Look for the Eco Label
These days there are plenty of eco-labels to choose from, but how do you know which ones to trust and which are just greenwashing?
Got Organic Milk? The Natural Dairy Business is Going Mainstream
Milk, cheese, butter, ice cream…all Bessie’s bounty, for sure. But if you want to go organic, it means a trip to the health food store, right? Wrong. If you’ve steered your shopping cart down a dairy aisle lately, you’ve noticed that certified-organic milk products are now as common as, well, cows. Despite the fact that […]
Painting Safe
Environmental Alternatives for the Chemically Sensitive–and the Chemically Concerned If you live in a house built before 1920, chances are that the lead paint that coated its walls left a toxic legacy. Although today’s paints have gotten the lead out, they’re still a witches’ brew. According to Green Alternatives magazine, there are about 15,000 chemicals […]
Green Shares
Stock Choices for the Bold and Cautious Investor Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver, Canada is arguably the most exciting company that environmental investors have ever seen. What makes Ballard (stock symbol: BDLP) so appealing is that its fuel cells can generate clean power without combustion. Eventually, fuel cells could provide energy for everything from cellular […]
Path of Destruction
The Limits of "Leave No Trace" Few hikers are tougher on wilderness than the Escondido Cougars high school football team. Before starting their 1999 fall season, 30 Cougars tackled the Sierra Nevada wilderness for pre-season bonding. The San Diego-county team pitched tents for a week at Deer Lakes, an idyllic trio of lakes in the […]
Crying Rivers
On January 30, an estimated 100,000 cubic meters of polluted mud and wastewater escaped from a break in the dam of the Baia Mare gold mine in Northwest Romania, and spilled into the adjacent Lapus River. From there, it swept through the Somes and the Tisza Rivers, crossed the border into Hungary, flowed into the […]
Lobster Tales
It began when lobstermen throughout the Long Island Sound began pulling up their pots empty last fall. As the climax to an especially productive decade, the fishery had spiraled in a swift and devastating collapse. The parasite now pinpointed for the massive die-off of commercial lobsters already existed in the Sound, but had multiplied in […]
The Drumstick Tree
A Natural Multi-Vitamin Which tree grows quickly, provides tasty and nutritious food, is both resilient and common in tropical areas, and can even purify water—but has been overlooked by modern medicine? The Moringa or “drumstick” tree (moringa oleifera) “is an all-natural, inexpensive and accessible multi-vitamin,” said Lowell Fuglie, West Africa representative of Church World Service. […]
The Yellowstone Wolves Win One
The 300 gray wolves that roam the wilds of Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho won’t be leaving anytime soon, thanks to a decision by Denver’s 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. In January, the appeals court overturned a 1997 ruling that called for the removal of the wolves that had been introduced to Yellowstone and […]
Crowding Out Yellowstone’s Bears
The land that surrounds Yellowstone National Park is famous for its mountain vistas and wide open spaces, for its trout fishing and wildlife viewing opportunities. But as population shifts and development patterns bring in more people to a region popularly known as America’s Serengeti, the outskirts of the nation’s original national park are looking more […]