Climate Culture

All Stories

  • In nearby Bothell

    The Seattle Times is reporting on a Bothell family -- the Fraleys -- who are attempting to cut their family's greenhouse-gas emissions by 15 percent in May. Bully for them, and best of luck!

    Still, there's something about the Times account of their experiment that rankles, just a bit. It leaves a casual reader with the impression that reducing carbon emissions is a total pain in the behind. To wit:

    [The Fraleys] will try to reduce the household's greenhouse-gas emissions by using some common-sense ideas that nonetheless may be inconvenient. [Emphasis added.]

    And ...

    "I realized this wasn't going to be a cakewalk. The easy changes were already made, and the next one will be more -- painful is not the word -- but will take more effort."

    Jeez, that makes sustainability sound like hair shirts and broccoli. Good luck getting people on board with that.

    Clark Williams-Derry Culture

  • Um, overseas

    “As part of efforts to shed its image of closeness to the motoring lobby, the party wants the government to commit immediately to key rail expansion projects …” That’s the conservative party. The dawn of hope and sanity? Yes. In the U.K.

    David Roberts Culture

  • Good framing from Friedman

    I suppose I’m obligated to say something about the much-ballyhooed cover story in the current New York Times Magazine by the Mighty Mustache of Understanding. I can’t really see what all the fuss is about. It’s basically the Mustache’s last four or five columns, stitched together. There’s nothing to say about this that wasn’t said […]

    David Roberts Culture

  • Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park brings nature to a city setting

    Alexander Calder’s Eagle against an Olympic mountain backdrop. Photo: iotae via flickr I’ve never seen the Pacific Northwest. I mean, I live in Seattle, and I look around, but I’ve never really seen it. I came to this realization while walking the zig-zagged trail at Seattle’s new Olympic Sculpture Park with Grist mascot Chip Giller […]

    Sarah van Schagen Culture

  • Silly reader, books are for kids!

    Remember when you were a kid and the best part of the day was when you were just starting to get sleepy and you’d snuggle up in bed with your mom/dad/sibling/nanny/manny/Uncle Leroy to read a bedtime story? And the best bedtime stories were the ones with big illustrations of imaginary creatures like “Mr. Ferebee” and […]

    Grist staff Culture

  • OMFG

    Don’t look directly at it!

    David Roberts Culture

  • Multimedia series honored in ‘explanatory reporting’ category

    The Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer Prize for “explanatory reporting” today for its impressive Altered Oceans series, with its rich online multimedia features as well as hard-hitting reporting and images that went into the print edition. Getting depressed about the appalling state of our oceans has never been so much fun! (See Grist’s mini-summary […]

    Lisa Hymas Culture

  • Robert Redford chats about the new green programming on the Sundance Channel

    Robert Redford. With his legendary Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford brought sex appeal to the business of independent filmmaking. Now, with his Sundance cable channel, he’s aiming to do the same thing for another underappreciated art form — eco-themed television programming. Tonight, the channel launches “The Green,” a block of environmental programming that will air […]

    Amanda Little Culture

  • A reintroduction

    I'm restarting my series on solutions to global warming, both on how to phase out fossil fuels and the best means to sequester carbon, because I consider the topic a critical one.

    The carbon lobby has mostly (not entirely) given up disputing that global warming is occurring. They know that they won't be able to confuse the public on its human-caused nature much longer.

    But a final stalling tactic is open to deniers -- to pretend that nothing can be done, or at least nothing that most people are willing to live with. There is an old engineering saying: "no solution, no problem."

    Converging with this, there is a small but unfortunately influential primitivist movement. In their belief that technology itself is totalitarian, they also contribute to the idea that the only solution to global warming is a drastic reduction in the technical level of civilization -- perhaps down to the hunter-gatherer level. Many well-meaning, intelligent people promote a less extreme version of this trope -- the conviction that we need to impoverish working people in rich nations to solve our environmental crisis and deal justly with the poorer countries.

    The primary purpose of this series is to ensure that energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies become known as inexpensive fossil fuel substitutes available today, rather than a high-priced vision of tomorrow. The U.S. needs to understand that continued use of fossil fuel is a political decision rather than a technical one.

    Gar Lipow Culture

  • Umbra on wine corks

    Dear Umbra, Not that I am a big-drinking old lady or anything, but I find myself with a lot of wine corks that I can’t find a recycling outlet for. All of my retired farmer friends have made all the cork trivets the neighborhood can stand. What to do with our corks, please? Marianne de […]

    Ask Umbra® Culture