Back to the City
What if everyone who has moved out to the suburbs decided to move back to the city?
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Close to Home
Looking for ways to celebrate Earth Day? There’s a lot you can do at home, in your community and at work to take care of the planet every day.
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Lettuce from Australia
Lettuce from Australia, peppers from New Zealand, and eggplant from Holland? That’s a a lot of air travel and a lot of fuel burned for food that can be grown so much closer to home.
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Save a Tree – Stop Junk Mail
Almost half of the mail you receive is junk mail – that’s mail that goes in the trash or recycling without being opened or read. Each of us receives more than 500 pieces of junk mail every year. That's four-and-a-half million tons of junk mail produced annually. There is a lot you can do to reduce the cost to the environment and save yourself some time.
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Eco-printing
No matter how good your intentions, and no matter how great your message, if you are printing it, you could be harming the environment in several ways.
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Permaculture Principles
Leave nature alone, and it goes on and on.
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Permaculture City
How would a city built on the principles of permaculture look?
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Rainwater Harvesting
When it rains it pours, and much of that water becomes polluted as it runs off parking lots and roads, and into nearby creeks and rivers.
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Planting to save water
Water conservation is essential for a sustainable landscape.
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Doing Your Part to Prevent Global Warming
Would you change your lifestyle, give up a few conveniences and encourage those around you to do the same if it would help clean up air pollution and slow down global warming?
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Preserving Greenspace
Over the coming years, with the demands of population growth, Houston stands to lose what’s left of its beautiful, precious ecosystem.
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Los Angeles Ecosystem Restoration
Volunteers have convinced Los Angeles to restore its ecosystem, by using a sustainability model that gets government agencies to look at the big picture and work together to solve urgent environmental problems.
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Food and drink containers are forever
Food and drink containers may be out of sight when you throw them in the trash, but they don’t go away.
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Reduce pollution by recycling and using less paper
The pulp and paper industry is among the world’s largest generators of air and water pollutants, waste products and the gases that cause climate change.
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Reduce pollution by recycling and using less paper
The pulp and paper industry is among the world’s largest generators of air and water pollutants, waste products and the gases that cause climate change.
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Share, Trade, Reuse
What would U.S. streets and neighborhoods look like if there were no system for neatly disposing of waste?
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Cities ban plastic bags
Bangladesh, Ireland and South Africa have banned plastic bags and now U.S. Cit-ies, San Francisco and Oakland, are banning plastic shopping bags in large stores and pharmacies.
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Brownfields
Houston could have hundreds or even thousands of brownfields left from the recession of the oil industry in the mid-1980’s when many plants were closed and the properties abandoned. Now brownfields are an important element in the city’s downtown revitalization.
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Greenbuilding: What is it?
The Green Building industry is growing by as much as 75 percent a year. So what is green building and why is it the way to go today in building design and construction?
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What You Can Do Today
The average U.S household is responsible for about 60 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Find out what you can do to create a better tomorrow.
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Houston Outdoor Learning Academy
What if children could learn about PH levels and water quality by hanging
out on a bayou? Or about ecosystems by floating down the Amazon?
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Greening Your Home
To improve the health of the planet, the best place to start may be at
home.
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Livable Cities
What do Atlantic Station in Atlanta, Hopkins, Minnesota. And Manchester-by-the-Sea
in Massachusetts have in common? They all are winners in the Sierra Clubs
search for livable cities.
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Cities Practice Being Green
Green building is not just a trend, it is a new way of looking at designing
and building that can lead to a more sustainable future and more pleasant
places to live, work and play.
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Envision Houston 2035
With a population increase of more that three-and a half million people by the year 2035, the Houston –Galveston area could be all concrete and buildings.
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Green Hotels
Hotels are finding innovative ways they can save energy and money while keeping guests comfortable and happy.
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Hotels reduce, reuse, recycle
Hotels are finding creative ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.
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Green Travel
Maybe you are doing your part day by day to recycle, save energy, water and other natural resources. But what about when you travel?
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Conserving resources during your hotel stay
When you stay in a hotel are you conscious of the energy and water you use or waste?
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Building for a better future
Building homes for a better future requires consciousness that goes beyond resale value and color schemes.
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Green Homes
Building a home the conventional way creates an amazing amount of waste and a toxic environment for the people who live there.
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E-waste and mobile phones
Your wireless provider makes it enticing and easy to upgrade your cell phone. But what is the environmental cost?
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Unsustainable Policies and Katrina
Unsustainable policies and responding after a calamity rather than taking precautions in anticipation of one made Hurricane Katrina more devastating for New Orleans than it might have been.
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E-waste and computers
According to the National Safety Council, more than 500 million computers will become obsolete in 2007, resulting in more than 6
billion pounds of plastic and more than one-and-a-half billion pounds of lead.
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Recycle Old Batteries
Recycling vehicle batteries can save resources and avoid polluting the environment. But instead of recycling vehicle batteries,
each year more than five million batteries are illegally disposed of in landfills or abandoned where they could contaminate soil
and groundwater, explode in a fire, or become a source of lead poisoning to humans and animals.
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Household Batteries
About three billion batteries are sold annually in the U.S.. That’s about 32 per family or ten batteries per
person. Batteries contain heavy metals like mercury, lead, cadmium and lithium – all can be hazardous and disposal
of batteries requires precaution.
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Mushrooms for Healing
Some mushrooms are good to eat and some are poisonous. But did you know mushrooms are being used to prevent diseases like cancer, and clean up oil spills?
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Plants for Cleaning Water
Ecologist John Todd believes that waste is a resource out of place. He has demon-strated the usefulness of waste on his farm where he uses lettuce and tomato plants to clean water for his fish farm.
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Trees good storm buffer
Trees provide natural wind, erosion and stormwater control. During a storm, trees provide a buffer against strong winds. Areas protected by trees can see wind speeds reduced by up to 85 percent compared to treeless areas.
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Trees cool the city
Summer in the city can be hot and noisy. Trees provide shade and help cool the urban heat island. Areas with heavy tree cover can be at least two to four degrees cooler during summer. The cooling effect of trees helps lower energy costs and reduces pollution.
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What’s in a bottle of water
Where does all that bottled water come from? And is it safer than tap water?
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