Where is the next meal coming from?
December 2007· Tis’ the season to enjoy abundance and often over-indulgence. From eggnog and holiday party hors d’oeurves to large family meals, most of us are wondering how we are going to shed 10 pounds rather than where the next meal is coming from. But with rising fuel prices, food insecurity could be at the doorstep of more households in the United States than ever before.

Restoring Authority to the Clean Water Act
September 2007· Declining water quality in the United States threatens to have negative health and environmental consequences. This summer, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers issued a new “guidance” directing agency staff to follow procedures that will make it even harder to protect the nation’s water resources.

Greening Texas Campuses: Students Demand Environmental Change
August 2007· Through initiatives like the Campus Climate Challenge and MTV’s Break the Addiction, Texas colleges and universities have become leaders for conservation. And in their efforts to live more consciously, Texas students have challenged the stereotype of cowboy-sized appetites and joined wholeheartedly in the global, green movement.

Water for All: Delivering clean water at a fair price
August 2007· The issue of finding enough water to quench the thirst of six billion-plus people while satisfying agriculture and industry demands is compounded by the ability to deliver clean water to the tap. Two questions arise: Who owns the water and is water a human right or a human need?

Thirsty for answers From Kansas to Kerala, water shortages are becoming a worldwide concern
June 2007· Folks in New Mexico got together early this month to talk about water. In 2001, for the first time in recorded history, the Rio Grande ceased to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. The counties around Albuquerque include three large watersheds, but the region is using 20 percent more water than they receive, resulting in a draining of the aquifers. People are moving to the southwestern U.S. in droves, coming from states which, even in times of drought, receive two or three times as much rain as New Mexico gets in a year of high rainfall.

Liquid for Life: Drop by drop, a world-wide concern for water runs deep
March 2007· Water. It covers two-thirds of our planet, makes up most of our body tissue, and is essential for life as we know it. It is the single most important resource in the world today – yet the availability of safe drinking water is of serious concern. By 2025, it is estimated that two-thirds of the world’s population is likely to live in countries with moderate or severe water shortages.

Calm After the Storm
January 2007· The weather has been relatively calm and Mother Nature has been kind to the Gulf Coast since the hurricanes of autumn 2005. But anxiety pervades many conversations about the aftermath of these storms and the anticipation of more hurricanes.

High Performance Homes
Sustainable Building Solutions Builds the Bottom Line in Green Construction
January 2007· Nearly half the homebuilders in this country will implement sustainable building practices this year. They know that “green” homes are no longer a trend, but are fully entrenched in the mainstream.

Landfills: A concern piling up
October 2006· With just over four million residents living in the Houston –Galveston Area Council’s (H-GAC) region, garbage is piling up although most of it is kept out of sight. The region is expected to grow by as much as 40 percent over the next twenty years creating a concern about disposing of the trash, paper and yard waste all those people will add to already bulging landfills.

The Struggle to Save a Forest Interrupted: West 11th Street Park
October 2006· Taking a stroll along the informal paths meandering through the West 11th Street Park forest is not a journey through a mature pristine native East Texas landscape. This incredible parcel of land is in danger of becoming another memory of Houston's lost greenspace.

HOLA: Bringing the world to the classroom
July 2006· What if you could teach young minds about the earth and the rainforest on a canoe as you slowly drift by tropical birds and mammals tucked away deep in the Amazon? Or teach geography while you navigate by boat, bike and foot along stretches of Kenya? What if kids could learn about other cultures by living and breathing them? What if you could teach kids about math and science while learning how to scuba dive? A school in Houston is doing all this and more, going beyond the textbook and bringing the world into the classroom to prepare young minds for the future.

Brownfields: eyesore or opportunity?
June 2006· Minute Maid Park, the Downtown Aquarium and the Federal Reserve Bank are all examples of how the City of Houston is cleaning up and reusing local brownfields to create positive impacts on the community through its Brownfields Redevelopment Program.

HISD builds healthier, safer schools
May 2006· One in five schools has poor air quality according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population spends their days in elementary and secondary schools. In response to these concerns, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) is moving forward with Rebuild HISD, to upgrade buildings and rebuilding for safer, healthier school buildings that enhance teacher productivity and student learning.

Houston 2035: disappearing greenscape
Aprilr 2006· Hundreds of square miles of Houston greenscape –nearly a million acres - could vanish if the new forecasts for population and employment in 2035 turn out to be true. These new forecasts from the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) are circulating around the community in draft form, and a careful look at the data reveals some worrisome effects of adding 3,538,000 more people to our region.

Art Opens Children's Eyes to Environmental Issues
April 2006· The most stigmatized people of Houston’s inner-city neighborhoods are not the growing elderly population but the young children of the community living amongst toxic waste, illegal dump sites and other environmental nightmares. Through an innovative environmental awareness photo-art project, artist/activist, Rhonda Adams captures the journey of 10 Fifth Ward children as they learn about the hazards of the Many Diversified Interest (MDI) toxic waste site, located at 3617 Baer, in heart of their own community.

