This week, Grist’s Sarah van Schagen and Katharine Wroth deliver five environmental stories that may have slipped under your radar.

1) Heart your engines

Tired of pretty-boy actors flashing their newfangled wheels? Here’s something grittier: hybrids may be coming to a Formula One track near you. It makes sense, says one rep, since “Formula One is all about efficiency.” Well, that and the fiery crashes.

2) All the smews that’s fit to print

Some words are just fun to say, like “dungarees” and “besmirch.” Now you can add “smencils” to that list. (Go on, say it out loud.) As if their 10 “gourmet scents” aren’t giddifying enough, these pimp-lements are made from recycled newspaper. Smencils!

3)That hockey hullabaloo

There are those who say the best thing about hockey is blood bouncing on the ice. Um, OK. But surely the second-best is the Save Hockey: Fight Climate Change campaign, which is enlisting puckers worldwide to keep winter cold. Fistfight!

4) Why don’t we do it in the road

Now this is what we call urban planning: a frustrated Brit is gaining a rep making bizarro traffic-calming devices, like an 11-foot-tall bunny and a living-room replica. Ted Dewan hopes the tactics will give “petro-bigots” pause. Can we add petro-bigots to that smencils list?

5) Youth is wasted on … oh, wait

Three cheers for da yoots who’ve come from all over the world to Montreal’s climate conference to observe, participate, and protest. Check out the yootblog, It’s Getting Hot In Here. Now take off all your clothes – er, get in on- the action.

Grist does not testify to the quality of consumer goods, guarantee the pop-cultural significance of trends, or vouchsafe the accuracy of news stories featured in this column. For all you know, we just made it up. Use it at your own risk.

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Sarah van Schagen is Grist’s editorial fellow. Katharine Wroth is Grist’s story editor.

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Photo: iStockphoto.