Ted is always looking for ways to minimize his ecological footprint. Professionally, Ted is working to gain the skills necessary to turn his passion for sustainable development into action, as an entrepreneur or financing sustainable businesses.
Ted studied economics and international business at Saint Louis University’s campus in Madrid, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was honored as the Distinguished Student in International Business for his class. As the founder and president of the SLU Madrid Business Club, Ted focused the club’s activities on sustainability.
While working for commercial real estate multi-national Jones Lang LaSalle’s Madrid office, Ted strove to implement sustainable practices both within the firm and for its clients. He proposed and designed an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan for JLL Spain. Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Development remain a passion for Ted: he believes that the intersection of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable attitude is where we’ll find a sustainable society.
Ted currently works for a private equity firm in Madrid, learning skills that he hopes to apply to finance Environmentally Sustainable Development in the United States and around the world.
Cherl Petso is the Associate Editor at Disaboom.com, an online magazine for people with disabilities. Her writing expertise includes articles about the environment and sustainable living, and vegan/vegetarian issues. A vegetarian for 16 years and a recent vegan, Cherl is passionate about animal rights and issues. She enjoys writing about simple ways to lessen the impact on the Earth.
Cherl recently moved to Denver, Colorado from Bellingham, Washington. She enjoys hiking and hanging out with her puppy.
Alexis Steinkamp grew up at Helderledge Farm, a perennial plant nursery in an apple orchard near Albany, New York. As a teenager, she hybridized daylilies, raised chickens, grew tomatoes, chopped wood, picked apples, baked pies and feared mosquitoes. She left the farm to attend Northwestern University and study art and design.
After graduating in 1991, she stayed in Chicago to work in theater, film and special event design. She didn’t make much money, but lived simply and saved for a rainy day or a place to live—whichever came first. As it turned out, the condo came first. Her friends were shocked that she, a starving artist, could afford a condo in the city. How did she do it? She should write a book about it! So, she did. She wrote a personal finance workbook to help young women budget, save and dream called Thrifty Girl KICKS YOUR FINANCIAL BUTT; Get a grip on your finances without dying of boredom. And, she developed a personal finance class that she teaches at Truman College in Chicago.
Today, Alexis still lives simply. She works part-time, writes and lives in a tiny condo with a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline. Visit her online at Thrifty Girl
Loretta White is a writer, educator and scholar who gained huge diversity of experience within varied industries; energy, government, high tech and more. The last fifteen years she brokered deals with the top multinational companies globally, her Rainmaker skills are unsurpassed and she remains an authority on BD, BI, sustainability and the Global Marketplace.
Frugality was the voice of her elders who endured wars, rationing and Depression, raised to respect, love and to co-exist with nature through sustainability, self reliance, need and RRR practices. Loretta’s juxtaposition of ideas, deep love for the planet and her Yankee sensibilities are the foundation of a lifestyle that is in partnership with nature. Loretta indulges her passions for renewable energy, organics and being green on her 17.5 acre farm in central Massachusetts.
Recently Ms. White has lead an Assoc. of Caregivers providing support to those caring for parents, disabled, and others.
Loretta is invested in the community of our species and our planet and her diverse background in technology and green living gives her a unique perspective on how to live with nature and with our own gifts of technology.
Ms. White’s work has been published by Corporations, magazines, readers digest and many others.
Lauren Mangion is a writer, engaged citizen, and an eco-coach from Calgary, Canada. Lauren’s personal life and work are intimately intertwined, both being experiments in more sustainable, lower-footprint urban living.
Through Conscious Home, an eco-coaching service, Lauren educates and inspires her fellow Calgarians with tools and resources toward reducing the individual ecological footprint.
Boston born novelist, short-story writer and who has published thousands of technical papers now works in the horror-fiction world. Occasionally, his characters and stories transcend genres and travel from fantasy to realism.
White contributes to L. A, Weekly occasionally and other magazines and online forums, he also blogs regularly for several news and industry sites.
Current projects include; “Underwater City Salvage,” “Real Vampires”, “The Black Coach”, “The In-Between Time.” His novels are richly textured with excellent grasp on popular culture, and explores feelings of angst, deep-rooted in ancient themes.
A freelance writer specializing in environmental and health topics, Linda recently was part of a core team of writers who developed content for GreenYour, a website devoted to greener living.
She wrote an environmental column for five years for Good Housekeeping magazine called Green Watch. You can find her articles in Plenty Magazine’s online newsletter, Fit Pregnancy, Good Housekeeping, Arthritis Today, Profiles (Continental Airline’s in-flight magazine), and Microsoft’s Encarta.
She served on her town’s environmental commission for 15 years and remains an active volunteer. Her personal essay column for the local newspaper offers her take on the natural world and on environmental topics in her neck of the woods.
Dayanti Karunaratne is a freelance journalist based in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.
Since graduating from Carleton University's journalism program in 2006, Karunaratne has worked on the news desk at the Port Hope Evening Guide, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Molokai Times. Karunaratne's writing appears in the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Magazine, the Globe and Mail, and other lifestyle publications.
Heather O'Neill is the founder of Eco to the People, a green living blog.
