Climate Culture

An interview with J. Matthew Sleeth, evangelical environmentalist and author

In 2000, a wealthy hospital chief of staff and evangelical Christian named J. Matthew Sleeth looked around at the life he’d built — suburban neighborhood, huge house, two cars, lots and lots of stuff — and decided it failed to properly honor God. J. Matthew Sleeth: listen to the heart.In what he describes as a […]

Umbra on kayak materials

Dear Umbra, I’m planning on kayaking the Inside Passage next summer and am having a hard time deciding what kind of boat to get. Are there any environmental reasons to choose a kayak material? Mostly I’m torn between plastic, which is cheaper and more durable, vs. fiberglass, which is lighter and faster, or Kevlar, which […]

Umbra on reducing consumption

Dear Umbra, If recycling requires energy to turn one’s discarded waste into usable products, and “climate solutions take precedence over garbage-production concerns,” as you wrote in June, why are we so focused on recycling and not on reducing our initial consumption? Surely this should be at the forefront of the individual consumer’s attempts to help […]

Harder than it looks

In the latest issue of Sierra Magazine, Seattleite Seth Zuckerman recounts the results of his personal experiment:

From Centerfolds to 50 Cent

June is bustin’ out all over A 2007 calendar benefiting the Climate Protection Campaign will feature green models ranging from energy pushers and business owners to city councilchicks and hard-core … cyclists. Their theme? “Ecobabes … because beauty inspires life” — and because sex (no matter how green) sells. Photo: Ecobabes.org Chinese chop tix Censorship, […]

Or, why the Vanity Fair treatment doesn’t do justice to food history.

It's the 1970s in Berkeley, California, and things are getting raunchy in the kitchen of Chez Panisse, where the cooks are busy revolutionizing high-end U.S. restaurant food -- among other activities:

As dealers started showing up at the back door with regularity, [one cook] and some of his acquaintances got into increasingly harder stuff. "We were doing opium stuffing," he says. "You stick it up your ass. Just a quarter of a gram, a little ball, and you bypass the alimentary canal. You don't get nauseous -- you just absorb it."

Umbra on owning multiple cars

Dear Umbra, Your recent column suggested that the questioners sell one of their two cars, but I can’t help wondering how much good that does for the environment, especially weighed against the annoyance cost of not having a second car when two people have to be going in opposite directions at the same time. I […]

A Colorado home-builder reflects on his attempt to go green

Sunshine on my solar panels makes me happy. Photos: Daniel Shaw In and around Aspen, Colo., incorporating green into the building process usually means wondering, “How much cash can I spend on my house?” After all, this valley sports some of the most energy-sucking but least-used second, third, and fourth homes on Earth. One of […]

Umbra on recycled toilet paper

Dear Umbra, The few brands of recycled-content toilet paper available are nasty. Why is it so difficult to manufacture TP that’s not from virgin trees but doesn’t feel like bark on one’s sensitive skin? What exactly is the technological barrier the nation’s scientists must overcome in order to make a roll that’s sensitive, both against […]

From Malibu to MARTA

The OMG Environmental degradation threatens some of the world’s most fascinating creatures in their native habitats. The Amazon rainforest. The Arctic. The coastal waters of Indonesia. Malibu, Calif. This last one, home of Americanus celebritus, is of particular concern. Won’t you find it in your hearts to help? Photo: John Sciulli / WireImage.com Blew in […]