Climate Culture

Umbra on refrigerator downsizing

Dear Umbra, Two of our favorite Brit-coms are Keeping Up Appearances and As Time Goes By. It is hard for an American not to remark that in both households, which seem quite affluent, the refrigerator is short, and fits beneath the kitchen counter: nothing so grand as what passes for normal in American kitchens. Do […]

On the difficulties of going veggie

I love bacon.

Sure, meat is murder and all that, not to mention it's contributing more emissions than most of us slightly green carnivores would like to admit, but it is tasty.

And filling. I learned that last bit in June when my family gave up meat at the slight urging of vegetarian Gristmillers responding to my query about the best ways to green my family life. It took me about three tummy-rumbling weeks before I learned veggie burgers satisfied my craving for hearty food.

In a month's time I came away with conflicting thoughts about meat.

Watch six episodes of ‘Project Phin’

Would seeing Ben Affleck dressed as an ear of corn make you more or less interested in learning about ethanol and supporting legislation requiring service stations to sell it? It’s an interesting question — especially without context — but one the Center for American Progress is eager to investigate. This week, they launched an online […]

And he argues that cow farts produce more greenhouse gases than cars

Check out this clip (via RAN) of the insufferable Glenn Beck running through asinine talking points while disparaging Live Earth:

I'm not the first to note this, but it is really remarkable that CNN, a formerly respected former news network, stoops to this egregious low.

Mike Brune of the Rainforest Action Network does an admirable job of keeping his dignity, not committing any felonies no matter how justified, and calling him on his bull.

If, in the unlikely event that I am ever asked to do a similar interview, my only request will be that I be within smirk-smacking distance.

From Rowing to Rhymes

Northern exposure Ways to raise climate-change awareness: Walk 1,000 miles. Skateboard across Canada. Row the Pacific. Swim the North Pole, the Baltic, a polluted river. Or, pose nude atop a Swiss glacier. Now that’s the way to highlight shrinkage. Climb every mountain man While answering the call at Live Earth, Cammie Dee got a call […]

Making energy efficiency possible for cheapskate homeowners

Apropos of my recent realization that if I had bought a new furnace on credit rather than waiting to save up the cash I'd have saved a bundle of money over the last 5 years, here's something I've been meaning to write about for months: a Vancouver developer that came up with a smart -- I mean, diabolically smart -- financing scheme to build a super-efficient condo complex. (Proving, I suppose, biodiversivist's point that spreadsheets are, in fact, wonderful things.)

Cameron Diaz hooks up with a hottie enviro

Look at her, she’s Cammie Dee: While answering the call at Live Earth earlier this month, Cameron Diaz got a call of her own. From enviro-hottie David de Rothschild. Nice catch, lady! I knew this climate-change activism thing was good for something. So to all you other hottie-climate-change-activist-types, consider this a public service announcement: I […]

Are we raping the planet in some cracked attempt to look hot?

Got it? You'll flirt and flaunt it. But the human drive to mate could be killing our planet and ultimately our species, according to Matt Prescott via the BBC. We're collectively thinking from the seat of our pants and using the wrong brain, so all of our little earth-saving intentions add up to vain fluffing, he adds. Why? Cheap energy and oil have given us new, ecologically toxic ways to compete for partners:

It was only a matter of time

Remember when Umbra wrote about offsetting flatulence in 2005? Turns out she was ahead of her time.

Or should that be get fast trashed?

In college I wrote my honors thesis on the connection between running and spirituality. And I like the idea of eco-running as a combining-of-passions sort of idea. Except I’m not really into combining my passions a la eco-runner Samuel, by picking up trash while I run. Because I’m training for a marathon, and I live […]