Pleather is a Versatile, Though Controversial, Alternative to Leather Just when you were getting used to "fake" meat, faux fur and drinking milk from a plant, along comes "pleather," also known as "plastic leather." Before you hit the runway in your new non-leather jacket, however, you should know why some environmentalists still prefer hides or […]
The Slow Food Movement Takes on the Fast Food Culture The sun was setting for the Delaware Bay oyster. Once a prominent cash crop for harvesters along New Jersey’s southern shores, mismanagement, parasites and pollution depleted the river’s raw bar and decimated a once-thriving trade. This seafood lover’s treat, with its "fine, mild flavor [and] […]
Environment and Diet are Factors in Rising Adult-Onset Diabetes Seventeen million Americans have diabetes, and the incidence of new cases has increased 32 percent since 1990, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People are being diagnosed at younger and younger ages. Experts are still searching for the cause, but most say […]
Now that Internet stocks have boomed and busted, wonder how to get in early on the next big thing? Investors aren’t the only ones looking for the next darlings of Wall Street—stock market con artists are also busy inventing the next hot stock. How can you tell the difference between a scam and a good […]
Taos is More Than Great Skiing It was nearly 50 years ago that Swiss-born Ernie Blake flew over the Taos mountains in his Cessna 170, and noted that it offered skiing comparable to his native land. The Taos Ski Valley resort, now named as one of the top 10 destinations in North America by Skiing […]
The provincial outpost of Puerto Montt is home to one of Latin America’s fastest-growing industries: farmed salmon. If everything goes as scheduled, over the next five years an estimated $8 billion in salmon exports will flow from this sparsely populated backwater. While traditional fishing companies around the world sink into bankruptcy because of the plummeting […]
The taint of Nicholas Ceausecu’s dictatorship still lingers over Romania like a stubborn odor. The present is not much better: 44 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Corruption is taken for granted in Romania, but there are some hopeful signs, including new grassroots activism. In the small town of Sighisoara, for instance, a citizens group defeated the government’s plans to build a Dracula theme park.
Forget about Ralph Nader. The Green Party candidate to watch this fall is Jonathan Carter, who’s running for governor in Maine. It’s not that Carter is a household name nationally like Nader became two years ago. What makes Carter important around the country is that he is the first Green to get public financing for […]
New York City’s recycling program has suffered the biggest setback since its inception in 1989. In mid-June, at the 11th hour in budget negotiations, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council agreed to suspend the collection of plastics for one year and glass for two years, saving the city $45 million for the next two […]
It’s easy enough to make the world population explosion go away: Start with the "birth dearth" that could cause Europe to lose 24 percent of its population by 2060, and cut Japan’s in half by 2100. In England, women have an average of 1.7 children, below replacement level. In Spain, the fertility rate is 1.15—the lowest rate in the world. Stir in the fact that the United Nations (UN) recently revised a minor course correction in its population projections, finding that AIDS and declining fertility rates in the Third World will lead to 400 million fewer people sharing the planet by 2050.
