Climate Culture

Umbra on mercury in compact fluorescent lights

Dear Umbra, Here in Texas, where it is very hot in the summer (granted, we deserve to be in hell for having produced George Bush), some of us have been enthusiastically switching our light bulbs to cooler compact fluorescents. Is this a bad thing due to the mercury they contain? Lisa Smithville, Texas Dearest Lisa, […]

Umbra on turning off fluorescent lights

Dear Umbra, You’d be so proud of us! We just had an hour-long meeting about conservation and environmentalism here in our office. In the course of our discussion, the topic of leaving the lights on came up. I am a religious light-switcher, meaning I turn lights off in the bathroom or wherever they’re left on. […]

Water Conservation in the New Year

Up the River

New Year’s Day marked a historic moment in the history of Western water wars — the first time the federal government exercised its right to decline California’s request for more than its allotted shared of water from the Colorado River. Thanks to the U.S. Interior Department, cities and agricultural areas in Southern California will lose […]

A Towering Achievement

An Australian power company is planning to build the world’s tallest structure, in the name of a global campaign to encourage renewable energy use. Energy company Environmission plans to construct a solar tower in the middle of the Australian outback that would soar 3,300 feet into the air, or more than twice as high as […]

Turning Japanese

An Eco-Products exhibition held recently in Tokyo, Japan, attracted more than 100,000 visitors and no shortage of unusual inventions. The big-ticket item was, of course, Toyota’s fuel-cell car, which has just been leased to the Japanese government, but there were plenty of other forms of green ingenuity on display as well. These ranged from the […]

On staying sane in a mad world

A Czech friend of mine sent me an email during the recent NATO summit in Prague as American fighter jets stood by and riot police filled the streets. “Sometimes,” she wrote, “I feel as though the world has gone mad.” Her words spoke my own thoughts so clearly it was as though I were reading […]

Water We Thinking?

The U.S. has earned the dubious distinction of being the most wasteful user of water in the world, according to the first-ever Water Poverty Index. Developed by a team of British researchers, the index ranked 147 countries according to water resources, access, capacity, use, and environmental impact. The U.S., which has the highest per capita […]

Wild Horses Couldn’t Prius Away

Toyota Prius owners — celebs and regular folks alike — are doing more than saving money at the gas pump and curbing greenhouse-gas emissions: They’re also making a political statement, thumbing their noses at Saddam Hussein, oil barons, and SUV owners everywhere. Wyatt Earp, a descendant of the legendary gunslinger, has purchased four hybrid-electric Prius […]

Umbra on snowy sidewalks

Dear Umbra, Being a new homeowner, I’ve realized the responsibility of keeping the sidewalk slip-proof during the winter months. Of course, shoveling will be the first line of defense, but that never seems to do the trick, often leaving that thin layer of slippery snow. And then there is the ice. I know that salt […]