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Divorce is bad for the planet, says research

Breaking up is hard to do — and bad for the planet too, says new research. Divorce rates around the world are rising, with the consequence of multi-person homes dissolving into multiple residences, which use more land, water, and energy. Ecologist Jianguo Liu, publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that […]

Gift idea for the eco-educator on your list

Maybe the kids won't think this is as cool as an XBox ... perhaps it's better for a classroom's holiday wishlist: Keep Cool! is a "Risk"-style board game about "gambling with the climate." (Or put another way: setzen sie das klima aufs spiel! The half-English half-German directions in this are as interesting as the game itself -- the authors are from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact in Germany.)

Each player takes a role in global climate politics, from nations to economic interests, and aptly, the "ruthless track" of pursuing narrow self-interest results in all players losing.

Hurricanes this past year were unpredictably … average

Lots of experts are weighing in as the Atlantic hurricane season comes to an end (today). One of my favs, Jeff Masters, summarizes it this way:

The Atlantic hurricane season of 2007 is over, and it was a strange one. For the second straight year, we had a near average season, despite pre-season predictions of a very active season.

Job market sees growing demand for sustainability managers

Way back before the turn of the century (when we partied like it was 1999), I could count the number of real “sustainability managers” on my fingers and toes and still have a couple of digits left over. What a difference a decade makes. Today, I see new job postings every week for sustainability directors, […]

U.N. climate conference opens in Bali, Indonesia

Plenty is going on at the United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, where delegates from nearly 190 nations are gathered to lay the groundwork for a post-Kyoto climate treaty. Conference leaders have said they aim to have a new treaty ready to go by 2009. In the meantime, there’s no shortage of things to […]

Notable quotable

“I have been in this industry for 40 years, and during that time, we always knew it got cold in December and stayed that way through January and February — and that was that. Now, it’s a crap shoot.” — Fredric Stollmack, president of outerwear manufacturer Weatherproof

Experts push for an intergovernmental biodiversity panel

For this enviro, Christmas is shaping up pretty nicely this year. Today, as post-Kyoto discussions commence in Bali, Australia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, sweeping aside decades of Howard's curmudgeonly climate skepticism. Another unexpected gift came last month, when a group of 80 experts convened in France to mull over the future of biodiversity. Their consensus? That we need to establish a new intergovernmental panel -- akin to the IPCC -- to begin aggressively addressing the biodiversity crisis.

In words that would surely make E.O. Wilson proud, the committee said: "It is not enough to draw up a list of threatened or extinct species. Biodiversity needs to be seen as a whole, in terms of management but also of environmental services rendered, for instance from the point of view of adaptation to climate change." They hope to have a structure in place by 2008. Keep 'em rollin' in, Santa!

Umbra on cooking oil, again

Dear Umbra, You missed a fantastic opportunity to promote biodiesel use of the cooking oil. There are many people collecting frying oil from restaurants and the like, and perhaps the reader could find a person collecting as well. Check newspaper ads for persons collecting or check the restaurants in your neighborhood for who is collecting. […]

WTO may slash tariffs on green goods

The United States and European Union have proposed that the 151 members of the World Trade Organization agree to slash tariffs on at least 43 “green” goods — solar panels, wind turbines, and the like — to boost their global use. A recent World Bank study suggested that removing such barriers to trade of clean-energy […]

This Hanukkah, make time to reflect on climate and conservation

There are three levels of wisdom through which Hanukkah invites us to address the planetary dangers of the global climate crisis — what some of us call “global scorching” because “warming” seems so pleasant, so comforting. Light a candle, heal the earth. Photo: iStockphoto We can encode these three teachings into actions we take to […]