Climate Culture

Umbra on heating with bathwater

Dear Umbra, After a hot bath, I leave the water in the tub so the heat will go into the room. My husband says the heat saved is inconsequential. How would one calculate the BTUs saved this way? J. ReimanHelena, Mont. Dearest J., I do that too. I’m trying to heat the entire office building […]

The Turin of the Screw

Italy Winter Olympics to be carbon-neutral, but enviros aren’t mollified All right, who’s ready for a “winning the green medal” joke? Us too! Organizers say the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, will have no net impact on global climate disruption, thanks to energy efficiency, clean-energy tech, and tree planting to offset carbon dioxide […]

From Cosmo to Cornhose

Hand’s across America Vermonter Thomas Hand — of Project BioBus and the Road to Detroit campaign, recently featured in our illustrious pages — now has a spot of honor in Cosmo‘s 2005 Bachelor Blowout. He describes his love of the outdoors and why a single flower bests a dozen roses. Two words: drea-my. Renew it […]

Umbra on coffee

Dear Umbra, I am a seriously indulgent coffee drinker. Lately, there have been a ton of “green” coffee shops popping up. I like to support local coffee shops, and I want to believe that they are “shade-grown, fair-trade, organic,” but I’ve wondered if they are being honest. How do I know if they are legit? […]

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Deforestation

Take a few easy steps to stem the flood of holiday catalogs Judging by the fake-snow-and-forced-cheer displays popping up in stores, it’s almost that time of year again: Time for overcrowded travel, bad TV specials, a deluge of dead trees, and heaps of precious gift catalogs through your mail slot. Greenies hope you’ll celebrate the […]

Umbra on waiting for warm water

Dear Umbra, You know how, when you turn on the hot water in an old building, it usually takes a while for it to kick in? Well, my question is, if I turn on the tap full blast, will the hot water come sooner? Is it the amount of water you let run, or the […]

How enviros can tap the video game market

I'll echo Dave's sentiment that he expressed in his post "Reaching the hipsters":

What about the hipsters? What about the semi-affluent, college-educated, tech-savvy, media-saturated twenty-somethings with artfully disheveled hair? They are, like it or not, apt to be central players in our culture in coming years ("the next generation," blah blah).

They have no tolerance whatsoever for the kind of earnest, soft-focus appeals most enviro-groups pitch. They are, let's face it, a tad self-absorbed, but they are attracted to all that is innovative, cool, and cutting-edge. Cool hunting is practically a genre unto itself on the net these days. And lots of stuff that's going on in the green world these days fits the bill.

As I've written before, enviro groups might want to consider how they can introduce green themes into television shows and film, as well as develop campaigns to cultivate the emerging phenomenon of participatory journalism. One other unlikely medium that has significant potential is the world of video games.

Wise-use movement gaining political strength from fundamentalist Christians

Or so argues a new book by Stephenie Hendricks -- Divine Destruction: Wise Use, Dominion Theology, and the Making of American Environmental Policy, excerpted in the latest Seattle Weekly.

Nut 'graph from the excerpt:

[T]he widespread acceptance of anti-environmental thinking in the guise of Wise Use is made more troubling in that there are increasingly close ties between those who subscribe to the ideas of Wise Use and members of fundamentalist Christian churches and organizations. The Wise Use movement's influence over religious conservatives thus mirrors the traditional relationship between religious and political conservatives in that Wise Use advocates are increasingly adapting their own agenda to include the concerns of religious voters. In so doing, they have gained an army of God to promote their own agenda.

From Frolicking to Fishing

Goodbye, gruel world A visionary pack of vegans plans to buy an island paradise where they can escape this mixed-up world. Among their requirements: low taxes, no zoning restrictions, and plenty of freedom to ask fellow beachgoers, “Is that a cucumber in your Speedo?” Stand up and be discounted From the world of weird protests: […]

WSJ ranks island getaways by how they’ll hold during global warming

Power players in the U.S. are finally sitting up and taking note of climate change. But don't get hopeful just yet. They're not leaping to figure out how to retool our industrial system and stave off disaster. Rather, they're calculating which islands will make the best vacation getaways for the rich and famous in a globally warmed world.

Yes, The Wall Street Journal has helpfully published "The Global Climate-Change Island Guide" [subscribers only, alas], informed by the new "Dow Jones Island Index" [PDF; should work even for non-subscribers], which analyzes "12 factors that reflect a range of environmental risks that islands and island tourists face."

Of 40 islands examined, the top ranked for your continued vacation pleasure is Prince Edward Island off Canada's east coast. Of course, the average temperature in December is 24 degrees Fahrenheit, but maybe a little more warming will nudge that number up to a more comfortable range.

Elites will be more happy to see that Martha's Vineyard ranks second on the list. Also scoring reasonably well: the Florida Keys, Grand Cayman Island, and Crete.

Steer clear of Sri Lanka, though, which bottoms out the list. Other islands you might want to avoid: the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Fiji.

Book those plane tickets and buy those third homes now, folks, before the plebs get ahold of this valuable data!