Articles by Kate Sheppard

Al Gore out, Big Oil in for public schools

Gristmill readers have been knocking at our proverbial door to make sure we've seen Laurie David's article from Sunday's Washington Post. It details the National Science Teachers Association's (NSTA) rejection of 50,000 free copies of An Inconvenient Truth for use in science classes across the country, and it's definitely worth some Gristmill grinding.

Nothing

Last weekend I was riding the King County Metro bus when a nice man who had recently moved to Seattle from Taiwan asked me to tell him about Thanksgiving. I started in about how we get together with people we love, engage in gluttony, etc., etc.

He said, "Uh, but I mean, what about the day after Thanksgiving? Tell me about the sales." At which point I realized I'd never been anywhere near a place of commerce on Black Friday. I grew up on a farm, and, well, we just don't like people or commerce enough to risk leaving the house.

Then this week I discovered an organized ritual against the wanton post-T-day, pre-Christmas consumption of holiday-related paraphernalia: Buy Nothing Day.

British kids: smarter than the rest of us

A survey of 11-14-year-old Britons found that they are more concerned about recycling and global warming than they are about having a girlfriend or boyfriend or doing their homework.

Some 74 percent of so-called "tweens" in the U.K. were concerned about climate change, while only 41 percent noted concern over dating, or whatever you'd call it at that age. About 64 percent expressed concern about their schoolwork.

Cooties Lurgy also ranked high on the list of concerns, as did getting American adults to be half as concerned as pre-pubescent kids in the rest of the world about cataclysmic climate change.

Inhofe on Fox

Think Progress put up a video of Inhofe on Fox this morning.

I have to admit, I'm actually a little sad -- when he passes off the chairmanship in January, there will be so much less to make fun of.