May 22nd, 2013 
Stephen Wade 
People are funny, stubborn creatures sometimes. Even as evidence continues to pile up, habits persist. No matter one’s values or decision making process, it is hard to see how biking isn’t the preferred method of transportation. Biking is healthy. A thirty minute bike commute burns 300 calories, reduces heart disease risk by 50%, helps the [...]
Posted in Behavior, Featured Posts, Sustainability, Transportation 
Tags: Bicycles, Environment, Public Health, Stephen Wade 
No Comments » May 8th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
My wife and I recently ended a 5-month long home search. Our parameters were a bit tight. Between budget and location, we automatically discounted a number of homes. We have one car and wanted to keep it that way for sustainability reasons (financial and environmental). We looked for a place close to the bus line [...]
April 30th, 2013 Justin Manger 
The city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands has literally gone above and beyond in their quest to make bicycling convenient and yet compatible with car travel. With one quarter of transportation in the region done by bike, it was important to find a way that people could bike while not clogging up the A2, which [...]
Posted in Behavior, Green Building, Justin Manger, Sustainability, Transportation Tags: Bicycles No Comments » April 28th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
I feel like everywhere I look these days, all I see is excessive consumption, even when it’s not necessarily the case. On the bus, the person sitting next to me reads a magazine and my mind goes directly to the paper needed to produce it. The next step in my thinking is a tablet and [...]
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Sustainability Tags: Cars, Keystone Pipeline, Prius No Comments » April 21st, 2013 Stephen Wade 
What does it mean to be green? In the modern era, its meaning has evolved from Rachel Carson’s documentation of pollution in Silent Spring, Teddy Roosevelt and and John Muir’s founding of the National Parks, and Henry David Thoreau’s solitary musings in Walden to a more complex, integrated, consumption-based, and urban meaning exhibited by Al [...]
April 20th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
I usually read on the bus, but sometimes I stare out the window. The other day I saw someone with what appeared to be a rather upset look on their face as the bus merged into their lane, ahead of their car. (Mind you, buses have the right of way and although people rarely seem [...]
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Transportation Tags: Dispatches from the Bus, Mass Transit No Comments » April 17th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports today that despite the impressive increase in renewable energy – energy produced by wind is up 42% and solar 19% from 2011 to 2012 alone – carbon emissions have not abated worldwide. As relayed on Marketplace Morning Report today, rapidly industrializing economies, as well as Europe which has resorted [...]
Posted in Behavior, Economics, Eric Wilson, News, Policy, Renewable Energy, Sustainability Tags: Alternative Energy, Carbon Dioxide, Clean Energy, Coal, Environment, IEA, Natural Gas No Comments » April 16th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
Let me start by saying I am not a prophet and do not pretend to be one. However, my recent nightmare is causing me to rethink this. My father is a psychiatrist and my sister is a physician, though more public health oriented. The former likes to analyze dreams and the latter happened to be [...]
Posted in Behavior, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed, Sustainability Tags: Center for Sustainable Initiatives No Comments » April 15th, 2013 Justin Manger 
From the Ocean Conservation Society, using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), this infographic is full of staggering and somewhat depressing facts like fishing line lasts up to 600 years before it biodegrades. We’ve posted about this before but it is worth remembering. This is especially true as we run around with hectic schedules that leave [...]
Posted in Behavior, Conservation, Justin Manger, News, Oceans, Sustainability Tags: Environment, Water Conservation No Comments » April 14th, 2013 Eric Wilson 
As a follow up to a recent post about toaster ovens and toasters, I’ve come across another troublesome kitchen appliance, the dishwasher. I love the dishwasher. Well, I love the idea of it; not when it comes to resource consumption (water, detergent, materials to build), but from a pure convenience standpoint. Here’s the problem, it [...]
Posted in Behavior, Conservation, Energy Efficiency, Eric Wilson, Featured Posts, Op-Ed Tags: Tiny Homes, Water, Water Conservation No Comments »
