Climate Culture

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  • Rising food prices hit home around the world

    Is a change coming to your cart? Photo: iStockphoto Hey you, in the supermarket line — yeah, you, the one with the stuffed cart. Are you ready to pay up for those groceries? You’d better be, pal. That’s the message from Bill Lapp, former chief economist for the food giant Conagra. “I think [U.S.] consumers […]

    Tom Philpott Culture

  • Umbra on organic honey

    Dear Umbra, I was looking for a nice, local, organic honey to use in reworking some recipes so that they didn’t use sugar. So I headed to Whole Foods, and was stuck looking at a honey in a plastic container labeled organic from Brazil, and a local product in a glass container but not labeled […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture

  • How to green your car

    It doesn’t take a paint job to make your car greener. Photo: iStockphoto Wherever you are at this moment, you probably won’t stay there long. Most of us don’t like staying. We like leaving — in our cars. Americans, the owners of nearly 250 million vehicles, take about 356 billion trips in them every year. […]

    Grist staff Culture

  • Americans using less gasoline

    Well, it’s finally happened: Americans are starting to use less gasoline. It took a weakened economy and record oil prices — crude hit an all-time high of $103.95 a barrel Monday — but in the past six weeks, U.S. gasoline consumption has fallen by an average 1.1 percent from 2007 levels, the most sustained drop […]

    Grist staff Culture

  • Umbra on pearl production

    Dear Umbra, I’m nearly drowning in jewelry ideas for my valentine, but wary of mined gemstones. Do you know anything about the ecological impact of cultured pearls, or the faux “shell pearls”? Swimming to the Surface Slowly Portland, Ore. Dearest SSS, I apologize for missing your Valentine’s window, but you may have seen my wee […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture

  • Slacker credits

    This is from the very funny daily web comic Joy of Tech:

    David Roberts Culture

  • An interview with green designer and TV personality John Bruce

    John Bruce is living in a material world. But he’s no cone-chested pop star — he’s a green designer. A green designer who, during the course of an hour-long conversation, speaks excitedly about various eco-building materials, professing his love for natural clay plaster and calling sunflower-seed-based particle board “super beautiful.” He even credits his love […]

    Grist staff Culture

  • From Bus to Busted

    Stop! In the name of love On the rare occasion that a desperate chase ends in actually catching the bus, we always end up plopping our disheveled selves next to someone loud and smelly. To people who find love on public transit, we say: no fare! Photo: iStockphoto Par for the course A little birdie […]

    Sarah K. Burkhalter & Sarah van Schagen Culture

  • Fishing for hope at a seafood-industry trade show

    Photo: Chris Seufert Viewed from a distance, the Boston Convention Center looks a bit like a great white whale — an appropriate setting for the annual International Boston Seafood Show. The building’s vast interior offers great vistas for people-watching, often through huge glass windows. People move through the hallways and aisles in large groups; watching […]

    Roz Cummins Culture

  • Umbra on organic bananas

    Dear Umbra, Why are organic bananas always smaller and almost always greener than non-organic? BG Tallahassee, Fla. Dearest BG, Hmm. Fresh organic fruits and vegetables often differ in appearance from their conventionally grown kin. They’re the hippies of the produce world: unwaxed, expressing their individualism, coming to the produce stand as they are, lumps and […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture