Cape · Eco-Chick

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Now We're Cooking…

For the faithful converts of ultralight backpacking, the alcohol stove might just be the Holy Grail. Almost all of the long-distance hikers I know have long-since traded their clumsy Whisper Lites and wasteful Pocket Rockets for the stove that you can make in your basement. The alcohol stove goes by a variety of names, including pepsi can stove and beer can stove, depending on how it’s made, but the basic principle is the same. You cut the bottom off of two aluminum cans, fit them together, cut out a large hole for your fuel, and punch about fifteen little holes around the rim for the flame to escape. A metal stand, which you can also make yourself, holds your cookpot above the flame. A lot of people use pot cozies to continue cooking their food after the flame goes out so that they don’t waste fuel unnecessarily.

But the alcohol stove isn’t just a lighter alternative; it’s also a greener one. It runs on denatured alcohol rather than, say, isobutane-propane (which, when burned, is known to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive chaos), it uses recyclable materials, and you can make it yourself. For people like me, whose engineering skills are suspect, you can also buy them online at Anti Gravity Gear, Mini Bull Design, and Mo-Go-Gear. Sometimes you can find them on Ebay as well.

Alcohol stoves weigh as little as a half an ounce, plus the weight of however much fuel you carry. (Denatured alcohol is often sold in small quantities at outfitters and hardware stores in trail towns.) You won’t be making three course meals with this stove, but do you really want to lug all that food with you anyway?

alcohol, Cancer, cape, car, design, Food, waste

Excuse Me, There’s Blood on Your Diamond

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by Starre Vartan · 07/06/06

“I don’t understand about diamonds, and why men buy them. What’s so impressive about a diamonds except the mining?”

—Fiona Apple

Many of the prisoner-laborers who work Sierra Leone’s open-pit mines end up in shallow graves, executed for suspected theft, for lack of production, or simply for sport. (© Jean-Claude Coutausse/ CONTACT Press Images)

A few years ago, I asked for jewelry for Christmas; I wanted my boyfriend to give me something that I could wear and be reminded of him. When he gave me a pretty sapphire and diamond necklace, I tried not to be horribly disappointed. After I explained why I wasn’t into the gift, he gallantly returned the expensive necklace and exchanged it for a gorgeous green amber amulet for half the price. Amber I can love: Composed from the preserved living blood of a tree, it often contains pockets of ancient air, or even an unlucky insect, and catches the light in ways that a diamond never could.

Maybe its because I studied Geology in college that I see diamonds differently than most women. To me they are just cold carbon chains, unique from common coal and graphite only in the way the atoms line up. Diamonds have a crystalline lattice structure as opposed to coal’s earthy conglomerate one.

But I’ve determined that its neither geology nor taste that is the real reason that I don’t want a diamond ring (or teardrop earrings, or a honking diamond necklace when I strike it rich) one day. It’s the fact that the majority of diamonds are made from the backbreaking labor of the African people who mine them (who make about $30 a week officially, but usually make half that) and the Indian people who cut and polish them (the average price to cut a stone is about .25) Diamonds are also used to fund wars: Rebel leaders in Sierra Leone have used diamonds to pay for weapons that have thus far killed 75,000 and left 12 million homeless. Since Americans buy 65% of the world’s diamonds, you can bet our lust for the gems has financed murders.

Most poor countries have few laws to protect the environment and even less to enforce them. Diamond mining opens gaping holes in the Earth and pollutes the water as topsoil and mine ‘tailings’ (toxic chemicals) wash into surrounding waterways. I’ve seen this first-hand in the US, where there are regulations, and lets just say ‘destroyed landscape’ pretty much sums it up.

On top of all of this, diamonds are a racket. It costs less than $10.00 to dig a .8 carat diamond out of the ground, polish it, and ship it to the US, where it will be sold for $1000 or more. Diamonds are only valuable because companies set artificial price controls. Diamond marketers spend billions yearly on advertising to convince us that diamonds mean love, power and exclusivity, when really they are plentiful and cheap.

