Habitat

By Laura Turner Seydel, Chairman of the Captain Planet Foundation, Co-founder of Mothers & Others for Clean Air and LuxEco Advocate Via Defenders of Wildlife Defenders wins lawsuit; future of wolf recovery still uncertain * U.S. district court overturns Interior Secretary Salazar’s action that removed wolves in the Northern Rockies from the endangered species list * Ruling makes it clear that subdividing a wild population based on political boundaries rather than science violates the Endangered Species Act * Defenders calls for update of science and regional stakeholder collaboration to ensure continued wolf recovery and proper removal of federal protections

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Granted, there is an abundance of vegetation that only thrives during the rainy season or in mild warmth....

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate With as much time as we spend in our homes these days, we want to create a home that is a retreat, that is what we speak to, but we want our retreat to be safe so this is definitely going to be an option. Certainly they don’t have to take it all the way to major extremes, but they can do little things that will make a huge difference in their health, their design and in the environment.

by Elizabeth Grossman, Author of Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health via The...

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate As I wind down for the year I find myself thinking about a book called The Home Within Us and how much that says about my design philosophy. Everything I approach as a designer lies first and foremost in the feeling of comfort, well being, creating a place of safety and sanctuary. Problem solving, space planning, furniture and color selection comes later but it is driven by these things.

Sustainable Design: Green Cabinetry By: Lisa Adams, Designer and CEO of LA Closet Design and LuxEco Advocate So much is said about going green, but what exactly defines green? In short, green design (also referred to as "sustainable design" or "eco-design”) is the art of designing and building environments that comply with the principles of economic, social, and ecological sustainability. The goal of designing green is to produce places, products and services that significantly reduce or eliminate negative impact on the natural environment, while creating healthy places to live and work. When it comes to your home, educate yourself and make conscious choices about the materials living with you. Do they meet these goals?

By Lush Huxley, LuxEco Editorial Assistant ...Or so implies a new technology by Kolelinia lab the brain child of Bulgarian designer Martin Angelov. The lab...

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate In October 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored what has turned out to be a biannual competition called Solar Decathlon on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. 20 teams from colleges and universities from the U.S., Canada, Germany and Spain were selected and asked to design, build and operate an energy efficient house powered exclusively by the sun. The winning team produced a house that best blended affordability, ease of living, attractiveness, comfortable and healthy indoor environmental conditions, enough energy to run all household appliances and hot water as well as producing more energy than it consumes. Workshops were provided about the current state of green design technologies, jobs and the future of the smart grid.

By Jessica Borges, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant We can all thank the sun for making trash disposal a more eco-friendly task; and while we’re at it, we can also thank the creators of BigBelly Solar Trash Cans. These solar powered beefy looking trash cans are sprouting up on street corners in several metropolitan areas with goals of being more cost, time and energy efficient.

Introduction by Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Last summer, I had the privilege of interviewing Laura...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Here's a LuxEcoLiving4U time saver. It's called Hay Handle.           Time...

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Recycling and architecture meet on a whole new level with the design of the S_Pavilion by students from Chelsea...

By Stephanie Nickolson, Healthy Green Interior Designer and LuxEco Advocate Originally published at Natural Home & Garden Air pollution abounds in our homes and businesses, but many air purification systems are not safe to use. A Key to Healthy Green Design in your home starts with purifying indoor air quality with plants. Have you ever walked into a store, restaurant or other environment and couldn’t stand the heavily scented aroma that someone used to try and cover up another (worse) scent? Well, I have. It’s one of my favorite stores that I frequent and whenever I enter the washroom, I cannot wait to get out of there as the air is so heavily perfumed it makes me feel ill. This is not an effective remedy, nor is it healthy. Anything that exudes that much fragrance is certainly loaded with phthalates. Most commercial air fresheners mask odors but do nothing to remediate them.

by Heather Clisby Second Chance Ranch courtesy of BlogHer The latest product to land on my radar is a computable toothbrush, apparently "the first of...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Cows have a voice too! If you can stomach, actually bare...

By Lisa Adams, Designer and CEO of LA Closet Design and LuxEco Advocate Maximizing a closet is the number one issue for most people, and...

By Nancy Chuda founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World You don't want to miss the breakfast or the bed...

Green interiors are now innovative, elegant and easily available in every pricing category.  epOxyGreen, a 5,000-square foot showroom featuring sustainable flooring, carpeting, recycled decorative...

