E Magazine articles from July 2007

E Magazine archives from July 2007

Self-fulfilling prophecy.(E Word)
July 1, 2007... It he notion that we might need nuclear energy to stave off global warming makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy that began when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 and promptly removed Jimmy Carter's...

No love for flex fuel?(ADVICE & DISSENT: Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... I was excited to see the cleaner cars article ("Here Come the... Cleaner, Greener Cars," feature, March/April 2007), but then found myself searching for what turned out to be a glaring omission: The article completely ignored 85 percent...

Talks green, drives green, owns a mansion.(ADVICE & DISSENT: Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... While it's nice to read that Hollywood types (Larry and Laurie David) drive a Prius ("Have Prius, Will Travel," sidebar, March/April 2007) what I want to know is how many Hollywood types are as legit as someone like Ed Begley, Jr., who lives in...

Get rid of politics--and hummers!(ADVICE & DISSENT: Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... This week I received my first issue of your magazine. I have been looking forward to reading it as a way to learn about environmental challenges and new ways to deal with them. However, I was very upset by the first article by Doug Moss...

Seeking: winter tomatoes.(ADVICE & DISSENT: Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... I couldn't help a little chuckle as I noticed an apparent dilemma posed by two juxtaposed articles in your recent issue. The first, "Local is the New Organic" (feature, March/April 2007), touted the growing excitement (pardon the pun) over...

Correction.(ADVICE & DISSENT: Letters from our readers)(Correction notice)
July 1, 2007... The organization Children's Health Environment Coalition mentioned in "Natural Baby, Toxic World" (feature, May/June 2007) has changed its name. It is now Healthy Child Healthy World and can be found online at www.healthy child.org.

Peter Garrett: oil on water.
July 1, 2007... Australian politician Peter Garrett, the bald-headed singer from Down Under rock band Midnight Oil, is looking to morph a highly successful music career to a position as the country's next environment minister. With an election looming in...

Clean energy classes.
July 1, 2007... A little more than a year ago, Daniel Abelson was, teaching classes at New York s Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. He had a history degree from the University of Michigan, but began to doubt his career direction. He started surfing the Internet,...

The cougar connection.
July 1, 2007... Researchers who demonstrated the link between wolf reintroduction in Yellowstone and the park's subsequent ecological upswing have set their sights on another top predator, the cougars of Utah's Zion National Park. Oregon State University's...

Mexico City's rising amphibian star.(axolotl)
July 1, 2007... A conservation project in Mexico City is trying to transform an odd-looking salamander into a "spokes-animal" for a threatened habitat. The axolotl is in danger of extinction in its native environment, but an effort to revive a green space in...

Restoring the prairie: the Tallgrass waves once more in the Midwest.(CURRENTS)(Midwestern United States)
July 1, 2007... In 1840, a young traveler named Eliza Steele ventured into Illinois and was dazzled by the tallgrass prairie near the city of Joliet. "A world of grass and flowers stretched around me," she exulted, "rising and falling in gentle undulations, as...

Water worries: drugs are turning up in drinking water and causing bizarre mutations.(CURRENTS)
July 1, 2007... From inter-sex fish in the Potomac River to frog mutations in Wisconsin, federal officials are spending this summer studying the effects of pharmaceuticals such as pain killers and depression medicine on the environment, because the drugs have...

Rough terrain for refugees: when people flee civil war and drought, the environment is often a casualty.(CURRENTS)(World Refugee Day)
July 1, 2007... Survival is the highest priority for the nearly 10 million refugees in the world (21 million if you include internally displaced persons and asylum-seekers). While international relief agencies struggle to protect people displaced by wars,...

Opening the cages: The Humane movement to liberate poultry.(CURRENTS)(Humane Society of the United States)
July 1, 2007... Over easy or whisked into omelets, eggs are a breakfast staple. But the hens that lay the eggs get little appreciation for their efforts. Visit 95 percent of the egg operations in the U.S. today, and you'll find as many as a quarter million...

