Elisa's Green Scene

Safety first?

Recently I was in an Aveda store. I buy some, but not all, of my hair and skin care products from Aveda. Aveda is also widely recognized by the U.S. consumer as one of the greenest companies around.

While in the store I looked for products with sunscreen built in. And I couldn't find a single one with an SPF over 15, which is almost useless, no?

When I asked the clerk whether they had anything stronger, she launched into the explanation that no, they didn't. And that was because they hadn't yet been able to create a formula that was stronger without including the kind of ingredients they don't include...chemicals, I suppose. (Here's their page on ingredients.)

I get what she was saying, but we all know that sunscreen is one of those basic health and beauty products we should all be using every single day. (More top of mind for me lately, since someone close to me was diagnosed with melanoma.)

She said they're working on it.

But basically my question is: what's safer? To stick to products that are all-natural or to put something on your skin with more questionable ingredients, but with proper sun protection?

And why don't we have a better choice?

Anybody aware of a company who has cracked this code?

The perfect present for my S.O.

Hat tip to ecofabulous for pointing me to the Les Paul SmartWood guitar collection. What's so smart? here's the description:

The new Les Paul SmartWood Exotics are made from six of the world's most prized and rare tropical woods. The trees are harvested from managed, renewable forests certified by the Rainforest Alliance. Modeled on the original The Paul of the late 1970s, the Les Paul SmartWood Exotics have all the essential features, playability, and sound of a carved-top Les Paul but are lighter and very affordable. To complement these truly exotic woods, the carved top is left to its natural texture and color with a durable, UV-cured matte finish to bring out every nuance and detail.

Each guitar comes with a certificate of authenticity. A portion of all sales will be donated to benefit the Rainforest Alliance.

And there's more info (albeit in press release form) here.

I'm a little frustrated they don't include the price on that page, though. I'm thinking this is the perfect present for the S.O. Christmas? 1-year anniversary? Birthday? Whenever, I need to know how much I need to be saving up!

Here's one online source pricing them at $1000. Yikes.

eBay has about six currently for sale, and much cheaper. But do you trust eBay for a big purchase like that? (Yes, clearly I'm not a regular eBay user.)

Anyway, if your S.O. is a musician, at any level, and you've been thinking of splurging on their behalf, this is, apparently a way to do so and maintain your green principles.

The Metro tackles The New Meat vs. The No Meat

Last Thursday I got an email from my editor over at the Metro. Seems they were doing a cover story on "The New Meat." The New Meat is much like the old meat (dead flesh of most likely tortured sentient creatures who feel pain in just about the same, exact way we do) but it comes with fun terms like "sustainable" and "organic", all of which makes the privileged omnivores who can afford it feel much much better.

It occurred to them (somewhat late in the process I must point out) that maybe they should present an alternate view...just to be fair and balanced. Could I whip something up by mid-day Monday.

Well, of course I could. And I wouldn't miss the opportunity.

So, here's the New Meat issue.

And here's my response.

I would imagine that many of my readers here are not veg*ns per se, and so the concept of organic and sustainable and local meat sources appeals to you.

I'm glad, however, that last minute or not, the Metro realized that for some of us there is not prettying-up the realities of the meat industry.

Please take the BlogHer survey, pretty please?

Twice a year BlogHer does a survey to figure out who is reading the blogs in our advertising network. This helps us understand what topics you all are writing and reading about, and what kinds of activities, information and yes, ads, you enjoy (and don't enjoy) online.

The survey is about 15 minutes long, but it's all about you and what you love to do online, so I found it was pretty easy and fun to take.

So, please take the survey, pretty please?

Oh, and we will be drawing three random winner from the folks who compelte the survey and choose to enter, and those winners will be able to get a free pass to the BlogHer event of their choice. So, there's a carrot right there.

Thanks, and now we'll be back to our regularly schedule programming.

Eco-friendly cookware? Crap, one more thing to worry about.

I cannot keep up with all the ways modern life is poisoning and harming us...and the planet. But never fear, that's where all the green blogs in my blog roll come in. I learn something new to worry about every day!

Like today when, thanks to HippyShopper, I started thinking about cookware. They've pointed me to a line of eco-friendly cookware.

What are the things to consider when looking for cookware?

According to HippyShopper:

The 5-piece Marco Pierre White range, from Russell Hobbs and Green Pan uses Thermolon non-stick technology, a ceramic coating that never releases CO2 into the atmosphere when the pans are in use.

