A few days ago, I came across a National Geographic competition called Chasing Genius. You can submit ideas for Sustainability, Global Health, or Feeding 9 Billion. I decided to enter in the Sustainability category – it requires only a few paragraphs of descriptive text and a one-minute video. I had it on my to-do list for a few days (i.e., procrastinated) and then I wrote … Continue reading Going Public!
Last month, I wanted to travel around a bit and write Green Stars reviews of restaurants, cafés, stores, etc. In the end I decided to travel by Amtrak (the semi-private US rail system) after discovering that their California Rail Pass is a pretty good deal. So, I’m going to describe how the rail pass works (since nobody that I know has ever heard of it!) … Continue reading California by Train
For a change, this is going to be a short post, written in a few minutes. It feels so liberating not having to put a week of research into a post 🙂 Take a quick look at this ad. Here’s a transcript: *** How do you want to live? As a decent person? Not a bad guy? A good friend? Is that it? Good? Of … Continue reading Like a Boss.
Here’s the third post looking at the evidence that neonics are harmful to bees. I’m a research scientist and have no agenda here, other than uncovering the truth. In parts one and two I’ve focused on the toxicity of the best-selling insecticide, imidacloprid, to honey bees. But nature is complex, particularly systems like a bee colony that work together as a collective, dependent on nectar … Continue reading Daily Footprint, #17 – Honey: So what exactly is happening to the bees? (Part 3)
As I’m sure you know, changes in the the honey bee population has been a subject of much debate for the last decade. The chart below from Bee Informed shows that around 23% of bee colonies were lost in the US during the winter of 2015/2016, significantly higher than expected losses during hibernation. But bees are also being lost in spring and summer, through abrupt … Continue reading Daily Footprint, #15 – Honey: So what exactly is happening to the bees?
Happy Earth Day! As you’ve probably gathered, the Daily Footprint is about evaluating the social and environmental impact of the stuff we use every day. But what if we’re dealing with a special day that requires some kind of celebration? We’ve already had New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, among others, and probably a family birthday or two. It’s at times like these … Continue reading Daily Footprint, #14 – Celebration Day: Zero-Waste Party
Here, I’m going to take a look at just a couple of aspects of wheat production that suggest that it’s best to choose organic bread. Continue reading Daily Footprint, #12 – Bread: Organic or Not?
I just finished watching Merchants of Doubt and will have to spend the rest of the day trying to channel my frustration into something positive. It’s a great documentary (based on a book by Naomi Oreskes) that investigates the industry-sponsored practice of quashing research or movements that are inconvenient to them. The title refers to the so-called “independent experts” funded by industries to create confusion … Continue reading Truth, revisited.
When purchasing (and reviewing) appliances it’s useful to know how much energy they consume: it may help you decide between different products and also give you an idea of whether energy efficiency is an important factor relative to other criteria. Continue reading Daily Footprint, #7 –Home Appliances – How to calculate your carbon footprint
One of my favorite non-fiction books of the last decade (actually it was published in 2005 but I didn’t discover it until a few years ago) is A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I bring it up because I think it ties into some aspects of the Green Stars Project that I haven’t gone into before, related to living a conscious life and living in … Continue reading A New Earth – Eckhart Tolle & Ethical Consumerism
