Personally, I’m a big fan of eneloop batteries. I believe the batteries Apple uses in their wireless mouse and keyboard are re-branded eneloops.

Here are some new articles of mine that were published in alive magazine. Click on the thumbnails to view them. The first is on whether cell phone towers are safe or not. There is much heated debate surrounding this issue and I got a lot of hate mail for even suggesting we don’t know all there is to know about the technology. The hard truth is that we just don’t have the data spanning a human lifetime to say one way or the other, so lay off haters! My second article is less controversial – should you shave your head when going bald (yes). This was a fun article to write and I got to interview P. Diddy’s barber in Hollywood. Really nice guy. The art guy is an avid surfer so the appearance of Kelly Slater as the bald hunk poster boy is no surprise.

Baby’s nontoxic nursery: Preparing a healthy space for your newborn. What paints should you choose when decorating baby’s new room? Surrounding your new child with noxious fumes is the last thing you want to do.

Lawn warfare: Pesticide and herbicide use in Canada. I interviewed the PR person from the David Suzuki Foundation as well as a professor of biomolecular chemistry to write this one.

Get in the habit: 10 easy ways to shrink your carbon footprint. This one is self explanatory. But did you know the concept for a carbon footprint was derived from those newfangled desktops in the early 90s that stood upright instead of lying flat?

In it for the money: Green initiatives that are good for our ecology economy. This is one of those slightly cynical pieces. The intro comes from a really funny ad for IBM that you can watch here on Youtube. The art department did an awesome job with this one.

The eco dilemma: Why electric cars won’t save the world. Once again, an alternative look at a green deus ex machina (a term, incidentally, that I had originally used in the intro – but my editor wisely replaced this rather academic term with “save the day”).

Selenium and cancer: Good news and bad. A short piece on the links between cancer and an antioxidant called selenium.

Two very short pieces: Cleaning our lakes – about a government restriction of phosphates, and When TVs die – about the switchover from analog to digital and the potential aftermath of discarded TVs in our landfills. 

I enjoyed writing this article because, well, I’m a SME when it comes to being cheap. Let’s just say that being a student has taught me how to stretch every dollar. And my hefty student loans will ensure the continuation of my pauper-like existence for some time to come!

Anyway, here’s an article I really enjoyed writing because, well, I love surfing! And so does Scott over in the art department. He took some glorious pictures in Tofino and quite simply graced my article with them. Click on the thumbnail to hit the beach dude.

Seeing these two articles juxtaposed like this evokes a stark contrast between Western frivolity and Aboriginal reality. Note how they’re both sitting in the same cross-legged position too. I almost wish the art department had actually planned it that way.

To read the article, click on the thumbnail.

The first article is a couple of shorts on the nine most vulnerable areas on planet Earth and toxic toys. The second is an article on why recycling religiously doesn’t necessarily make you a saint.