From the blog Britannica, a look at a few major issues facing voters today, with each of the candidates’ takes:

Britannica’s Advocacy for Animals site has provided a guide to the views of the U.S. presidential and vice-presidential candidates on issues related to the environment and animal welfare. Following is a summary of the voting records, official acts, and public statements of Senator John McCain, Senator Barack Obama, Governor Sarah Palin, and Senator Joe Biden on drilling, mining, and energy conservation and development; animal welfare, including the protection of endangered or threatened species; global warming; and environmental conservation.  We’ll offer this guide in four parts, one post daily on each of these four topics.

Drilling, Mining and Energy Conservation and Development

Animal Welfare (including the protection of endangered or threatened species)

Global Warming

Environmental Conservation (link to be added Oct. 9)

California’s official state reptile, the desert tortoise, is under attack yet again. However, this time the attack isn’t based on disease or predators. Despite the tortoise’s protection under both federal and state endangered species acts, the Bureau of Land Management has issued a proposal to transfer 365,906 acres of the tortoise’s natural habitat (the Western Mojave) to the U.S. Marine Corps for bombing, tank training and live fire testing and activities. [Read more →]

Beijing 2008 Olympians are also Eco-Activists

In honor of the 2008 Summer Olympics, we’ve compiled a list of some eco-activist athletes. Go team!

Yao Ming, China’s basketball hero and NBA superstar for the Houston Rockets, is taking the Olympic opportunity to talk about conservation efforts, including ending animal poaching and calling for an end to the Chinese tradition of shark-fin soup.

[Read more →]

What Is Green Building?

Through the practice of Green Building, architects, designers, developers and those in the field of construction attempt to erect buildings that use resources such as water, building materials like wood and energy, in as smart a way as possible. This means that the involved professionals attempt to reduce the overall impact of the building, through each of the developmental phases in its lifetime (from design to operation and eventual removal if necessary), on people and the environment.

Sustainable development is an idea that is related to Green Building.


[Read more →]

Easy Ways to Plan — Sustainable Style

Easy Ways to Go Green brings you a research guide of available materials on the topic of Sustainable Planning. Culled from articles all over the Internet, this ever-expanding universe of information is a one-stop guide for all things sustainable. Why waste the time finding the articles yourself, when we’ll do the dirty work for you? [Read more →]

The Saga of the Grocery Store Plastic Bag

Some people overlook the fact that plastic, like other products with a petroleum base, comes from oil, which is drilled from the earth, piped or trucked and later refined. Some properties of oil are manipulated into five principal types of polymers, during the process by which plastic is made from oil. Plastic bags are made from one of these five types, known as polyethylene, which is a highly manipulate-able material – it’s re-useable, printable, and can be formatted into a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. Although the process of making plastic requires energy and may in fact do little else to damage the environment, the negative effects of oil drilling are numerous.

In some ways, plastic bags are no different from paper – including the fact that post-use, they either end up in a landfill or they get recycled. In the landfill, however, it will not compost, and actually interrupts the breaking down of other garbage products with which it is mixed in the landfill. In most cases, to recycle the material, one merely has to melt it down (thereby sterilizing it) and then form it into another shape, for instance, a new bag.

Recycling of plastic bags can take place many times before the material becomes too brittle to go through the process; after these stages of recycling, it can still take on another use as a different functional product.

When plastic is burned during recycling, it can create dioxins and release heavy metals into the atmosphere; the ash from burning plastic is toxic and needs special consideration during disposal. In landfills, plastic does not break down – it always remains plastic, maybe just in smaller pieces that mix in with the earth. [Read more →]

Yoga Pose: Tadasana (Mountain Pose)
By Kerrie Cason

Tada = A Mountain
Asana = Posture

Description of Tadasana (Mountain Pose):

Tadasana is the foundation for all standing poses. At least one foot in every standing pose is in Tadasana. Everything builds from the ground up. When you stand firm and tall as a mountain, you can increase awareness of what’s going on in your own body.

Stand at the top of your mat with your feet together or hips distance apart. Make sure your toes are parallel to your mat. Gently lift all ten toes and spread them as wide as is still comfortable, and then [Read more →]

Sustainable Real Estate Development Catching Hold in New Delhi

NEW DELHI: It has been estimated recently that there are hundreds of millions of people, in fact, a billion plus people, currently living in India, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book. It is not a stretch to say that an idea like Sustainable Real Estate, were it to effectively take hold of a population that large, could provide just the right kind of progress to [Read more →]

Will Lake Mead Evaporate By the Year 2021?

Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have asserted that it is fifty per cent likely that Lake Mead will end up going completely dry within 13 years, or by the year 2021.

Lake Mead, which hedges the border between both Arizona and Nevada, was originally created with help from the Colorado River as well as the Hoover Dam. Tim Barnett and David Pierce, the researchers responsible for the study’s assertion, argue that the cause can be attributed to climate change and the increase in human demand for water.

Lake Mead, Lake Powell and Impending Doom

Between Lake Mead and Lake Powell (bordering both Arizona and Utah), aqueducts stem out and carry water from these systems to a variety of important and notable cities in the western United States and Southwestern communities. These include Los Angeles and Las Vegas, in addition to many others.

Further negative assertions from the recent study include [Read more →]

Solar Water Heaters

Sometimes known as solar domestic hot water systems, solar water heaters are an eco-friendly and cheaper way to heat the water used in your home for things like showers, baths and hot water cycles in the washing machine. Solar water heaters are functional in all climates, and because they are essentially powered by sunlight, they do not cost anything in terms of generating power.

How Solar Water Heaters Function

Solar water heaters typically run off of a two-part system that includes a solar collector as well as a storage tank. While passive solar water heaters do not have circulating pumps and control, active solar water heaters do. The storage tank must be insulated well, and [Read more →]