Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
(I am honored today to present another guest post from Rachel Sohmer, one of my smart growth colleagues here at NRDC.) Did you catch the New York Times article about tiny parks tucked among the concrete of Midtown Manhattan? It...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming
Fortunately, Hurricane Gustav has not turned out to be another Katrina, as major storms go, but it appears mild only by comparison. Hundreds of thousands are without power; evacuated citizens are getting by in shelters; the sewers in New Orleans...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
More and more, this blog seems to be about walkable communities. I didn’t plan it that way, exactly, but from complete streets to obesity to Google’s walking directions to America’s most walkable cities, I seem to have this recurring theme. ...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
Today we have a guest blogger. I've invited my NRDC colleague Rachel Sohmer, who is a smart growth advocate and conservation biologist, to share some thoughts and images on the subject of biophilia. The rest of this post is Rachel's,...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
These guys are amazing. Google Maps has refined their mapping and travel-directions tool so that a user can now seek not only driving directions but also walking directions.To see how it works, I asked Google for driving directions from my...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has released its latest numbers on obesity and the prevalence of overweight people in the US. Once again, they aren’t pretty.Publishing its findings for 2007 state-by-state, the CDC found that not a single state...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , U.S. Law and Policy
Waynesville, North Carolina is a sleepy southern town about 30 miles or so from where I grew up. It's where I got my first traffic ticket, among other things.You know smart growth is catching on when a place like Waynesville...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
We Americans have gotten fat. And we’ve done so to an alarming degree. Sunday’s Washington Post began a five-part series on obesity in children, a particularly serious part of the problem:“In ways only beginning to be understood, being overweight at...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has released important new research detailing the benefits of smart growth on transportation emissions and air quality. In particular, the report reviews the effects on traffic and pollution that would occur if new growth and land development...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
The balance of healthy-vs.-unhealthy food options near your home has a major impact on your health risk, according to a new report released this week by PolicyLink, UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research, and the California Center for Public Health...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming
Last week my longtime NRDC colleague Eric Goldstein posted a blog entry highlighting five laudable environmental sites (green apples) and five awful ones (bad apples). Eric got it right as usual. I am particularly a fan of his because, like...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
The American Institute of Architects has announced their annual “Top Ten Green Projects,” as chosen by the Institute’s Committee on the Environment (affectionately known as “COTE”). Now I have to say that I personally like and am impressed by just...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , The Media and the Environment
Trouble the Water is the name of a new documentary film about the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. At this point, I bet I’ve seen a half-dozen such films, but this one is the best.What sets it apart is that it...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
While perusing the latest issue of the excellent and soon-to-be-lamented music magazine No Depression, I came across an eloquent review of Kathy Mattea’s forthcoming album, Coal. Mattea, of course, is the husky-voiced and melodic folk-country artist who has won numerous...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
It couldn’t be easier: just enter the address, click the button, and up pops your score on a scale of 1-100. See if your score is better than that of your friends or competitors, and then brag about it –...
