Consumer

"President Obama’s ambitious goals to curb the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, unveiled last week, will get a fortuitous assist from an incipient shift in American behavior: recent studies suggest that Americans are buying fewer cars, driving less and getting fewer licenses as each year goes by."

"Global warming of 2 degrees Celsius threatens African food production and Asian water supplies 'in our lifetime,' hurting the poorest first, the World Bank said."

"Could your driveway be making you sick? Mounting research suggests it could. It's prompting more cities, states and businesses to ban a common pavement sealant linked to higher cancer risks and contaminated soil."

"Think of all the things you've touched today - the door handles pulled, the elevator buttons pushed, the railings held, the coins counted. All of them were coated with germs. Afterward, so were your hands."

"In the 1980s, manufactures began making cockroach baits that combined sweet glucose with deadly insecticides. By 1993, many cockroach populations somehow developed an aversion to the bait. Now, 20 years later, scientists finally understand how the roaches beat these traps."

"Lipstick can give your lips color, sheen and texture, but may also put you at risk of ingesting potentially toxic metals, University of California, Berkeley researchers say."

"Researchers at Johns Hopkins University said they found levels of arsenic in chicken that exceeded amounts that occur naturally, and warned that they could lead to a small increase in the risk of cancer for consumers over a lifetime."

Until recently the American food revolution seemed to have bypassed the Rustbelt region which rims the Great Lakes from Buffalo to Detroit. But an "interdependent web of chefs, butchers, farmers, millers, bakers and brewers" there are "cooking sustainably, supporting agriculture and raising families — all while making world-class food with a strong sense of place."