Health & Activity

If you live in the suburbs, like I do, the yard around your home is the closest you come to the natural environment on a day to day basis. This begs the question - Is your yard a natural environment? Author Douglas Tallamy suggests that the average suburban yard is an artificial collection of exotic plants which creates an unnatural zone unsuitable to native wildlife. In his book Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens Mr.

Step outside and take a long, deep breath. Was the air clean and fresh or are you hacking up a lung? Check the American Lung Association's 2007 State of the Air Report and see how the air in your town ranks against the rest of the United States. The report ranks cities' air quality based on ozone (O3) and Particle Pollution (Soot). In the 2007 State of the Air report Santa Fe, New Mexico ranked as the second cleanest city in the U.S. for Long-term Particle Pollution and 21st for Short-term Particle Pollution.

Global Warming is causing temperatures to rise and is disrupting weather patterns world-wide. The Snow Sports industry (skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, ice climbing, etc.) depends on cold winter weather and reliable snowfalls. Given that Global Warming threatens the very existence of snow what is the Snow Sports Industry doing now and what could it be doing to operate more sustainably?

Ski Areas and Resorts

How is it that so many people want water from their beer from a tap, but they want their water to come in a bottle? Well, folks who know and love beer extol the quality and flavor that comes from a keg rather than a bottle. I'll talk about beer another day, but interestingly enough, water from the tap also has advantages over water from a bottle. Water from a municipal tap is tested more often and more extensively, it is from nearby source(s), uses no packaging and is radically cheaper than water from a bottle.

WalkScore.com is a new website that can help you answer the question "How walkable is your house?" We make all kinds of decisions when we pick a place to live. The usual list of questions for a new house or apartment center around closet space, number of bedrooms and baths, a garage or car port and a gas or electric range. One question that can get left out is, can you walk there?