Tobin Hack
Imagine watching the sun go down on October 24, and living in complete darkness straight through to when it finally rises again on the 8th of March. Imagine 40 below temperatures on a regular basis. Imagine subsisting almost entirely on the fatty flesh of sea mammals like seal, walrus, and narwhal ... Read More
It’s been over four decades since Greenland lost an ice chunk like the one “born” last week. The ice island – four times the size of Manhattan – calved off of northern Greenland’s Petermann glacier on August 5th. At its thickest parts, the ice island is half the height (excuse all the NYC-centric ... Read More
Bzzz. Bzzzzzzzz. Bz. Is that the sound of your caffeine buzz, or is it the hum of the millions of happy native bees you’re helping to house when you choose shade-grown coffee beans over conventional? Actually, it may be both. No secret that choosing shade-grown coffee (planted under ... Read More
Pertinent news for anyone who uses soap, shampoo, perfume, sunscreen, lip balm, moisturizer, etc etc etc: last Wednesday, Congress introduced a bill that would give the FDA the power to protect your hide from companies that use toxic chemicals in your personal care products. It’s called the Safe ... Read More
A friend of mine, who works in the sustainable food industry, was alarmed by my recent post on overfishing. Not alarmed to learn about the demise of marine ecosystems (she already knows all that), but alarmed by my lugubrious tone. What I’d intended to accomplish with the post was to add my voice ... Read More
Is there a coastal area close to your heart? Imagine the water there 23 feet higher than it is now. Sea levels are rising, and it can be painful to try to wrap the mind around that fact (picture New York City with a massive sea wall built up around it, if you like). The implications of the ... Read More
Did you know that clothes dryers – generally speaking – use about nine times as much energy as do clothes washers? An energy-and-the-home graphic spread in Dwell Magazine’s July/August issue (they brought design-savvy GOOD Magazine on board to collaborate on the project) brought this helpful ... Read More
We've all had well-meaning friends remind us that there are "plenty of other fish in the sea," but the phrase may not be the most fitting fortune-cookie counsel for breakup-ees anymore. The fact is that there aren’t plenty of fish in the sea these days; the oceans are, actually, 90% depleted. Most ... Read More
Last week, in a history book moment, an airplane was flown straight through a day-night cycle running on nothing – nothing – but the sun’s rays. Imagine the quiet, up there, as Solar Impulse CEO and co-founder Andres Borschberg soared through the skies in his one-man cockpit, collecting and storing ... Read More
Opening my daily Treehugger news email just now, I noticed that headline: ‘Dinner in the Dumpster’. Oh, I thought, how fun! An article about freeganism! In fact, the article at hand wasn’t one about the people who dive headfirst into dumpsters to live on our nation’s (tasty, fresh, and free ... Read More
Grist’s Umbra Fisk (the website’s point person for green living questions) recently revisited the toilet issue and doled out some very important water-saving tips: sink a half-gallon of water in the tank of your old toilet to stop it from using three gallons per flush, use the food coloring trick ... Read More
Two days ago, San Francisco mandated that all cell phones bear a new label: amount of radiation emitted. A sort of calorie-labeling for health-conscious tech consumers. The science is arguably not set in stone, but the watchdog organization Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a study earlier ... Read More
Solar Impulse, a Swiss venture launched by explorer/innovator/engineer/psychologist/businessmen Betrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, is shooting beyond the moon and aiming for the sun. Their mission: build a solar aircraft that can fly all day and all night, feeding on nothing but the sun’s energy ... Read More
Lead paint has been banned in the states since 1978, but if you’re like me, you still wonder about the paint debris you inhale in your home, in your office, in general. You wonder if there’s actually some of the old toxic stuff lurking about beneath the newer coats, and if you’ve already incurred ... Read More
Speaking of green prefab houses, how many square feet, exactly, do you require before you’ll call it home? What about 220? I realize that, as a recently apartment-searching New Yorker wrung through the NYC rental market – where brokers use the term “bedroom” to describe a closet into which a bed ... Read More
Green pre-fab is getting a lot of attention right now in New York City. Hop downtown to the Financial District, and you’ll notice, amidst the suits and skyscrapers, a peculiar exhibit. We’ll call it “a Pre-Fab grows in FiDi” – a humble little abode that looks ever so slightly as though it may have ... Read More
High fructose corn syrup, sedentary lifestyles, endocrine disrupting chemical BPA in our plastic water bottles… we’re already up against enough hurdles when it comes to combating the diabetes epidemic. But now we’ve got another hurdle to clear: the pollution our cars and other motor vehicles put ... Read More
This could be an ideal time for creatures touched by the Gulf spill to pick up yoga and/or meditation. Here’s why. Consider the iguana. When iguanas get stressed out about things like famines brought on by El Nino, changes in their ecosystems, or natural disaster, they release a hormone called ... Read More
Step away from the spray bottle. A warning email blast went out today from Ken Cook, President of the watchdog organization Environmental Working Group (EWG), alerting consumers to the risks they’re taking each time they reach to sprits a wrist or neck. It’s one thing to know that the US does a ... Read More
Here’s the tricky thing about ozone: we want lots of it up high in the upper atmosphere, where it blocks radiation and protects us, but we want as little of it as possible down here on the surface of the earth, and in our eyes, ears, noses and throats, where it acts as a harmful pollutant. And ... Read More
About Tobin Hack
Tobin is an NYC-based freelance writer. She blogs for BigThink on sustainability, green policy, and environmental health.