by Jim Motavalli

Posted 4 years, 4 months ago

Our soda man delivers. He comes bounding up the steps, easily cradling an ancient-looking wooden crate under one arm. The contents are 24 seven-ounce bottles of cola and birch beer, for which we hand him $7, and last month's crate. The thick, wavy glass bottles bear an old-fashioned logo that reads, "Castle Soda: Food for Thirst."

Bottled in a declining industrial town in Connecticut, Castle is like some… Read More

Posted 4 years, 9 months ago

On an airport runway in Hawaii last fall, a sparrow nearly became a canary. State officials testing captured birds got one positive result for the West Nile virus, which had yet to arrive from the mainland. Hawaii and Alaska remain the only states in the U.S. that haven't had cases of this rapidly spreading global disease -- which has infected more than 16,000 people and killed more than 650 in the U.S. since it first appeared in New York City in 1999 -- and… Read More

Posted 5 years, 1 month ago The Indian city of Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is home to one of Asia's largest slums and endures among the worst air quality on earth. Half the city's population lacks running water or electricity, and the smoke from countless wood-burning cooking fires joins with the acrid haze from two-stroke auto rickshaws, diesel buses, and coal-fired power plants to all but choke the city. Breathing Mumbai's air, reports the Lonely Planet travel guide, is equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. Comparable air quality wraps New Delhi, Bangalore, and 69 of India's 70 principal cities year-round, according to a 1997 study by… Read More

Posted 5 years, 11 months ago

My daughter Maya, who is 9, saw a picture of the General Motors Hy-wire, the company's super-sleek experimental fuel-cell car, and immediately decided we should have one. Unfortunately, I had to explain to her that the hydrogen-powered, zero-emission, fossil-fuel-free car would be perfect for us in all respects except one: It's not available. So it goes with U.S. manufacturers and innovative, efficient automotive technology -- all promise, no delivery.

So what's an environmentally minded would-be car owner to do? First, make sure you really need a car.… Read More

Posted 6 years, 9 months ago

• 214,000,000 -- number of vehicles in the U.S.¹
• 290,000,000 -- number of people in the U.S.²
• 2 -- number of American cars on the Top 20 list in "The Greenest Vehicles of 2003," produced by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (the other 18 are Japanese)³
• 22,802 -- miles per year driven by the average family in 1983⁴
• 34,459 -- miles per year driven by the average family in 1995⁵
• 24,902 -- circumference of the Earth, in miles⁶
• 19 -- percentage of the average U.S. household budget devoted to transportation⁷
• 50… Read More

Posted 9 years, 6 months ago I loved cars long before I knew there was any reason to worry about their effect on the environment or be concerned about the smoke that poured from their tailpipes. In the 1960s, ignorance like mine was widespread in the United States, maintained by a powerful automotive lobby and a complacent federal government. Highway congestion, though already bad, was somewhat masked by an expanding national highway grid, and most people celebrated the migration to the suburbs that the new roads aided and abetted. Cars were equated with freedom, and ads of the period showed happy vacationing families riding in roomy… Read More