By Lynette Holloway
The other day, at the swank Blue Water Grill in downtown Chicago, chef Eric Kendrick held a treasure trove of

Photo by Terri O’Hara
Chef Eric Kendrick and a bumper crop of locally grown food.
vegetables in a huge incandescent amber bowl. The haul, plucked fresh from a local farmer’s market, included deep purple torpedo onions, [...]

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San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral will install a state-of-the-art solar photovoltaic power system with the help of $65,000 from Pacific Gas and Electric Company, city and church officials have announced. PG&E said its donation to Grace Cathedral is part of the company’s $7.5 million commitment to increase solar power in San Francisco.
“We’re working to make [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
With gas prices pressuring wallets everywhere and climate change warming the planet, people are looking to the sun for some salvation. It’s paradoxical yes, but so sensible. The sun’s energy burns brightly on Earth and is capable of powering our homes and potentially our cars, if that power can be efficiently harvested.
For the [...]

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By Tom Kessler
Colorado developers have announced what they say is the country’s largest net-zero energy, master-planned community in Arvada, Colo., a suburb of Denver. Geos Neighborhood, which will begin infrastructure construction this fall, will feature 250 residences and can generate enough renewable energy to supply 100 percent of the annual energy needs of the entire [...]

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By John DeFore

Conservation minded farmers might naturally assume it’s wise to get the most out of what’s available; if post-harvest waste material can be used in biofuel production, it seems to make financial and ecological use to sell it.
Not necessarily, according to a scientist at Washington State University who is urging farmers in her [...]

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By Catherine Girardeau
Eleven-year-old Colin Carlson of Coventry, Conn., took his cue from the penguins. The recent winner of the sixth annual Action for Nature International Young Eco-Hero Awards in the 8-to-13 age group was nine when he visited the Galapagos Islands as a member of the National Geographic Kids Expedition Team.
“I was snorkeling near a [...]

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By Harriet Blake

An engineering team at MIT has developed a new solar concentrator that doubles as a window and generates more electricity with fewer solar cells than typical solar panels — moving toward the day when on-site solar power might make fiscal sense for homeowners.

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By Paula Minahan
Peter Pfeiffer doesn’t mince words. His passion for green building takes an almost proselytizing tone at times. And it’s no wonder. The straight-shooting architect has spent the past 30 years at the forefront of the

Photo: Barley & Pfeiffer Architects
 
Peter Pfeiffer’s green house in Austin
green building movement. The award-winning work of his Austin-based firm, [...]

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By Lynette Holloway

Sean J. Hunter, director of Doggy Au Pair, with Shih Tzu Lester J. Doodles and Silla, a Mastiff
Most days, Sean J. Hunter, a jaunty dog walker, can be seen maneuvering his way along the sidewalks of Chicago’s tony Gold Coast neighborhood followed by a cavalry of his charges: pampered pooches. They range in [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
If you’ve been wondering about all the buzz over honeybees, here is some food for thought – or rather some thought about food: Bees play a role in one out of every three bites of food Americans eat.
Pollinators, mainly bees, but also butterflies, songbirds and even bats, perform such a critical function [...]

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By John DeFore
It may sound like a no-brainer to say that threatened fish populations stand to benefit when governments establish havens where fishing is prohibited. But since taking such actions can harm human livelihoods, proving they will have significant ecological benefit is a political must. That’s just what Australian researchers have done in a [...]

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By Barbara Kessler
Golf courses, those oases of green that require lots of water and pesticides, may be able to improve their environmental profile by planting flowers and natural grasses.

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