Climate Culture
All Stories
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Bottled water is a sham answer to low-quality tap water
Speaking of bottled water, get this, from Environmental Working Group: The bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, but comprehensive testing by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) reveals a surprising array of chemical contaminants in every bottled water brand analyzed, including toxic byproducts of chlorination in Walmart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant Supermarket’s Acadia brands, […]
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Umbra on eco-themed Halloween costumes
Dear Umbra, Every year my friends and I throw a big Halloween party, and I had the amazing idea of dressing up as Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, I just found out that’s currently the most popular costume in my city (and most likely the U.S.), so I’m thinking about tipping my hat to my love of […]
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Bush admin aims to increase mountain-bike access to national parks
Mountain bikers will have easier access to national parks and other public lands under plans the Biker-in-Chief is trying to push through before leaving office. (Ninety-seven days!) The National Park Service said Tuesday that it will propose a rule by Nov. 15 that would speed up decision-making about mountain-bike trails by putting park managers in […]
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How to green your Halloween
The economy may have gone to pot and the country’s future leadership may be wildly unclear, but there’s one thing we can count on: Halloween. Yes, October 31 is a holiday of certainty, full of ringing doorbells, sweet treats, and tiny ghosts and witches (or, more likely, Kung Fu Pandas and Hannah Montanas). But All […]
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Nestle flexes its muscles at Miami water utility
For months, the bottled-water industry has been losing its grip over people’s pocketbooks. Consumers are realizing that buying purified tap water at pumped-up prices, packaged in little plastic bottles, makes zero sense in economic, ecological, or health terms. Now the industry appears to be losing its grip on reality. From the Miami Herald: In the […]
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Notable quotable
“I kind of thought that eco-friendly clothes meant misshapen hemp sweaters — you know, from like 1992 or something.” — actress Maggie Gyllenhaal
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How modern cities made themselves livable
Financial deregulation has obviously been a disaster. Perhaps we are entering a new era, one in which it is acceptable to talk about the positive actions that governments can take. A friend of mine, Bryn Barnard, has written about how government first stepped in to provide a minimally healthy environment — in a chapter about […]
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Budget-saving tips awfully similar to planet-preserving prescriptions
Who are you to deny me my two-car garage filled with junk, an elegant dining room I’ll never use, and massive heating/cooling bills? That’s the basic response from critics when greens question McMansions in particular and our consumer culture in general. I mean, isn’t newer, bigger, better the American way? Didn’t President Bush urge us […]
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King of the Hill takes on green
Last Sunday, Fox’s animated show King of the Hill ran an episode called “Earthy Girls Are Easy.” (You can watch the full episode here.) I was excited when I heard about it. KotH is a brilliant show, the only one on television that pokes fun at low-income rural white people in a way that is […]
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Maps, videos, and images from our cross-country travels
It’s been almost three weeks since I left Seattle to meet up with a total stranger and drive across the country in search of hope for a sustainable future. Well, hope we found — pretty much everywhere we looked. It was like a hope buffet, if you will, and believe you me, we tried to […]
