via en.rian.ru
The 2010 World Cup matches will be played in ten stadiums located in nine South African cities.
While South Africa and the rest of the continent may be pursuing renewable forms of energy, the world's biggest sporting event will have anything but an environmental benefit with a report saying the carbon footprint of World Cup 2010 will be six times that of the last competition four years ago in Germany.
However, it's not just the influx of fans flying in from around the world to see the games, contributing to the footprint, in fact the majority of carbon was caused in the build up to the tournament.
via chacha.com
Throughout the history of civilization, one of the great fears of mankind has been large urban fires. When a city burns the loss of life and property damage can be horrific, but afterwards a city may rebuild and renew itself. Here are 6 of the most devastating examples.
Chinese love cars. They started to know western life on wheels by watching American movies. Since 1980 when China’s Opening and Reform adventure debuted, the auto number in the country has been growing constantly, from 1.78 million, 1980 to 64 million, 2009.
The demand will be respectively 140 million in 2015 and 217 million in 2020.
via lh4.ggpht.com
People often underestimate quite how large Africa is, so we figured we'd put it in perspective by transposing as many of the world's other countries over it as we could. As you can see, Africa is larger than China, the USA, Western Europe, India, Argentina and the British Isles... combined!
via fastcompany.com
The Gulf Oil Spill Isn't the Biggest, but It'll Be the Costliest. The BP Gulf oil spill is the worst ever when you combine its size and location. While it may not be the biggest, as you can see from the graphic, it certainly will be one of the most economically damaging and costly, simply because it occurred in some of America's most productive waters.
This gives you a new appreciation for the Trieste crew who went to the bottom of all that.