By Alanna Brown, LuxEco Editorial Assistant (originally published on eHow.com) In the month of April 2010, the United States spent $25.5 billion on electricity, using a total of 266.3 billion kilowatthours. While those numbers include retail sales to residential, industrial and commercial sectors, household owners have the power to drastically decrease electricity use overall by dropping the residential portion. Home dwellers have many options for reducing their monthly electric bill while simultaneously helping the environment.

by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of the Resplendent Repurposing series As if those of us who are concerned about toxic chemicals in our environment didn’t have enough things to worry about, we must now add methamphetamine lab sites, either currently operating or long closed down, to the list. The inconvenient truth is that you could be living in one right now. Or parked next to one. -- Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEcoLiving Editorial Assistant

They were thought to have been extinct since the 1980's but the thumbnail sized Palos Verdes Blue Butterfly (also known as the El...

By Rachel Sarnoff, Writer and Founder of EcoStiletto.com and MommyGreenest.com and LuxEco Advocate via www.ecostiletto.com Want to keep chemicals out of your home? Start with your furniture. Carcinogenic formaldehyde is...

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant Among Madame Gana Walska’s collection in the theatre garden are grotesque figures, which she hid in the ground to protect during the world war. She also had a garden clock with the different star signs. Her actual birthday is unknown but Lotusland believes that she was born in June, making her a Cancer. Join Nancy Chuda and Gwen Stauffer as they journey through these two lovely gardens.

Get rid of hazardous substances in your home and clean house with these great green cleaning products. By Brooke Rewa, Lux Eco Editorial Assistant Household cleaning products are full of hazardous substances that put our loved ones at risk. A clean house can be especially dangerous to children and pets. Toxic chemicals from conventional household products can be found on your floors, counters, carpets and transferred directly into the mouth of your pet or child. Many everyday cleaning products contain petroleum based pesticides and denatured ethanol, a type of ethanol that has one or more substances added to it making it poisonous. While we know little about the long-term health affects and environmental damage these hazardous substances can cause, it is safe to say the outcome cannot be good.

by Linsley Oaks, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Tree houses might not just be for little Tommy anymore in the near future.  If you have 3 minutes, check...

By Florence “Flip” Ross, LuxEco Advocate Since I was fortunate to have just celebrated my 88th birthday, I assume I am the oldest person writing for LuxEco Living. Therefore, allow me to tell you what life was like back in my day, and how we treated the environment. We didn't. We simply accepted things as they were, and I did not become aware of our world and how to keep it clean. It was just sufficient to live it.

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant One Prize Mowing to Growing, an eco-contest sponsored by the City of New York Parks and Recreation Department and the American Society of Landscape Architects, created an opportunity for architects, designers, planners, scientists, and other related individuals to "reinvent the American garden." This design competition called for “creating productive green space in cities," and they have announced the two first place winners!

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate I believe that every home should be a sanctuary and that upon entering it one should immediately feel physically and emotionally protected. What I first noticed upon entering Jim and Nancy Chudas Green Home to select a room to design for an upcoming feature in Los Angeles Magazine was that it had all of those qualities even in the construction phase.

By James Chuda, Co-founder of LuxEco Living and Healthy Child Healthy World With more knowledge, more consumer choices that allow us to support eco-friendly services and products and a better understanding of our interconnectedness to each other, the planet and the production processes of the things we buy, we could Live LuxEco! We could live truly sustainable. We could Live Green with More not Less! What if we thought different about the way we live- we got out of our individual little cars and away from suburban sprawl? How about a New Urbanism that teaches us to be self-sufficient while still contributing to the benefit of all society?

By Trish Holder Courtesy of Greenspiration Home Are you a blissfully ignorant homeowner? Do you eat, drink, shower, sleep, wash dishes, etc. in your...

by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant A future gift, recycled in a thrift store, made from recycled materials. Now that's a LuxEco Resplendent Repurposing triple header! by Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, LuxEcoLiving Editorial Assistant

By: Lorri Laird, LuxEco Editorial Assistant “Healthy Child Healthy World has gone above and beyond in creating a real-life example of how to create a healthier home,” said Victoria Di Iorio, Project Director for the Healthy Child Healthy World Healthy Home 2010 Designer Showcase and Tour. Di Iorio, who also serves as the Education & Outreach Coordinator for the non-profit charity Healthy Child Healthy World, recently spoke with LuxEco Living regarding the Healthy Home 2010 project and also shared her passion for green and healthy living.

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Designers and scientists have been working on different approaches to transportation issues as they become a greater concern with the ever-growing population. China has begun to address their own issues of overcrowding and transportation with their new concept busses that will drive above cars. Imagine driving through a tunnel that is moving above you!

by Elizabeth Grossman, Author of Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health via The Pump Handle "After three long months of oil geysering continuously from the depths of the Gulf, a temporary cap has stemmed the flow and it appears that the well is on its way to being killed. But we are by no means through this disaster," said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in his opening remarks at the August 4th Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the use of oil dispersants in the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

By DENNIS OVERBYE Physics; somewhere over the rainbow. What in the World Is a Higgs Boson?  Peter Higgs, an Edinburgh University professor, discussed the particle that bears...