Laurie's light travel travel tips

After Lawn Love came out with a list of the most popular states for a "green" burial , it gave me pause: just what is a green burial, do I want one, and why hadn't I (Miss Green) ever heard of one? I had always figured cremation to be the greenest - or arguably, GREENER - alternative. I had seen death as bifurcated - I will be burnt or I will be buried. Scratch that, my body. I will be somewhere else, I hope, sipping a Mai Tai with Elvis, my mom and Uncle John. Connecticut is 24th in the nation for green burials, but Massachusetts is an impressive fifth. (Analyses of these figures is on Lawn Love's site.) A green burial, turns out, can take several forms - from choosing a Redwood we like (while alive!) and buying the little plot of earth around it (then buying a plaque to mark our spot) to, more popularly I think, being buried in a green fashion by forgoing embalming fluids or a toxic burial containers in favor of one that is biodegradable. Connecticut has Better Plac...

Awakening to another smoky sky is horrifying. We in Connecticut need to do more than pray for our Canadian neighbors or Google "when will smoke clear?" We must recycle, reuse and be conservative with energy, water and all precious resources. I can't tell you how many SUV-driving climate destroyers look down on ME for walking or riding the bus. (Shout out to that guy packing his bicycle basket at Big Y in Branford the other day.) We remain under an Air Quality Alert issued Monday by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental protection until midnight. Climate change has already decimated or impaired many regions of the world, from Australia to California, depending on the season. Last time I checked, Canada was in the northernmost part of the continent, where warm weather has been a punchline. The New York Times has published an interactive map that shows frightening dark clouds intermittently shrouding the Tri State. They report data from the Canadian Interag...