Climate Culture
All Stories
-
A tour of green-leaning museums [SLIDESHOW]
Far from their sometimes musty, dusty reputations, many museums in the U.S. stand on the cutting edge of eco-innovation. Whether it’s behind the scenes (using recycled materials to build exhibits, renovating to LEED standards) or inescapably out front (a whole museum dedicated to wind power), museums are showing visitors the green light. Take our tour […]
-
Audio slideshow: Chris Jordan on America’s coal consumption
Artist Chris Jordan is known for his creative representations of American consumption habits, but even he was shocked to find out the numbers involved in producing coal-fired electricity. After learning about mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian range, Jordan decided to illustrate just how much coal we consume each day — and the project turned […]
-
Audio slideshow: Facing climate change — and wildfire
Photographer/writer duo Benjamin Drummond and Sara Joy Steele have traveled to the Arctic and back to record the impacts of climate change. And while they realize we are facing a global problem, they’ve found that every community has a local story. Through their multimedia project “Facing Climate Change,” they aim to tell those stories […]
-
Four years after my pleading essay, climate art is hot
That pleading little essay I wrote in 2005? It was probably the last moment I could have written it. Clearly there were lots and lots of people already thinking the same way, because ever since it’s seemed to me as if deep and moving images and sounds and words have been flooding out into the […]
-
Portrait of an artist as a climate activist
This image of a polar bear on Barnard Harbor in Alaska was used in a Senate debate about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.Photo: Subhankar Banerjee “Art has always reflected what is in our world and in our horizon and what our fears are — which is all tied in to climate change.” Coco Howard, […]
-
How to green your grocery shopping on a tight budget
Three months ago, my husband and I took a magnifying glass to our finances, examining a mountain of bills and receipts. We had two main concerns: paying the lingering tab for the birth of our second son (now one), and finding a way to afford a year of preschool for our highly-energized, insatiably-curious three-year-old. We […]
-
Peeing in the shower goes, um, viral
Dearest Readers, Today brings news — oh, and wildly spreading it is — of an ad campaign in Brazil aimed at convincing people to save water by peeing in the shower. Here is the video, and here is the website, if you are seeking extra credit for your Portuguese skills (beware, it starts with a […]
-
Ask Umbra on smarter outlets
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I recently spent several months in New Zealand and was impressed with the simple energy-saving electrical outlets they used. Every outlet is equipped with a small switch allowing you to “turn off at the wall” whatever device you have plugged in. I want to replace my current […]
-
Would you trade your car for a bike?
Would you trade your car for a bike? That’s what the folks behind the Tour de Fat want to know. New Belgium Brewing’s now-annual cycle celebration is pedaling to Seattle this Saturday — and they’ll be taking a car off the hands of one (lucky?) local driver and handing him a cool commuter bike in […]
-
It’s time to end the practice of shark finning
This post is co-authored with Discovery Channel GM & President John Ford. —– Photo: Willy VolkEvery half-second a shark is killed for its fins, so in the time it takes you to read this post, hundreds of sharks will die. “Finning,” as the practice is known, is decimating shark populations world-wide. Every year up to […]
