Environmental conservation, community development and women in Kenya plus a Nobel Peace Prize . . . I mean, one woman really can make a difference.

A good reason to visit the Midwest this June? Thanks to Glen for sending me the link.

…or “yet another reason to buy a Mac”. Over the past few years, Apple has set up a “hardware recycling program”:http://www.apple.com/environment/recycling/ for old computers. If you send your old Mac to them, they’ll disassemble it and recycle the parts, diverting up to 90% from the landfill. If you live in Cupertino, they’ll even take your old PCs.

The program has been very successful, recycling hundreds of tons of materials each year. The Apple site has a fascinating “recycling flow diagram”:http://www.apple.com/environment/recycling/nationalservices/diagrams.html which shows where all that stuff ends up.

Cool site for plant geeks like me — thought I’d let y’all in on the action. :) It’s got pictures and info and a how-to-turn-your-garden-into-wildlife-habitat section. What’s not to love? Scroll down on the first page for an awesome picture of a monarch chrysalis.

It may sound obvious to anyone who knows me, but “hazardous, tricky clean-up of nuclear sites”:http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996199 is for me the single compelling reason to avoid nuclear power as a major energy source. I don’t worry nearly so much about Chernobyl-style accidents as I do about subtle, continuous contamination of an ecosystem due to nuclear byproducts.
Continue reading →