Elisa's Green Scene

Send BlogHer Diane MacEachern to Copehagen!

The Huffington Post is going to send one citizen journalist to Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference, to represent regular people (and, of course, report back).

I think that person should be Diane MacEachern, author of Big Green Purse.

You can hear more directly from Diane both on her Big Green Purse blog and on her voting page at the HuffPo.

The voting deadline is tomorrow, so visit here, suffer through the clunky HuffPo registration and/or FacebookConnect process and VOTE FOR DIANE! 

She's currently running in about 4th place, so get your vote on.

Gracias!

Vegan handbags at a reasonable price

A couple of years ago I fell in love with the design aesthetic of Matt & Nat vegan handbags. I also loved their startlingly reasonable prices. I paid something like $40-50 per bag. I had a bad customer service experience using their online store, but I still might have shopped for their wares via other online distributors.

But, inexplicably to me anyway, their prices have soared, so after that first multi-bag purchase, I never went back to the well. Bags on sale are running $160 and up, while basic pricing seems to hit the $200 mark. I'm not that kind of gal.

So, always on the hunt for other resources, let me point you to Sparrow Handbags. The pricing seems to stay sub-$100, and while the focus on twill as a primary material means that these bags don't have quite the luxe appearance of a Matt & Nat bag, I'm guessing it means they're a whole lot more eco-friendly than some of the pleather bags I own.

I think i'm going to get this little number on the left. Currently on sale for half off at $49. It's a bargain. One can always use another black bag, and I'll test out the customer service on these guys for you!

'Cause I'm always looking out for my readers like that :)

There's giving, and then there's giving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I wanted to share some great posts over at BlogHer that are about giving. And giving.

Karen Walrond has posted a great guide to 5 Great Ways to Use Your Photographs as Holiday Gifts. I can attest that making photo books from your digital photos is now mega-easy, and always goes over well...especially with grandparent-ly types. You may not have kids yourself, but you've probably taken pictures of your nieces and nephews, and nothing says you can't be the one providing great family shots. Used to be this was Apple's brilliant idea as part of iPhoto (and still is), but everyone is doing it now. I was in Walgreens the other day and noticed they had a machine to make a photo book.

Karen goes beyond the photo book, though and suggests four other creative photo ideas. I did not know there were digital photo frames that could be remotely updated via email...sounds totally intriguing.

Check those and other ideas out here.

But if you're looking for a way to give back, more than give, check out Siel's post: Make Your Town's Thanksgiving Celebrations Eco-Ethical. What I love about Siel's post is that it does encourage us all to look past the wonderful opportunities there are to give and give back online...and I do think it's wonderful...and to see what might be going on in our own local communities. What local merchants can you frequent? What local charities can you support? What local people in need can your good intentions serve?

This holiday season is likely to be like last holiday season...more thoughtful, more frugal, more mindful.

I think both of these posts got my mind heading down that path with their helpful, practical, inspiring advice.

How are you giving this Thanksgiving?

Growing Green Awards 2010

Hat tip to Fedele Bauccio for pointing me to the 2010 Growing Green Awards organized by theNational Resources Defense Council. Bauccio was a 2009 winner in the Business Leader category.

The four categories are:
Food Producer
Business Leader
Thought Leader
Water Steward

Here is the eligibility information:

Eligibility

Recipients may represent a variety of fields including food production, food service, retail or restaurants, academia, journalists, policy advocacy, and government. The panel will consider candidates from across the country (candidates operating outside of the United States will not be considered) Individuals in the following four categories are eligible: 

Food Producer: Farmers or other food producers, including aquaculture, who employ innovative techniques to sustain agriculture, the natural environment, workers and community;

Business Leader: Entrepreneurs who effectively use the marketplace to promote sustainable food systems, develop infrastructure that enables producers to be more sustainable, or advance sustainable innovations anywhere along the supply chain from farm to fork;

Thought Leader: Visionaries who advance sustainability as it relates to food through creative research, public education, and outreach.

Water Steward: Farmers or other food producers who have made extraordinary contributions in demonstrating water efficiency, sustainable water use and the protection of water quality.

And here is the criteria:

Innovation in promoting ecologically-integrated food systems. This may include minimizing inputs of energy, water, and chemicals; reducing pollution and global warming gas emissions; use of on-farm polyculture; increasing natural resilience; and stewardship of biodiversity, pollinators, open space and land resources.

Potential to achieve wide scale adoption, implementation or behavioral change.

Advancement of health, safety, and economic viability for farmers, farmworkers and rural communities.

As you can probably guess, I would love for every submission and winner to be about food production and distribution that was not animal-based. Although most of last year's winners were indeed involved in plant-based agriculture, certainly a couple of them were not.

However, I do acknowledge the value of rewarding people meeting the criteria above, and in particular I'm so glad to see the last criteria about improving the lives of farmers ***and farmworkers*** on this list. 

In all the recent hype and hoopla about conscious eating, I have seen a lot of ink devoted to talking about the health and well-being of humans, animals and the planet. All of which is true. But very little ink has been devoted to the health of a particular subset of humans...not the ones eating the food we're all so conscious about, but the ones producing it. 

Happy to see it here.

This is, admittedly, not my field, and I'm not sure I know who to nominate. Perhaps Jonathan Safran Foer as a Thought Leader? He qualifies because I think his work this year will be the catalyst for a lot of behavioral change.

Or perhaps blogger and BlogHer Food '09 speaker Greg Massa, who migrated his family's brown rice farm into an organic one. [Although I confess to being bummed he has incorporated raising ducks for meat into his farm.]

