Climate Culture
All Stories
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Survival sometimes calls for cooperation, not competition
“Human beings will never cooperate. War and fighting are part of our very make-up. We’re competitive, violent animals.” That’s what the cynics say, and sometimes it seems as though there is plenty of evidence to support their case. The recent attacks on New York and Washington. Bosnia. Rwanda. Over-fished oceans and over-harvested forests. Fights over […]
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Oh Danny Boy
Green interior decorating — not the kind where you paint your pantry jade — is an idea whose time has come. At least that’s the fervent belief of Danny Seo, the Martha Stewart of the environmental movement. A 24-year-old New Yorker who started a national environmental group when he was 12 and was named one […]
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Don't Come on In, the Water's Warm
A beachside nuclear reactor in Brazil leaked thousands of gallons of slightly radioactive water in May, but the public didn’t learn about the problem until the Brazilian magazine Epoca broke the news earlier this week. Most of the water leaking from the Angra reactor was contained by an emergency tank, and the plant was shut […]
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The people next door can help you think green
Everywhere I have lived, I have had neighbors, sometimes in houses just 15 or 20 feet away. Always I’ve had a garden and woodpile, sometimes bees, chickens, and fruit trees. In each place I have lived, I have given the garden a lot of my love and care, the lawn and shrubs a bit less. […]
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Oregon Trailblazers
When it comes to sustainability, Oregon is No. 1, says the San Francisco-based Resource Renewal Institute. The group ranked states on transit spending, open-space protection, recycling, and pollution prevention, among other things. New Jersey (shocking!) and Minnesota came in second and third, respectively. The institute’s Randy Solomon said Oregon took top honors because the state […]
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Wall-to-wall Carping
Can a 12,000-square-foot house really be eco-friendly? What about Bill Gates’s 40,000-square-foot house built of salvaged wood? Architect Will Bruder says adding green features like geothermal heating and solar panels to mongo homes with five-car garages is merely a way “to rationalize decadent expenditures.” Daniel Chiras, an enviro professor, says, “[I]f it’s a 5,000-square-foot-house, it […]
