E Magazine articles from July 2006

E Magazine archives from July 2006

No whining.
July 1, 2006... The global warming "points of light" featured in this issue represent a start--and just a start--in our epic journey to confront and turn around the, massive climatic changes that are already underway around the world. As you'll see, in the...

The call of the land.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... Thanks for the article "Growing Farmers" (Currents, March/April 2006). As a student in the late 1970s at Exeter Academy, I wanted nothing more than to plant a garden, but manual labor was frowned upon. I settled for running the Outdoor Club,...

Car sharing catches on.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... I love your magazine and enjoyed the recent article about product service systems and car sharing ("The Service Economy" Currents, March/April 2006). I was a little bummed, however, that you only mentioned the two for-profit car-sharing...

Decrying desalination.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... While the wave energy technology featured in your article on desalination in Australia ("Fresh Water from Down Under the Waves," Currents, March/April 2006) sounds like a forward-thinking solution for powering such operations, it is not a...

One lump or two?(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... In regards to your recent Your Health article ("Sugar or Sweetener?" March/ April 2006), I was surprised to see that you left out three of my favorite natural sweeteners. The first is stevia, which is plant derived. This sweetener has been...

Pioneers of papier mache.(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... In her piece on the house built from recycled paper ("A House Made From Paper," House and Home, January/February 2006), Beverly Burmeier aptly referred to papier mache--the French words for "chewed paper." According to Brewer's Dictionary of...

Tax relief for organic growers.(Department of Agriculture)
July 1, 2006... In a turn away from chemical-intensive farming, countries around the world are adopting policies to support conversions to organic agriculture. Whether wealthy, like Italy, or poor, like Thailand, governments are digging up ways to help growers...

CDs play a new tune.(Craig Minowa of Earthology Records)(Company overview)
July 1, 2006... It's a cold and rainy spring day, and Craig Minowa is stomping around in his bare feet. Beside him, his band Cloud Cult roars through some old and new favorites for a small but dedicated crowd of Connecticut college students. This isn't just...

Chemical consequences.
July 1, 2006... Here's a story about an odd benefit of global warming (at least in terms of local people's health): A five-year drought in Mexico has brought an end to farming for many people, replacing heavy use of agricultural chemicals with ranching. ...

Forever wild in Alabama.
July 1, 2006... In 1992, Alabama faced a unique situation--a surplus of income from offshore drilling. Voters overwhelmingly backed a plan that would use the money to save the state's rapidly vanishing landscape. The program was called Forever Wild and since...

Flooding the grassroots: Gulf green groups assess the damage--and make some modest gains.
July 1, 2006... Gulf Coast residents, already faced with some of the nations toughest environmental challenges, didn't really need Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to emphasize their vulnerability. Environmental groups in the region are short on paid staff but long...

Silent spring: what's happening to honey bees?
July 1, 2006... On a warm April morning, John Keeley's farm southeast of Portland, Oregon is lively with sound. His two dogs bark as they dash around the farm's dark wooden buildings; his sheep and lambs bleat as they waddle across rolling green fields. Birds...

How green is that garden? With Oil Revenue, Venezuela is pushing organic agriculture.
July 1, 2006... In the heart of the fast-paced city of Caracas, Venezuela, Norali Verenzuela is standing in a garden dressed in jeans and work boots. She is the director of the state-initiated Organoponico Bolivar I, the first urban, organic garden to show its...

Flashing lights: danger: polluting school bus ahead.
July 1, 2006... Every day millions of parents put their children on big yellow school buses, trusting that they will be healthy and safe on their route to school. The fact is, however, that the 24 million kids who ride buses an average of an hour and a half...

Circuit overload: schools waste $1.5 billion in energy costs every year.(Department of Energy)
July 1, 2006... Have you ever driven by a school in your community at night and seen the lights blazing, when you know the building is empty? Do you wonder how much money and energy that wastes? The United States Department of Energy has an answer for you,...

Air today, trouble tomorrow.(polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons effect on expecting mothers)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Another prenatal precaution has been added to the running list: don't breathe! A number of studies have concluded exposure to air pollution, such as that found routinely in major American cities, can adversely affect fetal development (see...

Prairie dog power.(federal protection )(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Prairie dogs are keystone species that endangered black-footed ferrets depend on for survival. But a century of mismanagement has reduced prairie dogs to five percent of their historic numbers (see "Open Season on 'Varmints,'" cover story,...

The gas price blame game.(Congress calls for a replacement for ethanol)
July 1, 2006... Record gas prices have prompted heated debate about the root causes, leading some to point their fingers at ethanol, which in the U.S. is usually made from corn (see "Grass to Gas," Currents, May/June 2005). Congress had recently mandated...

Points of light: the world wakes up to climate change.
July 1, 2006... There are 60,000 square feet of solar panels on San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, enough to power 675 houses, and all new municipal buildings in the city by the bay must comply with U.S. Green Building Council standards. In Portland,...

Natural aging: going gently into the golden years.
July 1, 2006... In this, the year Paul McCartney turns 64, a new wave of senior citizens is upon us. Don't use that term, though. "Seasoned citizens," is the new label du jour for aging Baby Boomers and members of the "Silent Generation?' And it's true: look...

