Now that you’ve thought about how you are going to improve your own life in 2011, what about those that have so much less than most of us?

In Cambodia, schools are few and far-between. One of the biggest impediments to children making their way to class is distance. And what’s a fast, low-cost (and for most kids, fun) way for kids to get to homeroom? A bike of course!

When Richard and Michelle visited Cambodia and noticed this problem, they decided to take action! The put together the site “2 Wheels 4 School” as a way to raise money for bikes:

In many instances, having a bike to go those extra miles can mean their entire education. But in many more instances, a family cannot afford the $30 it takes to buy one. Enter the opportunity to do something good. We’ve posted some of the photos from the trip. If you like one, buy it for $30. We’ll send you a nice print, any size you’d like (under 13″x19″). And we’ll use your money—all of it—to buy a bicycle for a Cambodian child to attend school.

Check out the site; there are a number of prints, you can simply make a donation, or you can purchase the gorgeous painting of the Cambodian flag, above! Painted by Ariel Shallit (the man behind the header painting, above, for Eco Chick), the full purchase price will go to the charity. And you’ll have something graphic and dynamic to hang on your wall.

Americans have a love/hate relationship with the French. So of course as an American and a “greenist,” I had to do some hardcore observations of Parisian “green” habits and compare them to what we do here. What I discovered from my four days in the “City of Lights” is as follows.

(1) Recycling
There is a recycling program in place in Paris, but I am not sure if the Parisians are interested. On some streets they have huge recycling bins for bottles and cans, but most of them were covered with graffiti (which happens to be all over the city). In the parks, they have recycling bags next to the the garbage bags but as you can see in the picture, recyclables are also placed in the garbage bag. On a walking tour the Marais, I asked our tour guide about how well Parisians recycle. She said they are horrible and during our tour she opened a recycling bin from an apartment building to show us what she meant. It was filled with recyclables and non-recyclables.

(2) Reusables
My husband and I went in a few supermarkets (which I love to do whenever I travel abroad), and outdoor markets and I think I saw maybe 5 people using reusable bags. The worst was in the outdoor markets where you can buy fruits, vegetables, meats, cheese, bread, fish, flowers and much more. The biggest one we went to was in Versailles, and everything was put in a plastic bag. Many did bring their own reusable totes but those bags were then stuffed with plastic bags. It appeared to me that they may use more plastic bags than we use.

(3) Transportation
Paris is a very busy city with lot of traffic. But I would not say that they have any more traffic then New York City. They do drive smaller, and most likely, more efficient cars (I didn’t see one Hummer or SUV) and many people ride bikes and take the subway. I think more people ride bikes in Paris then they do in Manhattan–but not as many as in Beijing. But the most ingenious thing that we observed in Paris was a bike rental system called Velib. The system began in July 2007, with 10,000 bikes, and now they are up to 20,000 bikes all over Paris. Riders can buy monthly, daily or hourly passes to rent bikes stationed at more than 1,400 automated stations across the city. A bike can be rented from one station and returned to another. From what we saw, and from the doubling of the number of bikes in use, it appears that the Parisians love the system. My husband and I wished we had more time to try it out. Its funny, the first few days in Paris we weren’t sure what these bikes were. Initially we thought they were motorized, then we didn’t understand the rental system. By the time we figured out what was what it was it was time to go. I wonder if this would work in NYC?

(4) Food
You should know that I have an obsession with food. Our trip to Paris had some gastronomic highs–the picnic in Versailles– and some lows–dinner at Chez Andre off the Champs-Elysées. So of course I had to find out where the French food comes from. I think this is a department that they really do better than we do. French farmers say no to GMO’s –they even strike and riot to oppose them on a semi-regular basis. None of the fruits or vegetables grown in France are from genetically modified seeds. NONE! We can’t say anything like that here. You can also find organic produce in Paris. We spoke to some butchers and they insisted that none of the meat is treated with antibiotics or hormones and that beef is grass-fed. One of the butchers we spoke with even made a stink face when referring to grain fed beef. I could not find anywhere on the internet to confirm or deny this so I have to take their word, for now. I did ask Shannon Hayes, a grass-fed beef farmer from Sap Bush Farms and author of The Farmer and the Grill and she said “It is my understanding is that not all meat in France is grass-fed. But a fair amount is. Quite often it depends on the breed – charolais beef, for example, is supposed to be exclusively raised on grass. When I was there I saw a lot of cattle grazed and fed in the barn – a model that is infinitely more sustainable than factory farms, but not, according to our strict definitions, grass-fed. The meat is also much more likely to be raised on small farms, not from confinement facilities.”

