Farmers, like Earl and Clarisse Snell of Alabama, can still grow summer squash and tomatoes as if it were summer, thanks to their new high tunnel built with financial assistance from the US government. Also called hoop houses, seasonal high tunnels look a lot like greenhouses but require no artificial energy source—all they need is natural daylight. With their natural pest controlled environment, farmers across the country are now able to sell organic, locally grown produce throughout the year in states as cold as Minnesota, Wisconsin and even Alaska.
An Australian designer from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne is the winner of the 2011 James Dyson award for his Airdrop – a low-cost, low-maintenance tecnology for farming in arid areas. Dyson, an Inventor and entrepreneur, said Edward Linacre's invention shows how simple, natural principles can be applied to good effect through skilled design and robust engineering.
More than 16,000 low-income kids who faced losing their subsidized child care next year will get some good news from Mayor Bloomberg Friday. The mayor plans to announce that he's found $40 million to continue providing child care to all kids now receiving the subsidy their working parents depend.
The number of U.S. parents undertaking HIV adoptions is surging - from a trickle just five years ago. Most involve orphans from foreign countries, where they faced stigma, neglect and the risk of early death.
Over the past 12 years, the world has made stunning progress toward the goal of having more children attend primary school. In sub-Saharan Africa, enrollment in primary school is up 18 percent; and globally, the number of young children not attending school has been cut by 35 percent -- a huge achievement.
Parenting is a very complex task. If we're not careful, we will become too focused on one aspect and let the others fall by the wayside. Many times, I see parents who are intently focused on discipline, getting very caught up in it, and losing sight of the bigger picture.
As superstorm Sandy slammed into New York City Monday night, more than 10 feet of water flooded seven buildings of the NYU Medical Center. The facility lost power at the height of the storm and 20 newborn babies clinging to life from the neonatal intensive care unit needed to be carried down nine flights in dark stairways to waiting ambulances by heroic nurses and hospital staff using battery-operated life-saving equipment.
General Motors says it will spend $47 million at a factory in Defiance, Ohio, so it can build more parts that go into the company's small four-cylinder engine and its Chevrolet Volt electric car. Additionally, GM will invest $20 million in machinery and equipment at its assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas, part of a plan to invest $2 billion in 17 U.S. plants.
On a remote lake in Madagascar, a fateful discovery of 22 ducks belonging to a variety thought to be extinct, inspired a group of conservationists to mobilize a last ditch effort to save the species, which had been previously been written off. This week, as the Madagascar pochard's only remaining wild population hangs on with just 22 adult birds surviving, the captive breeding program started in 2009 celebrated a huge success with the birth of 18 new babies.
In what has been called an "historic agreement", a scenic stretch of railroad along the rugged coastline of British Columbia has been donated to a charitable community foundation ready to promote more environmentally friendly commuting and tourism.
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday issued its first-ever retroactive denial of a mining permit, rejecting plans for the largest-ever mountaintop-removal coal mine in Appalachia. The agency vetoed the crucial Clean Water Act permit for the Spruce Mine in Logan County, W.V., which had earlier been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Volunteers from across the country are rebuilding oyster reefs along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, hoping to revive oyster beds weakened by the BP oil spill and decades of overharvesting and human encroachment.
An architect who uses recycled building materials from historic buildings torn down to make way for China's megacities has won architecture's most prestigious international award, the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize. For myself, being an artisan or a craftsman, is being an amateur or almost the same thing, Wang Shu, 48, said in a press release, using the word in its true meaning as one who does something for love rather than money or professional accolades.
Felix Finkbeiner is an environmental superstar and author of the book Tree by Tree who is at the helm of a global network of child activists whose aim is to mitigate climate change by reforesting the planet.
They are the green generation. Six young people who are doing incredible things to safeguard the environment were honored this week with the prestigious Brower Youth Award for 2010.
