Climate Culture
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Walkshed dilemmas and the Nissan Leaf
The wife and I recently made a fairly difficult decision about where to send our 6-year-old to school for first grade next year. We had the following dilemma: he tested into the gifted program at our neighborhood school, but he also tested into the highly gifted program, which is run at a school across town. […]
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Say it loud — I’m childfree and I’m proud
In 1969, graduating college senior Stephanie Mills made national headlines with a commencement address exclaiming that, in the face of impending ecological devastation, she was choosing to forgo parenthood. “I am terribly saddened by the fact that the most humane thing for me to do is to have no children at all,” she told her […]
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China to de-stink landfill problem with giant deodorant guns
Residents of Beijing are making a stink about the excessive odors residing around the city’s many landfills, which are rising in number nearly as quickly as the Chinese population. (Maybe the government should institute a “one landfill per couple” policy?) But instead of cleaning up this mess of problems for those down in the dumps, […]
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Old gumball machines give guerrilla gardeners easy ammo
For the guerrilla gardener on the go, why be bothered with making your own seed bombs? Greenaid’s repurposed candy dispensers will arm you with grenades of greenery for all those times you’re deep in urban war zones and remember you’re not packin’ peat (or seeds). Helping the natives beat rebel plants is now as easy […]
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Ask Umbra on eyewear, faux eco efforts, and Easter baskets
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I need to replace my eyewear—the lenses need updating and the frames are damaged—and I’m wondering what the most sustainable choice is. Frameless seems likely, but if I want to go with a frame (Coke bottle lenses, anyone?) then is metal the way to go? Blindly,Hope K.Providence, […]
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Watching the green screens at the Environmental Film Festival in D.C.
HomegrownSpring and the Environmental Film Festival both burst into full bloom at the festival’s start in the Nation’s Capital last weekend. Eco-movie buffs, many having withstood record snowfalls in Washington, D.C., this winter, eschewed the beauty of the outdoors to watch the beauty of the outdoors indoors in the form of a wellspring of eco-conscious […]
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What’s that funny-talking TV chef doing in my West Virginia hometown?
It’s about 8:45 a.m. and I’m sitting in an audio booth, waiting to talk to Brit celebrity chef Jaime Oliver on the other end of a high-quality line. I’m his third, set-‘em-up-and-knock-‘em-down “interview” of the morning. The night before he was on Letterman. He’s 15 minutes late, and I have an uneasy feeling. Not about […]
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A fast-and-furious weeknight skillet dinner
In Tom’s Kitchen, Grist’s food editor discusses some of the quick-and-easy things he gets up to in, well, his kitchen. Forgive him for the lame iPhone photography. —————— Last night, I wanted something fast and simple for dinner–that also tasted really good. I hadn’t been grocery shopping for a while, and nothing much is coming […]
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Whoops: Energy Star approves gas-powered alarm clock
This (ahem) “space heater” earned a government Energy Star rating.Photo: Government Accountability OfficeWell this is embarrassing: Federal monitors granted the Energy Star stamp of approval to a number of bogus appliances, including a gas-powered alarm clock and an electric space heater with a feather duster taped to it. The Government Accountability Office submitted the fake […]
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HFCS study authors defend work against attacks
Photo: BoekeMarion Nestle, along with other nutritionists have joined the Corn Refiners Association in criticizing the recent Princeton study on High Fructose Corn Syrup. Indeed the very title of Nestle’s post on the subject — “HFCS makes rats fat?” — seems to question the well-established practice of using rats to test hypotheses regarding human nutrition. […]
