consumption

Don’t buy Kimberly-Clark’s latest ruse

If a huge coal power plant goes next door and sets up a cute little boutique collection of five solar panels, have your basic feelings about that giant coal power plant changed? Probably not. After all, you’re reading Grist. But what if said coal company releases advertisements announcing that they’ve “gone solar,” complete with misleading […]

Umbra on LCD vs. plasma TVs

Dear Umbra, My husband and I are going to be buying a new television soon. Between an LCD and a plasma set, which is the more environmentally friendly? Lorraine B. Ossining, N.Y. Dearest Lorraine, Welcome to the promised follow-up to our previous examination of the digital television revolution. This week we finally take an opportunity […]

In our latest tasting, organic beer comes of age

Imagine Norman Bates, twisted hero of Hitchcock’s Psycho, stumbling into a funhouse of mirrors and finding Mother at the center, her image reflected on a thousand surfaces surrounding him. He might freak out, right? That’s a bit how I feel when I walk into Carrboro Beverage Co., a small and extremely well-stocked beer store in […]

New energy drink is fair-trade, organic

Youguysomigodomigodhaveyouheardaboutthisnewenergyshot? It'sorganicandit'sfair-tradeandthatmeansit'sgoodforyouANDfortheplanetnottoMENTIONthefacthtatitgivesy ouawickedsweetbuzzomigodomigodI'vebeenwaitingforthisallmylife.

How to green your giving

Give the gift of green. It’s a lovely thing, giving a gift. Whatever the tradition or religion, whatever the source of the custom, there’s no arguing that it’s a lovely thing. However, that lovely thing has been corrupted by our out-of-whack consumer society. No longer is sentiment enough — that sentiment must be expressed through […]

Who are the people in your neighborhood, and what have they got to lend?

I don’t actually have a question to respond to this week, so … pretend like somebody asked something. Remember back when people actually used to stop by their neighbor’s house and ask for a cup of sugar? OK, neither do I. Actually, the other day my boyfriend’s neighbor came over and asked to borrow some […]

Umbra on reducing consumption

Dear Umbra, If recycling requires energy to turn one’s discarded waste into usable products, and “climate solutions take precedence over garbage-production concerns,” as you wrote in June, why are we so focused on recycling and not on reducing our initial consumption? Surely this should be at the forefront of the individual consumer’s attempts to help […]

Umbra on replacing appliances

Dear Umbra, I’ve done the research, and I’m ready to buy my first front-loading washing machine. And then a pesky friend starts asking the tough questions. “Does your existing machine work?” Yes. “Are you going to sell it to someone else who will keep using it?” Yes. “So, two machines where there used to be […]

Product service systems

You know what's cool? Product service systems.

What are product service systems, you ask? How can they revolutionize the way we think about ownership and affluence? How can they dramatically reduce our ecological footprints?

These are good questions. However, I'm too lazy, and it's too Friday, to answer them here. Instead, I'm going to do the bloggy thing and point you to a bunch of stuff you should read. Meet back here for discussion.

• For a long and reasonably comprehensive description of PSS stuff, download this UNEP report (PDF).
• You could browse around the Product Service System Information Network's website.
• You could read this Worldchanging post, which, as is their wont, is packed with further links.
  
  Or, if you find all that stuff too taxing...
  
  
• You could browse through Treehugger's PSS category, replete with fun pictures and snappy descriptions of real-world PSS examples.

I'll write more about PSS some time, when it's not so damn Friday.