education
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Umbra on intransigent non-recyclers
Dear Umbra, I am a completely eco-friendly person and strive to have my family follow in those footsteps. We have a recycling system — one my canned-beer-drinking dad refuses to abide by. (Not that I’m criticizing canned beer or my father. Both are good.) He refuses to recycle his cans, and I’m a little tired […]
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Umbra on making your parents’ home eco-friendly
Dear Umbra, I am a teenager and so I live with my parents. We recycle paper and some other products (mostly milk containers), but I don’t think our house as a whole is very eco-friendly. Since I’m not in charge, I can’t really go out and buy new appliances or anything like that. Should I […]
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Umbra on student activism
Dear Umbra, I may be asking the wrong person, but I hope you can help out. I am a student at the University of North Carolina and my group, the Student Environmental Action Coalition, is undertaking an ambitious campaign to raise student fees by $4 per semester in order to bring renewable energy to our […]
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Bjorn Loser
In 2001, Danish author Bjorn Lomborg rocketed into the spotlight with the publication of The Skeptical Environmentalist, which claimed to debunk virtually all environmental concerns, from global warming to species extinction, and sought to assure the public that there was nothing much to worry about, ecologically speaking. Now, a division of the Danish Research Agency […]
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Students compete to build the house of the future
At midnight one late-September evening, a convoy of 18-wheeler flatbed trucks carting 14 houses (some whole, some in parts) and thousands of square feet of solar panels rolled past the Washington Monument, drove along the National Mall, and headed up to the front lawn of the Capitol building. Upon arriving, the first truck in line […]
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Links related to “Power Shift,” a special edition of Grist
Looking for more info on global climate change? Look no farther. The links below can help you find what you need. General Climate Change Information The Smithsonian Institution offers one of the slickest websites around when it comes to climate change (after Grist’s, of course). This online exhibition on global warming, developed in partnership with […]
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Universities combat climate change
“Do it in the dark!” That’s the rallying cry at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., where an ambitious campaign is under way to cut greenhouse gases. Sure, climate change activism — conserving energy, using renewable fuels, and constructing eco-friendly buildings — isn’t as sexy as marching against Vietnam or burning bras. But in an increasingly […]
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Umbra on weeding
Dear Umbra, We moved into a suburban neighborhood in Ft. Collins, Colo., last year and I began my usual organic gardening practices. I created a beautiful flower garden in our front yard, but I still receive complaints from my neighbors because I refuse to apply herbicides to kill the dandelions and other weeds in the […]
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Umbra on corporate paper recycling
I work for a large corporation that is very wasteful with paper. I am looking for information on whom I can complain to about this so that something will happen. They do not use recycled paper or require any recycling of paper. Beth Dearest Beth, Prepare yourself: The fate of reams of office paper is […]
