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Articles by Sarah van Schagen

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  • From Lubes to Lemurs

    Lube job Folks sometimes worry about sustainability during sex — just not the environmental kind. To make your pleasure greener there’s the Veg Sex Shop, a collection of vegan and […]

  • From Panties to Pledges

    Eco-panties The world’s fascination with panties dates back to, oh, probably whenever panties were invented. At U.K.-based GreenKnickers.org, they make them from organic materials or oddball secondhand dresses. You got […]

  • From Ritalin to Ridicule

    Nature as Ritalin A small-but-growing body of research shows that exposure to nature can reduce the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. For calming your crazed kids, “outside” is the […]

  • Bill Bryson’s books offer environmental ethics with a light touch

    A Walk in the Woods, the venerable travel writer's best-selling 1998 account of hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail, conjured memories of adventures I'd had as a kid in the forests where I grew up. Bryson seems to capture my dueling feelings about the woods: beautiful and inspiring from a distance -- "an America that millions of people scarcely know exists" -- yet disorienting and at times menacing from within. "[The] trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides," Bryson writes. "Woods choke off views and leave you muddled and without bearings. They make you feel small and confused and vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs."