Friday, July 11, 2008

Interesting Articles

I've read two very interesting articles recently, both of which were mentioned on the blog The Good Human (a green blog that's definitely worth subscribing to).

First is the article on California's new vehicle rating system which is to be displayed near the number plate of all new vehicles. Vehicles will be given both a "global warming score" and a "smog score," each ranging from 1 to 10 with 10 being the most environmentally friendly.

Another interesting article is from the NYT entitled Can Weeds Help Solve the Climate Crisis? While the article spends far less time discussing how weeds can help solve the crisis than it does discussing the adaptability of weeds, it is still highly interesting. According to experiments, weeds positively thrive (grow much larger, produce more pollen, etc) at higher temperatures and higher CO2 levels. The article suggests that the "weedy ancestors of our food crops... will cope far better with coming climatic changes than their domesticated descendants." Therefore, focusing on these ancestors in the future may become essential.

Lastly, I will be leaving for a trip to China tomorrow and will not return until July 24th, so I won't be writing any new posts for a while. :)