Latest Articles

Penguin sexuality is not always black and white

For those of you who thought March of the Penguins was the only drama about our tuxedo-sporting friends, you may want to read up on Silo and Roy.

From The New York Times:

And Silo and Roy looked so happy together.

The two male chinstrap penguins had found each other in the big city. They had remained faithful. They had even raised a child. But then, not too long ago, they lost their home. Silo's eye began to wander, and last spring he forsook his partner of six years at the Central Park Zoo and took up with a female from California named Scrappy. Of late, Roy has been seen alone, in a corner, staring at a wall.

My heart goes out to you, Roy.

Martin Melaver, eco-friendly real-estate entrepreneur, answers questions

Martin Melaver. What work do you do? I’m CEO of Melaver, Inc., which is a third-generation, family-owned real-estate company based in Savannah, Ga. What does your organization do? We really do a bit of everything in real estate, which I guess is typical for a business with roots in a smallish town. We develop, acquire, […]

Pimp My Prius

Customizations and hacks jazz up a hybrid Sure, your Prius saves gas and helps you reduce your personal carbon dioxide emissions … but does it have mad bling? We didn’t think so. Luckily, The New York Times commissioned George Barris, car customizer extraordinaire, to modify a Prius without altering the car’s mechanics or electronics for […]

Rattle the Cajun

Post-Rita Louisiana deals with another round of environmental problems An already-battered Louisiana is beset with new environmental crises in the wake of Hurricane Rita, which sent a wall of water up to 15 feet high surging into the state’s coastal bayous and canals on Saturday. In New Orleans, officials are scrambling to assess whether the […]

Dopey’s Choice

Pombo proposes selling off parks to make point about Arctic Refuge A draft bill being circulated by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), chair of the House Resources Committee, advocates selling 15 national preserves, historic sites, and monuments to help shrink the federal budget deficit. The proposal also recommends selling ads on National Park Service brochures and […]

Umbra on kitty litter

Dear Umbra, I recently adopted a cat, and I am having a hard time deciding what to do with the kitty litter. Is there some kind of green litter that is best to use? Anything flushable and sewage-tank friendly? Or, can I compost the litter — and what should I use to cover it up […]

Back home in Indiana … not

Conservation in Indiana is synonymous with pheasant, duck, and every other kind of hunting you can think of. Having grown up there, I used to do some hunting myself. I gave it up shortly after watching one of my friends use a barn owl for target practice. Things like that happen a lot when people go hunting. A few years later another hunting buddy (my girlfriend's brother) was involved in a fatal shooting accident and had been carried out of the woods by his father.

So anyway, Sprol has recently listed an area of Northern Indiana as one of the worst places in the world.

Journalist Jacques Leslie on dams

Hydropower is one those issues that can make a good green go pale with contradictory impulses. Abundant clean energy, sure, plus all that Woody Guthrie populist goodness. But also the potential for massive destruction to land and landscape, anywhere from hundreds to thousands of people displaced, and all sorts of downstream ecological and economic disruptions. About 140 countries have major dams, which generate about a fifth of the globe's electricity and enable a sixth of its agricultural output. So while the idea of just tearing them down can have a lot of emotional appeal for some, it just ain't that simple anymore.

Five years ago, jounalist Jacques Leslie wrote 12,000 words on the politics of water for Harper's: "Running Dry: What Happens When the World No Longer Has Enough Freshwater?" He was intrigued enough to keep investigating once that assignment was done -- and the result is a new book, Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment. Just one of his insanely alarming findings: "The world's dams have shifted so much weight that geophysicists believe they have slightly altered the speed of the earth's rotation, the tilt of its axis, and the shape of its gravitational field."

(And here I've been freaking out about a little thing like global warming!)

An ongoing interview with Leslie is the current feature over at The WELL's open-to-the-public inkwell conference, where readers from the wide world can send in questions for Leslie to tackle. His hopeful view is that big dams will someday be relics. Asked about the alternatives, he says:

... there's a substantial list that includes both traditional and new technologies, including rainwater harvesting, water recycling, drip irrigation, desalination (for water supply) and solar, wind, fuel cells, and pump and turbine redesign (for energy). In the Indian state of Rajasthan, a fellow named Rajendra (my spelling may be off) won the Magsaysay Prize (a kind of Nobel Prize for the developing world) by developing a system of ponds and rainwater harvesting that recharged groundwater, revived streams, and rejuvenated villages in an arid area. I hope to write about this work some day.

This is a conversation worth checking out.

(Full disclosure: I've been a volunteer community host on The WELL for about a decade. This plug for inkwell may net me a warm "thanks!" in e-mail.)

Pombo proposes selling off nat’l parks

Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), chairman of the House Resources Committee, has officially established beyond any doubt that he is no Teddy Roosevelt Republican. Today, draft legislation from his committee proposed selling off a number of national park holdings, including Theodore Roosevelt Island, home of the TR memorial in Washington, D.C.

As reported by Greenwire, the other sites include:

• Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, Texas
• Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve, Alaska
• Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, Alaska
• Cape Krusenstern National Monument, Alaska
• Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site, California
• Fort Bowie National Historic Site, Arizona
• Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Massachusetts
• Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska
• Lake Clark National Park, Alaska
• Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, Washington, D.C.
• Minute Man Missile National Historic Site, South Dakota
• Noatak National Preserve, Alaska
• Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Monument, Pennsylvania
• Thomas Stone National Historic Site, Maryland
• Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, Alaska

Pombo also proposes selling advertising space just about anywhere in National Parks to help generate revenue.

Whatever that is

I'm not kidding: Some company is marketing a laptop computer that's "cobranded" with GM's Hummer. From the promotional material:

Just as tough, reliable, and go anywhere as a HUMMER, this laptop is the perfect addition to your HUMMER lifestyle! Featuring the latest in mobile technology, it's ergonomically styled, and passes the military standard 810F test for operating temperature and vibration.

And just so you know -- you can even take your Hummer laptop rock climbing with you. Just look at the pretty picture! Now that's rugged sophistication.

But my big question is this: What on earth is the "Hummer lifestyle"? Perhaps it has something to do with spending absurd amounts of money on things that are ugly, unsafe, unnecessary, and ultimately unsatisfying. You know, just because you can.