Things I learned lately - 11 November

• The number of chapters of the KKK in the US has increased from 72 in 2015 to 190 in 2016.
• Producing beef has a huge environmental impact that dwarfs other meat including chicken and pork. Supposedly, eating less beef would be a better way for you to cut carbon emissions than giving up your car. Raising cattle requires 28X more land to produce than pork or chicken, 11X more water and results in 5X more greenhouse gas emissions. Worse, when compared to potatos, wheat, and rice, the impact of beef per calorie is even more extreme, requiring 160X more land and producing 11X more greenhouse gas.
• Dubai's Mall of the World will be a colossal domed structure nine times bigger than the Mall of America. When it opens in 2029, it will be temperature-controlled, feature thousands of hotel rooms, and have its own transit line.
• The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge project will link three cities in China's Pearl River Delta, creating one mega-city of 42 million people, when it's completed in 2017. I'm trying to fathom a city with more people than in all of Canada.
• The Itaipu dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay provides 75% of Paraguay's power.
• 30% of households in India do not have electricity.
• 70% of US farm land is used to grow feed for livestock.
• Shell thinks peak oil demand could be as soon as 5 years away.
• Bill Clinton's first job was working in a grocery store. Barack Obama scooped ice cream in a Baskin-Robbins. George W. Bush was a land man for an oil company.
• LinkedIn's Manhattan office has a small bar-lounge. New hires act as bartenders, allowing them to meet all of the office staff.