Climate Culture
All Stories
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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A review of six green laundry detergents
Let’s get down and dirty … about your laundry habits. You may think you’re in the clear, but every time you use your conventional, chemical-filled detergent, you could be affecting your health — as well as the health of waterways downstream. That doesn’t sound so fresh (and so clean, clean), so I decided to seek […]
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Percentage of 16-year-olds licensed to drive has dropped
The percentage of 16-year-olds with a U.S. driver’s license has decreased sharply in the last decade, from 43.8 percent in 1998 to 29.8 percent in 2006. Rising insurance costs, expensive driver education, and an increase in indoor pastimes are more likely to be driving the trend than environmental awareness — and sure, most yoots still […]
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Umbra on communal clothes drying
Hello Umbra! I’m a college student working to make my school greener and would like to purchase a few relatively sturdy, high-volume clothes drying racks to place in our laundry rooms so that students have an alternative to using the electric dryers. I know these racks exist because I just got back from studying in […]
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Oscars: green, but not braggy
As I reported last week, the Oscars went green(er) again this year. But if you watched the awards show last night, you might have noticed there was nary a mention of it, aside from a few jokes from Jon Stewart — quite a contrast to last year’s Al-and-Leo show. In other green-award-show news, the Independent […]
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Various items of sporting significance
Gather into the huddle for your sporting update! The news on Beijing 2008: Six green activists will carry the Olympic torch as it journeys through Thailand on its way to light up the night at the Beijing Olympics this summer. Five provinces neighboring Beijing have pledged to work on air pollution to help the city […]
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From Bottle to Bikini
Cork tease Attention oenophiles: Korks 4 Kids wants your cork. Big corks, little corks — size doesn’t matter. Your cork will go places you never imagined, until you get that all-over warm feeling that you get from … helping children. Why, what were you thinking? Photo: iStockphoto On our soapbox A Brit film fest asking […]
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Strongbadia gets a gulp o’ greenwashing
Remember that goofy ‘toon site Homestarrunner.com and its boxing-gloved, email-answering hero, Strong Bad? Well, apparently not even web cartoon characters are safe from the fierce green gaze of environmental imperialism: his readers finally call him out on his lack of eco-initiative. So what does Strong Bad do to help save the planet? You mean, besides […]
