Articles from time.com

Not many bathing spas would choose to locate next to an electricity plant, let alone plunge visitors into the plant's murky waters. But in Iceland, the HS Orka utility company pumps 50 L of hot brine per second into the sprawling Blue Lagoon pool, which draws more visitors a year than the country's population. But then, there's a lot that's different on this subarctic island where 318,000 people inhabit 103,000 sq. km. (At that density, Manhattan's population would be 224.) They eat puffin. The 68-year-old Prime Minister married her female partner in June. The capital, Reykjavík, elected a comedian as mayor in May. Angry protesters outside Parliament in October tossed not blood but yogurt. "We are a little bit strange," allows Katrin Juliusdottir, the Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism. "But strange in an interesting way." (Read Full Article)

It's hard to imagine a new tax getting a bigger cheer from a political leader than the one unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy Sept. 10. The French President's radical plan to impose a carbon tax on homes and businesses, he said on a factory visit in eastern France, addresses the "question of survival of the human race." Slated for introduction next year, the levy marked the "first step," Sarkozy said, in "a fiscal revolution." As Europe wrestles with the challenges posed by climate change, France's new tax is unlikely to be the last. Governments in the E.U. and U.S. have tried other big levers in their efforts to choke harmful emissions in recent years. Large, industrial companies in Europe that pollute beyond acceptable levels have to pay up for the permission to do so, for instance; under plans approved by the House of Representatives in June ... (Read Full Article)