Poisoning pets.(UPDATES)
July 1, 2007... In our book Green Living and in the pages of E (see "Diet for a Small Pet," Consumer News, May/June 2002 or "Perks for Pets," Consumer News, November/December 2004) we have consistently warned about dangerous ingredients in commercial pet...

Wildlife refuges get the shaft.(UPDATES)(lack of funding for maintenance and operations)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Despite a proposed $12 million funding increase by the Bush administration earlier this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is still going to cut way back on services and operations at more than 500 national wildlife refuges across...

Chemical car seats.(UPDATES)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... All car seats are not created equal. While parents fret over the toxins in plastic toys and teething rings (see "The Battle to Ban Toxic Toys," sidebar, May/June 2007), they now have to consider what chemicals may be lurking in their car seat....

A crude report.(UPDATES)(petroleum price impacts)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Have we already reached peak oil--the point where its availability falls short of meeting growing demand (see "The Outlook on Oil," cover story, January/February 2006)? Prices rose sharply in the early days of the summer driving season....

A nuclear Phoenix? Concern about climate change is spurring an atomic renaissance.(benefits of nuclear power to climate change)
July 1, 2007... Sitting in the belly of the beast--Dominion's 2,000-megawatt Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, Connecticut--the company's chief nuclear officer, Dave Christian, seems an unlikely environmentalist. But he says concern about climate...

The clean energy path: renewable options.
July 1, 2007... Looking forward, the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration sees no great breakthrough for renewable sources of electrical power in the next 23 years. According to its 2007 outlook report, "Oil, coal and natural gas still are...

No nukes, go nukes: two views.(Interview)
July 1, 2007... Dr. Ken Schultz, a registered nuclear engineer, is the California-based operations director for the energy group at General Atomics and a past board member of the American Nuclear Society. His current specialty is developing hydrogen from...

Nuclear hydrogen: the clean byproduct.
July 1, 2007... Some nuclear advocates are hoping the U.S. will eventually embrace a zero-emissions hydrogen energy economy. Strange as it may seem, nuclear strategists have plans (enthusiastically supported by the Bush administration) to generate hydrogen...

Living with radiation: human health and nuclear exposure.
July 1, 2007... Inside the "Chernobyl Zone"--an 18-mile circle around the nuclear complex that caught fire and exploded in April of 1986, spewing radiation across 150,000 square miles of European territory--there is an abandoned amusement park, complete with...

Nuking food: contamination fears and market possibilities spur an irradiation revival.
July 1, 2007... India alone grows 1,000 varieties of mangoes in such delectable variations as the sweet, orange-skinned Alphonso, the Bombay Green and the Bangalora. Here in the U.S., we rarely see more than one lonely variety at the local supermarket, but...

Calling the shots: parents opting out of immunizations raise serious public health issues.(Your Health)
July 1, 2007... At age two, Barbara Loe Fisher's oldest son went to the pediatrician for his DPT shot and something went terribly wrong. She watched, terrified, as his eyes rolled back into his head and his body went limp. He had temporary paralysis. But the...

Kicking the white stuff: how to get more color (and health) into our diets.(Eating Right)(Column)
July 1, 2007... Some years ago, I furtively eyed a couple in a grocery line buying fresh lemons and garlic and tried to imagine the exotic food they would make with such bonafide ingredients. Back then I mostly are the Standard American Diet (SAD)--prepackaged...

Cooling off: beating the heat without punishing the planet.(House & Home)
July 1, 2007... Isn't it ironic that we're contributing to global warming while cooling our homes? Heating and cooling systems in the U.S. together account for 150 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) pumped into the atmosphere each year, according to the U.S....

The last mile: donate your car (and make a green group happy).(Money Matters)(Earthshare)
July 1, 2007... It's finally time to retire the old clunker. After 150,000 miles, it's still running, but beginning to look shabby around the edges and smoke is pouring out of its rapidly rusting tailpipe. A new hybrid will put you back in the Earth's good...

