Another month, another heat record broken...

June, 2015 takes its ignominious* place in history.

*That's the first time I've ever actually used the word "ignominious" in a sentence--and I like it.

Will the Pope's encyclical on the environment be a game changer?

Unfortunately, not likely. 

A whole bunch of people who always say we shouldn't separate church and state suddenly think that the Pope--a trained scientist, by the way--should leave politics and government to the politicians and governments...

Here's what Jeb, a Catholic, said yesterday:

“I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinal or my pope,” the former Florida governor said. “I think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.”

Because taking care of the earth and protecting our dwindling resources has nothing to do with making us better as people, and is only about politics and the economy, I guess. And Jeb would never--NEVER!--mix religion with politics. 

Everest movie Trailer

Wow.

Based on Krakauer's Into Thin Air of course. Opens in September, 2015.

The most active states in America

Using data from the workout-tracking app developer MapMyFitness. The winner is California, with 87 minutes of workouts a week per user. The loser: North Dakota.  The biggest running state: Massachusetts, where the average user logs 37 minutes per week. I help the average on that one a little, though I'm slightly alarmed that MapMyFitness is tracking my workouts like that.

Swoosh!

Nike implicated in FIFA bribery scandal. Let's face it, the only way to do business with that organization is to grease palms. I wonder if the American TV networks had to play ball in this way, as well...

It's about time we stop making BASE jumping seem heroic

Dean Potter dies in Yosemite while attempting a "wingsuit flight."

Theft, murder, and collecting data on the environment.

All crimes in Wyoming.

From Slate.

Imagine visiting Yellowstone this summer. You wake up before dawn to take a picture of the sunrise over the mists emanating from Yellowstone hot springs. A thunderhead towers above the rising sun, and the picture turns out beautifully. You submit the photo to a contest sponsored by the National Weather Service. Under a statute signed into law by the Wyoming governor this spring, you have just committed a crime and could face up to one year in prison.

Wyoming doesn’t, of course, care about pictures of geysers or photo competitions. But photos are a type of data, and the new law makes it a crime to gather data about the condition of the environment across most of the state if you plan to share that data with the state or federal government. The reason? The state wants to conceal the fact that many of its streams are contaminated by E. coli bacteria, strains of which can cause serious health problems, even death. A small organization called Western Watersheds Project (which I represent pro bono in an unrelated lawsuit) has found the bacteria in a number of streams crossing federal land in concentrations that violate water quality standards under the federal Clean Water Act. Rather than engaging in an honest public debate about the cause or extent of the problem, Wyoming prefers to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. And under the new law, the state threatens anyone who would challenge that belief by producing information to the contrary with a term in jail.

Hawaii Goes All-In on Renewable Energy

The Hawaii legislature voted this week that all grids in the state have to deliver 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

Cool clickbait, volume 2,793

The 12 strangest sights on Google Earth. From livescience.com. Proving that although 99.99 percent of all clickbait is evil, the other .01 percent can still be mildly entertaining.

The sons of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay describe witnessing the Everest avalanche

From the Telegraph.

Tesla builds a house battery. But does it come in race car red?

Getting off the grid getting easier? Tesla's trying to make it that way, by employing the battery derived from its Model S vehicles.

The battery, plus installation, will cost roughly $3,000. Then there's the tiny matter of solar panels, which are sold separately, of course.

The true benefit won't come from this first generation of batteries, necessarily--storing solar power in a battery is still highly inefficient--but in bringing investment and research into the next generations.