When he’s not designing colorful inlays for guitars, Bob Crelin is a light pollution activist in Connecticut who helped push through a landmark bill to dim the nighttime glare in his shoreline town. Our ancestors knew thousands of stars in the evening sky, but now we’re lucky if we can identify a dozen—and the culprit […]
A review of Undermining Science, Suppression and Distortion in the Bush Administration by Richard N. ZareStanford University scientist Richard N. Zare writes, "We must be willing to speak out against the threat of making science just a matter of opinion." That is exactly what investigative journalist Seth Shulman does in Undermining Science, Suppression and Distortion […]
Last spring, when gasoline prices soared over $3 a gallon, Americans suddenly woke up to the fact that cheap energy was not their birthright. Almost overnight, SUVs became a glut in the market and alternative energy, from solar to wind, turned cool again. When prices dropped just before the November election (an oil company nod […]
Now available in paperback, Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger (Villard Books, $14.95) offers a cheap, entertaining way to travel to Australia and Tasmania and become intimately familiar with the local wildlife. Wombats, quolls, potoroos, little penguins, giant lobsters and pademelons all populate the pages of this eco-adventure with Brooklyn nature writers […]
A review of High-Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics and Human Health by Kellyn Betts“PBDEs are everywhere," said reporter Kellyn Betts at a recent Society of Environmental Journalists conference panel. "There are high levels in breast milk, blood and fat. Dust is the main route of exposure, and they’re coming out of products like computers […]
Peter Barnes, co-founder of Working Assets Long Distance and Credit Card Services, and writer for Newsweek and the New York Times, says capitalism needs an upgrade. In Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, $22.95), he proposes an ingenious and feasible way of protecting the commons by giving it property rights. Barnes” […]
We interview Michael Braungart, co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (Northpoint Press) with green architect William McDonough.
As the construction industry "goes global," the amazing diversity of the world’s architecture has suffered. In the last 30 to 50 years, new buildings in New York, London and Beijing have started to look the same.
In 2002, William McDonough and Michael Braungart published Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (Northpoint Press). They identify two fundamental problems. The first is that we design products to be thrown "away" when, in fact, there is no "away," and cradle-to-grave designs foul our own nest. The Earth is a finite, closed, living system, and the things we produce are not beamed to a distant galaxy but stay right here and affect the health of our planet.
Think of each of your five senses (taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight) as a rock in the foundation that supports your home. Five stones won’t allow an addition off the main house, nor will they support the weight of a second story. A storm might push your home off such a minimal foundation. The more senses you awaken and use the more support you will have in all your endeavors. More is better. The more sensory support you have, the less stress you"ll experience. When stress does sneak up, your sense-ability’s wisdom naturally helps you understand the source of your stress and guides you to what is needed to feel alive and whole again.
