For smokers, the world has always been one big ashtray, with cigarettes flicked away pretty much anywhere. That’s especially true now, since smokers are increasingly forbidden to light up in restaurants, office buildings and even new no-smoking condos. In the great river of litter human beings create each year, so tiny a thing as a …
Waste
The Psychology of Environmentalism: How the Mind Can Save the Planet
There aren’t a whole lot of scientific disciplines that haven’t had something to say about climate change over the years — and with good reason. When a problem is global in scale there’s a universe of specialists and subspecialists who have to pitch in to to fix it — meteorologists, chemists, geologists, physicists, zoologists, …
States Sue to Stop Storage of Nuclear Waste
Even if you love nuclear power (gee whiz, it’s carbon free!), you have to admit there’s a problem with using the energy that binds atoms as a source to power cities: nuclear waste. Fission produces isotopes that remain radioactive for thousands of years. And no one wants the waste anywhere near them. In December, the U.S. …
Ecuador to Chevron: Pay Up. And Say You’re Sorry.
A judge in Ecuador handed down a landmark ruling against oil giant Chevron this week, ordering the company to pay $8.6 billion and another 10% of that sum in reparations to the Amazon Defense Coalition for oil pollution damages in a remote rainforest on the South American country’s northeast border.
The ruling – one of the largest …
Waste: Get Some New Electronics for the Holidays? Here’s How to E-Cycle Your Old Tech
So you’re one of the lucky ones who received an iPhone 4 (or iPad, or Kindle, or Android) for the holidays. After you get over your initial excitement and manage to set up your new digital plaything (here’s a tip—buy a protective case), you still have one more task before you: get rid of your old electronics, which suddenly look so …