Colorful charity donation bins – you might’ve seen them pop up overnight on a block near you. They are unattended, Redbox-sized depositories placed in parking lots, by fill stations, outside strip malls. You can drive up in your car and load your second-hand clothes and shoes into a large steel drawer on the front of the bin. Presumably, someone will pick the stuff up later. Painted bright green, yellow, blue, or red, the donation boxes are printed with information about the numerous causes and projects your donation will supposedly benefit.

These days, it’s hard not to conclude Mother Nature is deeply pissed off at humanity. The very elements seem to have declared war on us. Wind, Water, Earth, and Fire routinely converge in ecological catastrophes around the globe, bringing whole populations to their knees as they struggle to catch up to the new normal of a changing climate. Here, we spotlight the intrigues of Fire within the fray. Fire plays an important role in global carbon cycling, putting it on the front lines of climate change wherever it occurs.

In 2010, the History Channel developed a list of the ten most extreme airports around the world, based on dangerous terrain and poor runway construction. Many of these constitute the most dangerous airfields but not all, as extreme is plainly a broader classification than dangerous. So which are actually the most dangerous? 12. Qamdo Bamda Airport, Tibet As yet, no accidents have occurred here, but this is still a place to avoid.

With the many demands that the human race puts on the Earth, it is no wonder that there are many dangerous jobs out there that have to be done by someone who needs the job badly enough to actually put their life in danger every day to make money. These are just the top ten of those dangerous jobs. 10. Snake Milkers Snake milking is a very necessary, often forgotten-about, yet very dangerous occupation.

**Snipers have always held a place of esteem and fascination in popular culture, perhaps because of the amazing level of precision and patience involved with long-distance kills. ** While sniping has a long and illustrious history, the range and precision of weapons has improved with advancing technology in recent years, enabling longer shots. Handheld computers, devices that gather information about the weather and quality of the atmosphere, and laser rangefinders have all improved shooter accuracy.

On the whole, American cities have become much safer. After years of declining rates of violent crime, they are now about as safe as they were in the 1960s. But violent crime is still a problem in lots of cities. And while the gap between urban and suburban crime rates has narrowed, suburban spaces still tend to be safer than urban places. Echoing that trend, it seems the safest cities in America are predominantly suburbanized middle-tier cities with moderate population density.

What is the hardest mountain to climb? Is it the tallest, the steepest, the one with the slipperiest rock walls or the fewest handholds? The one with the harshest weather? There are a lot of different factors that go into determining the difficulty of a climb. To a large degree, difficulty is a subjective measurement. But we can still come up with a list of challenging climbs based on a combination of these factors as well as the reports of climbers who have actually tackled these giants.

All of us have been on roads at one time or another that scared us. Maybe it was the steep drop-off along the road side, or perhaps it was all those signs warning you that a rockslide was possible at any moment. Perhaps it was a lot of sharp twists and turns, low visibility, a steep grade, or bad weather. Maybe it was just the other drivers who scared you. But it probably got you to wonder—were you driving on one of the world’s most dangerous roads?

Heading into 2013, the list of the 10 most dangerous cities in the US per capita didn’t include many of America’s largest cities. The most dangerous major American cities were Atlanta (26th), Baltimore (27th), Washington, DC (46th), Philadelphia (50th), Newark (51th), while New York City didn’t even make the top 100 most dangerous list. Instead, the 10 top most dangerous American cities were the decaying manufacturing hubs and relatively smaller cities with histories of racial tension and poverty.

While vast advancements in technology and industry have made life much easier, these innovations have also created an ever-growing monster – pollution. With the possible exception of underdeveloped and far-flung areas, almost the entire world is faced with a “dirty” problem. Nevertheless, there are cities all over the planet that have really outdone themselves when it comes to being polluted. Want to know which metropolises got the highest ranks? Here are the ten most polluted cities in the world: