Planet

America's mayors look to bypass Trump and take part in the UN climate change conference

via Wikimedia Commons

The great thing about American democracy is the separation of powers. The federal government has rights, states have rights, counties have rights, cities have rights, and we, as people, have rights, too.

Heck, even animals have some rights in the good ol' U S of A.

The president of the United States is not a king or a dictator so a team of U.S. mayors, led by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, are asking to go over his head to negotiate directly at next month's UN climate change conference in Santiago, Chile.

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Magnificent solar-powered 'supertrees' are the highlight of Singapore's new 250-acre eco-tourism project

via Gardens By the Bay

Singapore's National Parks Board has created a 250-acre oasis as apart of a redevelopment by the city-state to attract ecotourism to the area.

Gardens By The Bay is home to two biodomes — the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome — that combine to be the size of four football fields and showcase 220,000 plants form all over planet Earth.

But the main attraction has to be 18 supertrees that rise between 80 to 160 feet high and have a wide variety of ferns and tropical flowers that climb its mechanical outsides.

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The northern lights will make a rare appearance in America this weekend. Here's how to see it.

It's one of the most dazzling displays on Earth.

via Studiolit / Flickr

The northern lights or, if you want to get technical, Aurora Borealis, are one of the most beautiful displays on Earth. It's an incredible show of dancing green lights with the occasional appearance of blue, yellow, and red.

The lights are caused by a cosmic collision between between electrically-charged particles released from the sun that enter the earth's atmosphere and meet with gases such as oxygen and nitrogen.

The lights have been mythologized all over the world. The ancient Greeks believed it was caused by Aurora, the sister of Helios and Seline (the sun and moon), racing across the early morning sky in her multi-colored chariot.

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Last time America faced a man-made climate crisis we planted trees — hundreds of millions of them

via USDA

The Dust Bowl was the worst environmental disaster in American history. Throughout the 1930s, severe dust storms ravaged the Great Plains states, claiming thousands of lives and causing over two million people to leave the region.

The devastating storms destroyed farm houses and crops, choked livestock and, at times, blocked out the sun.

Much like the climate crisis we face today, the Dust Bowl was man-made. In the early 1920s, farmers began using new mechanized farming techniques that ripped up the prairie's natural drought-resistant grasses and fertile topsoil.

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