Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Rainforest Action Network gets jiggy at Plumm

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by Summer Rayne Oakes · 09/11/06

Sorry I didn’t tell you guys in time, but I headed over to Plumm last night to see what Whoopi, Chris, and Norah had to say during the Rainforest Action Network benefit. I just wanted to hog Noth all to myself (okay, not really, but…) I had an O.K. time. Norah Jones had a stellar performance. (What a resounding voice from such a tiny little woman.)

Best speech by far was given by RAN Executive Director, Michael Brune. (As a side note for you US Weekly or ecorazzi readers, you’ll be happy to know that the dapper Sex in the City star has been a supporter of RAN for 18 years (RAN’s been in existence for 20 years).

If you are looking for an organization to give too, I fully endorse RAN. They are a highly efficient and effective network of 36 individuals that work directly with shareholder action to pressure corporations to make sweeping environmental shifts in business. AND the most important part, they DO NOT get funded by governmental grants or corporations (unlike our democracy). Can anyone say: Democratic reform?

business, corporations, media, rainforest

Burning Man/Cooling Man?

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by Starre Vartan · 09/05/06

I have made art projects that have ended up at Burning Man, my friends have all (seemingly) gone to Burning Man, and I was supposed to go to the art and music desert festival this year, but life (in the form of being accepted to grad school unexpectedly) intervened. Since the festival ended yesterday, there’s no better time to talk about the afterparty, I mean cleanup.

While I’d heard from friends who have attended that Burning Man is supposed to be quite environmentally ethical, cleaning up after itself and whatnot (they have a whole arm–pun intended!– of the organization that’s dedicated to being environmentally friendly, called Greening Man) they have now gone a step further.  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

With the Burning Man art festival in the Nevada desert starting Monday, a group of San Francisco scientists is busy calculating how much the event contributes to global warming.

Encouraged by the resurgence of the green movement, the scientists are taking a hard look at all those sacred flaming temples, gas-powered scooters shaped like cupcakes, and hundreds of rumbling RVs that converge for a week on the dry Black Rock Desert lakebed.

With an idea that would make Al Gore smile, the scientists have created Cooling Man, an online calculator that determines how many tons of greenhouse gases each of the 37,000 “burners” will produce with their art projects and community camps.

For the first time, Burning Man participants will be able to “offset” their global warming impact much the same way large corporations do, by investing in clean energy projects.

Check out the Cooling Man site for more information. There, Burning Man’s participants can calculate and offset their carbon emissions. This is the first year they’re doing this, and so far, they’ve been able to offset the Burning of the Man (now to work on the massive amounts of carbon emitted by all those travelling to the show).

car, carbon, cleaning, community, corporations, emissions, Energy, ethical, fur, gas, Global Warming, Music, party, produce, rum, travel

Victoria's Dirty Secret

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by Kimberly Jordan Allen · 04/24/06

I was reading Business Week online and noticed this interesting piece on Victoria’s Secret. Limited Brands, the parent company of VS, has been publically indicted for its blatant use of virgin fiber in their catalog production that reaches quantities as large as 395 million produced anually. This paper ends up in the garbage, or if we’re lucky, in the recycling bin.

The destruction of the forests of the Southern U.S., where nearly 6 million acres are logged annually, and the continuing decimation of the endangered Canadian Boreal Forest has generated concern internationally. The organization largely to blame for bringing this flagrant deforestation to the fore is Forest Ethics, a group who seek to hold corporations accountable for the destruction of, yep, you guessed it, our forests! 225 protests took place accross the U.S. on April 11th of this year, putting pressure on the company to terminate its contract with International Paper, who have been criticized for destroying endangered woodlands. Since the campaign began, VS has begun using 80% recycled content for their clearance catalogs but their current contract is still largely using pulp derived from endangered species.

business, catalogs, corporations, deforestation, Eco-Chick, ethics, garbage, paper, produce, recycle, recycled, Recycling, wood