Climate Culture
All Stories
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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 […]
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Leftover Thanksgiving turkey gumbo
Turkey gumbo: the Thanksgiving centerpiece finds its true calling. All photos by April McGreger Before accepting a Thanksgiving dinner invitation, I ask my host two questions: Will you be roasting a turkey and may I have the leftover carcass? The best part of the Thanksgiving turkey has long been about leftovers for me, but a […]
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This Friday, don’t just Buy Nothing — use nothing!
Courtesy AdbustersFor twenty years, the people behind Buy Nothing Day have been pleading with consumers to avoid the frenzy inherent in “Black Friday,” the no-holds-barred shop-o-rama that comes the day after Thanksgiving. This year, they’re ramping things up and calling for an all-out Wildcat Strike against the “capitalist consumption machine.” Socialists, you say? No, just […]
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Making buildings more efficient: looking beyond price
Photo courtesy kimberlyfaye via Flickr Using energy more efficiently in buildings may be the fastest, cheapest way to substantially reduce carbon emissions in the short-term. How can we make it happen? Last week, New York Times‘ David Leonhardt wrote a great column about a new proposal bouncing around the White House: “cash for caulkers,” a […]
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Ask Umbra on trash, toxics, and tots
Q. Dear Umbra, Municipal and individual composting operations are gaining steam nationwide. Some obvious benefits include space-saving in landfills, and cheaper and (hopefully) “greener” fertilizer. While I am an avid supporter of composting, I am curious if municipalities with composting facilities could see decreased decomposition rates in their landfills. Do yard and plant scraps even […]
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Reinventing the JP Green House
For the last year and a half, Ken Ward and Andrée Zaleska have been rehabbing a 100-year-old former neighborhood store in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. They’re converting it into a home for their combined family, a community gathering place, and a zero-carbon demonstration home to inspire others — and sharing their journey in […]
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Top 25 reasons to give a damn about climate change
For some people, climate change is a tough cause to rally ’round — even those who understand that it’s happening and that it’s human-caused get distracted by things like eating, working, having sex, watching TV, or watching people on TV have sex. While social scientists ponder the best ways to get the message out and […]
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Growing up green: Breathing for two
Babies don’t like air pollution and neither should you!Early in my pregnancy I developed a bloodhound’s sense of smell: even the faintest of odors overwhelmed me. It’s a common phenomenon during the first trimester of pregnancy, yet my new nasal superpower took me by surprise—and forced me into an unwelcome awareness of the pollution that […]
