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COMMENTARY: Excerpt from The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival

Stanley N. Alpert was Chief of Environmental Litigation at the U.S. Attorneys" Office in New York City when, in 1998, he was kidnapped at gunpoint by a gang of robbers. He now runs The Alpert Firm in New York City, bringing environmental and toxic tort lawsuits. His book, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival, released by Putnam in January, relates the grueling ordeal, path to survival, and investigation that led to the roundup of the perpetrators. Alpert reflects on environmental law and his career as an environmental prosecutor, both civil and criminal, in the following excerpt from the book.

The Shocking Electric Car Debate

Did General Motors intentionally sabotage sales of its electric EV-1? That’s the contention of Chris Paine’s popular 2006 film Who Killed the Electric Car?

Driving Clean

One of the most common questions about alternative energy vehicles is, "How do they drive?" The reality is that most carmakers try as much as possible to make their experimental vehicles "transparent" to the driver, erasing any indication of the exotic or unusual.

Real-Time Fuel Economy

Window-sticker fuel economy is almost always hopelessly optimistic. If the sticker says 30 mpg on the highway, expect 25 when headed down a mountain with a tailwind. But now the information is being updated for more realistic results.

Have Prius, Will Travel

Ever wondered how a Toyota Prius ended up as Larry David’s vehicle of choice on Curb Your Enthusiasm? Read on and his very environmentally involved wife Laurie will explain it all to you.

Local is the New Organic

Most produce people eat, organic or not, travels thousands of miles to reach the shelves of their local supermarket. The journey exacts a huge toll on the environment as refrigerated tractor-trailers packed with green tomatoes and bananas crisscross the country, burning diesel and spewing pollution and greenhouse gas. The solution: eat locally grown food.

Street Beets

Across the U.S., an urban agriculture movement is flowering as a growing number of people become more interested in the process of growing their own food. Urban farms and gardens are taking root in areas where previously only concrete and asphalt thrived.

Semana del 11/03/2007

Querido DiálogoEcológico: ¿Es que tenemos un tema para el Día de la Tierra este año, y cómo podemos participar?

Querido DiálogoEcológico: ¿Cuál es la pauta de "rendimiento" de las inversiones ecológicas? ¿Estas compañías, ¿han dado mejores resultados como inversión que el resto del mercado en años recientes?

My local recycler won’t take my old phonebooks. What should I do with them?

Many recyclers won’t accept telephone books because the fibers used to make the books” lightweight pages are too short to be reformulated into new paper. In fact, mixing old phonebooks in with other waste paper can even contaminate the batch, hindering the recyclability of the other paper fibers.

Hummer and Hummerer

I cannot understand how anyone who has felt the sting of high gas prices, idled on crowded interstates and watched news reports about global warming, oil shortages and rising asthma levels can drive anything but a fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicle.

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