the environment

The Green Screen

Can TV succeed where science has failed? Quite possibly, if David Attenborough is involved

In the fifty-some years since Sir David Attenborough began producing shows about Earth's wildlife, our planet has changed considerably. Population has skyrocketed. Cities have grown and spread to accommodate massive influx from the countryside. Species have become endangered; extinct. And amidst it all, Attenborough—the famed British TV naturalist and by some accounts the world's most-traveled human—has borne witness.

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The Grouse

The Greening of Greening

The Grouse measures his footprint and is put off by the business of carbon offsets

Depending on who you talk to, it seems Im either a wretched wastrel polluter on par with some smoke spewing Linfen factory, or Im a Rainbow Warrior mincing around in hemp sandals looking for a tree to embrace. Im speaking of my carbon footprint naturally: the rough calculation of how my lifestyle impacts the Earth. With our planets health constantly in debate these days—is the atmosphere really warming, and if so is that actually bad, and if so is it our fault, and if so can we do anything about it?—I was curious to see how I chalked up and consulted several of the various calculators found online. Putting in the numbers, the completely contradictory estimates nicely reflect the murkiness of the debate were currently in. It also calls into question the budding market for carbon offsets—the process of hedging your environmental impact by putting money into environmentally sound resources.

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