When people go away, they send the best emails. In a new, occasional series, we air them out.

On my second day here in Delhi, a colleague warned me that personal space is an almost alien concept to most Delhiwallas. He revealed this to me while we jockeyed for space on the sidewalks of Connaught Place, after a passerby smashed into me with his shoulder. An hour later, while finishing drinks and paying our bill,…

The GOOD Guide to Reducing Your Water Use.

We use more water than we need. Here’s how to reduce your water footprint to fewer than 75 gallons per day. Read the introduction below or jump straight to sections on using less water in the bathroom, outdoors, and in the kitchen.

Last year, UNICEF announced that humans need about five gallons of clean water a day to survive.

In America, we can easily use 400 gallons per household, per…

3A: Do’s and Don’ts for Kitchen-Water Conservation

Some basic guidelines to live and wash by.

Compared to bathrooms and your garden, kitchens account for significantly less water waste. But that doesn’t mean we’re off the hook.

Do add a faucet aerator onto your kitchen sink—they drastically increase water efficiency.
Don’t run water waiting for it to get cold; pour room-temperature water into a glass and put it in the fridge.
Don’t run your dishwasher unless it’s full.
Do use the light cycle on your dishwasher…

2A: Lose the Lawn, Water Hogs

Potential water savings: up to 150 gallons per day, per household. 

There are much better ways to decorate or shade your turf, and it largely depends on where you live. Here’s a primer.

Planting appropriately is the best way to conserve water and not kill your plants. Much of the Western United States, for example, is built on or near deserts. That means that drought-tolerant planting is key. In the Midwest’s colder…

1A: A (Clean) Toilet Hack

Potential water savings: Up to 18 gallons per day, per person.

How to easily reduce the water wasted by every flush.

Toilets waste tons of water every year. When you flush, that’s about five or six gallons right there if you have a conventional toilet, and on average we each flush six times a day. Thankfully, there are now all sorts of products to lessen gallons per flush. There are low-cost add-ons like…

Before I left for an assignment in Shenzhen last year, my friend Nicholas, who grew up in that city, offered a primer on journalism in China. “Why do you want to tell people you are a journalist?” he wondered. “You can go, you can talk to anybody you want. If you’re not taking cameras everywhere, I don’t think there’s a problem.” As for the whole Tiananmen Square debacle: “This is very sensitive, no one wants…

Why we should encourage—and incentivize—immigrants to rejuvenate our ravaged cities, one thousand-dollar house at a time.

We can learn a lot about our society’s wastefulness by scanning the listings of bank-owned properties. These are homes that banks have foreclosed on and are now seeking to liquidate, and it’s shocking to watch how far property values have tumbled in large swaths of the country. As you’ve certainly heard by now, in rust belt cities like Cleveland, Detroit,…

Ever since the environmentally friendly building supply store Green Depot opened in New York, we have wondered: Is it worth it—financially, environmentally, and for your own health—to make your renovation more sustainable? A homeowner and his contractor weigh in.

On the television program Renovation Nation, host Steve Thomas travels to beautifully appointed eco-friendly homes, presenting each one as the logical sustainable choice. In the real world, however, it’s not that simple. Those homes cost more. Way…

When people go away, they send the best emails. In a new, occasional series, we air them out.

On my second day here in Delhi, a colleague warned me that personal space is an almost alien concept to most Delhiwallas. He revealed this to me while we jockeyed for space on the sidewalks of Connaught Place, after a passerby smashed into me with his shoulder. An hour later, while finishing drinks and paying our bill,…

The GOOD Guide to Reducing Your Water Use.

We use more water than we need. Here’s how to reduce your water footprint to fewer than 75 gallons per day. Read the introduction below or jump straight to sections on using less water in the bathroom, outdoors, and in the kitchen.

Last year, UNICEF announced that humans need about five gallons of clean water a day to survive.

In America, we can easily use 400 gallons per household, per…

3A: Do’s and Don’ts for Kitchen-Water Conservation

Some basic guidelines to live and wash by.

Compared to bathrooms and your garden, kitchens account for significantly less water waste. But that doesn’t mean we’re off the hook.

Do add a faucet aerator onto your kitchen sink—they drastically increase water efficiency.
Don’t run water waiting for it to get cold; pour room-temperature water into a glass and put it in the fridge.
Don’t run your dishwasher unless it’s full.
Do use the light cycle on your dishwasher…

2A: Lose the Lawn, Water Hogs

Potential water savings: up to 150 gallons per day, per household. 

There are much better ways to decorate or shade your turf, and it largely depends on where you live. Here’s a primer.

Planting appropriately is the best way to conserve water and not kill your plants. Much of the Western United States, for example, is built on or near deserts. That means that drought-tolerant planting is key. In the Midwest’s colder…

1A: A (Clean) Toilet Hack

Potential water savings: Up to 18 gallons per day, per person.

How to easily reduce the water wasted by every flush.

Toilets waste tons of water every year. When you flush, that’s about five or six gallons right there if you have a conventional toilet, and on average we each flush six times a day. Thankfully, there are now all sorts of products to lessen gallons per flush. There are low-cost add-ons like…

Before I left for an assignment in Shenzhen last year, my friend Nicholas, who grew up in that city, offered a primer on journalism in China. “Why do you want to tell people you are a journalist?” he wondered. “You can go, you can talk to anybody you want. If you’re not taking cameras everywhere, I don’t think there’s a problem.” As for the whole Tiananmen Square debacle: “This is very sensitive, no one wants…

Why we should encourage—and incentivize—immigrants to rejuvenate our ravaged cities, one thousand-dollar house at a time.

We can learn a lot about our society’s wastefulness by scanning the listings of bank-owned properties. These are homes that banks have foreclosed on and are now seeking to liquidate, and it’s shocking to watch how far property values have tumbled in large swaths of the country. As you’ve certainly heard by now, in rust belt cities like Cleveland, Detroit,…

Ever since the environmentally friendly building supply store Green Depot opened in New York, we have wondered: Is it worth it—financially, environmentally, and for your own health—to make your renovation more sustainable? A homeowner and his contractor weigh in.

On the television program Renovation Nation, host Steve Thomas travels to beautifully appointed eco-friendly homes, presenting each one as the logical sustainable choice. In the real world, however, it’s not that simple. Those homes cost more. Way…