From my bedroom window I can hear the sounds of traffic streaming by on Interstate 25, carrying folk around the last corner down from the pass through the Sangre de Christo foothills at Glorieta and the Pecos River, toward Santa Fe, New Mexico. They descend the mountain toward their jobs or they come down to vacation from points north, crossing a gateway where populations and commerce of the great Midwestern plains pass into a strange and almost alien country of the southwest, where civilization appears to change in some subtle manner, just like the landscape.

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK–When was the last time you were low on gas on the way to your friend’s house and thought, "No problem; I’ll just plug in when I get there"? Well, some of the cars showcased May 10 to 14 at the 18th annual Tour de Sol were electric vehicles (EVs) that could power-up using ordinary wall outlets–one of many exciting alternatives to standard internal-combustion featured at the upstate New York event.

Publishing heavyweight Random House announced last week that it intends to increase the proportion of recycled paper in the majority of its books to at least 30 percent by 2010. Currently less than three percent of the paper used by the company is recycled. Company officials said that the change would cost several million dollars but would lead to the preservation of more than half a million trees a year.

After years of bickering and delays, local officials in Syracuse, New York have finally given the green light to the world’s first green megamall. Developers have promised that the proposed multi-billion dollar entertainment and shopping complex, dubbed DestiNY USA, would run entirely on wind turbines, solar panels, fuel cells and biofuels while serving as a model for clean living and green shopping. The new mall would be the largest green real estate development in the world to date.