So what do I take from my trip to Paris?

How The Media Abandoned the Environment, at new techie-with-a-heart-of-green EcoTechDaily.

Check Chris Baskind’s op/ed on the lack of environmental coverage in mainstream media:

No, you’re not imagining things.

With U.S. gasoline prices edging toward $4.00 a gallon; oil prices at an all-time high, demand for materials such as copper outstripping demand; worldwide food shortages; major cities running short on water; Antarctic ice sheets crumbling into the Southern Ocean; and continued uncertainty over our climatological future, you’d think the environment would be front-and-center on the evening news. And you’d be wrong.

14 New Species Discovered in Brazil, from The Daily Green

Dan Shapely reports that there are indeed new things under the sun (at least to humans). Check the gorg flipbook!:

….at the top of the Serra Geral in Brazil’s Cerrado region, where 14 new species have been discovered during an expedition to the wooded savanna.

Another new Bike Chic page (I keep writing about this subject; check it here and here) and Carectomy has found another one!

If full body Spandex isn’t your speed, check out Cycle Chic, a London-based blog that offers tips on how to look devastatingly hot (wear designer pants from Stella McCartney, or your boyfriend’s t-shirt), stay sweat-free (don’t go too fast and sport a light, summery dress), and “cycle yourself slim,” all while biking to your intended destination.

Grab your bike out of the garage because May is national Bike Month and Bike to Work Day 2008 is on May 15 in the Bay area! If you sign up to pledge that you’ll ride your bike to work on this day, you’ll be entered to win a new bike! There will also be “energizer stations” in every county which will be giving out tote bags + treats to riders.

For Bike Month events in other cities/states check out the League of American Bicyclists site.

We all know riding your bike instead of driving is not only eco-friendly, but good for our butts and legs (and hearts!) too! But to really make a dent in how many global warming gases you produce, you have to ride your bike for more than just recreation, and treat it as a vehicle, and integrate it into your life.

I ride my bike all over my seaside Connecticut town, as do plenty of other folks, the difference being that I don’t ever dress like a ‘biker’. I hate the spandex, helmets, and stupid bootie-shoes that Americans seem to think they need to ride a bike around town or on the streets. (Yeah, I know, helmets will save your skull, but you know what? I’m old enough that I don’t have to wear one, so I don’t. They’re ugly and mess up my hair. So sue me.)

A great example of a great warmer weather bike ensemble!

Turns out, I’m not as iconoclastic as I’d like to think I am. European ladies in cities like Amsterdam, Paris, and Copenhagen regularly ride their bikes, looking as chic as ever. Women wear whatever they would normally wear (read: really chic outfits and heels, jewelry, and even makeup!) to hop on their bikes to get around town. The site, Copenhagen Cycle Chic, documents this style phenomenon. Love it!

I ride in skirts and tights with knee-high boots in the winter to go to the library, sundresses with bare feet or flip flops in the summer to ride to my local beach, and my cute bags get thrown in the basket in front of me. Just make sure your bike has fenders so you don’t get dust and mud all over your adorable outfits!

I live in a city with its own special breed of traffic jams – traffic that gets so snarled, it has its own label: stau. Cologne, a city of 1 million people, its geography divided in two by the Rhine River, can sometimes have traffic so backed up that it’s faster to bike across the bridge than to hop into a car.

What’s amazing about this traffic is just how unnecessary it is. With subways and railways that stretch into every crevice of the nearby suburbs and neighboring cities (Duesseldorf and Bonn are less than 30 minutes by train, though I wouldn’t dare call them suburbs of this city for fear of flogging), you can often get door to door faster by train than by car. As home to Europe’s largest train station, too, you can get nearly anywhere on the continent at any time (my New Year’s trip to Paris was cut from 5-1/2 hours by car to 4 hours by the 200 km/hour Thalys train).

