As Americans, we spend about a quarter of our electricity budget on lighting, yet we’re surprisingly ignorant about the basic properties of the lightbulb, let alone the recent innovations in energy-saving lighting design that can cut consumer costs 30 to 60 percent a year.
Bring Out the Animal in Your Dog or Cat With Healthy Food Alternatives The wild dogs and cats that roamed the Earth thousands of years ago were the direct ancestors of the “domesticated creatures” we share our homes with today. As our pets, they’re “civilized,” but their physiology has remained remarkably unchanged from that of […]
Pleather is a Versatile, Though Controversial, Alternative to Leather Just when you were getting used to "fake" meat, faux fur and drinking milk from a plant, along comes "pleather," also known as "plastic leather." Before you hit the runway in your new non-leather jacket, however, you should know why some environmentalists still prefer hides or […]
Is There More To Your Bouquet Than Meets The Eye? Above the perfumed surface of much of the cut-flower industry lies an unlovely cloud of toxic pesticide use. With Mother’s Day nearly here, what’s a concerned consumer to do? The control and monitoring of chemical substances used in the production of both cut flowers and […]
Environmental Degradation and Civil War in the Gem Trade Gleaming gems shining from plush velvet cases in quiet jewelry stores make it easy to forget that some of these symbols of love and prosperity originated in distant lands, deep in the soil of conflict. Romancing the stone: Everyone agrees that gems, like these uncut diamonds, […]
These days there are plenty of eco-labels to choose from, but how do you know which ones to trust and which are just greenwashing?
A Consumer Guide to Music From the Earth Though the haunting and soaring sounds of the deep sea now echo in our consciousness, before the late 1960s human beings knew nothing of this hidden sonic world. It was an underwater microphone that first allowed Roger Payne and Scott McVay to hear the astonishing sounds of […]
Planning a Ceremony That Celebrates the Earth Thomas Jackel/Thomas Jackel Studio The “white” in “wedding” has come to mean “expensive.” Indeed, until this modern era of conspicuous consumption, most weddings were simple, at-home affairs attended only by close friends and family. Brides wore dresses they sewed themselves, flowers came from the garden, the good china […]
New toothpastes clean without the chemicals.
Green Mountain Spinnery’s Comfort Blanket URL: http://www.spinnery.com Tel: (800) 321-9665 Handwoven, checkered baby blankets featuring 80 percent wool (pesticide-free), 20 percent organic cotton, and low-impact dyes ($87) . The Kinder Garden URL: http://www.stackit.com/kinder Tel: (888) 8-KINDER Eco-baby gift baskets delivered in hand-painted pots, offering a variety of organic cotton wash cloths, bath care, wooden rattles, […]
