Is Greening Your Home Worth It? | Newsweek Environment

A Private Space Shuttle
Fred Guterl 10/9/2009 12:00:00 AM
In the early 1970s, Freeman Dyson wrote an essay comparing space travel to the colonization of the New World and the settlement of the American West. The subject was fanciful, but that didn't keep Dyson, an eminent physicist and writer for the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, from making a meticulous effort to quantify and compare the costs of these vastly different ventures. From letters of Gov. William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony, Dyson calculated that the Mayflower's voyage in 1620 from England to Massachusetts cost the average family about 7.5 years in wages. The westward trek of the Mormons in the 1840s cost each family about 2.5 years, according to records left behind by Brigham Young, the Mormon leader. Even a modest space voyage, Dyson calculated, would set the average family back 1,500 years in wages. The difference reflected the relative difficulty of space travel, but also the limitations of big government programs to do things on the cheap.
Building a Better Password
Nick Summers 10/9/2009 12:00:00 AM
My password is gr8199. I've been using it for more than a decade, ever since a Web site first required me to create a string of six to 12 characters, with a mixture of letters and numbers. At that moment the only sequence I could think of had to do with the Wayne Gretzky vanity license plate my family happened to be considering: the Great One, No. 99, which yielded gr8199. As the requirements for passwords evolved over the years, I added extra nines, cobbled on a question mark, and blended it with my alternate password (which is, insanely, my Social Security number). Until last week, gr8199 and its descendants got you into my laptop, my e-mail, my Scrabble, my bank accounts, my blog, my work PC, my health insurance, Facebook, Skype, Snapfish, Hulu, my tax returns, and at least 39 other sites across the Internet. I can tell you my secret code because I'm changing it; I'm changing it because I'm telling you. My password system is a mess—and I bet yours is, too.
Peytonplace.com
Johnnie L. Roberts 10/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
Until recently, a fender bender or a gas leak in Millburn, N.J., was treated like the minor event that it is. Then Jennifer Connic arrived in town. Connic, 32, is the editor of a Web site called Millburn.Patch.com, part of a chain of local sites called Patch.com, and since February she's been covering mundane events in this suburban town of 20,000 residents with a zeal most journalists re-serve for a big scoop. Connic shows up at so many auto accidents that for a time Millburn Fire Chief Michael Roberts began going too, just so he could deal with Connic's questions while his firefighters worked. At Millburn town hall, town administrator Timothy Gordon often spends part of his week alerting the Millburn Township Committee about what news Connic is likely to break next—so they hear it from him, not from her blog. For decades the locals got their news from a sleepy weekly newspaper, but now, with Connic, rival bloggers, and the "citizen journalists" they recruit walking the Millburn beat 24/7, Gordon sometimes has trouble staying abreast of town controversies. "They can come across problems before [town officials] know about them," Gordon says. (Article continued below...)
Sailing the Seas of Green
Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop 10/2/2009 12:00:00 AM
As a sport, yachting may be all about harnessing the power of the wind, but for most superyachts, that's where ecofriendliness ends. Typically, these 45-meter-plus boats guzzle huge amounts of fuel while their owners host lavish parties that require high-powered amenities like air conditioning and fancy sound systems. But the green agenda has begun to reach even these behemoths of the sea, with marine architects and designers seeking ever more innovative ways to apply conservation technologies to their vessels.
No More ‘Second Class’
10/2/2009 12:00:00 AM
It's a long way from Brazil's starving northeast to the U.N., but Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva knows -every step. The peasant's son is now the heralded leader of a regional powerhouse and a self-designated spokesman for emerging nations everywhere. On the eve of the U.N. meeting in New York last week, Lula talked to NEWSWEEK's Mac Margolis about Brazil's rise, clean energy, the economic crisis, and what poor countries can teach the superpowers.
Brazil’s Oil Rush
Mac Margolis 10/2/2009 12:00:00 AM
Ever since the Brazilian state energy company Petrobras struck oil in giant fields deep below the floor of the Atlantic, the mood in the normally sedate Brasília has been practically euphoric. In 2007, this chronically energy-deficient nation confirmed it had hit the energy jackpot. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva donned overalls and a hard hat and helicoptered out to an offshore drilling platform to dip his hand in oil, like a Hollywood idol leaving a footprint in the sidewalk. A seminar last week in the capital kicked off with the national anthem. "We still do not know exactly how much oil is in the pre-salt layers," intoned keynote speaker Dilma Rousseff, Lula's chief of staff. "We have strong evidence that God is Brazilian."