What do these symbols mean?

[lil_wilde]

In the top left corner of the screen when I am looking at my cities, there is an icon that looks like a beaker but it changes color. It's been red and green so far.
What does it mean?

Also, beside that icon there recently appeared a circle that is yellow with a red spot inside.

In the information box for one of my cities there are several of the yellow triangle skull and crossbones symbols. Looks like the warning on a bottle of chemicals. What does that mean?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Clausewitzian]

The color of the beaker gives you a quick and dirty idea of how far you've progressed to attaining your next tech. I've forgotten which colors signify what.


Then there's pollution.

When your cities start producing polution, you get the triangles with the skulls. They indicate how likely it is a that a city square will become poluted by a white skull

When that happens, those nasty circles start appearing whose colors indicate how bad things are (how many white skulls there are in the world). I believe you should start to really panic when it hits white.

A white skull causes the square it polutes to become useless. Irritating, but is that reason to panic, you ask? As the white skulls accumulate and the circle starts its progression to white, the chance increases that you'll get global warming. Nasty thing, global warming.

 

[#1 Person]

The colors don't really matter, just see how full it is. The Yellow circle indicates the world is in threat of global warming (which makes your terrain squares all arid).

 

[lil_wilde]

How do I fix pollution?

 

[Sharkbait]

Get an engineer and put it on that square, then hit the 'P' key - it will clear it up in a couple of turns. Or use 2 engineers and it will be gone in 1 turn.

Note pollution in your city sqaures affects your score, so its best to get rid of it before you end the game.

 

[Clausewitzian]

Usefull chaps, those Settler/Engineers.

And then, of course, you have your city improvements that vastly increase the pollution in your cities. And then there's improvements, there's even a wonder, that help you decrease it (not the white skulls, but the triangles that produce the white skulls).

Never a shortage of things to consider in this game.

 

[Ace]

Get an engineer and put it on that square, then hit the 'P' key - it will clear it up in a couple of turns. Or use 2 engineers and it will be gone in 1 turn.

Note pollution in your city sqaures affects your score, so its best to get rid of it before you end the game.

Not just in your city hexes, but in all hexes, so if the AI has some skulls in its area, they will count against your score, too.

 

[lil_wilde]

I think that the pollution is showing up on my map as pink piles of bones. I was wondering what those were.
And I see now that the engineers have an option to fix pollution.
Thanks for your help.