Power to the People
The Fuel Cell Leads the Way to Clean Energy
A Growing Legacy
Saving Heirloom Seeds for a Sustainable Future Kent Whealy is saving the Earth, one tomato at a time. Known in seed circles as America’s godfather of the heirloom seed movement, Whealy is the founder of the Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit organization dedicated to systematically collecting and preserving heritage seeds from the past. Whealy started […]
Thundering Wildlife
Zimbabwe Emerges as the Newest Eco-Destination Coasting along fiery-red African waters, with the bellowing of hippos drawing attention from the pristine quietness of sunset, Zimbabwe’s Zambezi River offers an ideal way to get in touch with an unspoiled ecosystem. On one bank, five elephants stroll single-file to the water’s edge, where they snatch up lilac-plumed […]
Making Money
Local Currencies and Bartering Networks Bring Economics Home Managing without money may sound like a radical idea, but for most of history—and even in many parts of the world today—economic life didn’t revolve around currency. Homo economicus either bartered or made do with what he caught, foraged or grew himself. While those days are mostly […]
Blowing Smoke
The Unhealthy Cigar’s Glamorous Image Is a Lot of Hot Air Demi Moore wants to light up your life. “There’s something about smoking a cigar that feels like a celebration,” says the star, a Cigar Aficionado cover celebrity. “It’s like a fine wine. There’s a quality, a workmanship, a passion that goes into the making […]
Flushed With Success
New Waste-Reducing Designs in Modern Toiletry Every day, Americans flush away about three billion gallons of drinkable water, not to mention millions of pounds of useful fertilizer. As Sim Van Der Ryn notes in his classic 1978 book The Toilet Papers, “Our excreta-not wastes, but misplaced resources-end up destroying food chains, food supply and water […]
Working Light
Shortcuts to the Greener Office The most environmentally-unfriendly place you step into all day may be the one in which you spend most of your waking hours. What’s that hostile environment? It’s your office. Think about it. The workplace welter of electronics gobbles watts, the office copier fairly inhales paper, and the air is tainted […]
Grim Reapers
Divers armed with plastic squeeze bottles, wearing masks that make them look like grim reapers, swim through shimmering coral fish in Southeast Asia. They select among the colorful prey and squirt a solution of sodium cyanide on the fish, stunning them. Most big fish survive the poison, but some small fish sink to the bottom, […]
Where the Land Meets the Sea
The Delicate Fabric of the World’s Coastal Regions is Being Torn Apart