Climate Culture

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  • New app lets you identify the few remaining trees

    Wouldn’t it be nice to get to know trees while they’re still around? Leafsnap can help. The new app, developed by a team of researchers at Columbia, University of Maryland, and the Smithsonian Institution, contains a database of beautiful photos of leaves, barks, flowers, and fruits. All the lazy naturalist has to do to identify […]

    Sarah Laskow Culture

  • Rubber the right way: Ask Umbra on green condoms

    Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, As newlyweds, my husband and I are still exploring all the different condom options out there. We recently switched to Sliquid Organic lubricant versus KY, and we want the condoms we use to be “safe” in every way too — for our bodies and the planet. I’ve […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture

  • Do you know how many people are in the world today? [VIDEO]

    Does the average American have any idea what the global population is? Watch and see: As Population Action International explains in this video, the world population will hit 7 billion this fall — on Oct. 31, to be specific. At least that’s the date the U.N. has specified, maybe because it’s scary — mwah-hah-hah. But […]

    Lisa Hymas Culture

  • So what is this Cycle Chic movement?

    Cycle Chic is about the "rehumanification" of cycling. Open your closet, put on something you love, get on your bike, and go.

    Sarah Goodyear Culture

  • Barking up the wrong tree: Ask Umbra on printing emails

    Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Can you bring some balance and common sense to the Wall Street Journal‘s aw-shucks oversimplification of the issue of to print or not to print emails? I learned about it from a few colleagues’ change in email signatures, encouraging people to print their emails to promote a […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture

  • Study: Rich old Republicans are pessimistic about your future

    A new Gallup poll finds that only 44 percent of those surveyed thought that today's youth would have a better life than their parents. That's worse than during the recession. In fact, it's the lowest percentage on record, for a question they've been asking since 1983. (The highest, weirdly, was in December 2001 — 71 […]

    Jess Zimmerman Culture

  • Sharing and caring: the implications of collaborative consumption

    Rachel Botsman wants you to share.Lots of the most interesting changes in the direction of sustainability are happening outside green politics (i.e., the stuff I’m always writing about). One that’s always fascinated me is the spread of sharing economies, or “collaborative consumption.” Grist had Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, authors of What’s Mine Is Yours: […]

    David Roberts Culture

  • World population projected to hit 7 billion on Oct. 31

          Image: National GeographicToday, the United Nations announced that the world’s population will reach an historic 7 billion people on Oct. 31, 2011. World population hit 1 billion people in 1804. It took 123 years to add the next billion, but less than a century to cruise past the next four billion — from 2 billion […]

    Elizabeth Leahy Madsen Culture

  • Turn a month of trash into a month of treasure

    A couple of Austrian design students have issued a challenge — to themselves, but you can get in on it. They're posting an upcycling project every day for 30 days, and for every guest submission they post, they'll extend the project one day. Send in your upcycling ideas and help them rehabilitate a month — or […]

    Jess Zimmerman Culture

  • What can we learn from the world’s most efficient fake city?

    This EXTREMELY METAL VIDEO shows the evolution of what is probably the world's most efficient Sim City: 6 million inhabitants and no congestion. It's got optimal population density, operates by subway alone, and has essentially beat an unbeatable game by lasting for 50,000 in-game years. The innovative gridding system that made all this possible was […]

    Jess Zimmerman Culture