Where the organic flowers grow: bed & breakfasts get serious about the environment.(Going Green)
July 1, 2007... The Graycote Inn in Bar Harbor, Maine is a bed and breakfast in a sprawling, historic 1881 Victorian, with lace canopies on the beds and wood-burning fireplaces--a five-minute drive from the seasonal splendors of Acadia National Park. It's also...

Planet-safe picnics: going "zero waste" with biodegradable Greenware.(Consumer News)
July 1, 2007... With biodegradable plates, cups and cutlery, picknickers can enjoy eating outdoors without leaving a lasting reminder in the local landfill. Plastics made from renewable resources like corn and potato starch (biopolymers), and tableware...

Fake the bake.(Tools for Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(skin tanning products)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Though the days of slathering on baby oil and baking to a crisp over a long summer day are history, the desire for that sun-kissed glow has remained. There was lots of speculation that skin cancer fears would make pale skin "hot" again, but...

Flamboyant farming.(Tools for Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(The Real Dirt on Farmer John)(Movie review)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... To make a compelling documentary, you need compelling characters. Or at least one. Producer/director Taggart Siegd has found that in John Peterson, the farm boy-turned-radical-turned organic pioneer whose life is the subject of The Real Dirt on...

Natural phones?(Tools for Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(ringtones)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... Who hasn't been annoyed by a stranger's cell phone playing the anemic electronic intro to some annoying pop song? The original was bad enough. The Center for Biological Diversity says enough of that, and offers--completely free--Endangered...

Here's a story of a lovely baby ...(Tools for Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(Baby Bunch)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... You know those clever people who turn their gift of towels and washcloths into mini wedding cakes? The Baby Bunch is determined that every baby shower attendee should feel the same creative thrill without so much as looking at a glue gun. And...

Weird animals and wind patterns.(Tools for Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... In the blogosphere, animal stories are a welcome relief from all the focus on celebrity antics. Authors of www.zooil logix.blogspot.com have unearthed lots of bizarre, entertaining factoids. The blind, worm-like amphibian called the caecilian...

A guide to greener cleaning.(Tools FOR Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)
July 1, 2007... When it comes to environmental commitment, all we need is a guide. There are many, many of these guides to chose from, not neglecting E's own contribution to the genre: Green Living: The E Magazine Handbook for Living Lightly on the Earth,...

Guide to the simple life.(Tools FOR Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(A Slice of Organic Life)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Guides are much more readable when they come in large print with lots of color photographs. Even if the suggestion to "Keep a Few Geese" seems laughable in my small neighborhood inhabited seasonally by endless flocks of Canadian geese, the...

Guide to hybrid hype.(Tools FOR Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(The Essential Hybrid Car Handbook: A Buyer's Guide)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Considering the amazing public interest, it was only a matter of time before someone wrote a consumer's guide to hybrid vehicles. As more hybrid cars and trucks enter the market every year, the public is bound to be confused in its efforts to...

A guide to conscious shopping.(Tools FOR Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(The Better World Shopping Guide)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Representing 15 years of distilled research, Ellis Jones' The Better World Shopping Guide (New Society Publishers, $9.95) grades products from A to F based on social and environmental records, providing a simple shopping list for concerned...

The celebrity guide.(Tools for Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... If there is one thing that green guides have taught us, it's that we don't have to try very hard. Sometimes the suggestions they offer are so simple, it's embarrassing that we need to be told at all. Take The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to...

The British guide.(Tools for Green Living: Resources for Eco-Awareness and Action)(How to Live a Low Carbon Life: The Individual's Guide to Stopping Climate Change)(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2007... Ever get the sense that the Brits are more serious about reducing their climate footprint than we are? How to Live a Low Carbon Life: The Individual's Guide to Stopping Climate Change by Chris Goodall (Earthscan, $24.95) confirms it. Not only...

Better barbecues and lightweight litter.(EARTH TALK: Questions & Answers About Our Environment)
July 1, 2007... I saw warnings on bags of charcoal that said carcinogens are released when the briquettes are burned. Is it harmful to breathe in the smoke from a charcoal grill? Joe Sliwa, via e-mail Barbecue grills can be problematic for two reasons....