China’s economic emergence has been the big story in the world economy since the fall of the Soviet Union. While China’s development has brought a lot of good, it has taken an often under-reported toll on the environment.

It’s now becoming popular to say that if China’s not on board in Copenhagen, the rest of the world’s emissions reductions and environmental sustainability pledges will mean nothing.

You’ve probably heard that China is the largest polluter of greenhouse gases (GHGs) at about 7.5 gigatons per year, which makes some sense since 1/5 of the world’s population lives within its borders. …read more of China’s Green Revolution here

Barack Obama named his nominee to replace Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court today: Sonia Sotomayor, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge in New York.

Sotomayor was appointed to the Federal District Court of Manhattan by the first President Bush and then promoted to the Court of Appeals by Clinton, leading Obama to praise her as a non-partisan nominee.

She studied at Princeton before attending Yale Law school. She is a first generation American who grew up in the Bronx, the daughter of a factory worker: seemingly the embodiment of the American Dream.

If appointed she will be the first Latino ever to serve on the nation’s highest court, and the one of two woman on the current Court. …read more of First Latino to Supreme Court here

Americans seem to have a fascination with parents of multiples these days.

We have TV shows about people with 18 kids going on 19 (or is it 20 now), parents with eight kids and those with 10 kids. We’re still seeing news coverage about the octomom.

It seems we can’t get enough.

All of these multiples, in large part, stem from the growing number of people using fertility drugs in order to conceive and have kids. These drugs can cause pregnancies of multiples.

Unfortunately, not many people think about how human population growth can have a disastrous impact on our planet. …read more of Negative Pop. Growth here

This week I had the privilege of visiting the Navy’s Sustainability Interior Showroom (SIS) in San Diego. This showroom is part of Admiral Len Hering’s effort to green the Navy’s act in the Southwest, for which he is the commanding officer.

The showroom was constructed and decorated by GSA certified contractors and suppliers, all of whom meet strict environmental criteria. Suzanne Smith, Navy Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, spoke about staying away from toxic materials, bringing in natural light, reusing materials (the construction was zero waste), LED lighting, a functional and motivational workspace, and a host of other green features that went into the SIS.

The showroom is meant to provide an example for Navy construction, remodeling, and interior decorating projects, many of which will be seeking LEED status in the future.

I never particularly thought of the Armed Services as a beacon of green (at least outside of camouflage), but hearing Admiral Hering and Suzanne Smith speak really woke me up to the sustainability efforts of the Navy. …read more of Navy Leads Way on Sustainability here

We are at an interesting place in food cultivation and consumption. We have an ever-growing consumer awareness of our food systems, where our food comes from, and what we require of our food.

On the other hand, we have giants like Monsanto¹, who are not in the business of growing food at all really, controlling our food growth and ingredients down to the very basics of the food itself – the DNA.

Working behind the scenes of agriculture, Monsanto has been busy leveraging themselves as the sole controlling source for seed availability to farmers for many years.

And beyond seed, they have made our milk and dairy products incredibly unsafe to eat and drink. Monsanto is the corporation who introduced rBGH – or recombinant bovine growth hormone - to our nation’s dairy farmers. Worse, they have tried very hard to make the use of rBGH worldwide. …read more of The Dangers of Corporate Food here