I did some holiday shopping on Black Friday, though made a point to go to only small businesses, including the corner bookstore and my favorite houseware store just a couple blocks from my home. When shopping online over the weekend, again I visited only small businesses' webstores, and happily received...

To ease the pressure on gas stations in the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey, New York City and Westchester imposed rationing rules. I know it's a good idea, but it had me a bit nervous. We don't drive our car much, but needed it for a two-and-a-half-hour trip...

I doubt it. In fact, according to a study conducted by researchers at Yale and George Mason University, among voters undecided about who to vote for in the presidential election on Nov. 6, 80 percent believe that global warming is happening and 83 percent want the U.S. to use...

Most pet owners know their pets are not human. They're better than humans -- the best of friends, unwavering companions, and devoted life mates.

Though by one measure, pets are more like humans than we'd like to admit -- they share our vulnerability to environmental pollutants. In fact, pets are...

As Isaac's surge topped the levees and flooded New Orleans, I was reminded of Hurricane Irene's assault this time last year on areas near me in the western Catskills. Our bridge went out as did the power for many homes. We weren't prepared then, but I am making sure...

If one could live on peaches alone, this would be the summer to do it. Scorching temperatures and persistent drought have been devastating to most farms, sending corn and soybean prices soaring as fields dried out and crops withered. But if anything good has come of this heat, it...

I was visiting a friend from college this weekend, and as her husband had warned, I was woken early Saturday by the noise of the workman completing the installation of the geothermal heating and cooling system for the house.

It was a welcome wake-up to tell you the truth....

Ever been to an Olympic Games? City streets can be turned into giant parking lots. Even public transit gets jammed up. Staging the Games is considered the largest peacetime logistical exercise that any country can undertake. It's no different for the UK. Though London knows how to throw a party...

Asparagus, dandelion greens, rhubarb. It's late April and this is what's in season near me. How do I know this?

As is increasingly the case, there is an app for that. No, it's not Siri. It's called NRDC Eat Local and after downloading it for free, in just...

Their mothers must be proud. The idea for their ingenious new packaging material, made from mycelium -- the hidden roots of mushrooms -- came from the fungus growing under their dorm room beds.

True, it was growing there on purpose, for a class assignment at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute, but...

It's well known that poor diet and physical inactivity are the main contributors to obesity -- an epidemic which afflicts 17 percent of America's children. But why would the rate be higher -- closer to 25 percent according to a new study conducted by the Columbia University Center for...

My husband and I tend a garden in the western Catskills. The late springs and early falls common to our mountain valley have meant typically short but productive growing seasons, but the new norm seems to be longer by a good month or more. These changes to the growing season...

It's as thin as a slice of Wonder bread, but The Prince's Speech: On The Future of Food, is "by any measure, remarkable." Or that's how Wendell Berry, in his foreword to this new pocket-sized Rodale publication of the text, describes the speech HRH The Prince of Wales delivered at...

The California Assembly did not pass the Consumer Right To Know Act, AB 88, introduced by Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) and put to a vote earlier this month. This is too bad. It would have meant that food is "misbranded" if it is a genetically engineered...

When it comes to cars, my husband and I won't trade on safety.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the Obama administration’s proposed 54.5 miles-per-gallon carbon pollution and fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. And who doesn't feel a real sense of American pride to...

Forty-five can be a sizeable number. Especially when it's the number of gallons of sweet beverages the average American consumes in one year. This jolting news was reported in a new study published in the January 2012 issue of Health Affairs.

How much sugar comes with all that? About...

"When I grow up I am going to be a little old lady in tennis shoes," Mary Catherine Bateson, the septuagenarian writer and cultural anthropologist, told the audience at the TEDx Women conference held in New York City near the end of 2011. To the room full...

Thanks to President George W. Bush and his brilliant idea to sign into law in 2007 a federal energy bill establishing energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs, inventiveness in the lighting sector has been unleashed and manufacturers are on fire with excitement about all the new products they're bringing...

"It was a converted carriage house," says Jane Cameron of the home in Hastings, New York, where she and her husband, Jamie, raised their family. Seven thousand square feet on two acres of land, the open-style house had five bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a loft-turned-rumpus-room that was...

My nephew's wife had signed on for the midnight-to-7 a.m. shift at the Old Navy in a New Jersey suburb. My niece was on duty all day at J. Crew’s flagship store in Manhattan’s Flatiron District. I wished them both multiple sales and sizable commissions. But otherwise my plan this...