From Desire to Doherty

By Sarah van Schagen and Sarah K. Burkhalter

14 Dec 2007

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Pimp my ride

Before Seattle hustled to rename its brand-new streetcar, the city was all set with acronyms: the Experience Music Project (EMP), the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), and the South Lake Union Trolley. Ahem.

Photo courtesy Kapow Coffee

Rhino, no, no

We appreciate the sentiment, Santa -- really, we do -- but if this is what you have in mind for us this year, we'd really rather you picked up a fruitcake or something.

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The tax of life

Breaking up is hard to do -- and turns out, it's no good for the planet either. Staying together? Just remember: Parenthood can be taxing.

Photo: iStockphoto

Pee-roo!

"Kangaroo farts could fight global warming." Really, we couldn't make this shit up.

Bright future

Glow and behold, innovators in the field of dance-club neon-stick technology have developed a new material that can stay lit for 12 years. Much like Pete Doherty.

Photo: MPK Co.

Read more about: green living | Grist List | lists | all of these topics

Seen something weird, wacky, or wonderful in the environmental world? Think it deserves a place on The List?

Grist does not testify to the quality of consumer goods, guarantee the pop-cultural significance of trends, or vouchsafe the accuracy of news stories featured in this column. For all you know, we just made it up. Use it at your own risk.

Sarah van Schagen is Grist's assistant editor.

Sarah K. Burkhalter is Grist's editorial assistant.

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Comments: (1 comment)

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Let's not kill the 'roos

I think it would be far easier, and healthier, for Australians (already suffering from high obesity rates) to just eat more fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains than to poor all this money and time into research on giving kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep! Another techo fix.

And hunting kangaroos shouldn't be an alternative to sheep and cattle raising. If all of Austalia turned to kangaroos as their primary source of protein, it'd be a disaster. A number of kangaroo species are threatened or endangered and they can easily be mistaken by hunters, who do their killing mostly at night, for the ones that aren't protected.

And the species that aren't protected face threats as well. Red kangaroos aren't protected, but they are now being killed at a rate three times higher than they are reproducing. In the 1960s their average age was 12, today it is 2.

The kangaroo leather and meat trade targets the `alpha' males. Thus the kangaroo hunters are upsetting the gender ratios which could harm natural selection. As more and more alpha males are killed, the kangaroos who are left to breed are smaller and younger animals, causing the gene pool to be weakened. According to Dr Ian Gunn of the Animal Gene Storage Resource Centre of Australia, "...the continued slaughter of kangaroos has the potential to cause the extinction of a number of remaining species".

The late Steve Irwin encouraged the public to "Simply never purchase wildlife - including kangaroo - products!"

There's much better ways to obtain protein than either animal agriculture and hunting kangaroos.

by amc89 at 1:46 PM on 14 Dec 2007

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