Climate Culture

Leo’s feel-good press conference is interrupted by a feel-bad question

Leonardo DiCaprio at the premiere of The 11th Hour. Alex Berliner © Berliner Studio/BEImages When celebrities embrace environmental concerns, cranky naysayers pop up like toadstools after a rainstorm. But the mansions and private jets those critics seize upon, while easy targets, might not be the real problem. It might just be that green-leaning celebrities and […]

Survey reveals truth about environmental fibs

A study by (insurance company?) Norwich Union has unearthed the truth about how green Brits really are: The good news: Of the 1,580 people surveyed across Britain, more than half considered unethical living as much of a social taboo as drunk driving — or, as the Brits call it, drink-driving. The bad news: Due to […]

Australian newspaper identifies consumerism as warming culprit

I was just in Australia, spending some love miles (my wife is an Aussie) but also giving some talks, and while there I was interviewed by a journalist named Wendy Frew from the Sydney Morning Herald. She did a nice piece (August 9) on Greenhouse Development Rights called "Rich will have to help poor to save climate," which is perhaps notable for containing the dulcet phrase "coal is the enemy of mankind."

But that's not what I'm writing about.

Wildfire breaks out at Burning Man

Strange fires are happening everywhere: California, Europe, and Burning Man.

Somehow, this morning, the giant effigy at the center of Black Rock City -- the site of the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert -- went up in flames this morning at 3 a.m. This is the "Man" I'm talking about, the one that burns at the end of the event on Saturday. The neon -- and this year, for the first time ever, solar-powered -- creature that you orient yourself with to find your way home ... he's gone.

(photo: Focal Intent, via Flickr)

Ball-kickers power stadiums with renewables

And you thought by “football” in my title I meant football? Pssh. I do love me some obscure European soccer news. So with no further ado: Scottish soccer team powers its stadium floodlights with wind power! Swiss soccer team has the world’s largest stadium-integrated photovoltaic system on the roof of the Stade de Suisse Wankdorf […]

Colbert on the Northern Passage

Funny:

Rich lifestyles are getting greener, if not smaller

I guess how you react to this story about the rich trying to go green will depend entirely on the assumptions you bring to it: Yet with the green movement in vogue, the rich are looking for ways to compensate for their carbon-dioxide generation, which is linked to global warming, without crimping their style. Some […]

New WA cell phone is ‘climate neutral’

In the interest of persuading the company’s extremely tenacious PR person to give me a moment’s peace, I’d like to direct your attention to the new (and world’s first!) "climate-neutral phone" from Working Assets. (Moral hazard alert: The phone is climate neutral through the purchase of offsets, which we all know are just medieval indulgences […]

Strung Out

Clotheslines growing more popular in U.S. The clothesline, nemesis of backyard cyclists everywhere, is making a comeback thanks to green awareness and energy costs. Many communities and homeowner’s associations have banned the misunderstood expanse of rope, assuming that neighbors aren’t interested in each other’s dirty — or clean — laundry. But as a burgeoning “right […]

From Glamp to Glam

Best of in-tents Hello muddah, hello faddah, here we are at Glamp Granada. Glam’rous camping‘s entertaining. And we’ll surely have some fun once we’re deplane-ing. Butler’s tending to the fire. Of chef’s prepped food, we won’t tire. Maid gives pillows a little fluff-it. Why would anybody ever want to rough it? Puff daddy In an […]