Climate Culture
All Stories
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Greensylvania
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) unveiled a $22 billion state budget yesterday with numerous eco-friendly provisions that promise to protect green space, return abandoned mine sites to productive use, improve state parks, and revitalize aging city centers, asserting that such measures would spur economic development. Enviros hailed the budget, saying it would make Pennsylvania the […]
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Nano, Nano
A new paint set to go on sale in Europe in March promises to absorb the most noxious gases from automobile exhaust. Invented by British company Millennium Chemicals, Ecopaint contains spherical nanoparticles of titanium dioxide and calcium carbonate, suspended in a base of polysiloxane (a silicon-based polymer). Hey, wake up, the good part is coming! […]
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Oil Who Wander Are Not Lost
Last year, China became the world’s second-largest importer of oil (take a wild guess who’s No. 1), struggling to keep up with the energy demands of an economy expanding at a rate of 9.9 percent annually. Having recently concluded, like other oil-thirsty countries, that the volatile Middle East might not be a stable, long-term source […]
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Global-warming activists can learn from the anti-smoking campaign
Twenty years ago, it seemed that virtually everyone smoked. You couldn’t sit in a restaurant for five minutes without stinking of cigarettes for hours. Now, in state after state, even biker bars are going smoke-free. Clearly, there’s been a dramatic shift in the public’s attitude toward smoking — but it hasn’t been an intellectual shift. […]
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Smoke Signals
Activists fighting against climate change could learn much from the tactics of anti-smoking campaigners, argues Audrey Schulman in our Soapbox section. The tobacco war has been fought on many fronts, but perhaps the most important was the concerted publicity campaign that changed the images people associate with smoking. It’s no longer romantic, no longer “cool.” […]
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Fake Is the New Real
In an effort to conserve water (and perhaps bolster Southern California’s reputation as a showcase for all things fake), the city of Anaheim, Calif., and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California are pilot-testing faux lawns. If water savings meet expectations, residents who replace real grass with fake greenery could soon be eligible for rebates […]
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State of the Art
One hundred years ago, progressives believed that states were laboratories of democracy, small-scale testing grounds for innovative policies. While the civil-rights struggle cast that view into disfavor, it may be on its way to a renaissance, led by forward-thinking state leaders concerned about the environment. Spurred by the federal government’s failure to tackle many environmental […]
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Irrigation Irritation
Agricultural Water Efficiency May Do More Harm Than Good Using water more efficiently in farming may ultimately increase long-term water shortages, warn some water experts. Although efficiency efforts — such as lining irrigation ditches to prevent leaks and delivering water directly to roots rather than flooding fields — are touted as a solution to problems […]
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More advice on recycling batteries
Dear Umbra, I’ve been turning in my used alkaline batteries at the local drug store’s photo department, mine being Savon here in Southern California. It appears they recycle their spent film cans and cartridges, as well as cameras and batteries. At least this is what I have surmised when I have dropped off my used […]
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Umbra on tankless water heaters
Dear Umbra, While you were warning folks to plan ahead for a potential water-tank failure, I thought you should mention the natural gas heat-on-demand systems that they should use to replace their tanks. Last spring, when our 50-gallon tank decided to give our basement floor a thorough cleaning, we had to scramble to find an […]
