Image: TreeHugger

One of the downsides of public transportation is that you can’t always expect a free seat, and you can’t save a place for yourself or a friend. But Jaymi showed us a novel solution — fake spilled ice cream cups and coffee to keep potential seat thieves at bay. They’re of dubious morality (and taste), but sometimes, you just need to sit down.

We also have sharks invading a golf course lake, a whale making friends with a motorboat, amazing night sky photography, and more in our roundup of the most popular stories on TreeHugger this month.

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Now add a helicopter to the mix. Photo: miatamaniac92 under a Creative Commons license.

Yesterday, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law a bill legalizing the hunting of feral wild hogs from helicopters. The arguments for the law are simple: the state’s 2 million hogs are over-populating and cause $400 million in damage to crops annually, and it’s a lot easier to hunt them down from the air. The hogs can weigh up to 400 pounds and run at 35 mph, advantages wiped out by an automatic rifle and a low-flyi…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image: Sudika via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA

For anyone still puzzling over why I view the Tea Party to be an egregiously destructive force when it comes to the environment, look no further than this evidence: In the seven months since the Tea Party-led GOP has been in control of the House of Representatives, they have voted n…Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Rep. Ed Markey, photo via flickr

Many greens, including me, had big problems with Waxman-Markey, the failed cap and trade bill that would have finally priced carbon but also given a lifeline to the coal industry. Whatever your feelings for the bill, the congressmen behind it, Ed Markey (MA) and Henry Waxman (CA), have always been stalwart defenders of the environment. That’s why they have…Read the full story on TreeHugger

It’s been a year or so now since the climate bill died its quiet, agonizing death. Bad as that was, few would have predicted it would have gotten so much worse, so quickly … but it did. Anywho, you might be curious to see what all of the chief architects and key players in the climate bill fight are up to now. If you are, Politico has this interesting update that’s worth a looksie. …Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo: FaceMePLS, Flickr, CC BY

… But it’s all about politics. The New York Times reported earlier this week that Democrats thought they’d found a strategy to peel away some of the oil subsidies that the federal government annually doles out to some of the world’s most profitable companies. That strategy was, simply, to propose the fun…Read the full story on TreeHugger

File this one under ‘least surprising thing Republicans gutted from the 2011 budget’: The new Climate Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which was designed to help keep the public and policymakers abreast of the latest scientific developments in climate. Here’s Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones:

“Basically, NOAA’s climate service would have provided up-to-date information about climate in order to better inform the public and policymakers. Much …Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo credit: Nomad Tales via Flickr/CC BY-SA

In response to concerns from many Americans that radiation levels were too high in milk, the EPA announced it would be boosting radiation monitoring across the nation in order to ensure that the health and safety of the public was adequately protected. The EPA does stuff like that; addressing health concerns of the public by doing the regulatory work that nobody else will. And yet, th…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image: CAP

Oh, politicians. They say the darnedest things. Now, I’d never accuse any congressman of bending the truth myself — I’m just a trusting kind of guy — but when a Pulitzer Prize-winning, nonpartisan fact-checking institution makes such an accusation, I’m inclined to pay attention. Case in point: Fred Upton (R-MI) has been in the news lately for undertaking legislation that would revoke the scientific finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health — and preventing the EPA from <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/…Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Image: Galileo Project, Wikimedia, CC

There’s really no rational way a human can dispute the fact that the vast majority of the world’s scientists believe that greenhouse gas emissions generated by man are warming the climate. It’s one of the most important findings of modern science, and it’s supported by an impressively massive body of evidence. But, as you know, many politicians — who represent large swaths of the nation — are in outright, public denial of these findings. As are innumerable leading industrial interests. Journalist Mark Hertsgaard has a question for …Read the full story on TreeHugger