Climate Culture

From Cooling to Cooing

Burn, baby, burn The Nevada desert is hot. So, coincidentally, is the planet. Enter Cooling Man, an online carbon calculator for this week’s Burning Man arts festival (which features such sweet creations as the electric cupcake-mobile.) “We think Cooling Man is pretty cool,” says one overbaked burner. And of course, by “overbaked,” we mean “sunburned.” […]

A cornucopia of new books tells us where our food comes from

One summer evening when I lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, I was snipping basil from the potted herb garden that I kept on the stoop in front of my brownstone apartment. Kids were playing on the sidewalk, their high-spirited shouts echoing through the dense, humid air. I absently popped a basil leaf in my mouth, […]

The Nation comes out with its first food issue.

"Edible Media" is a biweekly look at interesting or deplorable food journalism on the web.

The left has always had an uneasy relationship with pleasure -- and thus with food. For every freewheeling beatnik or free-loving hippie, there must be 10 dour left-wingers who see personal pleasure as an obscene indulgence in a world wracked by war, hunger, oppression, and environmental ruin.

Yet one of the most powerful critiques of consumer capitalism is that it drains life of vivid pleasure and offers instead "pleasure." A handmade dark-chocolate custard becomes a dull, corn-sweetened "chocolate" shake. Peddling boundless diversity and freedom, mass-market consumerism delivers regimentation, sameness, and mediocrity. As Michael Pollan showed in Omnivore's Dilemma, the dizzying variety arrayed on U.S. supermarket shelves boils down to endless combinations of two ingredients: corn and soybeans.

By treating pleasure and food as beneath responsible discussion, the left cedes too much to the hucksters who run the show. Rather than deride pleasure as a vice of the rich, the left should try to revive it as a principle for all.

That's why I was happy when the left-liberal weekly The Nation came out with its first issue devoted to food this week.

Can a mom in middle America survive a month without a car?

Not 20 minutes after the Amtrak clerk said our train would be at least an hour late — “probably much more” — I almost caved. “We could rent a car and drive home,” I thought, and maybe even muttered. “Nobody has to know.” I had just hit my breaking point. Carolyn rides the bus. Photos: […]

From Hurley to Hetchy

Certified orgasmic Liz Hurley has announced that she will give up acting, prompting an anguished nation to cry out, “Wait, when did Liz Hurley start acting?” Seems Hurley wants to devote herself full-time to her farm in England, which will soon go organic and get proper livestock. “I’ve joined the breeders’ club already,” said Hurley. […]

Umbra on washing your car

Dear Umbra, What can I do about washing my car in a more eco-friendly way? Is phosphate-free soap enough, or should I just suck it up and go to the drive-through car wash every time? Katie North Carolina Dearest Katie, You are one of those fastidious people I see busily washing their cars on Saturdays. […]

From Kinky to Kicky

Kinky is as Kinky does Texas guber-candidate Kinky Friedman is trading his Caddy for a biodiesel ride and wants Willie in his cabinet. Plus he’s got his own action figure and a rockin’ ‘stache. Almost makes us want to pack up for the Lone Star State. Almost. Photo: Brian Kanof MyCage.com It’s hard out here […]

The Sea Lion King

A new documentary delves into the lives of California sea lions Because of their long history as circus animals, California sea lions are one of the most widely recognized marine mammals in the world. But they’ve also gained a rep as a pest, hanging around harbors, stealing fish out of salmon ladders and fishing nets. […]

Frank Scura’s green ideas are sick

Xtremely green demo at a Whole Foods in San Mateo, Calif. Photo: Courtesy ASEC  With the recent profusion of green takes on everything from diapers to caskets, Frank Scura’s proposition might sound like more of the same: “We’re about greening the planet, one skateboard at a time.” But Scura, founder of the Bay Area-based Action […]

Umbra on dropping out of society

Dear Umbra, Although I have always been one to conserve, recycle, etc., it is only in the last year that I have realized the extent of the catastrophe coming upon us in terms of climate change. I am 40-something, live in a city, own an older home with a sizeable mortgage that requires my husband […]