Saturday, January 3, 2015

The 14 Most Interesting Stories Of 2014


Better workplaces to environmental destruction, better diets to education reform, here are the stories that created the most buzz in the last year.
2014 was, by any account, not a great year. In looking back at the stories that drew the most interest from our readers, we found a few moments of inspiration and joyousness to cut through the constant drumming of bad news. But even so, there's one overarching theme to most of our most popular stories: That we're quickly running out of time to alter the course our planet is on toward total environmental meltdown, and we're starting to come to terms with what that destruction is going to look like.
We've tried to take a positive view of what London will look like after climate change (lovely beach weather!) and started preparing for the new layout of some of our cities once most of them are underwater. And the exact cause of this future is all too clear, in photos showing exactly how bad the pollution is in China.
All hope is not lost, though: 2015 is a new year with—we hope—better news. And even this year has seen its share ofingenious solutions, the kind we'll need more of (here is whatwe talked about at the end of 2013, to compare). So take note of a doll that doesn't make girls feel horrible about their body, or a sustainable apartment building that looks like a tree, or a water bottle that doesn't need a bottle at all. More of all of these, please.