Climate Culture

All Stories

  • No Impact Man, Elizabeth Kolbert, and the civic sphere

    Elizabeth Kolbert’s latest essay for The New Yorker is another triumph, a perfectly pitched marriage of style and substance. It’s about Colin Beavan’s blog-turned-book-turned-movie No Impact Man, Vanessa Farquharson’s Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days, and other recent experiments in (well-to-do, white, […]

    David Roberts Culture

  • Ask Umbra on green cleaning

    Send your question to Umbra! Editor’s Note: It being the dog days of August and all, Umbra Fisk has trotted off for a well deserved vacation. In her absence, we’ve decided to dust off some oldies but goodies from the archives. And since we were dusting, we thought we’d start with this timeless green cleaning […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture

  • Digital downloads are greener than CDs

    Several studies have looked at the climate impact of internet infrastructure and information technology, and other studies have attempted to compare the relative efficiency of internet retailing vs. traditional bricks-and-mortar stores. A new study takes a different spin on the subject, comparing the energy embodied in physical products with their digital, network-based counterparts. The result […]

    Adam Stein Culture

  • Dave Matthews Band offers free music downloads for eco-pledges

    Photo: Ryan Eilders via FlickrDuring their 2008 summer tour, the Dave Matthews Band encouraged 160,000 fans to carpool, diverted 8,000 cubic yards of waste from the landfill, employed 550 volunteers to educate fans, and reduced their carbon footprint by almost 8.5 million pounds of CO2 (through eco-efforts and offsets). This year, they are continuing that […]

    Sarah van Schagen Culture

  • Climate Riders use pedal power to raise awareness

    Courtesy Brita Climate RideHow far would you go to fight climate change? How about 300 miles? Hundreds of cyclists will pedal from New York City to Washington, D.C., in late September to do just that. The Brita Climate Ride is a multi-day bicycle ride that raises money and awareness for climate change action. The riders […]

    Sarah van Schagen Culture

  • Climate-news poem: Cash for cukes edition

    This week’s verse was contributed by the White House as it worked on plans for a farmers market. Check out more climate poems from Grist. First we thought cars were the fix, so Congress made a bet:Give people cash and they will trade their clunking old Corvette.And boy, they did! In drives — uh, droves […]

    Katharine Wroth Culture

  • Seattle’s bag-fee supporters still smiling despite setback

    Photo: ceegee-ceegeeAdvocates of Seattle’s Referendum 1, a proposal for a disposable-bag fee that was soundly defeated in Tuesday’s primary election, may have lost a battle. But Brady Montz, chair of the local Sierra Club chapter and leader of the effort to pass the referendum, feels confident that the war against plastic bags is going well. […]

    Claire Thompson Culture

  • Middle school teacher responds on real energy education for kids

    The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity runs an annual Coal Calendar Art & Essay Contest for middle schoolers, asking students to shill for the coal industry, no doubt in response to a biased classroom lesson about coal. See the comment thread on the coal coloring book story. This comment from reader LILACWINE seems […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Culture

  • Throwing out the throwaway economy

    Photo: Editor BThe stresses in our early twenty-first century civilization take many forms–social, economic, environmental, and political. One distinctly unhealthy and visible illustration of all four is the swelling flow of garbage associated with a throwaway economy. Throwaway products were first conceived following World War II as a convenience and as a way of creating […]

    Lester Brown Culture

  • Change the world by changing your underpants, and more

    We’ll be briefWant to change the world? Start with your underwear.            

    Sarah van Schagen Culture