Women Written Out of the History of Dirt

April is landscape architecture month. What do you think about the shaping of our relationship to the natural world?

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BPA in my soup? Mmmm goodness! A conversation with MomsRising’s Joan Blades – show 42

Joan Blades is the President and Co-founder of MomsRising.org, a five-year-old organization that champions core motherhood and family issues. A million members strong, MomsRising works to support policies that help with family economic security like health care, paid maternity, family and sick leave, fair pay, early learning, and flexible work. One of the big issues that MomsRising takes on in a big way is toxins in our homes. In my interview with her, we talk about BPA in our canned goods (and ultimately in our blood stream) and flame retardants in our furniture (another toxic fabrication from the Big 3 chemical companies).

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Greening the Ghetto

Majora Carter is one of the most powerful and inspiring environmental justice activists of the 21st century. If you haven’t heard her speak about her “Greening the Ghetto” project, listen up, it’s an incredible model that will hopefully be replicated in neighborhoods across the nation.

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Mom, no tweeting in the sandbox!

“Mom – the rule is, no tweeting in the sandbox?” OK women, ‘fess up. When or where have you tweeted that you know you shouldn’t have?

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Greenpeace Working to Get Facebook Off Coal

Greenpeace has been tenacious with trying to get Facebook to ditch coal as a power source for its data centers. Starting with their own Facebook page to show the company how many of its users would like it to “unfriend” coal, the activist group then moved on to set a world record in the comments section.

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Women’s Media and the End of Demographics

Johanna Blakely studies the impact of mass media on culture. She asks questions like “what happens to media when women are the main consumers of social media networks?” Is this the end of traditional demographics for advertising? What do you think?

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Spraying to Make Yards Green … but With Paint, Not Water

Homeowners associations can fine residents if their yards are not one of the following: a xeriscaped landscaped following a “desert design” with cactuses, desert flora and expanses of carefully placed rocks or healthy and vibrant green grass. Brown yards are not an option and carry the risk of citations, fines and even legal action

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Fruit Juice, Collagen and Cigarettes (and Other Things Made from Pigs)

Christien Meindertsma like to expose the hidden processes and connections that make our world turn. Below she describes how many things can be made from pig parts, from concrete and beer, to china figurines, injectable collagen and renewable energy.

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Highlights from “Best of Green 2011”

The website Treehugger has the results in on their “Best Of Green 2011” and the results in the food and health category are worth checking out for their unique impact on our lives

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Airports Go Green.. But Does Air Travel?

A New York Times article this morning describes the San Francisco International Airport’s efforts to go green with “furniture made from sustainable timber, lighting that exceeds California’s energy efficiency standards by 35 percent, and paints and building products that emit lower levels of chemical gases,” in their newly renovated T2 terminal. They even have organic food offerings. This all sounds wonderful, but it doesn’t change the fact that for all of T2’s environmentally friendly features, air travel remains the most carbon-intensive form of transportation.

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