education
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Umbra on reusable recycling bags
Dear Umbra, I am the cofounder and current president of the Recycling Club at R.L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth, Texas. We have started collecting cell phones and plan to donate them to Verizon, since they refurbish and recycle or sell them. With the money they make, they buy new ones with airtime for […]
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Julie Sze, enviro-justice advocate and professor, answers questions
What work do you do? I’m an assistant professor in American Studies at the University of California at Davis. How does it relate to the environment? My research and teaching interests are in environmental justice, race and science, the politics of the urban environment, health and risk, social movements, and community activism. What do you […]
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David Orr, environmental educator and writer, answers questions
David Orr. What work do you do? I am disguised as a professor at Oberlin College, but consider myself an Educator, capital E, not an educational technician or bureaucrat, and certainly not one “in the box” of a single discipline. At its best, education means to “educe,” or draw forth, so I consider it essential […]
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Umbra on UV ratings
Dear Umbra, Our radio station provides daily information regarding ultraviolet ratings. I am curious about what these ratings actually represent, and why they change so dramatically. For example, for the past few years, most ratings have been between three and seven. Now we are getting ratings of 10. I doubt the ratings are directly related […]
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A spotlight on young enviro activists
David Brower, a pioneer of the U.S. environmental movement, once said that his generation depended on young people “to shape us up before it’s too late.” Though Brower — former executive director of the Sierra Club, founder of Friends of the Earth and the Earth Island Institute — passed away in 2000, his legacy lives […]
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Andrew Light, an enviro-academic, answers questions
Andrew Light. What work do you do? I’m a philosopher specializing mostly in environmental ethics and am currently Assistant Professor of Environmental Philosophy and director of the graduate program in Environmental Conservation Education at New York University in Manhattan. How does it relate to the environment? Let me give you some background on the field […]
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Umbra on environmentally oblivious teens
Dear Umbra, My girlfriend’s 14-year-old daughter lives with us, and she’s the most environmentally oblivious person I’ve ever met. She makes George Bush and Dick Cheney look like card-carrying members of the Green Party. She throws trash out the car window or tosses it on the street. She never shuts off a light or turns […]
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Interviews with the 2004 winners of environmentalism’s top prize
The winners: (clockwise from left) Eugene-Richard, Kochladze, Goldman (cofounder of the prize), De Carvalho, Grueso, Bee, and Shukla. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. The environmental movement often runs on the adrenaline of outrage, and the past year has provided more outrages than most. The White House has taken aim — and fired — at some of […]
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A veteran enviro leader answers questions
What organization are you affiliated with? What does it do? I’m the dean at the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The school is working to become “a truly global school of the environment.” We have around 235 students in our professional master’s degree programs in environmental management, forestry, and environmental science. Our […]
