Latest Articles

Umbra on reducing consumption

Dear Umbra, If recycling requires energy to turn one’s discarded waste into usable products, and “climate solutions take precedence over garbage-production concerns,” as you wrote in June, why are we so focused on recycling and not on reducing our initial consumption? Surely this should be at the forefront of the individual consumer’s attempts to help […]

Touched by an Angela

German Chancellor will focus on climate as she leads G8 and E.U. German Chancellor Angela Merkel intends to make climate change top priority when her country takes the reins of both the European Union and the G8 at the beginning of next year. Enviros are likely to welcome the leadership of Merkel, a former environment […]

Some States Get All the Luck

California wilderness bill passes Congress, Vermont wilderness bill doesn’t Just before adjourning for election season on Friday, Congress OK’d a bill to designate 273,000 acres in Northern California as wilderness, including a long stretch of stunning coastal land, and President Bush is expected to sign it into law. Conservationists and their congressional allies had been […]

Bordering on Ridiculous

Border-fence plan could wreak havoc on environment Congress approved a plan late last week to build a 700-mile-long, two-layer fence along the U.S.-Mexico border in an attempt to keep out illegal immigrants, eliciting an overwhelmingly negative reaction from environmentalists and, well, folks with a firm grasp on reality. “The fence is a knee-jerk reaction by […]

The basics for creating a good cheese platter

David has asked me to come up with some dishes and menus especially appropriate for entertaining. I've got several full-menu columns planned for the fall: a brunch, a casual dinner, and a Thanksgiving dinner (with both turkey and non-turkey options).

As far as ideas for entertaining in general, I highly recommend Entertaining for a Veggie Planet by Didi Emmons. It includes tips on entertaining applicable to any meal or event, not just vegetarian ones. She is a very funny writer, a fantastic cook, and a deeply committed activist. I had the pleasure of doing a little bit of work on the book with Didi, and I can attest that it is fun as well as useful.

For now, let's talk about the kind of gathering that isn't a full-on dinner party but where you want to offer your guests something delicious to eat -- like, say, a board-game party! In such instances, I like to serve fruit and cheese platters. (These platters are good at meetings, too, as there's nothing spilly or sticky and it doesn't require lots of elaborate plates and utensils. I belong to a writers group and at our monthly meetings we serve just enough snacks to be hospitable and welcoming without it becoming the center of attention or detracting from the work at hand. For convenience and taste, fruit and cheese platters are a great choice.)

Not cool

Via Jonathan at PastPeak, this horrifying story from the Chicago Tribune about the melting arctic:

And they’re rising, not falling

China's sulfur dioxide emissions in 2005 totalled 25.5 million tonnes, the highest volume of any country in the world in 2005, according to Li Xinmin, Deputy Director General of the Department of Pollution Control under the State Environment Protection Administration (SEPA), who was speaking at a press conference in Beijing on August 6.

Far from reaching its goal under the 10th Five Year Plan (FYP) to reduce SO2 emission by 20% between 2001 and 2005, Li said SO2 emissions actually increased by 27% over that period. The target for the 11th FYP is to reduce SO2 emissions by 10% to 22.95 million tonnes.

A superb series on India and water

There is an excellent series about India and water in The New York Times (and its global sister publication The International Herald Tribune), including separate articles by Somini Sengupta about the immense problems of flooding during monsoon rains, an intensifying agricultural crisis as wells dry up, and the Indian government's systemic inability to deliver sufficient water to the immense and growing populations of its cities, a crisis once largely limited to the urban poor but now broadly afflicting even the middle class in New Delhi, India's capital and richest city.

We can all just get along

I was poking around on the net the other day and stumbled across a hybrid-vs.-diesel debate. It was beautiful. Guys were trying to convince other guys that their choice of car was better. They were doing what most guys do, compete with each other. What I loved about it was that they were competing over gas mileage and emissions instead of horsepower and load capacity. Here's an example:

Short summaries of three new eco-books

Seeing as how my last Under the Covers column was a summer reading list, and now it's an entirely different season, I think it's time I return with more eco-reading selections for what must be my terribly book-hungry audience.

First up, a delightful-looking book put together by the Fundação O Boticário, a conservation organization in Brazil. The book itself is titled Brazil naturally: A 15 year mosaic of conservation histories, but I can't seem to find it on Powells or Amazon. It may be available on the organization's website, but (during my brief search involving a few clicks here and there, all willy-nilly-like) I couldn't find it, what with most of the site being in Brazilian Portuguese. But say you were able to get your hands on a copy, it could be a great coffee-table book. It's full of colorful pictures of wildlife including jaguars, birds, whales, and alligators. And it's all printed on recycled paper!