Thursday, 05 Jan 2006

Fair-trade certification and organic farming practices are revolutionizing the way tea is grown at an increasing number of estates in India -- and transforming the lives of the people who pick it. Nina Luttinger and Gregory Dicum visited three lush, sweeping tea estates to see what's brewing and report back with a striking photo essay.

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Home Builder

Demand up for eco-friendly home-building supplies

Consumers have turned on to the benefits of eco-timber, sustainably harvested cork flooring, and low-VOC paint, moving green home-building supplies out of the fringe and into the mainstream. "There's no question where this is going; it's hot," says Timothy Taylor. His company, Environmental Home Center, started up in an 800-square-foot Seattle storefront in 1992; today it's a multimillion-dollar business Taylor hopes to take nationwide. Established national chains are also noticing the green tint in buyer preferences: Home Depot is testing an "EcoOptions" marketing theme in all of its Canadian stores. For now, the added expense of eco-friendly options means the market is generally restricted to affluent Whole-Foods types, but all involved have high hopes for economies of scale lowering prices to the point that, say, a poor nonprofit employee might be able to afford a new tankless water heater.


2005 was a banner year for eco-themed movies, what with all those penguins waddling about -- and George Clooney waddling through Syriana. Will the trend continue this year? Katharine Wroth takes a look at Hollywood's upcoming releases to find out what's on the way from the major studios and which screens will be tinted green.

Since U Been Overdrawn

California delta tapped for too much water, in ecological crisis

The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California is in ecological freefall. The 738,000-acre area supplies drinking water to millions and irrigation water for major agricultural producers. The delta smelt, a fish that's an indicator species for the region's overall health, is fast sliding toward extinction, thanks to massive water diversions and other management plans that have degraded water quality. Critics charge that CalFed, the agency created in 1994 to restore the delta's environment while ensuring water supply, has moved too slowly to stop the ecosystem's decline. "I believe that CalFed has failed, and died, but that no one directly involved is willing to admit it," water expert Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute wrote in a letter to a state commission examining the program. But CalFed defenders say they're making progress and point to a few successes, including improved salmon-spawning habitat. As the president might say: CalFedding is hard work.

You Light Up My Strife

Solar LED lamps provide clean, cheap lighting to rural poor

A handful of villagers in rural India are receiving a life-transforming technology: low-cost, solar-powered light-emitting diode (LED) lamps. Bombay-based Grameen Surya Bijli Foundation has installed the $55 lamps free of charge in about 300 homes. "Children can now study at night, elders can manage their chores better," says one father whose family received a lamp. "Life doesn't halt anymore when darkness falls." As many as 1.5 billion people worldwide light their homes after dark with dim, smoky kerosene-burning lamps, which emit air pollutants thought to cause over a million deaths every year. LEDs are far more efficient than incandescent bulbs, and the solar-powered lamps eliminate indoor pollution from burning candles, paraffin, or kerosene. Says electrical engineering professor Dave Irvine-Halliday, "This technology can light an entire rural village with less energy than that used by a single conventional 100-watt light bulb."