Habitat

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

By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Living Editorial Assistant Follow Nancy Chuda and Gwen Stauffer as they explore Lotusland's Giants. Check out insider videos of the endangered Chilean Wine Palm and the wonderfully colorful collection of bromeliads.

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 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: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate. I know there is a lot of talk about the value of buying goods that are grown or made locally but for me there are reasons that far outweigh the use of fuels that travel such long distances to get to our shores and that is helping out our fellow human. Artecnica, a Los Angeles based design and manufacturing company, is committed to considering issues of environmental sustainability and responsible manufacturing. Design w/Conscience is a program, begun in 2002, that works with artisan communities in developing countries to produce unique handcrafted objects that reflect indigenous skills to be in accordance with humanitarian and environmentally sensitive principles.

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 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 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...

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.

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 The American Public Health Association's (APHA) Occupational Health & Safety Section has announced the winners of its 2010 Occupational Health & Safety Awards. In a year that has been marked by what David Michaels, Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, has described as "a series of workplace tragedies" - among them the deaths of 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch Mine and 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico - noting both the honorees, and those in whose honor the awards are given, is a reminder of the enormous work, courage, and long history of efforts to ensure safety at work.

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...

"The sound of water is so   relaxing," says Peter Logan of Peter Logan Designs in Tujunga California.  "And the water garden is a...

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 Nancy Chuda Founder and Editor in Chief of LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful...

After recently writing an article about Justin Timberlake’s newly reopened green golf course, Mirimichi, I began to dig deeper into the potential hazards that non-green golf courses pose and the ultimate cost that humankind and the environment will have to pay. One of the main and most talked about dangers of golf courses in recent years, has been the use of pesticides on golf course lawns.

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: Molly Rovero LuxEco Editorial Assistant A recent report created for North Carolina’s Waste Awareness & Reduction Network (NC WARN) was titled “ Solar and...

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 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!

Do GREEN buildings protect human health from environmental hazards? “Not necessarily” according to the findings at Environment and Human Health, Inc., a non-profit organization composed of doctors, public health professionals and experts specializing in environmental threats to human health.

By: Leslie Harris, Interior Designer, Leslie Harris Interior Design and LuxEco Advocate Lori Weitzner's products have been seen on movie sets, an Olympic Village, the Wynn resorts, prestigious stores such as Tiffanys’ and even museum walls. Important design museums have been exhibiting and acquiring Lori’s work for their permanent collections including London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and Montreal’s Musee Decoratifs. In 2006 she was the subject of her first solo exhibition at the Institute of Arts in Minneapolis. Lori is also the recipient of more than 20 awards and honors, including the esteemed Best of Neocon.

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 Nancy Chuda founder and Editor-in-Chief LuxEcoLiving and co-founder of Healthy Child Healthy World Orchids can be orchidellic     Santa Barbara International Orchid Show And...

By Florence “Flip” Ross, LuxEco Advocate One day at work, I happened to mention that I found these hills so pleasant to look at every time I passed them, and I wondered how they had developed there in the midst of all the flatness, which looked like God had ironed the land. Everyone laughed and said: “Don’t you know what those hills are?

By Margret Debanne, Art Historian and LuxEco Advocate With yesterday's naming of SANAA Partners as winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture, Kazuyo Sejima has...

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...

6 Ways to Make a More Sustainable "Green" Home By: Molly Rovero, LuxEco Editorial Assistant Many homes weren't build with Green in mind and home improvement...

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 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.

Just last month marks the fifth year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the catastrophic natural disaster that claimed more than 1,800 lives in the Gulf coast region with damages totaling $80 billion. After the devastation of the hurricane and consequent flooding, it seemed to its residents and many around the world that New Orleans, specifically, was making a painstakingly slow recovery. Frustrated by the sluggish progress, actor Brad Pitt founded the Make It Right Foundation in 2007 to help rebuild the hardest hit region of New Orleans, the Lower 9th ward.

By Nancy and James Chuda founders of LuxEcoLiving and Healthy Child Healthy World Why Your Health Matters Most Walk don't run while searching Google for the...

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...

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

The meditation suite, powder room and terrace of the Green Home, was designed to reflect James and Nancy Chuda's love for Buddhism, Zen philosophy...