Weekly Links: We all love colorful, striking maps. Unfortunately, our brains aren’t great at quickly decoding lots of colors, so scientists and cartographers would like us to stop asking for colors and just embrace duller, more informative imagery. Also, a new study shows that pollution leads to cognitive decline, particularly among older men. And coastal home prices are taking a hit due to rising sea levels.
From Facebook to Uber to electric scooters, corporations are demanding we change our behavior to adapt to their profit-driven technology. This is nothing new, but why do we continue to let it happen?
This week, what’s the deal with the recent poll showing that only 66% of young people firmly believe the Earth is round? And, when are we getting our long promised glow-in-the-dark trees to replace city street lamps? Plus, leave it to this EPA to propose a regulation that it admits will result in 1,400 more deaths.
Three years after Tybee Island business owners objected to a proposed plastic bag ban and the Georgia Senate passed a bill prohibiting cities from adopting such bans, the nation’s largest grocer said it will eliminate plastic bags from all its stores.
This week, a global livability study says Atlanta fell in the rankings due to riots. Ah…okay. Also, as part of the ongoing Amazon charade, Atlanta will apparently offer the company $1 billion in incentives to locate their HQ2 campus in the downtown gulch. And Atlanta officials are finally treating public signs like works of art that actually try to inform people of rules.
Weekly Links: America dedicates 40% of its land to raising and feeding livestock, California’s Carr Fire may have produced an actual fire tornado with winds of 150 mph, and an intriguing map shows that the land that now comprises modern day Atlanta was a nexus point for three major Native American communities.
Much like harvesting natural resources on Earth, mining asteroids presents a number of socioeconomic and normal destruction-of-Earth issues, though we do have a good set of rules and regulations designed to address those issues. Oh wait, we meant *don’t have.
This week, New York wants to cap ridesharing vehicles to reduce traffic congestion, but Uber claims it’s immune from regulation because New York is bad at urban planning. If only that logic worked for the rest of us. Also, Los Angeles thinks it’s found a way to store excess solar and wind energy – by harnessing the power of the Hoover Dam. Plus, the story of the property in Manhattan that’s the size of a pizza slice and London could have had a futuristic pod system built on top of the Thames.
A Notorious Asylum’s Haunting Encounter With a Strange Trespassing Law
Disorder in the Supreme Court: Four Ways to Resolve the Partisan Chaos
Georgia’s Conservation Measures Prove Pivotal in the Water Wars
It’s Likely Earth’s Six Warmest Years on Record Are the Last Six Years
Note to Atlanta: You Don’t Have to Do Whatever Companies Want, Just Ask Athens
Should Georgia Pay People to Keep Their Yards Wild?
