Whales get disoriented when sensing radar signals underwater, now an alarming study found that bees get confused, fly erratically and then suddenly die when sensing signals transmitted when our cell phones ring. This is a global problem and scientists say that it has resulted in a decrease by almost half of our bee population over the last 30 years. This is bad news because the mighty bee is essential in our agricultural and ecological systems. They not only produce honey, but more importantly, pollinate our crops. Are you willing to give up your phone for food?
Continue reading... →More than oil has ruined the Gulf of Mexico since the spill one year ago. An extensive report examines how families in the Gulf area have been affected with adverse health effects such as substantial increases in depression, domestic violence and substance abuse. And if that isn’t depressing enough, the promises BP made to “make this right” have been broken — including the congressional and presidential calls for prompt financial compensation, oil industry accountability, and tougher regulations.
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Amy Norquist is one of the queens of the green movement. She has worked over twenty years in environmental research and education for many non-profits. With all her deep green experience, one day she had a thought, “I want to install a green roof on my home.” And that’s exactly what she did. Little did she know what she was getting into. That great idea turned into a “hellish experience” as she puts it. So she was determined to make sure other people do not go through what she went through. Thanks to Amy, they don’t. Her company, Greensulate, is a leading edge provider of design, engineering, installation and maintenance services in green roof systems. But what exactly a green roof anyway? Find out in this podcast with Carolyn. You may be ripping up the tar before you know it.
Continue reading... →What’s the greenest place in America? If you answered something like the granola-crunchy, Rocky Mountain-high town of Boulder, you’d be wrong. If you guessed the sea breezes and warm sunlight of Santa Barbara, you’d be wrong again. The greenest place in America is almost devoid of nature — the buildings outnumber the trees — and the air isn’t all that great. But what it has is density and efficiency — the twin qualities that ultimately define green in the global warming era. Applying those standards, the greenest place in America is New York City — specifically, the overcrowded, overpriced and sometimes overwrought island of Manhattan, which has a per-capita greenhouse gas footprint less than 30% that of the national average.
Continue reading... →The Royal Wedding is said to have produce 12 times as much greenhouse gases than Buckingham Palace in a whole year. Ouch! They missed a royal opportunity to make a worldwide statement that trash has no class. But they blew it. And blew it big.
Continue reading... →As covered Tiffany Hsu in the LA Times Greenblog, more than 1,500 designers submitted entries into a contest seeking an icon to represent plastics created using potatoes, corn, wheat, tapioca, sugar, algae and other natural materials.
Continue reading... →New statistics on recycling were noted in the Los Angeles Times this week: In 2010, 38% of Americans said consumers should take responsibility for recycling product packaging, down from 42% in 2009.
Continue reading... →Congratulations to Woman Of Green Esmerelda Kent who is a recipient of Eileen Fisher’s 7th Annual Business Grant Program for Woman Entrepreneurs. Esmerelda’s business, KINKARACO created the first burial shroud for environmental purpose to be used without a casket in 2005. The shroud debuted on the HBO series “Six Feet Under” on the green burial episode which buried Nate Fisher (no relation to Eileen).
Continue reading... →Woman Of Green friend Phila Hoopes speaks below to her son, an energy engineer, about her hopes for renewable energy and the conflicting data coming in from all sides on the energy debate.
Continue reading... →April is landscape architecture month. What do you think about the shaping of our relationship to the natural world?
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