Green: Eco-Friendly Living

SunCore is a little known Irvine, Calif.-based company that's on the cusp of shipping some potentially revolutionary technology.

WASHINGTON — The small village on the National Mall looks like something out of a science fiction story. Dozens of solar panels project from the rooftops of unusually shaped buildings, most of which have at least one face dominated by large glass windows or metal.

Years before an economic crisis taught everyone the risks of runaway growth, marine fishermen and fishery managers were already getting a crash course.

Green living in a down economy has become a concern for many Americans, but while adopting eco-conscious practices may seem challenging at first, it's simple to make an impact.

Should a city that's committed to environmentally friendly construction pay $825,000 for a job that was expected to cost $248,000?

A Lehigh Valley, Pa., environmentalist is pushing ahead with plans to power vehicles not with gasoline or diesel, but with the moldy bread, banana peels and rotten meats that would otherwise be dumped in area trash heaps.

In the words of President Obama "don't be alarmed, be prepared" for the swine flu (or, officially, the H1N1 virus). But what if the preparation is more alarming than the flu?

As summer days sizzle in Seattle, the electric meter at one home runs backward.

The fire broke out around 3 a.m., and thanks to a neighbor's warning, real estate broker Scott Tracy and his family escaped without harm.

ROCK SPRINGS — Jeff Mowrer has water and 100 beef cattle on his Perry County farm.

Walking up to the roof of the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C., is not a jaw-dropping experience. Exit the door and you are confronted with a sea of roof tiles and empty space — there is nothing about this rooftop that really captures the eye. But walk around the corner, and you will discover something that a handful of other D.C. rooftops have in common — a faint buzzing.

The Princeton Review recently released its second annual "green ratings" — a measure of the environmental friendliness of colleges and universities.

In the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, residents buy about 350,000 new mattresses each year, according to the International Sleep Products Association. Of the old ones they replace, about half are reused or given away.

At 5 p.m. on a recent Tuesday, when many workers were heading home, employees at one downtown Minneapolis public relations firm capped off their workday by getting their hands dirty in a Delano, Minn., farm field.

Stripped of trees, lakes deadly to fish, rocks stained black by gunk that spewed from the tallest smokestack in the world. That was the landscape Jason McLennan knew growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, a nickel-mining town that by 1970 was the largest single source of acid rain in North America. A place so moonscape-bleak that NASA deemed it ideal for astronaut training.

Amidst overflowing landfills and trash containers, a concept known as "zero waste" is taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations, according to a recent New York Times article.

Want a super-easy way to tout your eco-friendliness to the world? Stop using those plastic produce bags at the grocery store.

The details of plastic bagdom are ever in flux. Cities are trying to ban them. Stores are giving people money to not use them.

As president of HitchSource.com, a company that ships heavy stuff like trailer hitches, bike racks and RV accessories, Ken Whiteman was concerned about the carbon footprint of those shipments.

In the early 80s, while in graduate school and on a very tight budget, I read a book about living more simply. One of the things it suggested was to use cloth napkins instead of paper.

Buried in the controversy over whether to get the H1N1 vaccination (or even where to find one), is that one of the best ways to ward off any flu is to build up your overall immunity. Dave Grotto, author of "101 Foods That Could Save Your Life," reveals 10 foods that provide top doses of the vitamins and nutrients you need to protect and defend against illness.

When Nov. 1 hits, lots of pumpkins, carved and uncarved, hit the curb for the trash men to take away. When food goes to the landfill, anaerobic decomposition turns into methane gas. Methane gas is one of the contributing factors to climate change.

"When a piece of heavy equipment backs up, it goes 'beep, beep, beep,' and everybody knows what it means." Thus speaks Nancy Gioia, Ford's director of global electrification, about a growing controversy over whether electric vehicles (EVs) should emit sounds to let the blind and other pedestrians know they're on the scene. She thinks those sounds should be standardized, so you'll think "something heavy this way comes" when you hear it.

Ever wonder what happens to a billboard after it's been taken down? Assumed they just wound up in a landfill?