greenwash hogwash

Eco-buyer Beware! is the title of a Time magazine article about all the greenwashing that's happening these days now that the sustainable lifestyle has hit primetime. The fear is that all of the illegitimate claims are not only going make it difficult for consumers to determine who is telling the truth, but the frustration that comes with it will bring down the whole green movement.

An excerpt:

If you're not yet sick of seeing whirling wind turbines and sun-dappled solar panels on TV, you will be: the new fall season is likely to feature a flood of green advertising. It's gotten so bad that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been holding hearings over the past year to define the difference between genuine environmental claims and empty greenwash. It's not easy--and environmental advocates worry that truly green companies could get lost in all the clamor.

Read the full story.

[Image: Erik++ via Treehugger]

vegetarian shrinkage

A wake up call to vegetarians: get your vitamin B12!

A new study out of Melbourne, Australia has found that vegetarians are 6 times more likely to experience brain shrinkage than meat-eating counterparts. I haven't been able to find the actual study (which makes me a little suspicious, 'cause this news is going like hotcakes 'round the net). The reason for the brain shrinkage is said to be due to lack of vitamin B12, an essential nutrient only found in meat and yeast extracts like Marmite (or how 'bout a nice Vegemite sandwich?).

The part of the brain that's most affected by the shrinkage is the hippocampus, which is responsible for short term memory and spatial memory. So vegetarians and vegans, don't forget: take your vitamins!

[Source: Times of India]

The best daily vitamin supplements I've found are from New Chapter Organics. They seem expensive at around $45 a bottle, but that's for a 90 days (3 months) supply. They're made with organic ingredients and have double the recommended daily dose of B12. These vitamins are considered a cultured whole food, which means that the body will easily digest the nutrients in their most active form.

Every Woman's One Daily (90 tablets for $45.12)

• Naturally gluten free
• 100% vegetarian
• No artificial flavors or colors
• Each tablet contains 800 mcg of folate, a vitamin essential for woman's health, especially before and during pregnancy
  

Full nutrition info here.


Every Man's One Daily (90 tablets for $45.11)

• Naturally gluten free
• 100% vegetarian
• No artificial flavors or colors

Full nutrition info here.

eco news roundup: wildlife

• Will Central Africa's Forest Wildlife Be Eaten into Extinction? [Scientific American]
• Shhh, Listen — Rare Soundscapes of Vanishing Habitats [Wired]
• Greenland may break with international whale hunting restrictions [Green Daily]
• Roadsides can help bees survive [Green Daily]

eco news roundup: autos

• Home-Brewed Biodiesel Goes Primetime [Wired]
• Diesel Ford Fiesta Smokes Prius, Gets 62.5 MPG [Jalopnik]
• Peugeot Bringing a Hybrid to Le Mans [Wired]
• You'll Need The Gas Savings With Mercedes' $100K Hybrid [Wired]

62.5MPG Ford Fiesta (not for US!)

bug life

Watching insects is fascinating to me. Their world, the way they conduct their lives, is so alien to the way of humans. They seem to have a different order of business than us -- efficient, clearly purposeful. A bee goes from flower to flower, industriously collecting pollen. A butterfly, another pollinator, flutters over the ocean waves, down the beach, migrating south to die.

This weekend we went out to my [boyfriend's] sister and brother-in-law's place on Long Island. I captured (on camera) two small creatures -- both predators -- going about their business.

Mr. Mantis
For all I know he was a she. But we'd seen he/she before in the very same spot a few months earlier. I'm not sure what his/her plan was perched on the deck railing, but clearly Mr./Ms. Mantis was comfortable there. He/she was at ease enough to pose for these pictures and didn't move from that spot for at least an hour.


I see you!

We didn't observe any particular industrious behavior from Mr./Ms. Mantis, but among the sea grass he/she was camouflaged rather well from the birds above.

Apparently, mantises have great vision for insects -- they're able to see movement up to 60 feet away. Though a few weeks ago I think we came across a vision-impaired mantis who threw itself in the path of a moving car (pop!). We thought he was in the clear when the first tire missed him, but nope, that second tire got him. It was a sad sight.

Mantises are said to be good for organic gardens, since they eat other insects.

Ms. Spider (aka, Wolf Spider, aka, Wolfmother)
I'm pretty confident of the sex of this creature. This is a female, and I believe it's a cross spider (Araneus diadematus). This particular lady likes to hide in the corner, tucked in the door frame, awaiting her prey. Her male partner hung out in plain sight of us humans, but at a safe distance from the female (the male sometimes gets eaten by the female).



Dinnertime!


Come to mama!

My bro-in-law likes to feed the spider he lovingly calls the Wolf Spider. This particular feeding included a moth appetizer followed by a cricket main course. The cricket tried to play possum, but it clearly didn't work.



