• The Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas, got the message in November and shut down its "world's tallest waterslide" (17 stories; riders reaching speeds of 60 mph) after the neck-injury death of a 10-year-old rider in August. But comparably altitude-obsessed architects in Tokyo said in November that they were moving ahead with proposals for "Next Tokyo 2045" to include a one-mile-high residential complex (twice as tall as the currently highest skyscraper). A spokesperson for principal architects Kohn Pedersen Fox said he realizes that coastal Tokyo, currently in earthquake, typhoon and tsunami zones, would present a climate-change challenge (and especially since the building would be on land once reclaimed from Tokyo Bay). [Washington Post, 11-23-2016] [CNN, 11-16-2016]
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Activists told Vice Media in November that 100,000 people worldwide identify as "ecosexuals," ranging from those who campaign for "sustainable"-ingredient sex toys to those who claim to have intercourse with trees (but sanding the bark for comfort might provoke concern about being "abusive"). A University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor studies the phenomenon and knows, for example, of humans who "marry" the Earth or prefer sex while rolling in potting soil or under a waterfall. On one "arborphilia" support blog, a female poster regretted her choice to have "convenient" sex with the sycamore outside her bedroom window instead of the sturdy redwood she actually covets. (Yes, some "mainstream" environmentalists somehow are not completely supportive.) [Vice Media, 11-2-2016] [Inverse.com, 4-22-2016]
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