Salt in a so-called “healthy choice” meal; New York Times graphic

Nobody is going to argue with the fact that salt makes food taste better; One reason fast food tastes so good is that yummy combo of too much fat and salt. Everyone from Michelle Obama to Michael Bloomberg are trying to get us to eat less of it, so the salt industry is pushing back, hard. According to Michael Moss in the New York Times, they are using a strategy of “delay and dive…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Cutter Capshaw Photography

A year after the closure of MK Designs, Tracey Taylor of the New York Times interviews Michelle Kaufmann, looking back at the difficulties of building a business around green modern prefab. 25,000 people toured the Glidehouse at its debut rom at the Sunset Weekend event in 2004; I was there and watched in awe as people lined up for an hour in the sun. Taylor writes:

“The overwhelming response jump-started the company, whic…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Image via Apartment Therapy

It’s a tough job, trying to turn conventional wisdom on its head every day for the New York Times, but that doesn’t stop the Freakonomics team from trying, from spreading lousy advice and from not seeing the forest for the trees. Take the packaging of fruits and vegetables: James McWilliams writes that packaging makes food last longer and reduces food waste significantly, and that plastic is o…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Cynthia Magnus with destroyed clothing, Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times

The New York Times is having a hard time these days, and the mainstream media are taking a lot of hits. But you have to admit, there is still a lot of power in those presses. Just yesterday Jim Dwyer wrote A Clothing Clearance Where More Than Just the Prices Have Been Slashed, about how graduate student Cynthia Magnus discovered that piles of clothes from Wal-Mart and H&M were being destroyed and thrown out. Dwyer keeps it short:

It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn clothing is being …Read the full story on TreeHugger

Stuart Isett for The New York Times; great slideshow here

Two interesting articles in the New York Times about living in small, and odd, spaces; one by choice and the other by necessity.

Bretwood Higman and Erin McKittrick live in a yurt in Alaska with their 11 month old son, high speed internet but no running water or toilet. They walk for a living. While the architectural terminology leaves a bit to be desired (“their lives unfold under the conical eaves of a Mongolian yurt”), Sarah Maslin Nir captures the scene, and the challeng…Read the full story on TreeHugger

Andrew Revkin in Copenhagen, via flickr

You usually know you are doing something right when you are attacked from both sides. Rush Limbaugh thinks Andy Revkin is part of a radical environmentalist fringe and suggests he should kill himself to reduce his carbon emissions; Joe Romm accuses him of making “egregious mistatements” and Read the full story on TreeHugger

Flickr/Checco

Emissions aren’t the only thing being cut by the recession. On the same day that the Times axes 100 newsroom staff, Columbia University’s prestigious journalism school announces <...Read the full story on TreeHugger

We all know that environmental journalists are a dying breed but this is just ridiculous. On his nationally syndicated radio show today, climate expert Rush Limbaugh invited noted New York Times r…Read the full story on TreeHugger

You can get your LEED plaque in any number of different materials, but whatever kind you put up, it won’t guarantee that the New York Times will understand what it means. They do an “exposé” about LEED, noting that quite a few LEED buildings are not energy efficient enough to qualify for Energy Star certification.

But the Times distorts it two ways.

1. LEED is evolving. Even the Times admits that the Federal Building in Youngstown, that it criticizes for not scoring high enough to get Energy Star certification, would not qualify for LEED under today’s standards. So why lead off …Read the full story on TreeHugger

Atrazine Hot Spots in the New York Times. Use is greatest in corn growing areas.

The weed killer Atrazine is commonly used by farmers, on golf courses and those beautiful green lawns that people love so much. Most of it is made by the Swiss company Syngenta, which claims it is safe for Americans; somehow Europeans are different because the stuff is banned there and it can’t say the same thing at home. According to the New York Times, it is yet another gender-bender endocrine disruptor:

new research suggests that atrazine may be dangerous at lower concentrations than previously thought. Recent stud…Read the full story on TreeHugger