She's a beauty

farm aid 2008

What's wrong with our farm system? It's unsustainable, unsupportive to family farmers, and unhealthy to us all. But for over 20 years, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young (and since 2001, Dave Matthews) have been striving to change that. As the face of Farm Aid, these musicians have seen their positive impact in the success of family farms, in the spread of the Good Food Movement, and through the development of grants that help farmers in need.

The concert
The Farm Aid concert, held next Saturday (9/20) in Mansfield, Massachusetts, is sold out this year. But you can still join the FarmYard fan club. If you join you get:

• A Farmers Kick A$$ totebag
• A chance to get special tickets to the FarmAid Concert
• Year-round access to the members-only site with exclusive photos and video, including the 2008 concert webcast
• 10% discount in the online store
• Quarterly drawings for free autographed items like t-shirts and program books

Who benefits
One of the groups Farm Aid funds is FoodRoutes, a non-profit that provides support to organizations that aim to rebuild local, community-based food systems. One of their efforts is Buy Fresh, Buy Local, which introduces consumers to local produce and the farmers who provide it.

Meet the farmers who've benefited from Farm Aid.

Watch this important message from Neil Young

green brooklyn all day event!

The Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment is hosting an all day eco event that's free and open to the public next Thursday. After looking at the jam-packed schedule of workshops and talks on all things green, I think I'll be there for the full day. Here are the details:

The event

Green Brooklyn... Green City 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008, 11:30am - 5:00pm
Brooklyn Borough Hall
209 Joralemon Street
Brooklyn, NY 11209

The full schedule

• 12:00pm - 5:00pm
  Project ReUse: Reincarnate that Trash! Fun Zone
• 12:00pm - 12:45pm
  Food Miles: An Inside Look at Food from Farm (or Factory) to Table
• 12:00pm - 1:00pm
  The Real Greenbacks: Investing to Make a Difference
• 12:30pm - 1:00pm
  Opening Address (featuring Sandi Franklin, Center for the Urban Environment • Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President • Antonia Yuille-Williams, Con Edison)
• 1:00pm - 1:45pm
  Green Building: From Contracting to Certifications & CUE Case Study
• 1:00pm - 1:45pm
  Breathe Easy: A How-To for Creating a Non-Toxic Home Environment
• 1:00pm - 2:30pm
  Special Film Screening and Discussion: King Corn
• 3:00pm - 3:45pm
  Solar Your Building
• 2:45pm - 3:45pm
  Sustainability in the Nonprofit Sector: A Leader's Forum
• 4:00pm - 4:45pm
  Navigating NYC: From Pedicabs to Green Car Services
• 4:00pm - 5:00pm
  How Big is Your Footprint: Free Professional Development for Teachers

Read more about the event.

Check out the King Corn trailer:

great remake

I'm always trying to find new uses for trash. I've made cereal boxes into magazine racks. And I've got a pile of plastic from food packaging and coffee top lids that I'm looking to repurpose.

Well, now there's a place that can help me do just that. RePlayGround knows how to give garbage a new life, and they'll show you how, too.

With RePlayGround's help bottlecaps become magnets, old glasses become picture frames, and umbrellas become skirts. They'll even come to your birthday party or other special event for on-site, hands-on trash transformations. Plus they've got kits and project books to make it easy for anyone to make lamps, transform clothing, or turn garbage into games.

They also take on design projects for companies -- just give 'em your office trash and they'll make some great gift-worthy items for employees or clients.



See how it's done:


Find out if any stores near you sell their remade stuff.

[RePlayGround via Ideal Bite]

abstract impact

Our impact on the planet is profound. These are NASA images (courtesy of NASA via Environmental Graffiti) of Garden City, Kansas croplands (above) and Brazilian deforestation (below). Check out more amazing images of earth from 400 miles above here.

a message

[My friend Anne took this last week when we were in the park.]

exploring, gathering

With no immediate intentions other than eating our lunch, my bf and I went to Prospect Park yesterday afternoon. The weather was amazing -- sunny but not too hot, perfectly comfortable in the shade -- it was like the storm of Saturday hadn't happened.

After polishing off some rigatoni (with heirloom tomatoes, goat gouda, basil, chives, and fresh chili pepper, yum!) we sat for a bit. We noticed an unusual amount of little children in the park, as if the rain had sprouted them like mushrooms out of the ground. We watched as dogs pranced by, commenting on their coats and gaits, and guessing their breeds, one of our favorite past times.

Then we got up and went over to dog beach for some more canine commentary. Despite recent reports of contamination by rat excrement (more here and here), the little section of the pond that's cordoned off for doggy frolicking was jam packed with puppies.

