Climate Culture

Of Motion and Emotion

I seem to have touched a nerve: it seems that more people had an opinion about my posts on the Cascadia Scorecard weblog discussing the Prius and the potential benefits of hybrid SUVs than about anything I'd written before.

My question is: why?

Umbra on making eco-friendly cleaning products

Dear Umbra, I’d like to start making my own environmentally friendly cleaning products for my home. Are there any books or websites you would recommend for cleaning “recipes”? Rachel P.S. — Thanks ever so much for your mention of the Keeper in one of your columns. Quite possibly the most useful device ever invented. Why […]

Umbra on leather upholstery

Dear Umbra, It seems everyone is getting leather upholstery in their cars and on their couches these days. Where is it coming from — the same cows that are being slaughtered for hamburgers, or special cows that are raised for their hides? What is the environmental impact of all this luxurious leather? SharonCollegeville, Penn. Dearest […]

Betsy Rosenberg, green radio-show host, answers questions

Betsy Rosenberg. What work do you do? I’ve gone from 20 years of general news reporting and anchoring for the CBS Radio network to creating an environmental radio minute to hosting and producing a one-hour nationally syndicated eco-awareness program called EcoTalk. I transitioned from journalist to activist a few years ago when, in the wake […]

Umbra on the outcome of the last pollutocrat contest

Dear Umbra, So, what were the results of the “pollutocrat” contest? I recall seeing several web postings by editors to “watch out” for this term, as if the rest of a letter’s content was somehow invalid if it was written as part of a contest. Sad. Did someone win or not? KevinParma, Ohio Dearest Kevin, […]

Umbra on which plastics to avoid

Dear Umbra, Since you only mention #1 plastics as being safe, I’m assuming I should throw out the #4 I just purchased? SylviaAnn Arbor, Mich. Dearest Sylvia, I confused and frightened and annoyed many of you on the issues of food and plastic. I’m sorry — #4 is OK, as are #2 and #5. Honestly, […]

Umbra on plastic water bottles, again

Dear Umbra, After slurping away from a Nalgene bottle all summer, you struck me with the fear of petrochemicals. So I did some quick research on my own. My conclusion is that your Aug. 2 column is misleading, even though I’m very sympathetic to your argument regarding plastics. Upon inspection, I learned that most of […]

How toxic is your breast milk?

A nice treatment of this topic in today's New York Times Magazine, from Florence Williams.

When we nurse our babies, we feed them not only the fats, sugars and proteins that fire their immune systems, metabolisms and cerebral synapses. We also feed them, albeit in minuscule amounts, paint thinners, dry-cleaning fluids, wood preservatives, toilet deodorizers, cosmetic additives, gasoline byproducts, rocket fuel, termite poisons, fungicides and flame retardants.

If, as Cicero said, your face tells the story of your mind, your breast milk tells the decades-old story of your diet, your neighborhood and, increasingly, your household decor. Your old shag-carpet padding? It's there. That cool blue paint in your pantry? There. The chemical cloud your landlord used to kill cockroaches? There. Ditto, the mercury in last week's sushi, the benzene from your gas station, the preservative parabens from your face cream, the chromium from your neighborhood smokestack.

Williams very effectively uses the personal angle of breastfeeding her daughter to approach the larger topic of toxic substances in our environment, brominated flame retardants (PBDEs) in particular. Yes, it's a highly approachable article on flame retardants -- imagine that.

The green guide to gift giving

The plain truth is that Americans love to consume, and we do it with more abandon than ever during the holiday season. Nearly a quarter of all retail goods move out of stores and into homes between Thanksgiving and Christmas (and, we suspect, often into landfills by January). That poses a dilemma for the thoughtful […]

Joe Sherman’s Gasp! explores the history of air and finds it’s anything but empty

Oxygen may not strike you as a likely protagonist for a book. It's invisible, it's all around you, it's something you inhale 19,000 times a day and take utterly for granted. But Joe Sherman's Gasp! The Swift and Terrible Beauty of Air is a masterfully inventive biography of air, weaving together geology and history, myth and science, to deepen our understanding and appreciation of life's most precious gas.