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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.
Web-only Features Archive
The Mom and the Eco-friendly Lunchbox
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There are many people (you likely know one or two yourself) who will occasionally have brilliant ideas to help one or another of the planet’s big problems. There is a severe dividing line, though, between those who have such ideas and those who actually set out to implement them.
Organic Cosmetics: The Lily Engine That Could
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You might recall a children’s story entitled The Little Engine That Could, about a little steam engine that decides to pull a train over a steep mountain that every other big engine had given up on. As he’s puffing up the mountain, he keeps saying to himself, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can . . . ,” and then when he comes over the peak and is on his way down, he’s crying, “I knew I could! I knew I could!”
Our Future Is in the Soil
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It’s interesting that, for the most part, as a civilization we have tended to ignore what was beneath our feet: dirt. We walk on it; we build on it; we move great quantities of it out of the way. We also grow crops in it—but even then, our understanding of it has been minimal, as witnessed by the fact that current industrial farming methods have depleted the soil of its life.
Toxins in the Home: Pollution from Inside
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The bad news is there are thousands to tens of thousands of chemicals inside the average home that are linked to diseases. The good news is they can be dealt with relatively swiftly and easily—if you know what they are and where to find them. So advises a new book with the unlikely title of Slow Death by Rubber Duck, a revealing look at indoor pollution, which spent 16 weeks on the bestseller lists in its home country of Canada and is now enjoying great reviews and climbing sales in the US and other countries. Through this work, authors Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie set out to assist consumers in living healthier everyday lives by ridding themselves of home-based toxins.
Real Food Goes to College
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Colleges and universities have always been a breeding ground for change. Active minds, looking firmly toward a future that will bring better things to our society, all concentrated in groups still fervent in the enthusiasm of youth—these are the people on whom we pin our hopes for a better tomorrow. If it’s up to a rapidly growing college-based movement called Real Food Challenge (RFC), that tomorrow will include sustainably grown food being served on campuses—as well as everywhere else.
The Happy Cattle of Country Natural Beef
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It’s a story in the spirit of the Old West. In those days, pioneers and dreamers headed for the Great Plains and wide open spaces to find new lives—many of them raising cattle. A whole ecosystem evolved around this enterprise, including the now famous cowboys that were paid to move herds thousands of miles to market.
Fresh: A Message of Hope for Sustainability
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When documentary filmmaker ana Sofia joanes set out to make the film Fresh, her motivation wasn’t one of creating an exposé of the horrors of the industrial food system—although touching on such issues could hardly be avoided; it was more a message of hope. “I feel that we’re getting so much negative information and the problems that we’re facing—the food crisis, the oil crisis, the water crisis, war, famine and others”—are so complicated and appear to be outside the reach of our individual actions,” ana told Organic Connections. “So I wanted to figure out how I could go beyond this feeling of powerlessness, and meaninglessness of individual action, to recapture a sense that all of us together are creating our reality. We need to do something about the problems that we’re facing.”
Soil Remineralization and Climate Change
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As one might imagine, climate change is an issue absorbing much of the world’s attention at the moment. As witness to this fact, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP15, recently took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was attended by UN delegates from around the world as well as by many world leaders—including President Obama.
Healthy Eating—for Everyone
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A worldwide movement has been evolving over the last 30 years toward locally and sustainably grown food. It is a win-win situation: the crops are healthier; the soil is preserved so that it can continue to be farmed; this type of agriculture is no longer a source of pollution; and last, but not least, the resultant produce is tastier and more nutritious than its “conventionally grown” counterparts.
