Climate Culture

All Stories

  • How to build a better playground

    This story was written by Shanti Menon. In her new book Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation, Berkeley-based environmental planner Sharon Danks explores the ways in which landscape design, architecture, child development, and nutrition converge in the schoolyard. OnEarth sat down with Danks, whose firm, Bay Tree Designs, Inc, is helping redevelop some […]

    OnEarth Culture

  • How commuting can ruin your marriage

    At least in Sweden, people who have a long-distance commute are 40 percent more likely to separate or divorce. That’s the finding of Erika Sandow, a Swedish social geographer who studied more than two million partnered commuters for her dissertation work. Sandow acknowledges that there are career benefits to long commutes — people who are […]

    Jess Zimmerman Culture

  • Mushrooms make short work of dirty diapers

    As a sustainability solution, cloth diapers were never fun. Even the most eco-minded have been known to quail in front of a pail of soiled nappies. But a team of researchers has come up with an excuse for switching back to disposable diapers. They found that within 2 months, oyster mushrooms will consume 90 percent […]

    Sarah Laskow Culture

  • Breaking: California to vote on BPA ban today

    If I find out there’s BPA in this bottle, I’m going to throw a tantrum like you’ve never seen before.The California State Assembly today will vote soon on a bill to protect our most vulnerable residents — babies and toddlers — from Bisphenol-A (BPA), a harmful chemical in their food and drink containers. Assembly Bill […]

    Elisa Odabashian Culture

  • Great places: reorienting progressive politics for the 21st century

    This is part one in a series on “great places.” Read parts two, three, four, and five. I asked a while back what new vision or principles could unite the left’s fractious coalition. As you probably guessed, I’ve got a pet idea along these lines. It’s a bit out in left field, at least in […]

    David Roberts Culture

  • Cup o’ woe: Ask Umbra on single-serve coffee alternatives

    Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I work in an office of serious coffee drinkers. We have a Keurig single-cup coffee brewer that everyone loves because it allows them to choose their own roast and flavor. But all those little plastic K-Cups add up to lots of waste fast! Is there a more […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture

  • Betty White is greener than you (and a GINK role model too)

    Betty White, honorary forest ranger and ardent environmentalist.Photo: USDAWhite is the new green! Did you know that the octogenarian actress is a longtime environmentalist? She’s starring in a new campaign for The Wilderness Society: “Keep it wild with Betty White!” “Wilderness is harder and harder to find these days on this beautiful planet, and we’re […]

    Lisa Hymas Culture

  • Why environmentalists will survive Armageddon

    Hate to break it to you, but if it's really the end of the world tomorrow (or tonight), as Harold Camping and his followers attest, you're almost certainly screwed. So what will ease your suffering in the post-Rapture world? A lot of the same things you're already doing to save the environment. Dense living. Apparently […]

    Jess Zimmerman Culture

  • TV vs. Computer: The energy use showdown

    Given a choice between spending an hour watching TV or surfing the Internet, which should you choose, assuming, of course, that your goal is not entertainment but consuming the least energy possible? This handy graphic provides the answer: It's surfing the Internet: At .09 kilowatt-hours per hour, your computer consumes the least energy of any […]

    Sarah Laskow Culture

  • Bringing a dead public plaza to life in Dallas

    Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Although it sometimes makes “ugliest building in the world” lists, I rather like I.M. Pei’s iconic Dallas City Hall, featuring his trademark architectural triangles. Photo: Chris Zúniga But I’ll grant that it is imposing. What I don’t like is the vast, forlorn “plaza” and pool that separates the […]

    Kaid Benfield Culture