Articles by Lisa Hymas

As expected, the news is mostly bad, and then worse, and then worse still

Climate change is already having big impacts on the natural world and notable effects on human societies, according to the latest climate report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, being released on Friday. In short, climate change isn’t in the future; it’s in the right now. The previous installment from the IPCC, released in […]

New Yorker article reminds you why you hate it

Stacy Mitchell did a bang-up job earlier this week of explaining why Wal-Mart and other big-box stores could never actually be green. But if you need a more wide-ranging reminder of Wal-Mart’s deep and abiding loathsomeness, check out Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the latest New Yorker: “Selling Wal-Mart: Can the company co-opt liberals?” If you’ve […]

Watch out for scary chemicals in plastic toys for tots

Umbra offered up a number of clever gift ideas for kids in her latest column, focusing particularly on experiences rather than things. But if you still want to do some thing-giving for those wee ones, you might first want to check out "What's Toxic In Toyland," an article by Margot Roosevelt in Time.

Small steps made, but no real plan for post-2012

The international climate conference in Nairobi just wrapped up, and it sounds like it was a bit of a yawn. As expected, no exciting progress or big future plans.

Of course, progress is in the eye of the beholder, as we see in three different articles from MSM sources:

Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn for Reuters:

U.N. climate talks keep Kyoto on track, but scant progress

Environment Ministers kept plans for widening a U.N.-led fight against global warming beyond 2012 on track on Friday amid criticism of scant progress in aiding Africa and confronting wrenching climate change.

After two weeks of negotiations in Nairobi, about 70 ministers agreed to review Kyoto in 2008 in what many see as a prelude to widening a 35-industrial nation pact to outsiders such as China and India in the longer term.

It also agreed to aid Africa obtain funds for clean energies such as wind and hydro power. But delegates had mixed views on the outcome of the talks.