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Ask Umbra on turning oil spill depression into transformation

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I always love reading Umbra’s Q&A’s.  But right now with the oil spill taking over the Gulf and ruining so many ecosystems, I just don’t know if anything I do really makes a difference. I live in southern Louisiana and remember feeling the same way after Katrina. […]

G8 leaders stand still on climate; will G20 backtrack?

It was a tale of two cities Saturday in Toronto for this climate activist.  One of hope and the other of boredom. Saturday morning, I joined Greenpeace, Oxfam, the Canadian Labor Congress, and about 5,000 activists at a peaceful rally calling on G8 and G20 leaders to take stronger leadership on a variety of progressive issues.  […]

Women who can’t get birth control spotlighted in new short film — watch it here

The new short film Empty Handed: Responding to the Demand for Contraceptives showcases the plight of women in Uganda who want birth control but are being failed by a dysfunctional distribution system.  The average Ugandan woman will give birth to 6.7 children — that’s the second-highest fertility rate in the world, behind only Niger.  The […]

Friday music blogging: Phosphorescent again [UNFORTUNATE UPDATE]

UPDATE: I’m bumping this old FMB back to the top because this excellent band just ran into some truly cruddy circumstances. After the very first show on a planned six-week tour, their van and equipment were stolen from in front of an apartment in N.Y.C. They’re estimating their losses at around $40,000 but many of […]

Nearly a fifth of American women skip childbearing

Almost 20 percent of American women end up going childfree, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center.  In 2008, 18 percent of women reached ages 40 to 44 without having borne a child, compared to just 10 percent in 1976. “The fact that nearly one of five women does not have a […]

Urbivore’s Dilemma, Week 3: A bounty of greens and fruit

This week’s bounty(Jennifer Prediger photos)I made it to delicious Week 3 of my farm to table CSA experience, which I’m chronicling here in this Urbivore’s Dilemma series. Last week was made so delightful by all of the terrific suggestions for what to expect and cook with my CSA’s offerings from you, readers. Thank you for […]

Charlotte does light rail right

Charlotte is car-loving NASCAR country, a vast suburbia of cul-de-sacs and strip malls. Yet its new light rail line is a national model for success, outstripping ridership projections and inspiring millions of dollars in high-density development. How did sensible transportation planning come to sprawlburbia? Not by appealing for “sustainability,” that’s for sure. In the end, […]

Planning politics: How Charlotte’s mayor championed light rail

Pat McCrory, former mayor of Charlotte, speaking at a transportation summit in 2009.Photo courtesy Willamor Media via FlickrPat McCrory, elected mayor of Charlotte in 1995 at the age of 39, had no idea transit would be the defining issue of his tenure as leader of the city. “I did not run on the issue of […]

Mapping the farm with my ears

(Steph Larsen photos)Ever since taking a cartography class in graduate school, I’ve had a penchant for maps. Full of information, they elegantly highlight places and ideas that we may have missed otherwise. As a visual person, I can appreciate the splashes of color and clean designs. But not all maps are visual. We can create […]

The Climate Post: Who wants to be a climate scientist?!

First things first: Tuesday night Rolling Stone magazine unveiled to a limited audience its new article called “The Runaway General.” But when something “goes viral” in the Internet age, there’s no such thing as a limited audience. In the piece, General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, derides and criticizes […]