I’ve recently learned about the act of “fake recycling” from a beloved friend; a friend who I thought was an earth friendly do-gooder and recycler. Little did I know until she confessed, she was only pretending to recycle View Full Article

Along with the colorful leaves, brisk weather, and longer hours of autumn come three months of holidays marking religious and nonreligious days of celebration and reflection. These occasions are marked by the opportunity for excessive consumerism View Full Article

Halloween is coming up, signaling the beginning of chocolate season (which will last through the following few months). How much chocolate do Americans consume? Nearly 12 pounds each, annually. Have you ever wondered where that chocolate comes from? View Full Article

Halloween can be a scary time for many reasons—ghosts and goblins, witches and vampires, or mummies and monsters to name a few. Scarier still are the effects of the holiday on our children and our planet. View Full Article

It is expected that Sumatran orangutans will be extinct in 10 years and the Bornean in 2012. The Sumatran tiger, Asian elephant, and Sumatran rhinoceros populations are also in imminent danger of extinction. The reason is the agribusiness of palm and palm kernel oil. View Full Article

I was in a grocery store yesterday that packages almost all of its produce. By “package” I don’t mean that the broccoli stalks are rubber banded together, I mean that the broccoli stalks are completely wrapped in a thin plastic. The broccoli was organic, but that positive characteristic was overshadowed by the plastic wrapping View Full Article

One of the biggest expenses of energy and money in a residence (or any building) is climate control - heating and cooling, sometimes consuming over half the building's energy. Yet one big mistake people make in trying to cut back is doing too much, too soon. View Full Article

With recent hype swirling in the media about “Going Green” people are beginning to wonder whether becoming environmental friendly is just another fad, like acid washed jeans or tube tops. In an effort to ensure that becoming eco-friendly doesn’t find it’s way to the last season’s clearance sale rack, I have listed a few easy ways to stickK to your new greener roots View Full Article

Change for the better might often sound simple, but it isn't always easy. Habitual change can take a lot longer than the simplicity of the necessary actions might imply. You know you can save money and have a smaller environmental footprint by turning the thermostat down five or even ten degrees, but an abrupt change might be too painful to maintain. View Full Article

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, the prime question in all of our minds is, what should we get our wonderful mothers on their special day? This Mother’s Day instead of the ordinary gift, why not try something a bit more adventurous, and of course environmentally friendly! View Full Article

I think about my impact on the planet and climate change everyday. I think about it even more when I get on a plane spewing emissions directly into the atmosphere as I’m on my way to get a little peace and quiet. View Full Article

Recycle my paper Buy recycled paper Replace one type of food you eat regularly with an organic version View Full Article

Is your tissue use destroying the environment? Did you know that many of the tissue products we buy are made from ancient forests and are produced using chlorine? Or that a forested area the size of a soccer field is lost every 2 seconds to produce these items? View Full Article

What weighs virtually nothing, is less than a fraction of a millimeter in width, and is choking the planet? Two points if you answered plastic shopping bags. Extra points if you already use or are planning to start using reusable shopping bags in 2010! View Full Article

This winter has seen a lot of snow for many areas of the country. A couple of weeks ago, there was snow on the ground in every state but Hawaii! With each forecast for additional inches of accumulation, the shelves of hardware and home improvement stores are emptied of snow supplies by people preparing to battle the snow on their own front steps, sidewalks and/or driveways. Snow shovels, salt and snow blowers can all help make these areas passable again – but what’s the greenest way to get rid of the white stuff? View Full Article

Each day, every action counts. Starting with today, focus on the positive and list everything you did that had a beneficial impact on our environment, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. View Full Article

Electronic gadgets are all around us, helping us out in innumerable ways. But over time, they stop working, become obsolete, or for whatever reason, we no longer want them. What happens to all those unwanted electronics? Unfortunately, a lot of them end up in the trash. View Full Article

So maybe you already know where all the “print double-sided” options are for each of your applications (isn't it a pain it's in a different place in each one)? Perhaps you've searched the user manual to no avail to configure the office printer, but have committed to doing the manual duplex thing, or making sure your printouts go on one-side-used paper. Still, it's a hassle, and sometimes you end up with your co-worker's pages and then you feel like you've just double-printed. View Full Article

New Years is a time for friends, family, fun, fiestas and of course resolutions. Each year people brainstorm for weeks, maybe even months, over their new years resolutions and how they plan to actually maintain that resolution for longer than two weeks. View Full Article

In a previous article, I wrote about how each of our individual “green” actions can have a positive effect on the overall condition of our environment. In November, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published a study that quantifies just how much of an impact individual actions can have. The authors examined 17 types of voluntary actions that households could choose to take to decrease their energy use and thus reduce their emissions. How much of a potential impact could reducing household emissions have? View Full Article

The holidays can prove to be an environmental disaster, yet the aftermath of the holidays can send the Earth into a downward spiral of distress. With all the stress that correlates with the holidays it is easy to View Full Article

Some self-improvement goals seem to lend themselves to black-or-white, all-or-nothing thinking. For example, if you’re interested in getting in shape, maybe you feel you ought to be ready to run a marathon within the next year. Similarly, if you’re interested in going green, sometimes it can feel like the only way you can really make a difference is to stop consuming any natural resources and producing waste—essentially, to go “off the grid.” But setting such ambitious goals can mean View Full Article

All around us the world seems to be descending into chaos. Global warming and increasing extinctions, largely ignored environmental laws, financial disasters, war, terrorism, and the rhetoric of fear, and on and on. What can we do? View Full Article

What is sustainability? Does this word actually mean something or is it the same as the words “natural,” “eco-fresh,” and “green” on a carpet cleaner bottle? Who can be sustainable? Do I have to View Full Article

The holiday season is fast approaching. It’s time to get creative and think about what you’re going to give everyone on your list. Why not give a gift that gives back to our environment? Green giving is a great way to View Full Article