Green Gossip: What Good Is It?
At US Weekly, there’s coverage of John Mayer’s involvement with the green group Reverb: Reverb, a non-profit environmental organization started by Guster frontman Adam Gardner and his eco-conscious wife, is teaming up with both tours, and will actually travel with Mayer. Their goal is to help reduce the “footprint” of…
The Car-free Life in Paris
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the trend toward building entire subdivisions as car-free communities here in Germany; though these neighborhoods eschew cars and roads for bikes and courtyards, they also offer a bit of storage space to house the bikes (either as covered garages or, in the single-family…
Don't Believe the Hype
First, full disclosure: Unlike Starre, I didn’t watch LiveEarth. Not on TV or in person or on the Internet. It was held, admittedly, for a good cause. But I’m not a huge fan of pop and celebrity, so something about the whole spectacle turned me off. And that’s tough to…
Liveblogging from Live Earth!
—Giants Stadium, 2:45 PM EST I’m here at Live Earth in New York, which is the last show in the worldwide music celebration so we can Save Our Selves (SOS). KT Tunstall KT Tunstall is up first, after a lackluster intro by Mr. Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon. Are you watching? If not, you…
Organics ARE Healthier, But What Will Really Convince People to Change?
Gulf of Mexico dead zone caused by fertilizer runoff from conventional farming. Image from NASA. Yet another report comes out announcing that organic food is higher in nutrition (in this case, heart-healthy flavonoids in tomatoes) than conventionally-raised crops. While that’s not really surprising to me, I choose organics and vegetarianism…
Party Pooper
Biking to work on the morning of July 5th I noticed scattered remnants of brightly colored paper. In some places boxes were piled and charred remains of something were close by. Fireworks. There was litter from exploded fireworks everywhere. The night before, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, it sounded like…
Car-free living
Car-free living is unbelievably easy here in Germany; the country has one of the most extensive train networks in the world. Every major city has a subway or tram line to get you in and out of the city quickly. And bike paths are laid through cities and farm fields,…
Green Summer Reads
On Earth Day (I know, I know, that was April, but better late than never), The San Francisco Chronicle compiled a list of environmental books to read. A few of the picks were what I’d consider greeny standard reading: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It…
A Festivus for the Rest of Us
Several days ago, on a small area of farmland in Tennessee, 80,000 gathered for the Bonnaroo Music Festival. The four-day celebration featured live music, shops, massage parlors, food marts, restaurants, crafts booths, and a “living quarter” all within a mini city created just for “the Roo.” “Mini city?” Sounds like…
Summer Sandals…..
There’s still plenty of summer left……and your feet want to breathe! Gotta love the very modern design of the Dopie, from the masters of cool eco-shoes, Terra Plana. Made from recycled EVA and foam rubber, the sandal (?) is one piece of molded material. When you get good at walking…
