Teixeira, professor at the School of physical education at the University of São Paulo.

The report notes that competitors may be able to mitigate the effects of climate change through technological advances like high-tech equipment and clothing, but those advances are not likely to be available to athletes from less wealthy nations.

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Enjoy it while you can: Climate change is already hitting the Olympics hard

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The right now wants a “Clexit,” because Brexit went so well

Retreat!

The right now wants a “Clexit,” because Brexit went so well

By on Aug 4, 2016Share

Inspired by Brexit, Britain’s regrettable decision to leave the European Union, Australian climate-change denier Viv Forbes and pals like Marc Morano have a new project: Clexit. Get it? Like Brexit but with a C, and a new slogan: “Leading the great escape.”

The group’s mission, according to their founding statement, is to stop the landmark global climate treaty designed to slow carbon emissions.

“If the Paris climate accord is ratified, or enforced locally by compliant governments, it will strangle the leading economies of the world with pointless carbon taxes and costly climate and energy policies, all with no sound basis in evidence or science,” Clexit’s website states. “These destructive policies are already killing real industry while enriching the huge artificial and parasitical climate-change industry.”

If economics are their concern, the founders of Clexit may well remember that Brexit has been hardly good for the economy — UK leaders resigned, markets dived, bank lending fell, and British industries contracted.

Nixing the Paris accord would be even more costly in the long-run: Doing nothing about climate change could cost the global economy anywhere between $2.5 to $24 trillion.

Then again, reality was never a strong suit for Brexit campaigners and climate deniers. But, hey, at least the name is cute.

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The right now wants a “Clexit,” because Brexit went so well

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These huge buses drive right over the top of cars

Not your parents’ transit

These huge buses drive right over the top of cars

By on Aug 4, 2016Share

You may have imagined the future of transit as jetpacks that fly above traffic or self-driving cars that transport you back from the bar while you drool in the backseat, but it’s much stranger. Meet the straddle bus.

China has begun testing the long-teased concept of an elevated bus, an odd-looking machine that gets around traffic by going over it.

The bus, which can carry 300 passengers at a time and is partly solar-powered, is meant to help ease some of China’s notorious congestion problems. Last year, thousands of travelers were stuck in a 50-lane traffic jam, and in 2010, a 62-mile bottleneck left motorists stranded for 12 days. Kind of puts your morning commute in perspective.

Smog from traffic is tied to respiratory distress, eye, nose, throat irritation, and even birth defects. In China, where smog is particularly terrible, birth defects are far more likely in urban areas with lots of traffic congestion than in rural areas without.

If the straddle bus fails, then there’s always another miracle technology that can bypass traffic. You might know it as the train.

See footage of the future above, brought to us from New China TV.

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These huge buses drive right over the top of cars

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Humans are gobbling up natural resources at a terrifying rate

Eat the rich

Humans are gobbling up natural resources at a terrifying rate

By on Aug 3, 2016Share

Humans are using too much crap.

That’s the official word from a new U.N. report on the use of natural resources. It found that, from the food we eat to the homes we live in to the fuels we burn, our rates of consumption are just unsustainable. That’s not too surprising, but the real shock is that our extraction of the primary materials used to make all of our stuff has more than tripled in the past 40 years.

United Nations Environment Programme

“We urgently need to address this problem before we have irreversibly depleted the resources that power our economies and lift people out of poverty,” said the U.N.’s Alicia Bárcena Ibarra.

Unfortunately, it’s a trend that’s likely to continue. Unless we drastically change our systems of production, according to the U.N., the world’s population will require almost three times the amount of resources we currently use by 2050. Rich nations, especially, are overusing materials, sucking up 10 times more than the world’s poorest nations and twice the global average.

So put down those diggers, humans! It’s time to save some stuff for the future.

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Humans are gobbling up natural resources at a terrifying rate

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Al Gore is voting Clinton, for the climate

Al Gore is voting Clinton, for the climate

By on Jul 25, 2016 3:12 pmShare

Al Gore — climate change activist, one-time VP, and former next president of the United States — has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. He made the announcement Monday on Twitter.

Gore joins a long list of environmentalists in endorsing Clinton, a woman who both believes that climate change exists and has promised to do something about it. Republican nominee Donald Trump, on the other hand, has varyingly referred to climate change as a “hoax,” “mythical,” “nonexistent,” a “con job,” and — a personal favorite — “bullshit.”

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Al Gore is voting Clinton, for the climate

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Walmart wants to sell you ugly fruits and veggies — and that’s a good thing

FUGLY

Walmart wants to sell you ugly fruits and veggies — and that’s a good thing

By on Jul 21, 2016Share

Walmart may be best known for low prices — and low wages — but now the company is vying for a new reputation: the nation’s largest seller of ugly food.

Earlier this year, the retail giant started selling “Spuglies,” or ugly potatoes, as part of an effort to cut down on food waste. This week it announced that it will begin selling a line of cosmetically challenged Washington state apples called “I’m Perfect” (a play on imperfect — get it?). The apples will start rolling out in 300 Walmart stores in Florida this week, where they will sell for lower prices than their sightlier sisters.

“One of the challenges growers have is that Mother Nature can throw a curveball such as a hailstorm, high winds, or even a string of very hot sunny days, which can damage the exterior finish of fruits,” wrote Walmart Senior Vice President Shawn Baldwin in a blog post. “While the texture and flavor remain perfect, the exterior damage usually renders these fruits unsellable in the fresh market because they fail to meet traditional grade standards. We’re proud to be the first retailer to bring these apples to you.”

Walmart is also trying to curb food waste by requiring some of its suppliers to standardize their date labels: Instead of the confusing “best by,” “use by,” or “sell by” wording, they’ll be using more understandable “best if used by” language.

Food waste is a huge problem worldwide. Americans throw away an estimated $29 billion worth of food annually. Globally, 40 percent of the food we produce is never consumed. That’s not just wasteful, it’s hugely costly for the planet, squandering water, land, and other resources.

Now, if only Walmart would do something about those slave wages.

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Walmart wants to sell you ugly fruits and veggies — and that’s a good thing

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