You’re extremely trashy compared to David Chameides. He doesn’t take out the trash. Time magazine published an article about him last week and his own website outlining his trashless year is located here.

No one is expecting you to live like Chameides, but take a look at the Time article and think about how you might do some things differently.

The largest fossil forest known to man is “growing” below Illinois. Coal mining in the Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana border region led to the discovery:

The forests grew just a few million years apart some 300 million years ago; and are now stacked one on top of another.

It appears the ancient land experienced repeated periods of subsidence and flooding which buried the forests in a vertical sequence.

What is it that doomed the old forests and gave us our coal?

The six forests straddle a period in Earth history 306 million years ago that saw a rapid shift from an icehouse climate with big polar ice caps to a greenhouse climate in which the ice caps would have melted.

The Guardian offers a short video of extreme skier Shane McConkey. He’s starring in a movie called “Steep.” I didn’t know skiers used parachutes.

In California, thieves have gone beyond copper and are stealing solar panels:

California is the leader for solar installations, with 33,000 across the state. Unsurprisingly, it is also the market leader for thefts of solar installations, although figures are hard to come by.

“I wouldn’t say it’s pervasive, but it’s going on,” California Solar Energy Industries Association executive director Sue Kateley told the Valley Times.

Ken Martin, who runs a real estate company in Santa Rosa, California, found one day this spring that thieves had removed 58 panels with a value of $75,000 from an office building he owns. His proposed solution is to paint his solar panels bright pink. “At least if someone comes across them and they’re painted, they’ll know that’s my colour,” he said.

Researchers at the University of Iowa say the handshake and a look in the eye is more important than looks:

“What we’re interested in is what makes people make decisions in job interviews very early. …We found that people who have a firm grip and look someone in the eye tend to be looked on more favorably,” he said.

Firm, but not the vise grip sort.

With a lot of talk about earmarks in this election, somebody asked me the other day what the heckfire an earmark is. Simply put, an earmark is some federal funding designated for a specific project. It’s also known as pork barrel spending, but that has an even more negative connotation than earmark has recently achieved.

You can’t exactly say that earmark spending is bad. It’s just the way funds are dispersed. Earmarks get a bad connotation with projects such as the infamous Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska. McCain was criticizing Obama in the first debate because he’s brought $13 million or whatever it was in earmarks to his district in Illinois, but there was no discussion of what the earmarks were for. Maybe they were important projects for Chicago area infrastructure. Maybe they were military contracts that had to be built somewhere and Obama got them. Bringing dollars back to your home district is generally something a representative brags about, but the Palin/Alaska earmarks have changed the tone.

This came to mind today when I received an e-mail from Sen. Voinovich’s office. See below:

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Wal-Mart is joining the Environmental Defense Fund in an effort to reduce annual plastic bag usage by about 9 million a year, or a reduction of about one-third. Or at least that’s the goal. The word “potential” was included in the announcement.

Where does the EDF come into play? According to TreeHugger, the group will:

An estimated 290,000 tonnes of carbon emissions and energy consumption equal to 678,000 barrels of oil will be eliminated through this action.

Ever have a piece of fast food that just won’t go away? This brings to mind the Magic Box of Donuts in the Observer office that are still holding their own after many years. In this case, it a McDonald’s hamburger. Check out the photo. One of the pair is from 2008 and the other from 1996. Can you tell which is which?

From Serious Eats:

Wellness educator and nutrition consultant Karen Hanrahan has kept a McDonald’s hamburger since 1996 to illustrate its nonexistent ability to decay. Aside from drying out and bit and having “the oddest smell,” it apparently hasn’t changed much in the past 12 years.

This isn’t the first time someone kept an uneaten McDonald’s hamburger for an extended period of time for the sake of science. Or in the case of the Bionic Burger Museum, multiple burgers for over 19 years. There are even instructions on how to start your own collection of old, self-preserving burgers.

The Des Moines Register recently published an article that suggests large farms aren’t so great for small towns. Medium-sized operations are more friendly. However, an economist from Iowa State thinks the report exaggerates the benefits.

The article also notes that a proposed CAFO was rejected because the nearby river is already too polluted.

India has amazing religious ceremonies with enormous numbers of people. Here’s the caption for a Reuter’s photo by Punit Paranjpe:

Devotees carry a statue of the Hindu elephant god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, for immersion in the sea, on the last day of “Ganesh Chaturthi”, in Mumbai September 14, 2008. Clay statues of Ganesh are made two to three months before this popular religious festival in India. The idols are taken through the streets in a procession accompanied with dancing and singing, to be immersed in a river symbolizing a ritual sendoff on his journey towards his home.

Kevin Kelly writes about how time used to be measured in terms of generations and he points out how only 13 people are needed to span a thousand years:

We might further imagine a 70-year-old person standing with her arms outstretched in each direction – from the past of her birth to the future of her death – fingertips touching the previous generation and the following generation. With a chain of outstretched hands, each representing 70 years, we need only line up 13 people, fingertip to fingertip, to have them stretch their lives over 1,000 years.

If I hopscotch thirteen generations into the past, I can land in the year 1000 AD. But why stop there? I can continue for another 13 generations of born-before-the-other-is-dead generations and reach the year 10 AD, during the lifetime of Jesus.

This means that there are only 26 human touch-generations between me and Jesus of Nazereth. I could form a human bridge between me and Jesus, or Caesar, or Hero of Alexandria with only 26 people reaching out finger tip to finger tip across time. Those 26 people could fit into one room.

If lifespans remain similar to present, another 13 people would take us to the year 3,000.

“I’ll try to find ya some and I’ll bring ‘em to ya.”

Global ReLeaf of Michigan is asking residents to search for the state’s big trees. (information “below the fold.) The article leads to a list of the state champs and that offered a couple of surprises.

I’m pleased to see that the big sycamore on Bill Lampe’s property is now listed the biggest in the state. I’m surprised to see the Scotch pine at Wakefield Park listed as a state champ. That’s a tree that city council was about to have cut down until I complained and published a photo in the paper.

I’m surprised that the flowering dogwood at Oak Grove Cemetery is no longer listed as the champ, or even as an also-ran. I’m surprised that the two Kentucky coffeetrees at Wakefield Park are listed as the second and third biggest in the state. The bigger of the two was also going to cut down for the playground. I suggested leaving it and now it appears to be dying. A couple treeish friends of mine looked it over and wonder if the roots had been cut when the playground was installed.

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Dagnabbit, more of those e-mails asking for money. Don’t pass this one up. At least read the first couple of paragraphs. I’ll put it “below the fold” to save space. It comes from finance blogger Barry Ritholtz.

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I saw a “Republicans for Obama” yard sign in Morenci this morning. I haven’t yet seen a “Democrats for McCain” sign.