Before founding Eco to the People, Heather O’Neill wore so many hats in the field of journalism that even the Queen Mother would envy her collection. She has worked as the managing editor of a beauty trade magazine; as a copy editor for an online tech magazine; as the associate editor of a city magazine and as a newspaper reporter and columnist, and as the senior editor at the popular online newsletter ecofabulous.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including Parenting, Alternative Medicine, Natural Solutions, Marin Magazine, Greenwich Magazine and HOME.
Heather earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco.
Television producer-turned-blogger-turned-ecogeek, Kirsten Dirksen is co-founder of faircompanies.com a news/blog/video site focused on environmental sustainability for people and the planet.
For the cause, she has transformed her life into an eco-experiment, documenting every endeavor. Before moving to Barcelona, Spain, Kirsten was a TV producer/shooter/editor for U.S. networks like MTV, Oxygen, Sundance Channel and Travel Channel.
Want a beautiful lawn and garden while using sustainable practices, saving money, saving hundreds of hours of work that will make you the envy of the neighborhood? Well, do some of my lazy/green techniques that you’ll be singing about in your spare time.
To have the best lawn, we have been sold a bill of goods. Either by chemical companies, father-in-laws or others who just have not tried to do it the easy way. Many people believe that to have a great lawn, you have to do a lot of work. This is a myth, so save yourself some labor:
Don’t seed it
Don’t water it (unless you live in a desert climate)
Don’t fertilize it with chemicals
You don’t need to do any of those things. It will be beautiful if you simply take these steps.
1.Choose a type of grass that grows naturally in your area. This is the best way to minimize maintenance and the need for chemicals. Click here to find out what type of grass is best for your lawn.
2. In Spring, let your grass grow a couple inches and allow it to go to seed. Yes, it will be a few inches over the pretty limit for a week or so, but don’t you think the seed your grass produces has a better chance of pollinating and filling into a thick green carpet than store bought, old, packaged, processed seed? (if you live in a gated restricted community, mow a pattern or let small amounts go at a time. This seems to change the rules).
Many people think this is the wrong way to go, actually they say it is bad for your grass! I have done this yearly and I have a thick, beautiful green carpet of a front lawn.
Believe me; the seeds will germinate, the lawn will not suffer, you will be happy to save hundreds of dollars on seed and have extra time to enjoy it.
3. Mow without the bag after it goes to seed. The cuttings will act as a fertilizer and is better than any chemicals. Believe me, my front lawn is amazing. To keep your lawn healthy, mow without a bag 2-3 times a season when you have time and it hasn’t gotten too long.
Weeding Tip: Dig out dandelions by the root. You can even use the greens in the kitchen – saving you $9.00/lb per the New York Times! Click here to learn tasty ways to use dandelion.
Other than having a great lawn, this method:
Costs nothing.
Saves you spreading seed.
Saves you watering-in seed, as this way doesn’t need extra water.
Guarantees a perfect color match!
Avoids hours of heavy labor.
Some additional things you can do at any time, but I do not do them every year:
Sprinkle organic compost over the lawn. This is especially a good idea if you live in a dry area as this trick will hold the moisture in. This is a good “kid friendly activity,” my children like to throw it at each other when attempting this chore. If you can’t “sprinkle” then you can go by a rate of 20 lbs per 1,000 square feet.
Turn part of your lawn into an “edible landscape”: lawns serve no real ecological purpose unless they are left to grow into a meadow, so, every year, my “mowing space” gets smaller. I add more herbs, veggies, perennials, shrubs and hardscape, again, saving hours of labor mowing and adding to the value of my home. Plus, cooking with fresh herbs and vegetables has a superior and enhanced flavor that one can’t describe, just irreplaceable!
Allow your back yard to grow in sections. This provides habitat for birds and wildlife and allows us to enjoy the views of grass blowing in the wind, butterflies, dragonflies, colorful birds, including wild turkeys and others to frolic in the grass with us!
I can attest to this - but it is key to find the right grass type for your climate. I recently planted a lawn at my home in the North East with Tall Fescue. I expected that I would still need to mow it pretty often, but I found that once it grew and flopped over it created a beautiful field, rather than a manicured lawn. I will still mow in front of my house, but I don’t have to do it often. And while I watered some to get it going, I have since let it go and it thrives. During long dry spells it will get brown, but it always comes right back to life.
Jessica D
October 15, 2009 7pm EDT
This was a great article. Most people do not harvest everything in their gardens. They don’t even know that some things can be used in the kitchen. This had some of those points in it and I think it’s a great start for going green. Now more and more people will be reusing and recycling. Even your front lawn!
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I can attest to this - but it is key to find the right grass type for your climate. I recently planted a lawn at my home in the North East with Tall Fescue. I expected that I would still need to mow it pretty often, but I found that once it grew and flopped over it created a beautiful field, rather than a manicured lawn. I will still mow in front of my house, but I don’t have to do it often. And while I watered some to get it going, I have since let it go and it thrives. During long dry spells it will get brown, but it always comes right back to life.
This was a great article. Most people do not harvest everything in their gardens. They don’t even know that some things can be used in the kitchen. This had some of those points in it and I think it’s a great start for going green. Now more and more people will be reusing and recycling. Even your front lawn!