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SkiGreen MiniTags

Tina Basich

Love riding or skiing but hate how driving all the way to the mountain makes you feel sooooo guilty? Besides finding out if a local ski center has a bus to the mountains (my local shop does one-day bus trips that include a lift ticket at a discount), or driving an efficient car, or at least making sure yours is as efficient as can be (be sure tires are inflated properly and all your filters are clean), the truth is you’re still going to be adding CO2 to get to the mountain. And CO2 causes global warming which means…..less snow! Less snow sucks.

Check out Ski Green minitags, which offset just the small amount of CO2 that it takes to get to the resort. Using carbon offset tags like these means that an equivalent amount of energy as you have used is being produced by a non-polluting energy source, and added to the power grid. That gives new solar, wind and small geothermal plants the support they need to grow and be competitive with the heavily subsidized oil, gas and coal plants.

Available at resorts throughout the country, SkiGreen Mini-Tags are a small purchase of renewable energy, roughly equal to the carbon emitted by a skier driving to and from a nearby mountain. For just $2, they give snow sport enthusiasts the power to help save the mountains they love.

Find out more at http://www.skigreen.org/.

car, carbon, coal, driving, Energy, filter, gas, Global Warming, local, oil, Plants, produce, sport

Saving the Great Bahama Banks

1 Comment

by Starre Vartan · 06/26/06

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to take an incredible trip to the Bahamas. I wasn’t there to relax and enjoy myself for a vacation, though I certainly did some relaxing and had a fabulous time. I was there to see the Grand Bahama Banks- and why they need to be protected.

There are over 700 islands in the extensive collection that together form the Bahamas, and they all have their different charms. New Providence Island is the center of the tourist industry, onto which quite a few resorts and bunches of hotels, bars and restaurants crowd. But if you never leave New Providence, and you take it to be the whole of the Bahamian experience, you’ve seen just 1/700th of this amazing ecosystem and met just a few of its people.

Andros Island (above, from the air), is the largest of the Bahamian islands, and lies just a 10-minute small plane ride from the cosmopolitan New Providence. The Nature Conservancy is working with the Bahamas National Trust and the Kerzner Marine Foundation to protect the Western waters of Andros, called the Great Bahama Banks.

Before I started my work, I explored the beach of Small Hope Bay Lodge (a 60′s-style eco hotel where I stayed) which was natural sand, covered in bits of seaweed, shells, and old coral. I snorkelled in the water below and spotted starfish, anenomes, about 10 different kinds of fish, and some brain and other corals holding on (for information on coral click here, for information on the devastation of coral in the Caribbean, click here.)

Looking out of one of the doors of Small Hope Bay Lodge and the Lodge itself.

The Lodge on the Eastern side of the island was one of the few places to stay, so it took us several hours by van and then on the boat below, to get to the Western side of the island. It is as deserted as it looks; there are no major towns or settlements on this side of the island.

Our guide, the extremely well-informed Shawn Leadon, said sometimes its hard to tell the difference between ocean and sky, and it’s easy to see why (below). This very shallow (about 2-4 feet deep) water is an unbelievable shade of aquamarine, and besides making for great photos, is an incubator and nursery for hundreds of species of fish including tarpin, bonefish, pufferfish, sharks, green turtles, and more that populate the Carribbean seas. Flamingoes, osprey, cranes, egrets, and other birds all like to nest here (due to the fantastic meals maybe?).

birds, car, conservation, Easter, fall, filter, fish, local, marine conservation, Plants, restaurant, style, Tea, teaching, water, wetlands

Earthships Take Flight

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by Kimberly Jordan Allen · 03/31/06

About ten years ago I was in Colorado and one of my friends took me to see some alternative housing structures that were being built in the mountains. The first was an amazing teepee that had a woodstove and the second was an ‘earthship’.

I was blown away by the originality of the design and the ingenious idea of using recycled materials to build the home. The foundation was primarily compiled of recycled auto tires that had been cut in half and packed with dirt. Walls were plaster surrounding aluminum cans and bottles, solar panels were feeding batteries for power, and rain water was being filtered for drinking.

These homes are visually striking in their symbiotic relationship to surrounding terrain and can be completely off the grid. My husband and I fantasize about building one someday and there are seminars you can attend in Taos, NM to learn how to build your own from scratch or even retrofit existing homes.

Earthships are now sprouting up all over the world. Their ingenous co-existence with the earth makes them an intelligent alternative to exhausting the earth’s limited resources.

batteries, car, carbon, design, Eco-Chick, filter, Home, recycle, recycled, resources, water, wood

Free Trade? Give it to me Fair, Straight Up

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by Summer Rayne Oakes · 12/29/05

I must admit, after having come back from Hong Kong in the midst of World Trade talks and Fair Trade forays, I need to do a few posts dedicated to fair trade fashion. I came across equop, a fair trade cotton and indie artist fashion label while in Paris this past October. Agrocel, Skal and Eko….No, that’s not the first names of the tattooed-punks down the street that you secretively find attractive (could it be the nose rings, tight black jeans, and bad-ass attitude?), but the rigorous certification that they go through, ensuring that their clothes are

Fair Trade
Inspected by a third-party organization, and
Organic

You’ll find other weird names like: Dangli, Droog79, and Mallalieu Nonot quite certification this time, but the names of the artists that have contributed designs to the tee-shirts…Who knows, maybe they have a nose ring. GOD I love personal expression.

Side Note: (I own Mallalieu, want Dangli’s Bird Shit shirt). Want to know how to get special savings for this line? Hit me up on my newsletter.