Climate Culture

A positive environmental program that can (almost) fit on an index card

Without further ado, here's the first draft of my index-card manifesto. It turned out to be two index-card manifestos, with five points each: one for stuff I consider immediately urgent, and a second for what I consider longer-term goals. Feedback is welcome -- nay, requested. (I'll discuss the whole project more in a subsequent post.)

WHAT A GREEN WANTS: IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES

Energy efficiency: Proven techniques can get the same amount of work with 50% of the oil.

Tax/subsidy shifts: Markets should tell the ecological truth. That means shifting subsidies from industries and practices that harm us to those that help us -- and doing the reverse with taxes.

Diverse clean energy: Our economy must move from reliance on a single concentrated source of energy (oil) to reliance on a distributed array of small-scale, renewable energy sources appropriate to local conditions. That means staying within our solar budget, using wind, solar, biothermal, and hydrodynamic energy.

Electric vehicles: Flex-fuel and plug-in hybrid automobiles are necessary transition technologies, but in the long-term we need vehicles that run purely on electricity, stored either in hydrogen fuel cells or advanced batteries.

Smart grid: The electric grid should be agnostic (accepting inputs from any source of any size), intelligent (able to apportion based on shifting demand and supply), transparent (providing data on price and supply to all consumers), and scaleable (capable of building out, or degrading, gracefully).

Umbra on carpeting

Dear Umbra, Our home is mostly wood floors, but we would like to have a carpeted den. My gut instinct is that the carpet pad (looks like the foam from the inside of a car seat all smooshed together with other pieces) is full of chemicals that will constantly offgas. Am I right? If so, […]

EcoLogical Home Ideas debuts.

Welcome, welcome to Dig This, the cleverly-titled weekly column on digs -- or, for those of you not up on the lingo, houses. Or, eco-stuff for houses. Or, eco-stuff vaguely related to houses. We'll see how it goes. I'm not above making obscure connections.

Today's (very digs-related) spotlight: the brand spankin' new magazine ecoLogical Home Ideas. You can check out the site, but I currently hold in my hands -- well, my lap, since I'm typing -- a glossy copy of the premier issue. I know, you've grown so accustomed to Grist that you've forgotten they made magazines out of paper. Me too.

The magazine shown on the ecoLogical Home Ideas website doesn't have the same cover as the actual hard copy, so consider this a sneak preview. Lucky you! The biggest headline on the actual copy is "If Money Were No Object."

Umbra on Valentine’s Day

Dear Umbra, Do you have any advice on how to have a guilt-free, pleasurable Valentine’s Day? I would like to give my husband gifts that are good for him and the environment. Krista Ashley Gadsden, Ala. Dearest Krista, Love, love, love. Does greeting him at the door dressed in strategically placed hemp napkins count as […]

From Dreams to Desert

Girls. Crushing cars. We had a dream: Automobiles, being recycled. But first being crushed, slowly, by heavy machinery. All the while surrounded by skeezy dancing girls in bikinis. Well, we bring good news, brothers and sisters. The dream is real. The dream is real. Photo: Aachen Auto/Keith Bragg. Redressage in a bottle A lovelorn sailor […]

Two new photo books focus on food

In the valuable new book Fields of Plenty: A Farmer’s Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It, author Michael Ableman rambles across the country in a VW van, visiting small-scale farmers to talk with them at the table and in the field. Vine and dandy. Photo: Chrissi Nerantzi. Not surprisingly, […]

Umbra on bamboo flooring

Dear Umbra, We will be putting in new flooring in the very near future. My first choice was hardwood, but I have recently read a lot about bamboo. Because it is renewable, it seems to be a better option. But how is it grown? Who is harvesting it? Are the people in the industry fair […]

Umbra on flooring options

Dear Umbra, If I have to replace my old carpet, what are the environmental pros and cons of the different choices? (Ceramic tile, carpet, or the laminate flooring sold at Home Depot seem to be the most common.) And can I recycle my old carpet? Claudia Bloom Mesa, Ariz. Dearest Claudia, I’m going to lay […]

From Bobby to Breeders

Do these pants make my opposition to wind farms look fat? Seeking to battle charges of out-of-touch, upper-class elitism, Kennedy scion Robert F. has taken up … modeling? Yup, he and his fam are featured in a new fashion campaign by sportswear maker GANT (in exchange for a “six-figure” partnership with RFK’s Waterkeeper Alliance). Tres […]

Al Gore and electric car star in films unveiled at Sundance

At 25 years of age, Sundance is the country’s premier festival of independent film. But a lot has changed over that quarter century. Well, actually, one thing has changed: m-o-n-e-y. There’s a ton of Hollywood cash spent at Sundance, and I could see it everywhere I looked last week. The “VIP” corporate parties on Main […]