Let's set the records straight, and beware of green washing. We show you how to know what's organic and what's not.

Added: 12/4/2008 11:40:20 AM

This is a very cool video, which can serve as a model and inspiration on how we can convert millions of backyards into beautful gardens.

Added: 12/3/2008 9:53:40 AM

Warning - This is not for the faint hearted. You should see though how our food is processed and how unnatural and mass produced our food is. Very Scary.

Added: 12/2/2008 9:45:43 PM

The City of Columbia is reducing, reusing and recycling waste by using less things. Get some tips on making your holiday season more "green."

Added: 12/2/2008 6:52:50 AM

Earthship, an eco-friendly home.

Added: 12/1/2008 4:10:24 PM

Just days before the Thanksgiving holiday, Lee Scott, announced that as of February 1, 2009 he will step down as the CEO of WalMart. The CEO position will then be filled by Mike Duke, head of international operations. Now, WalMart is by no means a saint, and makes for an easy target as the world’s largest retailer but it is hard to identify another company that has made such a dramatic transformation and taken such a leadership role in advancing green operations and standards in their industry than WalMart. During his nine-year tenure as CEO, WalMart experienced severe public criticism, plummeting stock prices, and the retailer fell off the radar for the large majority of consumers lured by Target or Costco.

Much of the eco-friendly innovations in the retail industry today were initiated by Walmart, under the leadership of Lee Scott. Just last month, at the company’s sustainability summit in China last month, Lee Scott laid out even stricter environmental standards, saying;

“Our goal is for the supplier factories to meet or exceed all social and environmental laws and regulations” Wal-Mart President and CEO Scott told the gathering on Wednesday. “I want to be direct: My intention here is to send a strong message about how serious we are. Meeting social and environmental standards is not optional.”

Followed by this stern statement; “If they still do not improve, they will be banned from making products for Wal-Mart,” Scott said.

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In case you haven’t noticed, I try to avoid writing only about things going on in the world of cosmetics and beauty products. In particular, I try to avoid blatently promoting my business, The Nature of Beauty. This is because I am passionate about all things eco-friendly, or I wouldn’t have started the business in the first place.

However, today I am making an exception because I really want to share with you our exclusive holiday offering. And it’s not even really about The NOB. It’s about my other passion: helping women in third-world countries establish businesses.

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Parents and siblings of children with Down’s Syndrome are amazing people, as are the children themselves.  Often times, the family members learn so much from the child with Down’s, but it is definitely a challenge I can only imagine.  As a pregnant mother, I refused all testing that would have revealed if I had a child with Down’s, as I would like to think I would have delivered, accepted, and loved my child no matter what. I had two friends who received false positive results on their AFP tests, but they delivered healthy babies.

Often times, families chose to abort rather than birth a child with Down’s, but now there is hope this syndrome can be treated in utero.

According to News Scientist:

When fetal mouse pups that had a syndrome similar to Down’s were treated with nerve-protecting chemicals, some of the developmental delays that are part of the condition were removed.

Children with Down’s have an extra copy of chromosome 21, while mice engineered to have a similar condition are given an extra copy of a segment of chromosome 16. In both species, the development of certain motor and sensory abilities is delayed. These “trisomic” individuals may also have learning difficulties and symptoms of Alzheimer’s later in life.

Inhibiting the neurotransmitter GABA in trisomic mice can improve cognition and some have suggested this could be used in children. It would be even better, however, to treat Down’s before a child is born and so improve cognitive potential.

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The government of Bolivia announced plans on Tuesday to buy land and distribute it among landless indigenous groups in an effort to improve their lives. One of these groups are the Guaraní people, who some claim are living in Bolivia in “a situation of servitude analogous to slavery.”

There are others who dispute that claim, including several prominent American ranchers. They claim that President Evo Morales’ government wants to confiscate their land using the bogus slavery accusation and redistribute it so that it can obtain rights to more of Bolivia’s profitable natural gas reserves.

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Editor’s note: The following post was originally published on Green and Clean Mom. “Green & Clean Mom can inspire you to try a little harder, be a catalyst for change and to offer you some new tips and news on how to be the green, sexy and sassy mom…I know you are!”

When I think back to my childhood, I remember spending lots of time around the holidays making decorations and food for our family celebrations. Some of the simplest activities were also the most fulfilling, because we were actively creating, not just purchasing. The time that went into each craft or treat was also a gift, a gift that said “I took the time to personally craft this for you. You’re that special to me.”

I started a short list of my favorite simple holiday crafts from the past, and I’m hoping that you readers will add to it in the comments.

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We spend a lot of time worrying about the design of our foreground buildings like art galleries, but give almost no thought at all to the prosaic, basic needs that every city should supply, particularly to those who are not in cars. So if you are a driver and can get from your house to your office at high speed, you don't think much about public washrooms, but if you are a flâneur actually enjoying your city or a tourist attraction, such public utilities become really important. That's why I love this structure by TreeHugger favourites Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen; it is, believe it or not, a public toilet. ...

It may be a digital age, but some people just can't stop buying books. We always say that one should not use more than they need, and that's what is neat about Dutch designerReinier de Jong's expanding bookcase; like a pair of Sansabelt pants after Thanksgiving dinner, it expands as required to accommodate its contents....

Photo by Pete Oxford Every year, Toyota sends a crop of hand-picked teachers to the Galapagos on an environmental study tour. It's a costly program, it doesn't get much press, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the auto industry. If it were purely PR, some other flashier "green" initiative could surely be devised for half the cost of sending 30 teachers on an educational expedition to the Galapag...

Faces of Appalachian fishing (clockwise from above): Ermel Bevins, Doug Justice, and Franklin Phillips. Image credit:Shawn Poynter Sometimes the best way to look at an environmental issue is through the eyes of someone whose life has been changed by it. An article in the current issue of Sierra magazine offers a profoundly personal perspective on mountaintop removal mining. Unless you live in Appalachia, you've probably never seen this practice with your own eyes. A radical form of surface coal mining, it entails blowing off the tops of hi...

It’s that time of year when non-profits of every environmental stripe come looking for donations, and not surprisingly I’ve already seen gift guides, requests to “adopt” animals, purchase green holiday cards and plain old-fashioned solicitations sent to help raise money. Every year it seems to be more requests than the year before, and it turns out it’s probably not my imagination playing tricks on me again....