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Discussing the impact of motorized vehicles in wilderness areas

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May 12   1 Comment  

A key element of the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act now making its way through Congress would allow motorized vehicles and equipment into wilderness areas, undermine 1964’s Wilderness Act which expressly bans motor vehicles on these last wild vestiges of untrammeled American land. (Comstock)

Destroying what you claim to love

Filed Under: Earth and Environment Tagged With: , , , ,

The “Fair Trade Your Supermarket” campaign

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May 7   Leave a Comment  

Fair trade is a system of exchange which ensures that farmers, artisans and other producers throughout the developing world are paid fair prices for their work and have direct involvement in the marketplace.

Fair is fair

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Cloud computing has a substantial footprint

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April 28   3 Comments  

Greenpeace wants companies like Apple, Amazon and Microsoft to make smarter, cleaner energy choices now that "cloud computing" services have ratcheted up power consumption considerably. (Media credit/Wichary via Flickr)

Power numbers through the roof

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Are there health or environmental concerns with LED lights?

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April 15   3 Comments  

LED bulbs appear poised to displace compact fluorescents (CFLs) as the king-of-the-hill of green bulbs, but a study published in late 2010 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology found that LEDs contain lead, arsenic and a dozen other potentially dangerous substances. (Thinkstock)

The dark side of lighting

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Fuel efficient car choices for 2012

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April 8   1 Comment  

Increased environmental awareness, high gas prices and a continually slumping economy have combined to make fuel efficient cars are all the rage today. Pictured from top to bottom: the Electric Mitsubishi Miev, Toyota's Plug-in Hybrid Prius; General Motors' gas sipping Chevy Sonic.

Save money and the environment with your next car purchase

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Wanted: Young farmers

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March 17   Leave a Comment  

Convincing young people to take up farming is a hard sell but a necessary one: For each American farmer under the age of 35 there are now six over 65 and one quarter (500,000) of all American farmers will retire over the next two decades. (iStockPhoto)

Can you dig it?

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Looking at the Just Label It campaign

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March 10   1 Comment  

At present the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't require labels for foods with genetically modified ingredients, but labeling proponents believe consumers have a right to be able to make informed choices about which foods they put into their bodies and support with their pocketbooks. (iStockPhoto)

Do you know your food’s genetics?

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Cuba’s foray into offshore oil drilling

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March 10   Leave a Comment  

Finding significant off-shore oil reserves could turn Cuba into an oil exporter, possibly even thawing relations with a still oil-hungry U.S. Pictured: The Scarabeo 9 oil rig while still under construction in China in 2009. It is now 30 miles off of Cuba's coast and just 60 miles south of the Florida Keys. (Wikipedia)

Possible source of economic power for Communist island

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SMOG levels improving in Los Angeles

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Feb. 28   Leave a Comment  

Tougher state and federal air quality standards, combined with cleaner burning engines on new vehicles today, have cut air pollution from cars and trucks across California by more than 85 percent since the 1970s, with peak smog levels in the city of Los Angeles dropping some 70 percent. (Thinkstock)

Is it possible?

Filed Under: Earth and Environment, Life in the West, Los Angeles Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

New automobile fuel economy standards

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Feb. 19   Leave a Comment  

In a plan formulated by the Obama administration, auto makers will double the average, unadjusted fuel-economy rating of their cars and light trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 from today’s standard of 27 miles per gallon. Congress is likely to sign the new rules, which will start taking effect for the 2017 model year, into law this summer. (ThinkStock)

How’s 54.5 MPG sound?

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There’s BPA in cash register receipts?

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Feb. 12   1 Comment  

Laboratory tests found high levels of BPA on 40 percent of thermal paper receipts sampled from major U.S. businesses and services, including McDonald’s, Chevron, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, WalMart, Safeway and the U.S. Postal Service, among others. BPA in paper receipts also contaminates paper recycling and is showing up in napkins, toilet paper and other common papers with recycled content. (Thinkstock)

Bad news bears

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How green is the state of our union?

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Feb. 12   Leave a Comment  

Obama's State of the Union address was, in the words of one prominent green leader, "a strong defense of the importance of clean energy to America’s long-term economic prosperity." (White House photo)

All-in-all, not a bad year

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How much energy is used by cable TV boxes?

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Feb. 1   Leave a Comment  

Set-top boxes in the U.S. consume 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, equivalent to the annual output of six coal-fired power plants. Part of the reason is that they typically operate at nearly full power even during the two-thirds of the time when they are not in use. (Thinkstock)

Short answer: A lot

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Fact: Carbon emissions are making our oceans acidic

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Feb. 1   Leave a Comment  

Ocean acidification is likely to affect the ability of some shellfish to produce and maintain their shells. This process will not only wreak havoc on the shellfish we eat, but also on smaller marine organisms that are key components of the lower end of the marine food chain. (Thinkstock)

Goodbye coral. Goodbye shellfish.

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Water usage in the bathroom

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Jan. 24   Leave a Comment  

Some 60 percent of our household indoor water usage happens in the bathroom. Toilets are the biggest water hogs, with older models using as much as eight gallons per flush. A shower, even with a low-flow shower head, can use up to 40 gallons of water, and a bath can use up to 50-60 gallons. (Thinkstock)

It’s more than you thought!

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Analysis: Cutting down forests for biomass fuel

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Jan. 24   Leave a Comment  

In theory, burning any kind of plant material for energy is a carbon-neutral endeavor, but chopping down forests for ethanol is unwise because they cannot be regrown quickly. And tree plantations don't provide the clean water, storm buffers, wildlife habitat and other ecosystem services that natural forests do. Pictured: A wood biomass plant. (Thinkstock)

This will trouble you…

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Report: Asthma rates on the rise

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Dec. 17, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Asthma rates have doubled since the 1980s, in spite of air quality in U.S. cities having increased over the same time period. This has led some experts to conclude that other factors -- including Vitamin D deficiency, obesity, overuse of acetaminophen (i.e. Tylenol) and spray mist from glass cleaners and air fresheners -- are now playing a role. (Thinkstock)

New factors contributing

Filed Under: Health and fitness Tagged With: , , , , ,

Why should I recycle?

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Dec. 17, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Recycling and re-use have many environmental benefits, including reducing the amount of waste we bury in already overcrowded landfills and burn in polluting incinerators, like the one pictured here. (Thinkstock)

Do you really need an explanation?

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Are green walls the next big thing in environmental tech?

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Nov. 26, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Green walls, or "vertical gardens," are walls partly composed of or filled in with live plant matter. They filter air and water, soak up carbon dioxide and help lessen the “heat island” effect of urban areas while reducing air conditioning costs in their host buildings. Pictured: a vertical garden at the Anataeum Hotel in London. (Media credit/Niall Napier via Flickr)

Maybe eventually…

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Can using thorium instead of uranium make nuclear energy safer?

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Nov. 26, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Advocates of thorium to power nuclear plants say that the element is safer than uranium, and that its waste cannot -- like the plutonium waste of uranium fission -- be re-formulated for nuclear weapons. Thorium plants, they say, also wouldn't need containment domes like those pictured here because the reactors can't "melt down" and release radiation. (iStock)

Most likely

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