Will Walmart, not Whole Foods, save the small farm and make America healthy?
by Corby Kummer | Atlantic Monthly | March 2010
BUY MY FOOD at Walmart? No thanks. Until recently, I had been to exactly one Walmart in my life, at the insistence of a friend I was visiting in Natchez, Mississippi, about 10 years ago. [...]
Feb
23
2010
23
2010
The Great Grocery Smackdown
Feb
17
2010
17
2010
Slow Trip Across Sea Aids Profit and Environment
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL | The New York Times | February 16, 2010
It took more than a month for the container ship Ebba Maersk to steam from Germany to Guangdong, China, where it unloaded cargo on a recent Friday — a week longer than it did two years ago.
But for the owner, the Danish shipping giant [...]
Feb
13
2010
13
2010
Slumburbia
By Timothy Egan | The New York Times | February 12, 2010
LATHROP, Calif. — Drive along foreclosure alley, through new planned communities that look like tile-roofed versions of a 21st century ghost town, and you see what happens when people gamble with houses instead of casino chips.
Dirty flags advertise rock-bottom discounts on empty starter mansions. [...]
Feb
9
2010
9
2010
Consumers really can affect global warming — particularly if they live in the US
by Robert McClure in Dateline Earth/InvestigateWEST | February 8, 2010
I’ve always been just a hair skeptical about all those admonitions to consumers to save the world — you know, the “Live simply, that others may simply live”-type instructions. They felt a little too much like guilt-tripping to me, with perhaps not enough corresponding actual environmental [...]
Jan
20
2010
20
2010
The Great American Slowdown
We’re less mobile and more place-bound, and it’s not just the recession that’s slowing restless America’s nomadic habits. This is good news for Seattle, the environment, and mossbacks.
by Knute Berger | Crosscut | January 20, 2010
Developers love predicting that growth isunstoppable and inevitable, but the Great Recession is showing how untrue this really is. Some previously [...]
Jan
15
2010
15
2010
The ills inequality brings
by Jerry Large | Seattle Times | January 13, 2010
It is possible to improve the lives of the poor, the middle class and the well off, by addressing one big problem.
It turns out that reducing economic inequality can reduce a whole range of social problems, from teenage pregnancy and youth violence, to heart disease and [...]
Jan
13
2010
13
2010
Biodiversity is not just about saving exotic species from extinction
Neglect of the natural services provided by biodiversity is an economic catastrophe greater than the global economic crisis
by Robert Bloomfield | guardian.co.uk | Monday 11 January 2010 07.00 GMT
Starting Monday, celebrations and events across the world will highlight the beginning of the UN’s Year of International Biodiversity and the loss of our richly varied flaura and [...]
Dec
15
2009
15
2009
Solar conference: Here comes the sun and renewable energy
‘Community solar park’: State hopes Ellensburg idea takes off
LEAH BETH WARD | YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC | December 13, 2009
ELLENSBURG – Gary Nystedt was brainstorming with a group of colleagues at a solar energy conference a few years ago when the idea hit him.
What if Ellensburg put up solar panels in a park and invited residents to [...]
Dec
15
2009
15
2009
Cleaners ‘worth more to society’ than bankers – study
By Martin Shankleman | Employment correspondent, BBC News | December 14, 2009
Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests.
The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid.
It claims bankers are a drain on the country because [...]
Dec
7
2009
7
2009
Barnes & Noble Nook Review: Pretty Damn Good
GIZMODO | By Wilson Rothman | December 7, 2009
A Two-Horse Race
Do this now: Disregard all other ebook readers on the market besides Nook and Kindle. Unless you plan to get all of your books from back-alley torrents, or stick to self-published and out-of-copyright PDFs, you are going to need a reader with a good content-delivery system, one [...]