Sustainability Archive

Electricity Collected from the Air: Our Newest Alternative Energy Source?

via ScienceDaily (Aug. 26, 2010)

Imagine devices that capture electricity from the air—much like solar cells capture sunlight—and using them to light a house or recharge an electric car. Imagine using similar panels on the rooftops of buildings to prevent lightning before it forms. Strange as it may sound, scientists already are in the early stages of developing such devices, according to a report presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

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Live Dangerously in 10 Easy Steps

By Shannon Hayes, via Yes! Magazine

When I first released Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, I was advised to make a list of “easy steps for becoming a radical homemaker” as part of my publicity outreach materials. My shoulders slumped at the very thought: Three years of research about the social, economic, and ecological significance of homemaking, and I had to reduce it to 10 easy tips? I didn’t see a to-do list as a viable route to a dramatic shift in thinking, beliefs, and behaviors. But since the objective of such a list was smoother discussion and communication of Radical Homemaking ideas with the public, I did it.

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Chef Suzanne Goin: Market-to-Table Sunday Suppers

Chef Suzanne Goin: Market-to-Table Sunday Suppers

Los Angeles is home to many unique restaurants, some great and lasting, some “places du jour” that will likely disappear in an explosion of paparazzi flashbulbs within six months. Among the first category is one quietly and consistently popular eatery that not only bucks many food fads but has its entire cuisine based on locally and sustainably grown crops, poultry, fish and meat. The chef and co-owner of this restaurant, Suzanne Goin, has now become famous through media coverage of her award-winning cuisine and her own best-selling book Sunday Suppers at Lucques: Seasonal Recipes from Market to Table. Through her work, the importance of locally and sustainably grown food is becoming much more widely known and sought after.

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Going Mainstream with Locally Grown Food

Most of us know where to find locally and sustainably grown food: at the local farmers’ market or a health food store. But much of the time, we have to go out of our way to get it. Wouldn’t life be a lot simpler if such products were available right at chain supermarkets, restaurants and our kids’ schools? Meet a remarkable individual named Melanie Cheng, who is well on her way to realizing such a vision for us all.

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Organic Produce—from Web to White House

In March 2009, the news went around the world that First Lady Michelle Obama and two dozen local students had broken ground on a kitchen vegetable garden at the White House. Now almost everyone has heard about this major event in the evolution of sustainable food—but few know how it actually came about.

The story begins with one individual, Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, whose mission is to turn everyone possible into a home kitchen gardener—and who has made enormous strides in doing so.

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Bringing Back Locally Grown Produce

A hundred years ago when you went to market, all the produce, meats and dairy products you were buying had one thing in common: they were locally grown. As the twentieth century drew to a close, that had all radically changed. Instead of helping local economies to produce better and more, buyers for big grocery retailers turned to where they could obtain products cheaply, and many local growers were either forced out of business or compelled to eke out what business they could from people, restaurants or organizations that still purchased local products.

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Fine Liquor—with a Sustainable Conscience

Today, green connoisseurs aren’t looking simply for sustainably grown food but also for the additional accoutrements that must accompany a fine meal. There are already a number of vineyards producing sustainably grown and manufactured wines (see Organic Connections May–June 2009); and now one company called the GreenBar Collective is creating vodka and other fine liquors that are not only made from totally sustainable ingredients but are packaged to give back to the environment as well.

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The Yale Sustainable Food Project

Yale University has a rich history. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the esteemed Ivy League school is the third oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five U.S. presidents, nineteen U.S. Supreme Court Justices, and several foreign heads of state.

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Anya Fernald: Getting Real with Sustainability

Anya Fernald: Getting Real with Sustainability

There are challenges for anyone entering into a sustainable food business today. The titanic industrial agriculture machine that feeds the bulk of America provides cheap, assembly-line food that costs less to produce than nutritious food grown with consideration for the environment. The commercial media is largely supported by advertising revenues from this same machine and continues to entice consumers with the virtues of cheap, processed and “conventionally” produced food. The question becomes, how can a small-scale sustainable-food business survive in such an environment, bring their products to market, price them affordably, and effectively reach the consumer?

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