Softer drinks: natural sodas without the sugar overdose.(Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration, American Beverage Association)
July 1, 2006... Soft drinks can be found almost anywhere in the world, but nowhere are they as ubiquitous as the U.S., where 450 different types are sold and more than 2.5 million vending machines dispense sugar-sweetened beverages around the clock. The...

Flower power: the medicinal properties of popular plants.(House & Home)(Editorial)
July 1, 2006... Gardening is the world's most popular and enduring recreational activity, feeding the spirit and the body, reducing dependence on the florist and the supermarket, and, when done organically, curtailing the use of toxic pesticides and chemical...

The power of the proxy: bringing change one vote at a time.
July 1, 2006... In the wake of corporate scandals at Enron and elsewhere, stock market investors are becoming increasingly aware of the power of voting their "proxies" (something like absentee ballots) to help steer corporate decision-making. Anyone who owns a...

Top ten rules of eco-travel: how to make a difference when you go.(Going Green)
July 1, 2006... Planning your next vacation? How about Nicaragua? Or Cambodia? What about Borneo? All of these destinations have thrown their names into the tourism market, thanks in large part to ecotourism, which the New York Times called "the buzzword of...

Greening up the downline: multi-level marketing comes of age.
July 1, 2006... Since the 1950s, multi-level marketing (MLM) companies like Amway have sold billions of dollars worth of products to consumers through independent individual distributors, who take a cut on every sale they make as well as on the sales of other...

Baby style.
July 1, 2006... If, as Buddha said, it's true that the word manifests as the deed, +E (Positive Energy) Awareness Apparel is on the right track to making our world more just, safe and healthy. The company's 100 percent certified organic cotton t-shirts, tanks...

From trash to trendy.
July 1, 2006... When you see a candy bar wrapper lying on the ground, do you think of a fabulously chic handbag? Maybe that idea never crossed your mind, but to the fashion geniuses at Ecoist, such refuse becomes the fabric for an uber stylish clutch. The...

Solar savings.
July 1, 2006... Since my uncle quit smoking 20 years ago, he has been using a computer program to calculate how much money he's saved on the cost of cigarettes ($45,000 to date), not to mention the benefit of better health. That's the same idea behind the...

Are you down with opt?
July 1, 2006... Optimum Polymer Technologies (OPT) has a way for you to put the brakes on water waste and pollution when you wash your car. Washing and rinsing with a hose uses up to 30 gallons of water, and the maps, suds and residues often wash into storm...

The office.
July 1, 2006... Greening your workspace can now go beyond those withering plants on your desk, because several companies offer office supplies that biodegrade, contain recycled material or are otherwise Earth-friendly. Sustainable Group focuses on presentation...

Comfortable clothing.(Gramicci new clothing range using organic cotton and wool)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Looking for comfortable, quality eco-friendly clothing? California-based Gramicci's fall 2006 line might be just what you are searching for. Gramicci produces a variety of clothing ranging from Western-styled flannel shirts and polo tees to...

Summer soothers.
July 1, 2006... As temperatures rise outside, we tend to get a little more active, resulting in scrapes, bruises, sunburns, sore muscles and so on. Before you grab just any first aid ointment, consider a homeopathic alternative. Boiron offers Arnica Cream for...

Easy ways to save the seas.(50 Ways to Save the Ocean)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Want to help preserve our oceans? Get married on a wild beach, says author and advocate David Helvarg, who insists doing something so memorable could convince a person to invest time or money into preserving the space. In his latest book, 50...

Super shrooms.(Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... These days, for better or worse, it seems that the most effective way to protect something is to explain it in terms that we can all relate to and prove its value to humanity. Paul Stamets does both in Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help...

Happier kid meals.(Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know about Fast Food)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... Chew On This: Everything You Don't Want to Know about Fast Food (Houghton Mifflin, $16) is the kid-meal version of Fast Food Nation, the 2001 polemic that woke up burger-imbibers everywhere. Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson, Fast Food Nation's...

Dam debate.(Deep Water: The Epic Struggle over dams, Displaced People, and the Enironment)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... The World Bank, once a heavy booster of dams, has decreased support of new major dam projects significantly over the last 35 years as current dams become increasingly problematic. Author Jacques Leslie visited heavily dammed areas in India,...

Northwest architecture.(Toward a New Regionalism)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... If you're going to live in the Pacific Northwest, it would be wise for your home to make peace with the elements. A surge of regional architects now understand this, and are adopting sustainable elements into their designs, coined the New...

Drilling in the maternity ward.(Being Caribou: Fives Months on Foot with an Arctic Herd (Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... What exactly would opening Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling mean? That is exactly what Karsten Heuer sets out to find in Being Caribou (The Mountaineers Books, $24.95). In the tome, Heuer and his newlywed wife,...

Mining casts a dark shadow and the new Hummer rolls into town.
July 1, 2006... Several tragic accidents recently brought to light the dangers of mining. What are the environmental impacts of mining, including their long-term effects on public and worker health?--Ed Kelley, Albuquerque, NM Mining is an inherently...