Who would you nominate?

Going green in bed

I've posted at least once before about eco-friendly and ethical accessories for the bedroom. But really, is once enough?

So, here's a resource for vegan, eco-friendly sex toys: Karmasm.

Why, because it's good karma.

Their tagline is "Positive energy in our intimate moments", and they cite the environment, worker's rights and avoiding animal cruelty as their guiding principles for sourcing their products.

I hope they do a healthy business, with healthy, sexual vegans and greenies!

Blog Action Day for Climate Change

Today is Blog Action Day.

You know what I'm going to say, right?

The single most important thing you can do each and every day, as an individual, to help the environment, our planet, your own health and, of course, the animals is: Go Vegan!

Why? Well, you can find a lot of links explaining on Vegan Soapbox's Blog Action Day Post.

The bottom line is that going vegan will reduce your own person carbon footprint and contribution to climate change more than driving a hybrid or a myriad of other perfectly nice, but let's be clear, less effective, personal actions.

Now, I also happen to drive a hybrid. And I recycle. And I actually am very good at not over-consuming. I don't shop for clothes hardly ever. I buy my music and books electronically now. I try to shop for local and organic foods (easy for me, living in California.) I work via BlogHer to make our conferences greener. 

So, being vegan isn't all I do to be green. But it is the most important thing I do.

And it is the thing I do over which I have the ultimate total and final control.

And if you consider yourself an environmentalist and you aren't doing it, you need to be thinking about why. because the answer is, I bet, going to be about personal pleasure and what you think your preferences are (having often never tried.)

And that, my friends, is the same rationale for driving a Hummer.

Happy Blog Action Day. did you participate? If so, leave a link in the comments, so i can read your thoughts!

Tomorrow is Blog Action Day for Climate Change

Blog Action Day 2009 is tomorrow, and I'm going to do my best to take part, how about you? If you want a lot of detail, i suggest you check out Virginia's post on BlogHer.

But the basics are:

1. You can sign up on the above site to say you're participating.
2. Post a badge to your blog
3. Tomorrow, write your actual Blog Action Day post
4. Go back to both the BAD site and BlogHer to add your link to their link-aggregation tools
5. Read what everybody else says about climate change tomorrow!!!

I registered this blog. Will you register yours?

Here's a video to get you inspired:

And here's the badge I'm going to add to all the others on this blog!

And tomorrow I intend to write. About climate change. And diet. And how they are intertwined. Don't miss the fun!

Superfoods? How about Superlocalfoods?

I'm not much of a superfood consumer, but I've always looked a bit longingly at them, be it acai or goji berries or the similarly high-priced options at my local Whole Foods. 

Treehugger brings up an issue with many superfoods that perfectly illustrates the quandaries in which you can find yourself when you're attempting to live green. And healthy. Any ethically. And responsible. And so on.

Namely: Plenty of superfoods aren't exactly also local foods. Or seasonal foods. But superfood production often gives a livelihood to impoverished communities in developing nations.

What are we to do?

Well, Planet Green has a post to remind us that some of the more exotic superfoods may be trendy, but the health properties in superfoods can be found in more common foods, grown in many parts of the United States, if that is indeed where you dwell, as I do.

While I am swayed by the opportunity to lend support to making a living for the people in those other countries, it's hard to argue against not only the environmental benefits of local, season foods, but also the fact that our own economy isn't doing so great, and plenty of farm workers in this country need our support too.

I already cook with many of the local superfoods Planet Green mention, but next time I hit the store or the Farmer's Market, I think it's time to buy a beet or a pomegranate or two!

The US Chamber of Commerce: Losing members and credibility?

I've been following the brouhaha with companies leaving either the board of directors or giving up their entire membership in the Chamber of Commerce. 

Today it's Apple. [BTW: Here is Apple's latest info on their environmental impact and efforts.]

But last week it was Nike pulling out of the board of directors and PG&E started the exodus.

Why?

Because, as the New York Times opined, the CoC is "way behind the curve" on climate change policy issues. Including calling for a "Snopes Monkey Trial" to judge the EPA's findings on greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course, this post's headline might be oxymoronic. Or ironic. Or something. Because I fear the Chamber hasn't had credibility for a while. They're a lobbying organization, and although they evoke a benign Norman Rockwell-type feeling, they are pretty reactionary.

I'm a small business owner, but don't feel they represent me.

What about you? Following the drama?

Are these companies making relatively meaningless statements for purely PR gain?

Or is is it a great sign that these significant organizations are willing to take this public stand?

Or, really, isn't it meaningful that making such a meaningless statement would be good PR?

Thoughts?

The Green Shows at NYC Fashion Week

Quick liink time: You have to check out this lengthy, jam-packed post about the recent "Green Shows" during NYC Fashion Week, by Beth Terry on BlogHer.

The Green Shows (which need a better web site!) are a series of individual shows that are going to happen twice a year during NYC Fashion Week, and featuring green designers. Green can mean different things, so there are vegan designers and designers using "ethically produced" wool.

Either way, sounds like a very cool concept, and I particularly like this quote from the organizer the The Green Shows promote "fashion that happens to be green". That aligns exactly with my oft-repeated contention that outliers like me will pay more and settle for less function (which in the case of fashion is beauty and style) in order to satisfy our ethics, but most people don't want to pay more and get less.

Anyway, something to keep an eye on (and some designers to keep an eye on if I ever get the kind of moolah to buy designer!)