How to Green Your Lawn

by Beth February 9, 2011

I live on a cul-de-sac in a suburb of Denver with a superb view of the mountains and sometimes hellish winds in the winter. My husband and I have lived here almost 15 years, and we’re about to move, so it’s time for me to meditate on restoration of a suburban yard. I tried really [...]

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Go Plastic-Free This February

by Beth February 2, 2011

I heard of Rodale’s Plastic-Free Challenge on the blog My Plastic Free Life. Like Zero Waste, Plastic-Free is an aspiration, not a reality. For example, I posted something on Facebook about the plastic-free challenge this morning while wearing my plastic retainers. Am I going to give up my retainers and let my teeth go crooked [...]

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Passive Houses

by Beth January 31, 2011

This is a bit off-topic for this blog, but I thought readers might want to hear about houses that reduce energy consumption by 90 percent. According to Studio 804, which built a passive house in Kansas City, The heating load is drastically reduced by means of a super-insulated, virtually airtight building shell, broad Southern exposure [...]

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It Takes a Village to Heal Nature

by Beth January 28, 2011

A local blogger I know from Boulder Media Women has posted a wonderful article about taking care of human and natural communities. Priscilla Stuckey is very compassionate about people’s difficulties in learning to heal local natural communities. Please read it and send her some Twitter and FB love. On Angel Food Cake and Earth Care

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Forest Restoration for Raptors in Veracruz

by Beth January 26, 2011

“River of Raptors“: The title of this article from the September–October issue of Audubon sends shivers down my spine. And the way they describe the spectacle: “Day after day, through most of September, October, and November, the birds pour southward, something between four and six million hawks and vultures in all.” I want to go. [...]

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Constellations of Oil Platforms in the Gulf

by Beth January 20, 2011

Did you know there are about 4,000 oil and natural gas drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico? And that those platforms service nearly 6,000 active wells? It’s amazing that a spill like BP’s Deepwater Horizon didn’t occur before April 2010. And I wonder, with thousands of wells in the Gulf, how there hasn’t been [...]

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Ocean Restoration at Sea Turtle, Inc.

by Beth January 14, 2011

Did you know that oceangoing predators sometimes rip off sea turtle flippers? And that there’s an organization on South Padre Island, Texas, that cares for such injured animals? It’s called Sea Turtle, Inc., and it’s located next to the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center, as well as the Convention Center. This particular turtle [...]

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Women Trek to End Trafficking

by Beth January 4, 2011

Two Denver-area women, Stephanie Peller of Broomfield and former Broomfield resident Tais Field, plan to climb Kilimanjaro to help raise money for the A21 Campaign (“abolishing injustice in the 21st century”), a charity that fights human trafficking. They are part of a 19-women-and-2-men team who want to do “an extraordinary thing to stand together IN [...]

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No Mystery About CCD in Bees?

by Beth December 14, 2010

This post was updated in May 2011. Niwot, Colorado, beekeeper Tom Theobald has been concerned about the effects of pesticides on honeybee populations for some time, and that concern motivated him to release a November 2010 EPA memo relating to Bayer’s application to expand registration of clothianidin, a pesticide in the neonicotinoid class, to mustard [...]

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Meet the Maasai: Camel Herders

by Beth December 13, 2010

Many people have heard of the Maasai of Africa and their cattle. But how many know that some Maasai in Tanzania are turning to camels after their cattle herds died in an extended drought? The drought in Tanzania has lasted since the 1990s, but things became desperate around 2007. A couple of years later, Heifer [...]

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