Going to the cookware web site I learn only slightly more about it:

-Thermolon uses significantly less CO2 (Up to 50%) less at the point of application than other non-stick
-Thermolon™ does not release Green House gases into the atmosphere

What I really want to know is: How big a problem is the release of green house gases from non-stick cookware?

Anybody have a resource?

DST: what was the purpose anyway?

Treehugger celebrates the advent of Daylight Savings Time by pointing out that it actually doesn't save energy at all.

Back in the day most electricity was consumed via the use of lighting, but now most of it is consumed via the use of A/C and heating...so for reasons they explain DST may indeed reduce our need for lighting, but it increases our need for those other things, so it's a wash.

I personally never thought DST was instituted to save energy...I always had some idea it was about children and going to school in the dark or something like that?

Who you gonna call to figure that out? Why, Wikipedia, of course.

I guess "energy usage" was always a concern, even back when it was candles Ben Franklin was talking about saving, instead of incandescent lighting. My idea about children having to go to school in the dark is why DST isn't used during the winter. And mostly the idea was that getting people to change their clocks was easier than hoping people would start waking earlier in the summer to take advantage of the additional daylight hours that naturally come.

Seems like we're stuck with it now, so I'm off to go change the few clocks in the hose that don'r change automatically.

Cute craft project...but where does one find purple grocery bags?

I love this adorable craft project from MyRecycledBags.com. And I love the site in general because she takes things that would otherwise be trash and turns them into cuteness.

I will say that the one thing that gives me pause is wondering where on earth she find purple plastic grocery bags?

Because it does kind of defeat the purpose if she goes out and buys purple plastic bags to re-use as a bag, doesn't it?

I don't know...maybe there's some grocery store somewhere else that uses this color bag? I am unfamiliar with it, if so.

Still a damn cute little Easter Basket, don't you think?

I was all set to ooh and ahh...

...about the adorable and eco-friendly designs from Small Factory Design. (Hat tip: Haute Nature)

And then I saw the price tags. Insert needle scratching acros record sound effect here.

(Side note: Will that sound effect basically fade away now that entire generations grew up never actually seeing or hearing vinyl? Discuss.)

Anyway.

That cute little audio cabinet depicted above? Made from sustainable bamboo? $2,900.

You have to be wealthy to buy that instead of something from Ikea, Crate and Barrel, even West Elm and other places like that.

Does this piece look more than 3 times the cost of pieces from other places? Nope.

I like the spirit of what they're doing, from the materials they use to the fact that all pieces ship flat and are easily re-recycled.

But man! This is the kind of stuff that makes people think that caring about our environment is only a concern of the privileged.

No?

The ethics of empty flights

Hat tip to Groovy Green for pointing me to this story: Plane Flies Five People Across the Atlantic.

Seems that American had to cancel a Chicago-London flight that was fully booked. They found spots for all but 5 passengers on the other flights they had making that route that day. The remaining five ended up being flown over on their own.

I truly don't understand what happened. Why did they have to cancel the flight? And if they "had to" cancel it, then how were they still able to basically fly that flight anyway, but with only 5 people?

The real reason they say they had to get that plane across the Atlantic is that it was the aircraft that was to be used for another flight coming back over from London to Chicago...a flight that was also fully booked, and where they couldn't successfully move enough of the passengers to other flights because it was a heavy travel day.

So, what's the problem?

It is estimated that each passenger produced 43 tons of CO2 – consuming enough fuel to carry a Ford Mondeo around the world five times.

I really am of two minds on the story. I mean I get that is seems "obscene", as the Friends of the Earth organization called it, to waste that much fuel on just 5 people. It seems amazing that there was no other way to solve the issue.

On the other hand, I also get that airlines are at this point operating with those kind of slim margins for error or surprises. They don't just have planes hanging around at major airports in case they're called for. A single plane will make as many flights in a day as they can possibly squeeze in...and would canceling flights for 200 people in London have been the satisfactory solution?What kind of waste and inefficiencies and unnecessary expenditures would that ripple effect cause?

As a frequent traveler, I am sure I would have been pretty incensed by any such decision.

I have two questions to mull over:

1. Do you travel more than you have to? Could some of your business get done by tele-conference and video-conference. As a producer of conferences I obviously believe in the value of face-to-face interaction. but are we all a bit too old-fashioned in our reliance on it?

2. Isn't someone working on jet fuel or airplanes that don't expend quite that obscene amount of fuel? Seems like there would be a great market for that these days!