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 […]
Hydrogen’s True Believer Amory B. Lovins is research director and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a diverse think tank founded in Snowmass, Colorado in 1982 that works with industry to pursue what it calls “soft” or sustainable energy paths. In a highly prescient 1995 article in The Atlantic Monthly, Lovins sketched out the […]
Americans may love their cars, but more and more of us are learning to love being car-free….
Is the federal Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) dangerously alarmist? Does Consumer Reports magazine “use junk science to develop ‘sensational’ reports that advance the…extreme environmental positions” of its publisher, Consumers Union? Does second-hand smoke cause “no added risk” to people living or working with smokers? Are saccharin, formaldehyde insulation, pesticides, PCBs and bovine growth hormone […]
