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Green Burials

Green Burials

If you are the sort of person who strives for a green lifestyle, now is the time to consider how you want to be buried and make your wishes known. Otherwise, your burial will likely be at odds with your values—and the person you have tried, all your life, to be. Why? Because the typical [...]

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Let’s Put Overpopulation Back on the Agenda

Let’s Put Overpopulation Back on the Agenda

The world’s population topped 7 billion yesterday, according to the United Nations. Amazingly, it was covered in the media not so much as a problem as a milestone. Oh look, we’ve hit the big 7-0-0-0-0-0-0 mark. How can that be? Overpopulation is one of the root causes of our most pressing environmental problems — from [...]

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How Permeable Pavement Stood up to Hurricane Irene

How Permeable Pavement Stood up to Hurricane Irene

While riding out Hurricane Irene in suburban New Jersey at my brother’s house this weekend, I got to see permeable pavement in action. The storm dumped over 7 inches of rain onto his town in about 12 hours. As I was out walking my dog in the worst of it, I saw water streaming off [...]

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If You Need Inspiration…

If You Need Inspiration…

Watch this beautiful video on protecting mother earth. It combines extraordinary nature imagery with a stirring message. If you find yourself inspired, as I suspect you will, please share it. Created by bittusahgal and Sanctuary Asia

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Permeable Pavement

Permeable Pavement

Making pavement impervious to water only seems like a good idea. In fact, it creates a huge and serious problem. Whenever precipitation accumulates, the water travels across the pavement to street gutters, picking up contaminants along the way — from motor oil to dog poop. This noxious mix then flows into storm sewers, which empty [...]

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Does Global Warming Cause Tornadoes and Floods?

Does Global Warming Cause Tornadoes and Floods?

Flooding in Smithfield, KY, 5.13.11. Photo by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Is the rash of deadly tornadoes in Joplin, Tuscaloosa and other parts of the country related to global warming, as author and environmentalist Bill McKibben recently suggested in a satiric piece for the The Washington Post? How about the disastrous floods we’ve been [...]

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Raising Environmentally Aware Kids

Raising Environmentally Aware Kids

My father, Jack Eisenberg, circa 1971, in a land reservation near our home How do you raise environmentally aware kids? In seeking the answer, I look back to my own upbringing in the 1960s shortly before the first Earth Day. Like our neighbors, my family had recently begun using paper napkins instead of cloth and [...]

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Fracking Fairy Tale

Fracking Fairy Tale

I’m worried there’s going to be a mad dash to natural gas now that people have been reminded how dangerous nuclear power is by the nuclear disaster in Japan. I’m not a fan of nuclear power, but don’t want to see us jump from the frying pan into the fire either — particularly the “fire” [...]

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Nuclear Power vs. Gas — Danger on Both Sides

Nuclear Power vs. Gas — Danger on Both Sides

Were you scared by today’s report about radioactive contamination of Tokyo’s drinking water? Then how do you feel about radioactive gas drilling waste being discharged into rivers that feed drinking water supplies in the U.S.? It’s happening in Pennsylvania, in broad daylight, as reported in The New York Times. And no one has yet done [...]

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Japan’s Nuclear Crisis

Japan’s Nuclear Crisis

4.3.11 update: With yesterday’s report that highly radioactive water is leaking into the Pacific from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the nuclear disaster just got bigger — and resolution further away. How far does the danger extend? Not yet to America. Though daily air monitoring around the U.S. by the Environmental Protection Agency shows elevated levels [...]

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