18. September 2007

The intersection of liberal and conservative, where great ideas are the only agenda.

The GreenZoneOnline is a place where perspectives– left and right, liberal and conservative, spiritual and secular — are united under the common goal of protecting the Earth’s precious resources. Insights on energy, natural lands, air and water quality, food resources, and other important environmental issues are all invited to the GreenZone where we will explore real solutions to real problems [...]

Continue reading...

28. August 2008

Ten Ways to Green A Hippy

Contributing a little non-toxic odor to the atmosphere, that dready on the corner playing guitar is the icon of the green revolution.  Living off of less that 1,000 dollars a year, eating nuts and berries, using less than 5 gallons of water a week, who could be more environmentally sound? But everyone holds room for [...]

Continue reading...

23. August 2008

SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT ALSO A CATALYST FOR RECONCILIATION

Throughout human history, we have seen the world’s religious traditions in perpetual conflict. Despite these conflicts, they still all seem to share a deep connection to the earth and a mutual concern about the many pressing environmental issues of our time. “Creation care,” a common term used by people of faith,  can possibly be [...]

Continue reading...

21. August 2008

Drink a Beer, Save the Earth

  Imagine hitting up the local pub, sipping your favorite microbrew, and unwinding after a long day. Now imagine that the people you’re drinking with aren’t coworkers but environmental activists and the overwhelming majority of conversation is centered around biodiesel, backyard gardens, and the only debate is whether wind or solar energy is more efficient.  This [...]

Continue reading...

21. August 2008

SWALLOWING PARTISAN PRIDE MAKES FOR GOOD ENVIRONMENAL NEWS

A bi-partisan group, dubbed the “Gang of Ten”, through compromise and the swallowing of a little partisan pride, has come up with proposed legislation that most Americans can support and is really good news for the environment. And it actually might do everything it’s intended to do: reduce our need for foreign oil, reduce [...]

Continue reading...

21. August 2008

I Left My Bike Outside of San Francisco

San Francisco developed a plan to enhance bike riding for its residents and create a safer biking environment. In 2004, the city released a 527-page plan with maps, analysis, and a call for more bike lanes and better bike parking. With the improvements, they had hoped to increase bike commuting to 10% of the total [...]

Continue reading...

20. August 2008

A Lively Pair of Flip Flops

Walking through a plot of fresh grass in your bare feet feels glorious, right? But what if you could saw a patch of grass into your flip flops? Would you do it? I don’t think I would be game for such footwear, but apparently the creators over at Krispy Kreme – yes, the guys [...]

Continue reading...

15. August 2008

The Oasis That Was Sahara

This article about the Sahara being green several thousand years ago gave me a fresh perspective on climate change. It turns out that climate change is, after all, a natural and cyclical process our planet undergoes every few thousand years or so. Deserts becomes forests and vice-versa. Rivers dry out and new ones appear in [...]

Continue reading...

15. August 2008

Survival Is Adaptation

I’ve seen an interesting documentary recently, it’s called Earth: Biography. It’s a visually stunning tale of our planet — how it came to be, how the volcanoes operate, what are the tectonic plates, how ice affects our climate and so on. The documentary employs computer animation to visualize some of the hypotheses it presents, but [...]

Continue reading...

15. August 2008

Are E-books Green?

The concept of an e-book makes sense – you have the ability to read hundreds of books, magazines and newspapers on a digital reader, all while saving the more than 20 million trees that are cut down per year to produce books in the U.S. But you are also using energy which is surely generated [...]

Continue reading...

15. August 2008

A More Eco Exit: Green Funerals and Eco Burials

As we have become more aware of the impact that our living has on this planet, we also begin to recognize the effects of our dying. I came across this brief (and nostalgia-inducing) post about eco-burials and was inspired to contemplate the greening of our attitudes toward death. The traditional options: sealing yourself in an [...]

Continue reading...

14. August 2008

Hope for the Humpback

For the first time in forty years the Humpback whale is off the endangered species list. Their population currently stands on 40,000. It is now placed in the ‘least concern’ category. One of the reason for their recovery is the banning of commercial whaling in the 1960s. The reason it has taken this long for [...]

Continue reading...

14. August 2008

Dead Zones

WASHINGTON — Like a chronic disease spreading through the body, “dead zones” with too little oxygen for life are expanding in the world’s oceans. “We have to realize that hypoxia is not a local problem,” said Robert J. Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “It is a global problem and it has severe consequences [...]

Continue reading...

14. August 2008

Waste Not Food Not

My mom always saved her coffee grounds and eggshells. She would put them in a flowerpot until she finally got around to putting them in her flowerbeds. Her sunflowers and tomatoes were always healthy and beautiful. My mom knew about the strong nutrients in food scraps, but I always took it as a farmer’s trick. It [...]

Continue reading...

14. August 2008

Is it safe?…Is it safe?

My wife and I have shared a car for the past four years. It’s a streak I’m proud of, one that depends on a number of factors and that requires a fearless attitude toward walking/biking in the rain. But as we’ve both graduated grad school and now settle into careers, it looks like the streak [...]

Continue reading...

14. August 2008

A “Stern” Report

The ‘Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change’ was released on October 30, 2006 by Lord Nicholas Stern. Lord Stern is an academic and a British economist, who served as the senior vice-president and chief economist of the World Bank between 2000 and 2003. On July 16, 2005 he was asked by Gordon Brown, [...]

Continue reading...

13. August 2008

NAFTA Completion

Were you celebrating the completion of NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, on January 1st of this year?  I definitely wasn’t. I have heard about NAFTA here and there but have not known the details and therefore didn’t even know about the completion of the 14 year phase-in process.  Reading in Yes Magazine, I found [...]

Continue reading...

13. August 2008

This is the sense of the desert hills, that there is room enough and time enough

You’ve heard of the campfire rule, right? “Leave it better than you found it.” At the end of this month, Burning Man will be in its twenty-second year of cultural events, individual spiritualism, artistic movements and general festival debauchery. Afterwards, you won’t even know they were there. Located in the Black Rock Desert for one [...]

Continue reading...

13. August 2008

Transpartisan- A New Way of Being

Voices from the left and right, motivated by anger and hostility more than rational thought, have been moving further and further to their respective sides of the political spectrum. This migration creates a toxic divide, where it is impossible to engage in meaningful dialogue in order to form the consensus we need to create [...]

Continue reading...

13. August 2008

Nights Under the Stars: Mount Rainier National Park

I wish I could say I climbed to the top of Mount Rainier- but I didn’t. I did however spend four days and three nights backpacking and experiencing this slice of Pacific Northwest scenery (which included the above photographed experience of watching the sunrise above the clouds!). When two friends from Seattle, Lauren and Lizzie, [...]

Continue reading...
See more articles in the archive