Articles by Katharine Wroth

Are you America’s most energy-inefficient person?

Just got word that Lowe's, Whirlpool, and the U.S. EPA Energy Star program will search this summer for the country's 10 most energy-inefficient families. The lucky winners will receive a home energy makeover "to lower their monthly bills and help save the environment" and a return visit a year later to see how it's all going. During the search, Lowe's stores will host hands-on energy-conservation clinics. It's all in honor of the 10th anniversary of people ignoring Energy Star.

How do you grow up on a doomed planet?

Last night I went to a screening of Ice Age: The Meltdown. To be honest, I went more in fan-of-goofy-animated-movies mode than environmental-editor mode. But one of the first lines was: "This global warming thing is killing me." The rest of the movie centered on an escape from the flood that was going to doom the movie's cuddly creatures.

It turned out to be good fun, of course, and had the requisite happy ending (oops, sorry). But I started wondering, as I listened to the kids around me gasp and laugh, what it would be like to grow up in a world where all you hear -- even in cartoons! -- is that the whole planet is doomed. I guess this ties in with Dave's beef with the new global-warming ads.

How does all that fear possibly help, and how can the so-called grown-ups among us change the message? Should we?

Recommended reading (really!)

Today's piece by Matthew Klingle and Joseph Taylor is a kind of minor miracle: interesting to mortals, despite being written by a couple of academic historians. Don't miss it.

Of course, as true academics, they couldn't resist sending us a partial bibliography of poverty and environment-related books. It's great background for their story, but also for this series in general. I hereby share it with you -- complete with handy shopping links!

Got any other suggestions? Feel free to add 'em.

Plan the rockingest party ever to celebrate Kyoto’s first birthday

It seems like just yesterday that the Kyoto Protocol came into force, only to languish in toothless uncertainty as major powers including the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the U.K. sought to tank it in various ways. But it’s been a whole year! Can you believe it? Party like Bush signed on. Photo: stock.xchng. Yes, today […]