By Catherine Girardeau

This coming Labor Day Weekend, San Francisco will celebrate the intersection of taste, sustainability and social justice that is the Slow Food movement. Non-profit educational organization Slow Food USA is throwing a four-day party they’re calling Slow Food Nation.

SFN’s Executive Director Anya Fernald hopes the debut event, expected to draw some 50,000 people, will reach out beyond the obvious coalition of foodies, health-nuts and environmentalists to, “build momentum and demand for an American food system that is safer, healthier and more socially just.” Highlights of the festival, which runs Friday through Monday, will include the:

• “Slow Food Rocks” concert, serving up not only Gnarls Barkley and the New Pornographers but gourmet beer and locally-grown and locally-produced food;

• 50,000 square feet of “taste pavilions” for which nationally-recognized regional food experts have hand-picked authentic gastronomic specialities from every state;

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By Barbara Kessler
While some global warming activists despaired over Congress’ failure to launch the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act last week, the We Campaign (founded by Al Gore and comrades to promote action against global warming) forged ahead.

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By Barbara Kessler

Wonder how the gray wolves are faring since they were “delisted” from protection under the Endangered Species Act? One of the three Rocky Mountain states with a significant gray wolf population, Idaho, is having meetings to determine the rules for the hunting of the wolves this fall.

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By Michele Chan Santos

On a quiet street in the tree-covered city of Rollingwood, a suburb of Austin, Texas, sits a house designed to epitomize everything technology and modern design can do to make a home environmentally friendly and safe for families with children.

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By Barbara Kessler

Green washers are taking consumers and taxpayers for a joy ride of deception that will have real costs, both environmentally and economically, if the companies aren’t exposed. So says Greenpeace, the venerable environmental watchdog group, which used Earth Day to unveil its new website against green washing, stopgreenwash.org. The website [...]

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Earth Day reverberated around the world on Sunday, with festivals from Tokyo to Barcelona to San Francisco. In the United States, the key urban festivals attracted crowds of thousands as entertainers blasted music in New York City’s Central Park, the Mall in Washington D.C. and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
But while the day was [...]

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By John DeFore
Standing out in the current wave of books about the environment — dire jeremiads, thoughtful analyses, and green-leaning coffee-table books — is a compact but weighty tome that is largely uninterested in conveying to readers any kind of “the time is now!” urgency. Rather, American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau released April [...]

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By Harriet Blake
You’ve just moved to town and somehow you still have too much stuff. The Salvation Army is about 20 minutes down the road. But perhaps there is someone closer who could use that antique desk or the comfy but well-worn recliner? And with the price of gas and all those carbon emissions, that [...]

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By John DeFore
Fires that broke out Monday in Maltby, Washington, outside of Seattle, consumed three new luxury homes and damaged a fourth (firefighters were able to save the fifth). The culprits, if preliminary evidence is to be believed, consider themselves environmentalists.

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By Shermakaye Bass

Austin, Texas, is known for its enthusiastic (some would say vehement) greenness, and these days, at least one arts organization is taking a strong eco-stance.

Photo: The Arthouce at the Jones Center
The Arthouse at the Jones Center is hosting “Fritz Haeg: Attack on the Front Lawn,” a multi-prong installation by the roving American [...]

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By Bill Marvel
“The heavens show forth the glory of God,” the Psalmist declared, “and the firmament proclaims His handiwork.”
Ah, no longer. Unless you live in a remote desert or on a mountaintop, these days the heavens mostly show forth the operations of the local electric utility. And the firmament — when you can see [...]

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By Shermakaye Bass

If you’ve heard the Lazy Environmentalist on Sirius Radio or have read the LE website or book, or have shopped at the Vivavi green-design showroom in Brooklyn, then you’ve more or less met Josh Dorfman, the man behind the movement.
He’s everywhere. It’s everywhere. And now it seems the pithy, practical naturalist [...]

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