Chicago Tour Showcases Garbage

By Anna Johnson
Associated Press Writer
Mon Aug 22, 7:01 AM ET

Smelly sludge sewage fields and landfills aren’t the usual stuff of tours in a city that likes to show off its architecture and lakefront parks.

But people are paying $7 to see some of Chicago’s less desirable spots on a “Down in the Dumps” tour of more than a dozen garbage sites including a waste water treatment plant, recycling center and landfills.

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One Happy Big-Box Wasteland

h6. Oh my yes, there is indeed one force that is eating away the American soul like a cancer

By Mark Morford
SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, August 17, 2005

p(first). Do you want to feel like you might as well be in Tucson or Boise or Modesto or Wichita or Muncie and it no longer freakin’ matters, because we as a nation have lost all sense of community and place? Why, just pull over, baby. Take the next exit. Right here, this very one. Ah, there it is, yet another massive big-box mega-strip mall, a giant beacon of glorious community decay, a wilted exclamation point of consumerism gone wild. This is America. You have arrived. You are home. Eat it and smile.

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Experimental Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 Mpg

By Tim Molloy
Associated Press Writer
Sat Aug 13, 7:08 PM ET

Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away. Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage.

It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car’s high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel.

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Eco-Friendly Burial Sites Give a Chance to Be Green Forever

By Patricia Leigh Brown
The New York Times
August 13, 2005

MILL VALLEY, Calif. – Tommy Odom’s remains lie on a steep wind-swept hill at Forever Fernwood, beneath an oak sapling, a piece of petrified wood and a bundle of dried sage tied with a lavender ribbon.

When he died in a traffic accident last year, Mr. Odom, 41, became the first of 40 people at Fernwood cemetery to move on to greener pastures – literally. He was buried un-embalmed in a biodegradable pine coffin painted with daisies and rainbows, his soul marked by prairie grasses instead of a granite colossus.

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Cleveland goes green in attempt to save energy, environment

Associated Press

CLEVELAND – The city is using a $226,000 grant to fulfill the wishes of environmental groups and a city councilman to find ways to help save energy, preserve the environment and create related jobs.

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Roundup is killing off amphibians, ecologist says

By Eric Hand
Of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Sunday, Aug. 07 2005

Worldwide, amphibians are dying. And University of Pittsburgh ecologist Rick Relyea said he knows one way to kill them: Spray them with a little Roundup,
the best-selling weed killer from St. Louis-based Monsanto.

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The future on your street

Living with fewer resources

By David Wann
DenverPost.com
July 31, 2005

Editor’s note: David Wann is an advocate of sustainable lifestyles. In this imaginary scenario, set in the not-too-distant future, he explores the true cost of what we consume and suggests neighborhood-level lifestyle changes to cope with rising cost and scarcity of resources.

The microwave beeps as Eric and Margo Petrovak set the table for dinner. They’re listening to a feature story on Colorado Public Radio about the rising costs of energy, water, and food, a topic that’s much in the news these days. The year 2009 has been a wake-up call for the 50- something couple, whose three-bedroom, Front Range home is becoming less affordable every month. They’ve started talking about moving to a smaller, more efficient house – closer to their jobs, stores, parks and theaters – with good solar orientation and insulation.

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Mason man’s building block seeking a market

Adolfo Pesquera
San Antonio Express-News business writer

07/31/2005

State District Judge Sam Medina is having a hard time suppressing his enthusiasm.

A former third-world homebuilder turned Lubbock jurist, Medina left Mexico 13 years ago with an aborted dream to provide affordable housing to the poor.

A Home and Garden Television junkie, Medina thought he had seen every kind of new-age alternative building material when an acquaintance of his son, who had heard of his interest in building, started talking about a block he was developing that was made from cement and paper pulp.

“I thought, ‘Nah, one more person with the magic block,’” Medina said.

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