Trekking for Change: Vietnam’s Hill Tribes Benefit from Ecotourism
Handspan Adventure Travel is using tourism to improve quality of life & environmental conditions for the most isolated, at-risk of Vietnam’s Hill Tribes.
Everything Gives You Cancer
But Good Lifestyle Choices Will Help You Fight it Off Imagine inviting 12 friends to a dinner party—six men and six women. Look around the room and consider this: sometime in the future, two of the women and three of the men will develop cancer. © Lisa Blackshear Depressing as it seems, those are the […]
The Asian Invasion
Asian food is everywhere. Cheap packets of ramen noodles make up a large portion of a typical college student’s diet. Green tea is a common sight on grocery store shelves, not only as a drink but also as a dietary supplement. Egg rolls, wonton soup and chicken lo mein taste delicious when eaten out of those cardboard take-out boxes. But how healthful are those soy sauce-soaked noodles? The nutritional value of Asian food directly relates to how the food is prepared, how large the portion size is, and how "Americanized" the food is.
Green Glass
According to the Department of Energy (DOE), 25 percent of the energy used to heat and cool buildings goes right out the window. If windows aren’t installed properly or aren’t made of the right kind of material, you could end up losing a tremendous amount of energy. When installing new windows or window treatments, there are several rather simple environmentally friendly options that can help make a big difference.
Buying Cleaner Energy
Turning off unused lights, insulating your house and buying energy-efficient appliances are all great ways to save energy, which decreases air pollution and saves you money in the process. And if everyone were truly conservation-minded, we would save thousands of megawatt-hours of electricity every day. But now you can go a step further, and without buying any equipment or making any changes to your house you can purchase clean energy from non-polluting sources (you’ve got to keep your soymilk cold somehow). The problem is, not many people are choosing "green power," though it’s available in every state.
What is the status of bicycle use in the United States, compared to other parts of the world
Given different types of weather and terrain—as well as historical economic and developmental trends—comparing bicycle usage in different parts of the world is tricky. What is clear, however, is that China dominates the world bike scene:
Cities of the Future
By 2007, 3.2 billion people
a number larger than the entire global population of 1967
will live in cities. Developing countries will absorb nearly all of the world¹s population increases between today and 2030. The urban growth rate of 1.8 percent for 2000 to 2030 will double the number of city dwellers in less than 30 years. Meanwhile, rural populations are growing scarcely at all. In this cover story, E profiles some of the world¹s largest and most environmentally challenged megacities.
Cities of the Future (Continued)
Today’s "Mega-cities" are Overcrowded and Environmentally Stressed Lagos, Nigeria In 1950, with just 288,000 people, Lagos wasn’t even a speck on the map of the largest urban centers. Today, the rapidly growing city of 14 million in Africa’s most populous country is on its way to becoming the third-largest city in the world. By 2015, […]
Smoke, Mirrors and Pain at the Pumps
In my last column in this space, I looked at how the Bush administration had weakened the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) law, and failed to close a loophole by which the largest trucks and SUVs weighing 8,500 pounds or more are exempt from any federal regulation. "At a time when Americans are paying record prices for gas, the Bush Administration has sided with its cronies in the auto industry and rejected real solutions," says Dan Becker of the Sierra Club.
Internet Trade in Exotic Animals Threatens Endangered Species
According to a recently released study by the U.K. chapter of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), a booming Internet trade in exotic animal parts is hastening the extinction of a host of endangered wildlife species around the world. The report, "Caught in the Web, Wildlife Trade on the Internet," cites hundreds of examples of live primates and thousands of rare animal products–for the most part the product of illegal poaching–for sale via websites (such as eBay.com) over the course of just one recent week.