While there are no precise standards by which to judge how “green” any given celebrity may be, a number of entertainment luminaries come to mind for their outspoken support of environmental causes and their commitment to greener lifestyles.
I grew up on the Connecticut shores of Long Island Sound and spent many weekends fishing off the docks of Norwalk’s beaches with my dad. On some days his best friend would take us out fishing on the Sound in his motorboat. We were angling mainly for "snappers" (baby bluefish), but we never ate them. We would just let them die in the bucket and then bury them in the backyard, rationalizing that they were good for fertilizer.
I greatly enjoyed and mostly concurred with Jeremy Rifkin’s comparison of the American quality of life versus the European ("Learning from Europe," cover story, March/April 2005), but I cringed when I read that "…almost everyone [in Europe] has some small second home in the country somewhere…" Second homes, large or small, are definitely not part […]
In 1993, the U.S. government passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) promising it would promote jobs. In reality, according to Sarah Massey of the AFL-CIO Americas Union Movement, it lowered wages, heightened unemployment and increased pollution. Massey argues that the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is "going to be a failure just like NAFTA."
The widespread dissatisfaction among campus activists after President Bush’s reelection prompted student liberals to create the Roosevelt Institute (RI), the first student-run progressive think-tank, guided by the principles of Teddy, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. These young thinkers are adopting a strategy most often used by the right—incubating student opinion and creating a new generation of leaders.
With their elegant profiles, mute swans are the stars of many a fairy tale, but in real life they have become creatures of controversy. Some environmental groups and wildlife managers want to rid North America of the birds, which are native to Eurasia. Animal rights groups and some swan enthusiasts want to protect them.
"Six thousand kids die each day because of water-related diseases. That’s like 12 full 747s crashing every day." The speaker was Ryan Hreljac, age 13, addressing a room full of adults gathered for the launch of the Water Culture Network (WCN) at the Chelsea Piers in New York City. Despite his youth, Hreljac was speaking as a dedicated campaigner in the water wars.
Working out of a corner of a sunny Manhattan apartment, 49-year-old Kristin Bergfeld runs an innovative housecleaning and estate clearance business whose unwavering adherence to ecological principles might seem odd in New York, a city better known for its litter-strewn sidewalks and discarded automobile tires floating in the East River.
Comedian David Brenner once quipped that perhaps the best way to deal with air pollution might be to let it continue unabated so that eventually the particles would all get so big they would simple no longer fit up our noses.
On a mind-swept plateau atop Wyoming’s 10,000 foot Medicine Mountain, lies and ancient "Medicine Wheel." At its center is a buffalo skull carefully placed within a rock mound. Twenty-eight spokes radiate out to a circle of limestone rocks about 80 feet in diameter.
