Culture

Must-see TV on ABC tonight — “Earth 2100: Is this the Final Century of our Civilization?

Tonight at 9 pm on ABC, “Bob Woodruff explores what might be the worst case scenario for civilization.” Hurray for the mainstream media exploring the worst-case scenario aka Hell and High Water! I am very interested in your thoughts on this show — before and after. One of the most commented on posts of this […]

Joseph Romm Culture

‘Garbage Dreams’ explores life in Cairo’s garbage villages

Eighteen million people live in Cairo. They produce 13,000 tons of garbage every day, and they have no waste disposal system. Ew. Mai Iskander presents Al Gore with a drawing made by the children at The Recycling School in Cairo.Courtesy Garbage Dreams via FlickrBut the trash also presents an opportunity. For the past 50 years, […]

Sara Barz Culture

Around the Americas mission raises sails — and awareness

Photo: Sarah van SchagenSomewhere off Canada’s Pacific Coast, the wind is filling the colorful octopus-adorned sails of the Good Ship Ocean Watch as it weaves its way clockwise around North and South America on a “voyage of discovery.” Manning that ship is a crew of seasoned sailors, educators, scientists, and writers — with a singular, […]

Sarah van Schagen Culture

Grist profiled in Finnish paper — read all about it

These editors have begun to slightly hack.Photo: Tom Clements/Vihrea Lanka Grist recently found itself the focus of a feature story in a Finnish newspaper under the headline “Tässä ei ole mitään hauskaa.” We were briefly flattered, as all those umlauts struck us as quite sophisticated, and we’re pretty much suckers for any outside attention. Until […]

Jonathan Hiskes Culture

Greenpeace: your boots are made for climate change

These boots are made for … trampling the rainforest? A lot of eco-minded folks these days generally know where their food comes from. They’d never walk into a supermarket and plunk an anonymous ribeye into their cart. They understand the tremendous greenhouse-gas footprint of beef; if they consume it at all, they do so sparingly, […]

Tom Philpott Culture

Ask Umbra on chippers

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, Is it better to use a gas-spewing grinder/chipper to mulch up yard waste for plant beds or just burn it? I am thinking you will be tempted to say do neither and let it rot in place, but many don’t have a big enough yard to leave […]

Ask Umbra® Culture

A climate-news poem for the week of May 25

Here’s how to fix the climate: Take trips that are quite fancy.In the mood for Chinese? Bag Beijing with John and Nancy.Hit London, why don’t Chu, or give a crepe with Todd.Just don’t think of your carbon trail, and make your peace with … dog. A wing and a player.beigeinside via flickr

Katharine Wroth Culture

From “local” Lays to Oprah’s KFC promo, hypocrisy abounds in the food world

War is peace, junk food is real food….Nobody likes hypocrites, despite the fact that everyone is a hypocrite to one degree or another: the smoker who tells her kids not to smoke; the closeted politician who works against gay rights; the police officer who throws the book at stoners but who himself gets high. But […]

Kurt Michael Friese Culture

From Rapping to Wrapping

Willing.i.amThis Black Green-eyed Pea wants a White House job. If hired, we imagine his boardroom beats might go something like this: “Yo ‘Bama, (boom boom boom) we gotta get-get this climate bill signed!” (Click below to see the next item in this week’s Grist List—or view them all on a single page.) […]