Intellicenter: Green by Design
May 2006· Westway Park, a 150-acre office park located just off Beltway 8 in west Houston, will soon be home to Houston’s newest green building. Construction of the 150,000 square-foot, 3-story office building is slated for late summer. Dallas based Koll Development Company plans to construct six ”Intellicenters” by year’s end.

Widespread Pesticide Poisoning of Water Focus of Landmark Government Study
March 2006· The U.S. Geological Survey released Pesticides in the Nation's Streams and Ground Water, 1992-2001, a ten-year survey of the contamination caused by pesticide use in agriculture and urbanized areas. Every year, nearly one billion pounds of pesticides, many of which are linked to cancer, birth defects, neurological disoiders, and environmental impacts, are used in the U.S, much of it ending up in our nation's waterways. When pesticides are applied on fields, gardens, parks and lawns, a percentage of the chemicals end up running off the treated site.

West U's Environmental Oasis
Februaryr 2006· On the corner in West University sits a vision of sustainable architecture. The house and its surrounding landscape stand as models of smart, eco-friendly and resource efficient design. Patsy Cravens has long been conscious of the harm done to the environment and says that throughout her life, she has “always been interested in treading with care on nature.” Patsy’s mother, Mary Catherine Cullinan, lectured for more than 25 years about the dangers posed by chemicals, particularly fertilizers, and the value of organic gardening. So when Patsy began to think of building a new home in West U, she naturally sought to apply sustainable principles to its design and construction.

Discovering Dewees
January 2006· Just off the coast of South Carolina is a remarkable island paradise – unsullied by common progress, exquisitely subtle in its development – the kind of place that demonstrates how life is meant to be lived. The sand on the wide beach is white, like sand should be. Sea oats and sweetgrass wave in the refreshing breeze, which carries the expected tangy salt smell. Tranquility hangs in the air like a sigh; one feels every system in the body slow down to the pace of Dewees Island.

Restoring nature in Los Angeles
December 2005· Los Angeles (L.A.) has a flooding problem. Like Houston and other large cities, development has replaced its natural ecosystem of grasslands and oak forests with buildings, concrete parking lots and freeways. Instead of soaking up the water as the natural ecosystem would do, much needed rain water becomes toxic run off as it rapidly flows over the smooth, impervious surfaces to the ocean. The Corp of Engineers solution to the flooding problem was to build levees that would shuttle the water more directly to the ocean, until Andy Lipkis and TreePeople intervened.

A house that pleases home buyers, builders and environmentalists
March 2005· This summer, construction will begin on a unique environmental housing project developed by CLEAN (Citizens League for Environmental Action Now) and Federation of American Scientists (FAS). The project brings together the scientific resources of FAS, Roger Rasbach’s beautiful environmentally-friendly home designs and innovative Houston builders to build a home that is affordable, energy efficient, durable and safe.

Houston Goes Green at the Green Building Symposium
April 2005· Friday April 29, 2005 Houston hosted an event unlike any other the city has seen. The event was a one day symposium held at the George R. Brown Convention Center to take a close look at green building on the Texas Gulf Coast. Gulf Coast Green, organized by the American Institute if Architects Houston Chapter Committee, the U.S. Green Building Council and others, brought in an incredible line-up of local and national speakers that included engineers, contractors, and commercial and residential architects. The event also featured a Construction Technology Expo showcasing the latest green building products, services and technologies from vendors.

National Strategy Session to Stop Genetically Engineered Trees
March 2005· Reresentatives of the Stop GE Tree Campaign will meet in Eugene, OR, March 1-3, to discuss strategy on how to stop the genetically engineering of trees in the U.S. and Canada. This Campaign, consisting of over a dozen organizations, together representing years of experience in grassroots organizing and more than a million members, poses a powerful challenge to the proponents of GE Trees.

Trees: A resource we can’t afford to waste
February 2005· Trees are the oldest living things on the planet, and they play an important role in the health of the environment. Trees provide natural, cost effective protection from forces of nature such as wind and stormwater management. They beautify, provide shade, reduce noise pollution, and make living and working environments more humane.

Behind closed Doors: An Inside Look at Indoor Air Pollution
January 2005· The health threats posed by outdoor air pollution are now known by almost everybody. But so far there is considerably less awareness of the health risks presented by indoor air pollution. Yet indoor air can be just as dangerous as our polluted outdoor air-in some aspects more so. Studies on human exposure to air pollution conducted by the EPA have shown that indoor air pollutant levels may be 2-5 times, in some instances as much as 100 times, higher than outdoor pollution levels.