Climate Culture
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Cleanup efforts bring life back to Grand Calumet River
Grand Calumet River near Gary AirportLeslie DorworthThe first time I saw the Grand Calumet River, I was driving down the Indiana Toll Road. It was 1996, and I had just arrived in northwest Indiana from North Carolina to take a new job as an aquatic ecology extension specialist with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Program. All […]
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Bicycle trailers and human-powered house moves
I want my next move to be by bicycle. Crazy? Not at all. Thanks to impressive new bicycle trailer designs, such a move is now possible. So are other, similarly audacious feats of human-powered hauling, from freighting fish to delivering mattresses. (More on that in a moment.) In 1981, when I left for college, (almost) […]
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Not even the Beatles can stop the oil spill [VIDEO]
When leaking crude threatens cartoon characters in a pineapple under the sea (under the sea!), the Beatles give it a go in this animated short. “We’ve been trying to stop the oil with our music,” they say. “It’s not working.” ——————————————————————————————————————————————– Like what you see? Sign up to receive The Grist List, our email roundup […]
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It’s raining apples
These apples might look green, but they’re perfectly ripe — and begging to be picked.(Steph Larsen photos) I have my work cut out for me.When nature calls on the farm, we listen. Meaning, when a fruit with a short shelf life becomes suddenly ripe, there’s no choice but to drop everything else. Did you know […]
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Want a party? Kick cars off the street in Oakland
Shut down a street to autos and sunny revelry instantly breaks out with lots of happy Californians. OK, maybe not automatically, but a key appeal of Complete Streets is that human-scaled throughways tend to be much more social than environments designed for cars. Streetsfilms makes the case by chronicling the first-ever Ciclovía day on Oakland, […]
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Get drivers to slow down (and save fuel) by making it fun
From the people who brought you piano stairs comes an idea for getting more drivers to obey speed limits. “Fun theory award” winner Kevin Richardson suggests making it “fun” to drive the speed limit by entering lawful drivers in a lottery and awarding cash prizes to some. Money could come from fining speeders, although that […]
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Arsenic found in Utah kids’ pee traced to their pet chickens’ feed
Backyard chickens: Fun for the entire family! That is, until your kids get arsenic poisoning from them. The Utah Department of Health tracked worrisome levels of arsenic in two kids’ urine to the family’s backyard chicken coop, reports Judy Fahys in the Salt Lake Tribune (hat tip to Cookie Jill). More specifically, to the arsenic-based […]
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WTFood: McNuggets have a little too much in common with Silly Putty
Photo: fuxoft via FlickrDrooling over those food-like substances!Moms across the nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief every time their toddlers pop Silly Putty in their mouths with the news that that childhood mainstay is not completely unlike another one: McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets. As it turns out, these two amorphous items share the yummy-sounding […]
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How hot is it? Hot enough to shave your cat?
How hot is it? Hot enough to shave your cat?Photo: Jennifer PredigerWelcome to summer. We’re having a heat wave here in the Northeast that’s breaking records. Some sizzling places recorded temps of 103 degrees F yesterday! And more of the same is expected today. The Big Apple is broiling. Four of the five boroughs of […]
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Greening — and feeding — the city with a ‘garden block’
It looks like one of the main take-aways from the Congress for the New Urbanism 18 conference is something being labeled “agrarian urbanism.” Fast Company is calling it the “new new urbanism” and Treehugger has described the notion as the next phase in the evolution of this 30-year old movement. New Urbanism leader Andrés Duany, […]
