Climate Culture
All Stories
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Ask Umbra on globetrotting friends, thorium reactors, and more
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I have greatly cut back on my airplane trips because of my concern about global warming. However, I have groups of friends whose main conversation is about the overseas trips they have been on. When I don’t have an exotic place to talk about it seems like […]
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A womb of one’s own
Photo: Mahalie via Flickr So, why is my response ire and not panic? I guess I’m over the panic. During my pregnancy, I’ve been reading a lot about the toxics in my body and their potential effects on the fetus (and I’ll be writing a lot more about this stuff in this blog series). I […]
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Umbilical Cords Strike an Off Note
More than 200 toxic chemicals were found in the blood of umbilical cords sampled from racial and ethnic minority babies in a report coming out Wednesday. The analysis discovered for the first time in cord blood bisphenol A (or BPA), a perfluorocarbon used in non-stick and weather-proofing products, as well as certain forms of PCBs […]
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PETA on one side, FOX on the other … now that’s a conundrum
In this corner, we have PETA, a shameless animal-rights organization that uses boobies to make its point at least — what, once or twice a minute? To wit: this latest, uh, holiday-themed ad featuring Polish Playboy model Joanna Krupa. In the other corner, we have FOX News and angry Christians: For a higher purpose?PETA.org “It’s […]
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Toxic toys and BPA-exposed babies, just in time for the holidays
Dearests, in this season of love and laughter, when we all become young at heart and so forth, I’m going to point out two new child-related studies that might just make you — well, choke on your egg nog. Luckily, I’ve also found some handy resources that will keep your holidays happy. Cute — but […]
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BPA Babies and Cash Registers
We’ve known for a long time that bisphenol-A (BPA) is bad for us. Study after study shows the ill-effects of this widely-used industrial chemical on our bodies–and in particular, on developing babies’ bodies. The list is pretty sobering: BPA’s been linked to breast cancer in women, brain damage in children, obesity, heart disease, diabetes… Two […]
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Making buildings more efficient: It helps to understand human behavior
If I told you how much energy your neighbors use on average, and whether you fell above or below that average, would that induce you to save more energy? What if, depending on whether you came in above or below average, you got an emoticon on your energy bill? Say, a smiley face if you […]
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More power, less roadkill: How one professor’s landscape has shifted
I took Environmental Studies 101 during my first college semester 20 years ago with Dick Andrus, a professor who has just marked 36 years of teaching at Binghamton University. I thought it’d be good to check back with him and see what he’s talking about in that class now. Q. What are your new Envi […]
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Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, What is the greenest way to dispose of pet waste? Scoop and flush, or bag and throw in the trash? Jenifer M.Vienna A. Dearest Jenifer, Flush or toss?The greenest way to dispose of pet waste is to dispose of your pet, I suppose. No pet, no waste! […]
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Martha Stewart blisters meat industry in Thanksgiving show
Martha Stewart is easy to caricature. But the sister values good ingredients–and has realized that industrial agriculture churns out flavorless crap. That has caused her to ask second-order questions about the food system–and use her immense popular appeal to shed light on the horrors of factory meat farming. She has devoted her latest episode to […]
