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You’ll never see plastic in the same light after these three stories. The Plastic Bank tackles poverty with plastic as currency. Preserve turns yesterday’s yogurt cups into tomorrow’s toothbrush. And Dirtball transforms plastic water bottles into Green Jeans.
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 New Bank Creates Currency from Plastic Waste in the Ocean
 What if all the plastic trash currently polluting waterways could be used as currency? Photo: Shutterstock |
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Green building is no longer a thing of the future. Find out how architects and builders use solar panels, plastic bottles and straw bale insulation for ten environmentally friendly structures.
It’s a lot easier than you think to “go green” — many of these suggestions require little effort, yet can make a big difference for the environmental. Watch a video and read more about saving the earth.
Sure, the Emerald City looked green, but you won’t need green-tinted glasses to see how environmentally friendly the cities on this list are. What makes a city amazingly green?
Sustainable urbanism is no longer a futuristic dream. Welcome to five cities around the world that will be turning a radical shade of green in the coming decades.
We’re currently suspended between two ages: a time dependent on fossil fuels and a future dominated by renewable energy sources. Yet not everyone is sold on this vision, so a number of myths about renewable energy persist.
For those who reduce, reuse and recycle to the beat of their own drum, here are some of the wackier ways to help better the environment and lessen your carbon footprint.
What makes a city walkable? It’s not just sidewalks. You have to be able to access jobs, stores and places of entertainment while feeling comfortable and safe. What are five cities in the United States that have risen to the challenge?
It’s evident the debate over climate change is a heated one. Are skeptics clouding the public judgment for money? Are climate-change believers merely alarmists who risk the present for the future?
After sloughing off your dead skin, what happens to those plastic microbeads that wash down the drain? Some make it all the way to the ocean and linger until they become a very unhealthy supper.
They may seem like a fun water sport or a noisy nuisance, but whatever your stance on personal watercraft, there’s no denying they pollute. So how bad are they?
Everyone knows air pollution isn’t good for your lungs, but it turns out that it’s not doing your heart any favors either. Why do the particulates in the air we breathe interfere with our heart’s basic job: to keep things ticking?
One company’s SkyMine technology aims to capture industrial carbon dioxide emissions and turn them into an endlessly useful product: Baking soda. But how do pollutants become a household staple?
Electrifying dance moves might impress your friends, but they usually don’t help power the club you’re dancing in. What’s piezoelectricity, and how could it help twist the future of energy generation?
Earthquakes are “natural” disasters, right? Yes, but that doesn’t mean the shifting plates that cause them can’t be aggravated by human industry.
You’ve booked a safari with the environment in mind. There’s just one problem: Trans-Atlantic flights aren’t very green. Can green tags make your gas-guzzling trip carbon neutral?
Haunted by ideas of your body polluting the Earth after you’re gone? Microbial fuel cell technology could allow you to harness the energy of your own decomposition to power batteries.
Carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels is a prime suspect in global warming. Could we mitigate the problem by burying the CO2 deep within the ocean?
As alternative energy sources sputter to take off on Earth, scientists are turning an eye toward space. What are the most promising celestial options, and when could they be in use?
The ozone layer prevents much of the sun’s ultraviolet light from reaching the Earth. But there’s a problem: a gaping hole the size of Antarctica. What can we do about it?
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Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring“, an early voice for our environment in 1962
See why Carson’s analysis is more relevant now than ever. Buy Silent Spring at Amazon.com |
Rachel Carson, writer, scientist, and ecologist, grew up simply in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania. Her mother bequeathed to her a life-long love of nature and the living world that Rachel expressed first as a writer and later as a student of marine biology. Carson graduated from Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College) in 1929, studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and received her MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932.
She was hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio scripts during the Depression and supplemented her income writing feature articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. She began a fifteen-year career in the federal service as a scientist and editor in 1936 and rose to become Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
She wrote pamphlets on conservation and natural resources and edited scientific articles, but in her free time turned her government research into lyric prose, first as an article “Undersea” (1937, for the Atlantic Monthly), and then in a book, Under the Sea-wind (1941). In 1952 she published her prize-winning study of the ocean, The Sea Around Us, which was followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955. These books constituted a biography of the ocean and made Carson famous as a naturalist and science writer for the public. Carson resigned from government service in 1952 to devote herself to her writing.
She wrote several other articles designed to teach people about the wonder and beauty of the living world, including “Help Your Child to Wonder,” (1956) and “Our Ever-Changing Shore” (1957), and planned another book on the ecology of life. Embedded within all of Carson’s writing was the view that human beings were but one part of nature distinguished primarily by their power to alter it, in some cases irreversibly.
Disturbed by the profligate use of synthetic chemical pesticides after World War II, Carson reluctantly changed her focus in order to warn the public about the long term effects of misusing pesticides. In Silent Spring (1962) she challenged the practices of agricultural scientists and the government, and called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world.
Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some in government as an alarmist, but courageously spoke out to remind us that we are a vulnerable part of the natural world subject to the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem. Testifying before Congress in 1963, Carson called for new policies to protect human health and the environment. Rachel Carson died in 1964 after a long battle against breast cancer. Her witness for the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.
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The idea of buying Jeans made from garbage is exciting, but it was kind of sad to hear after calling their customer service department that the jeans are not USA made …comment by Point4CounterPoint: Sustainable living … imported!
Low in calories, naturally fat- and cholesterol free, more potassium than four bananas, and super hydrating – these are just a few of the many benefits ascribed to America’s latest health craze: coconut water.Dubbed “Mother Nature’s sports drink” by marketers, the demand is skyrocketing, propelled by celebrity and athlete endorsements and promises to hydrate the body and help with a whole host of conditions, from hangovers to cancer and kidney stones.
But is coconut water capable of delivering on all the promises or is it hype?
Naturally refreshing, coconut water has a sweet, nutty taste. It contains easily digested carbohydrate in the form of sugar and electrolytes. Not to be confused with high-fat coconut milk or oil, coconut water is a clear liquid in the fruit’s center that is tapped from young, green coconuts.
It has fewer calories, less sodium, and more potassium than a sports drink. Ounce per ounce, most unflavored coconut water contains 5.45 calories, 1.3 grams sugar, 61 milligrams (mg) of potassium, and 5.45 mg of sodium compared to Gatorade, which has 6.25 calories, 1.75 grams of sugar, 3.75 mg of potassium, and 13.75 mg of sodium.
Coconut water has less sugar than many sports drinks and much less sugar than sodas and some fruit juices. Plain coconut water could be a better choice for adults and kids looking for a beverage that is less sweet. But don’t overdo it, says Lillian Cheung, DSc, RD, of Harvard School of Public Health. “One 11-ounce container has 60 calories and if you drink several in one day, the calories can add up quickly,” Cheung says.
Cheung, co-author of Savor Mindful Eating, Mindful Life, suggests being mindful about beverage choices and reading labels to choose plain coconut water and avoid those with added sugar or juices, which are no different from other sugary beverages.