From Wikipedia:

The production and distribution of diamonds is largely consolidated in the hands of a few key players, and concentrated in traditional diamond trading centers (the most important being Antwerp). The De Beers company holds a clearly dominant position in the industry, and has done so since soon after its founding in 1888. De Beers owns or controls a significant portion of the world’s rough diamond production facilities (mines) and distribution channels for gem-quality diamonds. The company and its subsidiaries own mines that produce some 40 percent of annual world diamond production. At one time it was thought over 80 percent of the world’s rough diamonds passed through the Diamond Trading Company (DTC, a subsidiary of De Beers) in London, but presently the figure is estimated at less than 50 percent. De Beers used its monopoly position to establish strict price controls, and market diamonds directly to consumers in world markets.

You can read more about Amenesty International’s experience with diamond mines here. And don’t let me get into gold mining…(that will have to be a future post).

If you or your loved one insists on a diamond, there are thousands of vintage stones out there; you can use one to create a new ring or necklace, or enjoy a more old-fashioned style. There are also many great sustainable jewelry companies out there, and there IS the option of ‘conflict-free’ diamonds from Canada, but for me, the environmental consequences of any kind of mining are too extreme to justify it, even if the miners are paid a fair wage.

Africa, cape, car, carbon, Christmas, coal, conflict, Fashion, Home, India, Jewelry, labor, London, oil, produce, Shopping, spa, sport, style, sustainable, Tea, trike, vintage, water, women

"Fairplay" in the Sack

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by Summer Rayne Oakes · 03/15/06

(.)(.) Must be 18 years or older (or the equivalent to AA’s Dov Charney) to read this blog entry.

(Caption: Meet Dov)

According to the Kinsey Institute’s FAQ, 54% of men think about sex every day or several times a day, whereas only 20% of us women, on the other hand, daydream of sex more than once a day (Doskoch, 1995). Hmmm, I guess I’m one of those over-sexed outliers or perhaps that is what really good sex and a long distance relationship does to you: makes you think about it like a man…a very, very dirty man….But I must digress to get to my point.

FOREPLAY. Rule #1: Don’t leave the bed without it. Rule #2: It’s okay to be dirty as long as the items are “clean” – and girls, we got some great clean, green, and fair trade products waiting for you compliments of UK boudoir sex shop COCO DE MER (named after the pine nut that looks like a female’s bottom). For the 75% of us that delight in sexual fantasies as a pleasurable and exciting escape, these products were meant for us.

Funny that I came across this shop, started by daugher Sam of Anita Roddick (of the acclaimed Body Shop) while on a plane to the UK to shoot for a fair trade fashion label as I was reading the straight-laced Financial Times… (Ahhh, Don’t you love when business, fashion, foreplay, and fair trade get in bed together). What a coincidence!

So what type of items do we have in store? My favs include the vintage lace veil; the fair trade spanking paddle; and the fair trade made-in-Brazil cuffs. (I won’t tell you which one is my fav), but you can bet your panties it’s not the veil (way too passive for me).

- As an aside, I HAD to put this in the “EATING OUT” section. I couldn’t resist. Double entendres are truly the spice of life!

Brazil, business, cape, eating, Eco-Chick, Fair Trade, Fashion, resources, spa, vintage, women

Farmed and Dangerous

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by Starre Vartan · 11/21/05

So we all know that eating fish is a good way to get Omega 3′s, but because we’re all so hungry for the slippery suckers, wild-caught fish is expensive. But hell, we can farm corn and wheat, why not farm fish? Problem solved. Turns out that farming fish causes as many problems, if not more, than catching them from the ocean.

According to luluzine: Vol 2.6:

“The high PCB content these fish contain, not to mention their ubiquitous sea
lice problem, flow over into wild salmon runs and are responsible for 90-97%
of the collapse of these runs, according to marine researcher Alexandra
Morton. Add to that the fact that these fish find all kinds of escape
routes, (there are over a million reported to have gone missing last year,
and it’s suspected that number is actually much higher), and you’ve got
runaway Atlantic salmon breeding in open water, competing with indigenous
fish and consequentially spreading disease.”
According to a 2004 study called, “A Global Assessment of Organic
Contaminants in Farmed vs. Wild Salmon: Geographical Differences and Health
Risks,” (reported to be the most thorough study on the subject done to
date), consuming farmed salmon more than once a month could increase your
risk of getting cancer by, “an unacceptable amount.”