Climate Culture
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Blue-CFL-Light Special
Sales Boost Expected for Energy-Efficient Products What’s the perfect holiday gift for the loved one who has everything? Try five compact fluorescent light bulbs. With energy prices expected to balloon this winter, experts are predicting increased sales of energy-efficient consumer products in the U.S. over the coming months. Home Depot recently published a catalog showcasing […]
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How to streamline your life and still enjoy the heck out of it
Editor’s note: Ever wonder when We the People stopped being called citizens and started being called consumers? Take back your real identity, and take the consumption-crazy days from Thanksgiving to New Year’s in stride — with Umbra Fisk’s guide to graceful (and limited) consuming. Consumption is one of life’s great pleasures. Buying things we crave, […]
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Umbra on microwaves
Dear Umbra, We recently bought a new (to us) house and acquired a microwave oven. Having gotten this far in life without one, we figured we wouldn’t use it all that much. Ha. We use it all the time. It’s just so much faster than heating things on the stove. I do wonder, though, which […]
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Umbra on eco-friendly fish consumption
Dear Umbra, I recently turned 40 and have decided I need to pay more attention to what I eat on a daily basis. My diet has never been horrible, and I’ve always believed in all things in moderation, but a persistently elevated cholesterol level and my mortality now a smudge on the horizon have helped […]
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Robert Redford gets heated up about the Bush environmental agenda, clean energy, and more
He played the Sundance Kid, the sharpshooter sidekick to Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy in the 1969 classic; he built the Sundance Village in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah; he founded the Sundance Institute for independent film and theater production and established the Sundance Film Festival. But all the while, Robert Redford has been doing an […]
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Zoo Doo Voodoo
Zoo Doo in Tokyo Will Be Used to Produce Energy A Tokyo-area zoo, weary of spending more than $275,000 a year to dispose of 1,060 tons of animal waste, has a new plan: It will ferment the droppings to create biogas that can be used as fuel. An experimental processing plant at the zoo should […]
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Bigger Homes and Gardens
As New Homes in Massachusetts Get Bigger, Enviros Get Worried If Americans follow the trend in Massachusetts, they’ll increasingly be living in larger homes on larger lots, even though fewer people reside in each house. A new report by the Massachusetts Audubon Society found that the state is losing 40 acres of forest, farmland, and […]
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Should enviros embrace liquefied natural gas?
It’s clear from the name alone that liquefied natural gas (LNG) is an oxymoronic commodity — but its chemical state is just one of the many paradoxes of this increasingly popular energy source. On the one hand, natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel and among the most viable near-term alternatives to coal, which currently […]
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It’s What’s on the Outside That Counts
Cadbury to Use Biodegradable Packaging for Chocolates Earth-loving chocoholics, take heart: British chocolate giant Cadbury Schweppes announced yesterday that it will begin using biodegradable candy trays that look like plastic but dissolve in water. At first, the new packaging will only be available in Australia, but the company is talking about using the technology more […]
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A new consumer revolution could change the way we label food
There’s a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign going on in New York City right now regarding smoking in public places. The ads feature slogans like, “If they ban smoking in airports, people will never fly again,” and “If they ban smoking in bathrooms, people will never gossip again.” I thought of this campaign when I stumbled across […]
