Set sprinklers to water the lawn or garden only - not the street or sidewalk.
Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)
Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)
Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.
Cut back on air conditioning and heating use if you can.
Turn off appliances and lights when you leave the room.
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 [...]
Tags: Cities & States · Green Them · Headlines · Healthy Ways · Model People · Model Projects · Uncategorized
By Barbara Kessler
Looking for a safer sunscreen? It’s not easy to find.The Environmental Working Group looked at almost 1,000 brand-name sunscreen products and found that the majority contain chemicals that either potentially pose health hazards or inadequately protect skin from damaging sun rays. Here’s their list of the top safe sunscreens:
Tags: Briefs · Dress, Decor & Beauty · Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
By Michele Chan Santos
Check the label before you spray insect repellent on your kids this summer, and you may find that many insect repellents marketed for families and children contain DEET. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics has approved the use of DEET on children, the Academy recommends only applying these products [...]
Tags: Briefs · Dress, Decor & Beauty · Healthy Ways
By Barbara Kessler
Ever wonder what your neighbors are doing on the green front – what with one fellow dragging four nicely sorted recycling bins to the curb every other week, and another seemingly sitting out the green movement?
So did the Nature Conservancy and the people running the Harris Poll. They collaborated on a poll that [...]
Tags: Cut Consumption · Energy & Water · Green Enthusiasts & Researchers · Headlines · Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
By John DeFore
Becoming a new parent presents untold challenges, not least to those hoping to find the greenest path through unfamiliar territory. Cloth or disposable diapers? Store-bought baby food or homemade?
[Read more →]Tags: Briefs · Dress, Decor & Beauty · Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
By Michele Chan Santos
At Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland, California, students are not permitted to have gum, soda or candy. Nor are they eating the notorious “mystery casseroles” filled with the USDA surplus-of-the-day and derided by school children throughout time. Instead, they eat fresh fruits and vegetables with every lunch, and fresh fruit [...]
[Read more →]Tags: Food · GET INSPIRED · Healthy Ways · Model Projects · Schools, Universities & Churches · YOUR KIDS
By John DeFore
In the wake of recent controversy concerning bisphenol-A in baby bottles comes another worry for parents: components of Teflon, and other similar substances suspected of being carcinogens, have been turning up in the milk of nursing mothers.
Tags: Briefs · Food · Healthy Ways
By Shermakaye Bass
As the holiday count-down begins, and hordes of already wiped out, over-worked parents lurch into their annual late-night mall marathons, many are haunted by concerns over toy safety. With more than 23 million recalled this year, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the questions are obvious:
What’s safe, what’s not? [...]
Tags: Cut Consumption · Headlines · Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
By Barbara Kessler
Once we worried about razor blades that some crazy person might have slipped into an apple. But now that Halloween is all wrapped up, packaged and mass produced, the dastardly tricks come in batches of 43,000.
That’s how many of the “Ugly Teeth” party favors the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates were sold [...]
Tags: Healthy Ways · YOUR KIDS
It may seem like an unlikely pairing, but a chocolate maker – just in time for Halloween – is offering a way for you to help protect endangered animals, eco-systems and people. To be more specific, Endangered Species Chocolate is providing support via their special bags of bite-sized chocolates. They give 10 percent of their [...]
[Read more →]Tags: Healthy Ways · SHOP GREEN
By Melissa Segrest
There’s nothing new about organic baby food. It’s been on grocery shelves for a while, and even the major infant-food makers have laid claim to the “natural” label. But a wave of innovation promises fresher, more natural food for your little one. Several small companies - most owned by moms who wanted to [...]
Tags: Food · Greener Businesses · Healthy Ways
By Barbara Kessler
There are so many ways that getting green is a win-win situation. Adding greens to your diet is healthful, and the more vegetarian your menu, the easier it is on the planet beause eating lower on the food chain doesn’t require the extensive use of resources required to raising livestock.
Lately we’ve been [...]
Tags: Food · Healthy Ways · Model Projects · Schools, Universities & Churches
In the race for top carbon emissions polluter, the United States is still Number One, but China is sprinting forward and could soon edge into the lead. The current Olympics host nation accounted for a “staggering 57 percent of the growth of emissions” worldwide this century, and will likely surpass the U.S. as the single biggest belcher of fossil fuel emissions sometime this year, according to the Worldwatch Institute.
The standings right now: The U.S. currently contributes 19.5 percent of global fossil fuel emissions compared with China’s 18.3 percent. [Read more →]
British Petroleum (BP) has announced plans to bring cellulosic ethanol to market in the U.S., through a 
partnership with bio-fuel developer Verenium, a company that makes biofuels from rice straw, sugarcane stalks, switchgrass and wood chips. The partnership could help speed the availability of lower cost, more environmentally friendly biofuels, according to an announcement by both companies this week. [Read more →]
By Tom Kessler
Almost 90 percent of the car shoppers who visit Kelley Blue Book’s Web site say they are concerned about the future of our environment, company research shows. Among survey respondents, 80 percent agreed that individuals should make lifestyle changes to help reduce CO2 emissions. And 75 percent of KBB shoppers reported that they have made changes to further the betterment of the environment. The most frequent lifestyle changes cited were:
