Tag Archives: Culture

Weekday Vegetarian: Grilled Watermelon and Tomato Salad to Cool Your Off

During heat waves in my childhood, my mother would send us outside with thick slabs of sweet, dripping watermelon. My brother and I would stick out faces into it and let the cold juice run down our chins. Watermelon today is seedless, thereby depriving the current generation of children the joy of competitive watermelon seed spitting, but it can still cool you off on a hot day…. Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Weekday Vegetarian: Grilled Watermelon and Tomato Salad to Cool Your Off

Quotes of the Day: On the Evils of Air Conditioning

Cover, Henry Miller’s Air Conditioned Nightmare Air conditioning is not only an environmental problem, it is also a social problem. In the post Air Conditioning and Urbanism, I wrote: We should consider also the insidious effect of central air- how it enables the development of parts of the country previously uninhabitable and which would still be but for the constant cooling, and how it is destroying the street culture of areas already established. H… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Quotes of the Day: On the Evils of Air Conditioning

Summer In The City: Urban Strategies for Keeping Cool

Hot town, summer in the city Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty Been down, isn’t it a pity Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city All around, people looking half dead Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head Really, when you look at most of the lists of ways to keep cool, you would think that everyone in America lived in a detached house in the ‘burbs. But lots of people live in cities and apartments where suggestions like “don’t use the dryer” or “plant a tree” are not relevant. How do you keep cool in the city?… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Summer In The City: Urban Strategies for Keeping Cool

Best of Inhabitots: Top 7 Green Pregnancy Tips

+ Start your pregnancy right with some of our favorite suggestions, from practicing prenatal yoga to avoiding exposure to BPA . + Are you really eating for two? Learn&emdash;and bust&emdash;some common myths about

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Best of Inhabitots: Top 7 Green Pregnancy Tips

Germany Targets 100% Renewable Electricity by 2050

Image credit: Recharge News Germany is already a global leader in solar power , but that’s just a start as far as Germans are concerned. It’s already been shown that Germany could produce 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2050 . Now the country’s environment agency is arguing that it should. Could it be that some countries are finally coming up with clean energy targets that will actually make a real dif… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Germany Targets 100% Renewable Electricity by 2050

CBO Says Climate Bill Will Cut Deficit, Emissions Set To Rise

photo via flickr There’s a lot of jostling right now in the Senate for lead position on energy reform. Just which Senator will catch the eye of President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Reid and get their bill picked is anyone’s guess. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) received welcome news today when the Congressional Budget Office scored their bill and said that it would cut the deficit by $19 billion over the next decade. … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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CBO Says Climate Bill Will Cut Deficit, Emissions Set To Rise

Monkeys Cleverly Escape Primate Research Institute

Photo via sndgrss At a primate research institute in Japan’s Kyoto University, recently a group of inventive monkeys managed to escape their enclosure despite the 17 foot tall electric fence in place to keep them in. With no obvious means of escape visible, the researchers were undoubtedly puzzled at how their high-tech security was breached — that is until they discovered the primates had figured out a way to catapult themselves…. Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Monkeys Cleverly Escape Primate Research Institute

Oil Spill Could Mean Toxic Arsenic Build-Up in Gulf

Photo via John E. Lester Arsenic is a naturally occurring toxin present in minerals and also introduced into the water by oil spills and the wastewater from oil rigs. Usually, the ocean can filter out arsenic through the sediments on the sea floor. However, researchers from Imperial College London have found that the presence of oil in seawater disrupts the ocean’s ability to filter out arsenic, which means it can build up and enter the food chain, causing anything from birth defects to changes in behavior among marine animals. That means the oi… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Oil Spill Could Mean Toxic Arsenic Build-Up in Gulf

Waxman Tells Obama To Just Say No To Tar Sands Pipeline

photo via flickr House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman penned the first climate change bill ever to pass the House. Now, with those credentials to support him, Waxman is asking President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to say no to a proposed $7 billion pipeline that would bring Canadian oil sands all the way down to the Gulf Coast. Oil from tar sands is extremely carbon intensive, with some estimates finding that tar sands oil has 37 percent more greenhouse gases than so called conventional fossil fuels. … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Waxman Tells Obama To Just Say No To Tar Sands Pipeline

Elle Macpherson Says She Uses Rhino Horn Medicine

In a shocking statement, fashion icon and Britain’s Next Top Model host Elle Macpherson has admitted to using an illegal powdered substance priced at around $60,000 a kilo. I know what you’re thinking, but in a way it’s worse than that. The supermodel said she was a fan of taking ‘medicinal’ rhino horn , harvested from one of the world’s most endangered species . When pressed for a reason why she would do such a thing, Macpherson answered simpl… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Elle Macpherson Says She Uses Rhino Horn Medicine