Americans love to gripe about paying their taxes, and April 15 is both a day of national dread and the butt of a thousand bad jokes. But the same people who crowd local town halls to complain about a minuscule jump in their mill rates are quick to change the channel when they happen across […]
If We Shift the Tax Burden From Work to Waste, Everyone Benefits
State by State Though green tax reform isn’t exactly becoming the law of the land, it is beginning to make inroads on the state level, where a blizzard of bills have been introduced and a healthy dialogue is building. Here’s a state-by-state look at some exciting developments: Maine. Progressive financial ideas are alive and well […]
The Income Tax’s Progressive Roots One argument against a tax shift is that the change would violate the spirit of the progressive income tax. It sounds plausible, but in reality the opposite is true. If Congress kept the income tax for higher incomes and shifted part of the rest to polluting natural resources, the result […]
A Murky Tale of the Florida Reefs. Is Salvation Possible? It was 20 years ago that I first dove the clear and fertile waters of the Florida Keys. Just five protected miles off Key West, the reef was close enough to get to in a small boat, shallow enough for any snorkeler to enjoy, and […]
Earth-Friendly Gardening is Gaining Ground
Infectious Diseases, Once Thought Near Eradication, Show a Remarkable Persistence Almost 20 years ago, smallpox was eradicated from the face of the Earth, and medical science was feeling bullish. With good reason: as James W. Brown and Elin A. Gursky wrote recently in the Medical Laboratory Reporter, at that time “it appeared civilization’s oldest enemy—infectious […]
When Mary and Howard Maynard were building a new home in Connecticut, the design included an 18-foot high wall of glass that spanned nearly the entire east side of the structure. Wood framing would not have been effective. “That vast space had a number of tricky structural implications,” says Howard Maynard, adding that the engineer […]
A Helping Hand for the Green Investor The socially-conscious investor with $5,000 to put at risk can choose from a variety of specially tailored mutual funds and financial planning services. But suppose the green investor has $5 million in family money and needs some specialized attention in deciding where it should go? The San Francisco-based […]
Imagine a lone fisherman quietly and gracefully paddling his dugout canoe through the submerged grasses of an Amazonian lake. He is there today, following a centuries-old tradition of nourishing his family with the many species of fish which once proliferated in the world’s largest river basin. A few years ago, however, his future was not […]
