Climate Culture

Hey, One Thing At a Time

NASCAR deals with switch to unleaded fuel, considers adding ethanol As the NASCAR season gears up, fans are all atwitter. No, not about the Daytona 500 scandal — that’s so last week. It’s the switch to that dang unleaded! This weekend saw the first-ever NASCAR race fueled by the gas the rest of the country’s […]

Martin Who?

An Inconvenient Truth wins Oscars, Al Gore wins affection Rock star. Superhero. Visionary. That pre-Oscar hype paled next to last night’s event, which saw Al Gore — looking blissfully bloated in a Ralph Lauren tux — take home an award for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song. OK, technically the Goracle himself didn’t win […]

From Petra to Paint

The recycled envelope, please We’ll be Blunt: “Green” and “Oscars” used to be about as likely a match as James and Petra. But these days, they go hand-in-hand — to pre-Oscar eco-parties in ZAPs and Teslas. Oscar hasn’t been this green since Sesame Street. Photo: Lester Cohen / WireImage.com Does the Hoff know about this? […]

They’ve Had Their Filament

Australia to fully phase out incandescent bulbs by 2010 In a world first, Australia will officially make the switch away from incandescent bulbs. Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull said today that the country would phase out inefficient lighting over the next three years, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions hundreds of thousands of tons a year and cutting household […]

From Rockin’ to Rollin’

Since u been Gore Well, it’s official: Al Gore is a rock star. Yesterday, our one-and-only officially launched Save Our Selves, a campaign to combat the climate crisis, beginning with seven concerts on seven continents on 7/7/07 with artists ranging from Keane to Korn to our hetero-crush, Kelly. Ms. Clarkson, we’d follow you to the […]

Umbra on love and kindness

Dear Umbra, Sorry to hear you are under the weather. Hope you are fully jauntified soon! Brian Plymouth, Minn. Dearest Brian, Thank you so much for this note, and thank you to the other people who wrote in wishing me better health after a little comment I made about my head feeling like it was […]

The Police reunion tour to benefit WaterAid

After reuniting onstage Sunday at the Grammy Awards, The Police have announced a world tour that will begin May 28 in Vancouver and continue across North America, Europe, South America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The band has confirmed the first 14 dates, including two performances at Madison Square Garden and a headlining show at […]

Prius consumes more energy in lifetime than Cherokee

I thought this article hit a little too close for comfort. If you really want to call yourself an environmentalist, do what my sister-in-law did: Buy a small Toyota hatchback and put 5,000 miles a year on it for two decades.

Then there was this interesting article in the Economist discussing the future of diesel cars in America:

The dirty little secret about hybrids is that their batteries and extensive use of aluminium parts make them costly to build in energy terms as well as financial terms. One life-cycle assessment claims that, from factory floor to scrap heap, a Prius consumes more energy even than a Hummer III. Diesels are unlikely to consume anything like as much over their lifetime. That could change, of course, if some bright spark decides to replace a hybrid's petrol engine with a diesel--to launch a family car capable of 100mpg. Now there's a thought.

Actually not, Economist staff writer person. That assessment you refer to says that the diesel Jetta wagon will also use as much energy in its lifetime as the H3. And guess what? In all likelihood that diesel hybrid you cite will too, for the same reasons as the Prius and Jetta. But you would have known that had you bothered to actually read that lifecycle assessment. I don't blame you, actually. The damn thing is over 400 pages long. I know because I did read it. In fact, I built a spreadsheet with the data I gleaned from it to answer some burning questions I had.

Umbra on convincing colleagues to turn the lights off

Dear Umbra, I’m always hollering at my friends and colleagues to turn off the lights when they leave the room. Considering my business is green-related, it blows me away that my staff can’t seem to get a handle on flicking the switch. But it’s probably mostly a matter of them not really knowing why it’s […]

It’s coming, and it can’t be stopped

Ah, Valentine’s Day — are we still pretending anybody likes this holiday? Single people feel insecure and excluded; people in relationships feel guilt-ridden and obligated to consume items blingy or fluffy. I say, if you love someone, tell ’em today, and on Feb. 14, obstinately refuse to wear red. Yet, knowing that obsessive marketing and […]