books
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Ask Umbra dishes with Anna Lappé
Photo by KalaLeaThe next time you bite into a burger, consider this: Livestock create more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, planes, and other fossil-fueled modes of transportation in the world. In fact, our current food system—from industrial farming to packaging to transporting—contributes as much as one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions. Food’s […]
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A near thumbs-up for Joe Romm’s ‘Straight Up’
Joe Romm is pissed off — and I’m delighted. His latest book, Straight Up, takes on the oil and coal companies, the skeptics, and the press. His unfailing sense of priorities shines through his startlingly thoughtful and brutally blunt writing. I have one problem with his book — but more about that later. As […]
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The good news about the very bad news (about climate change)
Cross-posted from TomDispatch. These days, I see how optimistic and positive disaster and apocalypse movies were. Remember how, when those giant asteroids or alien space ships headed directly for Earth, everyone rallied and acted as one while our leaders led? We’re in a movie like that now, except that there’s not a lot of rallying or […]
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Win a signed copy of ‘In the Empire of Ice’!
Welcome back, dear readers, to another Grist book giveaway. There are prizes at stake here, so listen up. We’re giving away 10 autographed copies of Gretel Ehrlich’s new book In the Empire of Ice. To nab one, all you have to do is answer this question — in 400 words or less: “How is climate […]
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Ask Umbra’s Earth Day book giveaway
Dearest readers, Happy Earth Day! How are you celebrating? Perhaps by tweeting your little heart out about all the hopeful things going on in the environmental movement (don’t forget to add #hopen)? Well, since you’re on there anyway, why not participate in my little book giveaway? That’s right! Free stuff! Woot! I’m giving away two […]
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Prez steals, owes fines
OK, so you couldn’t tell a lie, Georgie boy, but apparently you made no bones about stealing a couple of library books and not paying your fines. Gasp! That’s right, Pres. George Washington was just as big a fan of the library as Ask Umbra (woot for reusing, Mr. Prez); however, according to an old […]
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Ask Umbra on food dehydrators, cage-free and free-range poultry, and e-readers
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I am enthusiastic about growing my own food in my small garden and I am looking for ways to preserve my produce for use out of season. I cook and freeze some things and have done some canning, but this year I thought I would make things […]
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From tobacco to climate change, ‘merchants of doubt’ undermined the science
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world.”— Margaret Mead Because Americans are optimists we tend to see Mead’s observation as upbeat and life-affirming (as it was probably intended). Blinkered by optimism, however, we miss the dark flip side of her observation — that a few fanatics can do immense […]
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Ask Umbra’s Book Club: Are you a possum?
Dearest readers, Thank you all so much for joining me this week as we got down and dirty with our first book club selection, Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With (Almost) No Money, hitting all the hot buttons like leaving the rat race, eating meat, and bucking the education system. […]
