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 […]
Waste Exchanges Save Energy and Landfill Space Ancient wisdom teaches that one person's trash is another person's gold. The pundits never predicted, however, that the “gold” would take names like “diphenylacetonitrile” and “Povidone K-30 BP/EP.” There's no magic alchemy involved—just a growing business called waste exchange. Waste exchanges, also known as materials exchanges, are services […]
Following Failed Trade Talks, the Debate Rages On When a world conference on the once-sleepy issue of trade came to Seattle late last November, the press got the soundbyte they were looking for: 50,000 demonstrators crowded the city, leaving a trail of shattered windows and police barricades in their wake. But despite a handful of […]
Earth Day 2000 is shaping up as a major, watershed event. In addition to thousands of smaller celebrations, a huge April 22 rally in Washington will feature musicians and speakers reaching the multitudes from a solar-powered stage. E’s coverage in this issue is designed both to highlight the spectacular array of events taking place across […]
The Biggest Earth Day Ever Demands "Clean Energy Now!"