Still, people – especially those on the outskirts of the city, are attached to their cars. So starting on January 1, the city of Cologne implemented a new commuting policy to help combat emissions. Though it doesn’t limit the number of cars allowed into the city (a dream of mine since the first time I tried to ride my bike through the city center) and it’s not the same as the toll system London and now Milan have introduced, it does keep the heavy polluters out of the city.

Now, in order to drive into Cologne, you have to have a sticker saying your car is not a polluting vehicle. This is more than just an emissions test… it ranks the levels of emissions that technically road-worthy vehicles produce (I say technically because I’d never consider a 4-wheeler a proper vehicle, but they are allowed out of the woods here, don’t ask me why). Which means autos that pass looser emissions tests in the ‘burbs may not be allowed into the city. Not ever. And those that are on the borderline may not be allowed in on smoggy days. Though in an ideal world, those cars wouldn’t be spitting their smoke out in the suburbs either, I’m happy that my hometown’s doing a bit more to clear the air.

FYI – For all those arguing against a similar policy in the States, in the first week of the pass’s usage, the staus didn’t increase and everyone still got to work on time. Fighting smog this way isn’t as problematic as you might think.

I was thrilled to see some seriously fun totally over-the-top delicious green stuff featured in Vogue’s December issue (it’s the one with the impossibly gorgeous Penelope Cruz, above, on the cover).

First up, there’s “Season’s Greenings” by William Norwich, who talks to three fabulous greenies. Sheherazade Goldsmith, author of A Slice of Organic Life, recommends bamboo salad tongs, the Linda Lee Hundred Trees Charm from Barney’s, recycled wallpaper from Lim and Handtryk, and vintage Louboutin mules. She’s also a fan of a cool site, re-found objects, and only buys wooden toys for her kids. (That’s her sitting pretty in a London nursery below). Elizabeth Wiatt, NRDC trustee and LA power-player, likes Dr. Hauschka products, soy candles from Lafco House and Home, and vintage banana-leaf envelope sets. Anna Carter, a trustee for the Natural Resources Defense Council and wife of Vanity Fair’s Graydon Carter suggests Paporganics hemp wrapping paper, hand-crafted cushions from Robert Kime, and is a fan of Behnaz Sarafpour’s Spring collection.

In addition to all the green gift-giving suggestions, there’s an article covering the hipness of riding bikes, entitled “Wheels on Fire” (which calls to mind the theme song for Patty and Edina’s misadventures on Absolutely Fabulous). Apparently model Agnyss Deyn arrived at fashion week on two wheels, and Helena Christensen calls riding a bike a “cozy habit”.

The piece points out what visitors to Europe have known for years: On the Continent it’s all about integrating pedaling into your life, so you can wear whatever you like, from ballgowns to heels with skinny jeans. Bikes are designed to carry both people and stuff (including beer!). My favorite quote? “It’s easy enough to wear a skirt on a bike. And guys love it,” says Christiansen. I can vouch for this, as I always ride my bike around in ‘non-sporting’ gear.

So next time you think you need a special outfit to ride your bike, think again (though it would behoove you to have fenders to keep the mud and moisture off). And if you need some tips on cool bikes, and what to wear while doing it, check out the full article.

In larger, more compact cities, though, there often isn’t enough room for residents to keep their bikes inside and the threat of theft is too great to store bikes outside (nearly every person I’ve spoken to in Cologne has had a bike stolen – hence the preference for buying cheap, unexciting, used bikes instead of mountain or racing bikes). To keep people riding, then, cities like Copenhagen offer cycles free of charge to riders (the cost of the bike is supported by advertisements). All you need is a Euro coin as a deposit to unlock the bike; you get the coin back when the bike’s returned to a station in the city and locked anew.

photo (c) aisipos, via flickr creative commons

Lyon has a similar program, though you pay a small amount for each ride; it’s a popular way home for students after late-night dinners with too much wine. Now Paris is trying it out, too. From The New York Times:

The program, Vélib (for “vélo,” bicycle, and “liberté,” freedom), is the latest in a string of European efforts to reduce the number of cars in city centers and give people incentives to choose more eco-friendly modes of transport.

