"Litter"
Sat, 03/26/2011 - 18:27
Spring showers wash it into our lawns, collect it in the gutters by the roads and consolidate it on storm drains. With no leaves as camouflage, we see the plastic bags caught on bare branches. Beer bottles, tin cans and Styrofoam cups nestle like Easter eggs under shrubs and bushes. Litter is a manmade blight on the American landscape within 5 miles of every town. But litter doesn't stop there. In his eye-opening book, "The World Without Us," Alan Weisman describes a small continent of...
Read More“Going Paperless”
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 10:06
Americans still use more than 90 million tons of paper, or about 700 pounds per person per year. Developing nations like China, India and the rest of Asia are the fastest-growing per-capita users of paper, but at about 100 pounds per person per year, Australians use about 300 pounds per person per year, and Western Europe uses more than 400 pounds per person per year. To feed this intense hunger for wood pulp, half the world's forests have already…
Read MoreSaving Water
Thu, 08/26/2010 - 06:05
As a teen, I remember using all my strength to open a giant valve in a ditch that diverted part of the Rio Grande into my grandparents’ citrus orchards. The brown water would bubble up from the valve and flood into the orchards, following the little trenches I had made with a hoe. This method is called flood irrigation and is the least efficient way to use water. Yet 93 percent of the world’s farmers irrigate their crops using…
Read MoreSUSTAINABLE LIVING - Staycations
Mon, 06/21/2010 - 08:49
About 1.3 percent fewer Americans are expected to fly this summer than last summer, according to the Air Transport Association. Which may be good news for the environment, since a single transatlantic flight for a family of four creates more carbon emissions than that family will generate domestically for an entire year. Instead of making pricey travel plans this year that damage the environment as well as your bank account, take a local vacation, or "staycation." This is a chance…
Read MoreSUSTAINABLE LIVING - Community Gardens
Tue, 05/25/2010 - 22:29
The economic downturn has left many communities looking decimated, with empty lots, vacant stores, and unemployed people with too much time and too little money. Many of these people have started a positive trend across the country by taking over vacant lots, empty rooftops and unused parks to create community gardens. These community gardens are a great way to get both children and adults involved in beautifying the neighborhood and benefitting the community with better nutrition and green spaces.…
Read MoreSUSTAINABLE LIVING - Mother’s Day Alternatives
Sat, 05/08/2010 - 21:01
Flowers are big business. The U.S. floral market is a $20 billion-a-year industry, yet the vast majority of the 4 billion flower stems sold here every year come from Latin America. Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have been exporting flowers to us duty-free since the 1980s. As part of the "War on Drugs," import taxes on South American flowers were eliminated to give farmers a profitable crop to replace cocaine. All the flowers in corporate chains and box stores are…
Read MoreSUSTAINABLE LIVING - 10 Steps to Improving Your Local Economy
Tue, 03/09/2010 - 15:26
Recently, most of America's industry has been "outsourced" overseas, causing a loss of jobs and the disintegration of hometowns built around factories. Our current recession is an indication that this global economy is not working. Economist and author Michael Shuman said recently "about 42 percent of our economy is 'place based,' or created through small, locally owned businesses." This means that almost half our economy depends upon small independent businesses that make up the backbone of our hometowns.These small…
Read MoreSUSTAINABLE LIVING - Hidden Dangers of Phthalates
Tue, 03/02/2010 - 15:38
Phthalates, called "plasticizers," are chemicals used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic soft, pliable and, in the case of water bottles, clear. This chemical is as American as apple pie -- and in all of our households through things like toys, food packaging, shower curtains, vinyl flooring, lubricants, adhesives, detergents and most cosmetics. Phthalates make baby's teething rings soft, give your car that new car smell (by off-gassing), are in almost all perfumes and nail polish, and make medical…
Read Morean island nation
Sat, 02/27/2010 - 15:39
The number 350 seems so innocent, so small, so prime and human-scaled that you can picture it in your mind. It's not like those inconceivable numbers: the trillions that measure the national debt, billions that measure world population and millions that measure the carbon in the atmosphere. Three hundred fifty parts per million is the "safe" level of carbon emissions in the atmosphere, according to NASA scientist James Hansen. We are currently at 385 ppm. In this case, "safe" means…
Read MoreSUSTAINABLE LIVING - What Global Warming?
Tue, 02/23/2010 - 14:46
I'm writing this in the midst of yet another snowstorm, with a few inches still piled up from the last one. Many people have taken this opportunity to wag their fingers and say, "What global warming?!"Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman coined the term "global weirding" last week to replace the misleading phrase "global warming." While the Earth has warmed a degree, and is projected to warm quicker than natural over the next century, most of us are not feeling…
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