7th Gen Blog

A few days ago, I got my first sign of spring—a red-winged blackbird calling from the hedgerow. Other than that, evidence that winter is over in these still-quite-frozen parts exists solely on calendars and in fevered imaginations. Still, spring will eventually show up. And with it the toughest challenges of the cleaning season.
 

Although climate change is often politicized, a new poll from the American Lung Association shows that clean air is important to everyone, regardless of what side of the aisle they stand on.
 
The bipartisan poll of 800 registered voters shows that most people—across gender, racial, geographic, and political party lines—favor stricter air pollution standards from the EPA. It also shows that voters feel good about the EPA and the Clean Air Act.
 

For most of the 20th century, through the 1970s, iceberg was the most popular variety of lettuce in the United States accounted for 95% of the lettuce grown in this country.  Romaine became popular in the U.S. thanks to the increasing taste for the Caesar salad. More than 16,000 acres of romaine was being grown by the mid-90s, and today this figure stands at more than 80,000.
 

We've all seen the news: droughts in the south, fires ravaging our forests in the west, hurricanes on the east coast. North America has been affected by significantly more weather-related extreme events in recent decades, especially in the year 2012, than many other parts of the globe. A publication by Munich Re, the world's foremost reinsurance agency, titled "Severe weather in North America" analyzes all kinds of weather perils and their trends.