Climate Culture
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SurvivaBall: Your individual climate-change adaptation strategy
Halliburton’s custom-designed SurvivaBall.The world’s most upstanding corporate citizens, like Halliburton, Monsanto, and ExxonMobil, take climate change seriously. It’s a serious opportunity for profit. That’s why, in addition to spending millions to perpetuate the energy, environmental, and subsidy policies that sustain their ongoing operations, they’ve created this “gated community for one” — the SurvivaBall. Specially designed […]
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Climate-news poem: Tck, tck, tck edition
Clock block.This week saw heated multitudes descend on NYC Their passions were aflame, though some were acting quite icy. A human countdown filled the park with cries of Tck, Tck, Tck And Indy told his corporate pals this problem they could lick. Obama wowed the world by saying nothing much, and how! He met his […]
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Highs and lows from the world of green fashion
What? Take away my Aqua Net?!nyki_m via flickrOK, really just one high and one low. It’s been a busy day. The high, fittingly, is related to hair. When I first saw an email subject line that began “Directional Runway Hair” float into my inbox earlier today, I honest-to-god thought it had something to do with […]
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Two new documentaries — ‘Crude’ and ‘Fuel’ — examine two sides of our petroleum problem
Two new documentaries show the damaging effects of the world’s addiction to oil, each film from its own unique angle. Crude, which opened in New York on Sept. 9, traces the story of a lawsuit brought by 30,000 rural Ecuadorians against Chevron, which denies responsibility for turning their traditional rainforest home into a dumping ground […]
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Actor Djimon Hounsou wants to show the human costs of climate change
Djimon Hounsou at the U.N. Climate SummitPhoto: United NationsActor Djimon Hounsou is just as snacky in real life as he was on the big screen in Blood Diamond, The Island, and Gladiator. Better yet, he’s also a climate activist and humanitarian. As a global ambassador for the aid and development group Oxfam, Hounsou has traveled […]
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Umbra reports from the Age of Stupid premiere
What do Stephen Baldwin, the Pope, and the Environment Minister of the Netherlands have in common? They’re all getting hot and bothered about climate change, and they were all at the premiere of Age of Stupid. (OK, the Pope sent a lackey, but he totally would have been there if he could.) Umbra Fisk surveys […]
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Ask Umbra on that new-car smell
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I have an old and dying Cash for Clunker-eligible SUV with well over 210,000 miles on it … My problem is I find the VOC offgassing of new cars intolerable. Is there any way to offgas a new car before I drive it so that I am […]
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Can plastics make us fat?
Hmm… That title doesn’t quite seem to capture the urgency of the issue, does it? Yet despite rampant skepticism, the data continue to pour in — chemicals in some of the most common plastics and household products, things that surround us every minute of the day, are major culprits in the obesity epidemic. At least […]
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MTV-approved advice on reaching those who aren’t paying attention
He seems cool.Courtesy Energy Action CoalitionPete Griffin spent three years working at Think MTV, the “social issues” and volunteering arm of the entertainment behemoth. He helped run its Choose or Lose election campaign and its Break the Addiction environmental series. He knew these do-gooder campaigns were far from MTV’s sexiest offerings. “Social issues weren’t why […]
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Ask Umbra on giving advice
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, This fall, as part of an environmental ethics course, I would like to create a class blog somewhat along the lines of your column, with students posting questions and answers to environmental quandaries specific to our campus. I wonder if you have any words of wisdom. What […]
