Too Much Of A Good Thing The first evidence of a troubled lake is blue-green algae and a foul smell. The next: dead fish littering the shore. The culprit in this crime against nature is phosphorus pollution, a growing danger to delicate lake ecosystems. Although sewage treatment plants and the elimination years ago of phosphates […]
It sounds improbable: derelict south London land transformed into fields of lavender. But you can see and smell the two and a half acres planted on abandoned local council property by the visionary BioRegional Development Group (BDG). The group was founded in suburban Sutton five years ago on the green idea of sustainably producing local […]
In 1998, the former tribal council authorized the operation in a deal that supplied free land, roads, water and electricity to Sun Prairie in exchange for five percent of the profits and up to 250 jobs for one of the poorest counties in the nation. But when local residents found out that the plan was […]
Rusted tin cans, rotting carpets, refrigerators, a playground set, coffee makers, toilet seats, paint cans, deer carcasses stuffed into garbage cans, tons of household garbage, thousands of tires—the list reads like a cross between a town dump inventory and a tag sale. But instead, these items were hauled from culverts, quarries, riverbanks, roadside turnarounds and […]
Loved to Death The large, flat shells of living abalone once carpeted the rocky waters along California’s coastline from Mexico to Oregon. Prior to European settlement, Native Americans feasted on the mollusk’s muscular foot and employed its shell as a colorful decoration. More recently, Californians have established a multi-million dollar industry harvesting abalone and delivering […]
November 28-29, 1999. Our delegation of journalists, winners of the annual Population Institute reporting awards, arrives in New Delhi in the middle of the night and drives through nearly deserted streets to our hotel. The 4 a.m. calm is deceptive: at first light, the streets fill with belching diesel taxis and two-stroke motorcycle-based rickshaws, colorfully […]
Microcredit Benefits Small Businesses, the Environment, And Your Bank Account, Too Socially responsible investing has traditionally meant keeping your money away from negative investments, like tobacco companies and large polluters. But what if your money could turn a profit while actually having a positive impact? What if you lent part of your nest-egg to a […]
Salvaged Building Materials are Catching On In 1976, Dr. Dan Knapp quit his teaching job and started hanging around the dump in Lane County, Oregon. On a mission to rescue reusable items, he rooted through tons of trash, undaunted by the landfill's “No Salvage” signs. “I thought that [prohibition] was kind of silly,” he says, […]
Are Medicated Baby Powders Doing More Harm Than Good? Lead has been identified by the federal government as the foremost environmental health threat to American children. Nearly one million children still have elevated blood lead levels, over four percent of the population. Now, according to San Francisco's Center for Environmental Health (CEH), infants may be […]
Organic Cereals Start the Day Off Right Gradually over the last century, the American idea of a healthy breakfast evolved from eggs and sausage to Cheerios. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, American consumption of breakfast cereal increased dramatically between 1980 and 1997—by over 40 percent to 17 pounds per person, per […]
