Articles by Erik Hoffner

Prying kids away from TV and video games costs … $100 million?

Here's a quote from one of today's electronic-gadget-loving kids: "The reason I prefer playing indoors is because that's where all the electrical outlets are."

That was shared by Richard Louv (Grist interview here), author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, during a conference call I hosted recently for the Orion Grassroots Network, to catch us up on what's new in the "getting kids back into nature" movement (full audio here). Turns out there's a lot.

The book documents how outdoor, unstructured play is critical to child development -- and is a bestseller, now in its 14th printing in five languages. But the amazing thing about this issue is that it really has legs, even with the notoriously finicky news media. Major outlets have printed multiple stories on the "indoor kids crisis" in the two years since the book came out. Even the 700 Club's Christian Broadcasting Network is concerned. Why? Louv has a couple thoughts about that.

Go car-free, win stuff

Here's something most Gristers are probably already doing: going car-free once a week. So step up, take credit, and get entered to win these prizes from New American Dream:

• Grand Prize: A one-week Bike Tour of Oregon for you and a friend, provided by Sustainable Energy in Motion
• Second Prize: A Villager U-frame Breezer Bike
• Third Prize: A $200 carbon offset from Native Energy (and a snazzy t-shirt as well)

What are you seeing out there?

Saw a black bear with two very cute cubs today. Stopping by a local grocery to pick up some things, I went to note the sighting on their nature sightings board ("what are you seeing? when? where?") and was amazed by the number and types of animals people were recording: there were so many that there wasn't a scrap of room for mine: there were moose, bear, foxes, fishers, mink, eagles, and even a goshawk already up there ... none of which is remarkable in western Mass., which went from being largely deforested for agriculture as late as a century ago, to now being roughly 70 percent wooded. But the ritual of noting in such a public place what's scampering around strikes me as a good one.

So if you're seeing interesting wildlife near you, or have spotted some on your summer trips, leave your fellow Gristers a comment about it.

GM will offer clean diesel passenger cars in 2010

GM is planning to bring diesel Saturns and Caddies to the U.S. market in 2010. (A Caddie that gets decent mileage? Who'd have guessed?) They join Nissan, Honda, DaimlerChrysler, and of course Volkswagen in planning to market clean diesels that will meet the new 2008 regulations on NOx and particulate emissions from diesel vehicles.

Missing from this list of diesel adopters is Toyota, which is saying that clean diesels "... would end up being more expensive than gasoline-electric hybrids," a market segment which it dominates.