“This is about revolutionizing urban culture,” said Pierre Aidenbaum, mayor of Paris’s trendy third district, which opened 15 docking stations on Sunday. “For a long time cars were associated with freedom of movement and flexibility. What we want to show people is that in many ways bicycles fulfill this role much more today.”

Users can rent a bike online or at any of the stations, using a credit or debit card and leave them at any other station.

A one-day pass costs 1 euro ($1.38), a weekly pass 5 euros ($6.90) and a yearly subscription 29 euros ($40), with no additional charges as long as each bike ride does not exceed 30 minutes. (Beyond that, there is an incremental surcharge, to make sure that as many bikes as possible stay in the rotation.)

I’m really excited that this idea is catching on; wherever my husband and I travel, we rent bikes to get around the city and these ad-sponsored cycles take some of the worry out of having the bike stolen. And as tourists, we see more of the people, the architecture, and everyday life by bike than by subway, so it’s a treat I wouldn’t want to give up. I just hope someone brings this idea to the US soon … because while it’s easy enough to make the car-free lifestyle choice in your hometown, getting around as a tourist is a bit more difficult to do and a program like this takes some of the worries away. So you can spend more time indulging in the arts and wine and not worry about hitting the wrong Metro home or trying to navigate a hatchback down one-way streets cobbled together with tiny stones.

Guest-Blogger Tami Molitor sent this report from Minnesota’s Living Green Expo. I think it’s fantastic to hear about all the green stuff happening in places other than the East and West Coasts, and there’s plenty of it. All Americans need to be involved in building a sustainable world, because pretty much all of us have been involved in getting us to this ecologically precarious and dangerous place that we are now. -Ed.

By Guest-Blogger Tami Molitor

My husband and I headed to the Minnesota state fairgrounds in St. Paul the first weekend of May to attend the Living Green Expo. Our first greeting was that of electric cars and a variety of bikes to promote travel without gasoline. Organic Valley family of farms (from Wisconsin)was giving samples of milk and coupons. College “kids” from Macalester were sharing a slideshow from their travels to ice-covered parts of the world to learn more about global warming with world reknowned Minnesotan explorers.

Organic Bob gardening and a variety of organic and natural lawncare, landscapers and gardening cmpanies were exibiting along with green roof promoters, natural skincare companies and small home-based soap makers.

We missed the eco-fashoin show….check the site for more on that. The Waldorf School promoted their Earth-friendly curriculum and trendy South Minneapolis was also well represented with Linden Hills area natural foods coop and home store.

The City of Minneapolis officials participated in presentation of ” An Inconvenient Truth”
via slide show. Clean energy was well represented with local and national energy companies and wind energy groups.

A kid’s area included creative arts, a compassionate kids presentation, recycling games,
visits form the raptor center and healthy toys and snacks. Lots more to see, do and learn for kids and family.

This event is getting bigger every year. We only had time for a three-hour stay, and I feel like we barely sratched the surface. Our goal is to review the handouts and start adding more green living options to our lifestyle. It is great to live in an area that offers this type of event. Be sure to check out the main Living Green expo site for all the details!

There has been plenty of discussion surrounding travelling and it’s impact on the environment- mainly about how bad air travel is for global warming. Some people are suggesting that to be a real environmentalists, we should all cut down on our travelling, working closer to home (sensible), getting our food locally (tastes better anyway), and even forgoing vacations to far-away locales (no, say it ain’t so!!!).

As an avid globe-hopper, I was excited to find Claire McDonough’s site, Eco-Travelling, where she and her team of writers cover all aspects of travel, from boating and bikes to getting into the nitty-gritty of which planes might have a lower environmental impact (something I can’t say I really thought about before, but will now!) and if the critique of long-haul flights is fair.

A great resource for Earth-loving travellers (and isn’t that why many of us want to hop on planes in the first place?) with great writing and serious consideration given to alternative and traditional modes of travel.