[Image: Lane Johnson, AM New York]

Aside from the pups, some rose hips poking out from behind a fence caught our attention. Knowing exactly what they were by their leaves, thorns, and telltale fuzzy tops, we picked a bunch.

[The rosehips we picked]

This little discovery-in-plain-sight sparked my newfound fire for finding wild edibles. So we headed into "the woods." Right on cue, as we passed to the right of the pond, we saw a cute little rat feasting on some hawthorne or some other apple-like fruit. Another passerby labeled him "local fauna."

We took a trail we usually don't go down, towards the Center Drive and Nethermead. We walked along the drive, to the southwest, eyes peeled to the ground. Burdock, pokeweed (poisonous at this time of year), jewelweed, and goldenrod -- we identified them and walked on by. Along the drive is a bridle path, and we ended up walking in it (paying heed to horsey landmines). Then we spotted a seemingly less traveled mulch- and leaf-covered path. As close as we were to the road (which generally isn't open to car traffic), I felt strangely transported. It was so serene, apart from the rustling of leaves by robins, squirrels, and a couple of speedy chipmunks.

To the right of this path ran a chainlink fence which I didn't think much of until we came across this sign (on the other side of the fence):

[Image: Noelle D'Arrigo, Brooklyn Paper]

I thought I remembered hearing about a cemetery in the park where Montgomery Clift was buried. For some odd reason, I forgot about this fascinating info. The Quaker Friends Cemetery isn't open to the public, except on rare special occasions or on volunteer clean-up days. But I just love knowing it's there, the little bit of it we could see from the trail. (Learn more about the cemetery.)


[Image: Rikomatic]

We continued up the trail, now heading north-northwest. Caught another view of the cemetery (though not as revealing as the one above) and continued on.

At the bottom of the trail we collected spicebush berries, more to add to last week's collection which have been drying on the countertop (I just put the dried ones in the fridge).


[Fresh vs week-old picked spicebush berries]

Under the spicebush we saw what at first we thought were potatoes, then pears. After further inspection we realized they were some kind of nut. We looked up and realized that high up in the trees there were many more (Please don't fall on my head!). After an inquiry to my go-to foraging expert, Leda Meredith, I learned these were probably horse chestnuts, and therefore not edible.

[Most likely poisonous horse chestnuts]

At this point we were by the baseball fields, behind a big pile of mulch. We walked back to more familiar territory and found some more tree nuts, this time (potentially) edible ones, black walnut.


[Hopefully black walnut... gotta crack it open to find out]

I've lived here for over 5 years and have been to this park countless times, yet there are still new things to discover. (I'm sure the woman who writes A Year in the Park would whole-heartedly agree.) I just have to remember to take a step off the usual path to find them.

world of good (shopping)

When I spend my hard-earned dough I'd like to know where it's going. Who is it benefiting (or harming)? What kinds of resources were used? Is it really worth the price (in terms of labor, effort, materials, etc)?

So in recent years, I've become really selective about where I shop. As I've said before, I avoid the big box and big name retailers (whenever possible) in favor of local, indie biz. Think Etsy vs Banana Republic, eBay vs Crate and Barrel. Of course there are times when it's really difficult to completely ignore the big boys, like when you need a paper towel holder or new toilet seat.

Thankfully it's getting easier and easier to find alternative sources for goods. Like the new responsible marketplace by eBay, World of Good. They've got a pretty big range of fair trade and/or eco-friendly stuff, from clothing and jewelry to furniture and toys. What's really great is that they break it down in terms of the impact your purchase has. They call this a Goodprint and these are the categories: people positive, eco positive, animal friendly, and supports a cause.

It's feel-good shopping, certified by third parties with their Trustology verification system. Many of their verifiers and sellers have been in the fair trade game for years, including Co-op America and Ten Thousand Villages.

Here's a random selection of fun things you can get from World of Good:

PeaceKeeper Nail Polish
Proceeds go to people positive charities


Telephone Wire Bracelet
Eco-friendly repurposed wire, benefits South African artisans

Baby Llama Toy
Benefits Peruvian artisans, made with energy conservation in mind


Where does your hard-earned dough go?

feel-good farming

EcoSalon reports on sustainable family-run farms, specifically 3rd generation Tramar Farms in Iowa.

They clearly state that they are stewards of the land (and they intend to leave it better than they found it) and that their animals are to be raised ethically and humanely, with access to fresh air, green grass and clean water.

Contrast that to a typical factory farm, which treat animals like unfeeling meat-producing machines, routinely use chemicals and cruelty, and leave the surrounding lands destroyed by huge polluting pools of manure.

It may cost a little more to get your meat, milk and eggs from a healthy family farm, but you are what you eat, and your money supports whatever you spend it on. What’s it worth to you?

I couldn't have said it better myself.