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

Domino and Glamour AND Sports Illustrated (?)

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by Starre Vartan · 03/10/07

There are more ‘green theme’ magazine issues than you can shake a stick at!

First up, there’s the April edition of Glamour, which featured Eco Chick in its links page for best Eco Sites on the Web. Thanks Glamour! 10 pages were dedicated to environmental issues, with Laurie David lending her expertise. There’s also a list of the 10 easiest things you can do to make a difference, which is great for sending to your not-so-green friends.

Next up is the March issue of Domino (I can’t believe I didn’t see this earlier) which is a virtual shopping guide for all the hip green home stuff. They worked with Graham Hill over at Treehugger to put the issue together, and it shows, as the mag is just bristling with eco home makeovers on almost every single page! You can tell the editors had a blast putting it together. The whole issue is a great reference. (See Treehugger guide here)

Sports Illustrated even has a (apparently controversial) issue covering how global warming may affect sports. Here’s the lead:

The next time a ball game gets rained out during the September stretch run, you can curse the momentary worthlessness of those tickets in your pocket. Or you can wonder why it got rained out — and ask yourself why practice had to be called off last summer on a day when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky; and why that Gulf Coast wharf where you used to reel in mackerel and flounder no longer exists; and why it’s been more than one winter since you pulled those titanium skis out of the garage.

Global warming is not coming; it is here. Greenhouse gases — most notably carbon dioxide produced by burning coal, oil and gas — are trapping solar heat that once escaped from the Earth’s atmosphere. As temperatures around the globe increase, oceans are warming, fields are drying up, snow is melting, more rain is falling, and sea levels are rising.

All of which is changing the way we play and the sports we watch.

Holy crap!! I never expected and environment story from SI. What’s next, Playboy and Penthouse being printed on recycled paper? (Well, apparently something like half of pubs that are sold at newsstands are porn, so why not get those folks on the green bandwagon?)

atmosphere, cape, car, carbon, coal, fall, farm, gas, Glamour, Global Warming, Home, magazine, mom, News, oceans, oil, paper, produce, recycle, recycled, reference, resources, Shopping, sport, summer, treehugger

Give Stuff or Give an Experience

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by Brianne Goodspeed · 12/05/06

I was in REI today looking at ice axes when I noticed info on Sierra Club’s Building Bridges to the Outdoors which conducts programs that get inner city kids out into nature.

There are a few reasons that I believe in these kinds of programs and the people behind them. First, when I hear adults complain about feeling “trapped,” my sympathy is slim. What I remember most about being an adolescent is the rage I felt at being trapped in school, trapped in a suburb, trapped listening to boring, lazy, screwed-up adults telling me how things were gonna be. Kids have it rough because they’re stuck in the world that grownups construct. For this reason, I think that it’s important for them to have contact with nature. They need to see that there are more powerful and compelling forces in the world than their parents, their teachers, their school, their government, or their television. They need to see that there are alternatives to the bullshit that we push on them.

Second, most people who feel a connection to the natural world have had the privilege of exposure. That exposure, however, is more frequently awarded to kids growing up in Boulder than kids growing up in South Central. I don’t think that a given kid will necessarily feel a connection to mountains and oceans any more than they might feel a connection to, say, music or art. But I do think that kids equally deserve that exposure, regardless of their zip code.

Finally, I think it’s clear that people who have slept under the stars are more likely to be concerned about air pollution and those who know the way that tree bark feels beneath their fingertips are more likely to fight against deforestation. We’ll do future generations a favor by fostering environmental stewards among the kids who are growing up right now. We do them an even greater favor by making sure that the eco-conscious voices of the future represent a broad range of ideas, concerns, and perspectives (i.e. not just the ideas, concerns, and perspectives coming out of Boulder).

So…tis’ the season to give crap to people who already have lots of crap. Or you could give an experience to kids that you don’t even know.

adults, deforestation, donations, kids, Music, oceans, Outdoors, Pollution, Tea

Lets Be Clear

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by Katie Kish · 11/23/06

Canada has been dealing with some rough water issues lately, and the David Suzuki Foundation is taking note of it. Since late last week residence of Vancouver have been facing mudslides over taking their resevoirs where the city gets their water. The extremely high level of turbidity has caused an advisory for Vancouver residents to boil all of their tap water.

Water contamination is something Canada has faced in the past with over 200 different contaminations. But why? One would think that after like 80 contaminations we would be looking to the causation of this. David Boyd answers this question.

Canada’s water quality guidelines are actually voluntary. There are currently no legally enforced rules to protect our water. Mr. Boyd says the Federal government should step in and establish mandatory standards that meet or exceed those of other countries.

No really?

North Americans in so many areas have been given a horribly skewed sense of security. At a young age in geography class we’re told that 70% of the earth’s surface is covered in water, that’s a lot of water. But then we have to factor into that how much is actually drinkable. Most of it, 68.9%, is trapped up in glaciers and another 30.8% is in groundwater. That leaves us with a tiny 0.3% of our fresh water resources in lakes and rivers.

It’s only going to get worse as global warming gets worse. The Great Lakes will decline greatly and most of the water that melts from glaciers is going to go into the oceans, which isn’t drinkable. Our alternative – bottled water – isn’t so awesome either.

Health Canada’s website on bottled water reports that there’s no evidence to support this. In fact, Professor Rolf Halden of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, had this to say about water in U.S. cities. “The truth is that city water is much more highly regulated and monitored for quality. Bottled water is not. It can legally contain many things we would not tolerate in municipal drinking water.”

Not to mention it’s really expensive. Rock on water shortages in Canada. But what can we do? The solution is the same for everything – educate people. We all know that “educate people” over simplifies to the point that it hurts. Luckily, David Suzuki is a bit more optimistic than I am and offers a few ways that we can all help out a little bit, and keep track of what water supplies.

Water conservation starts at home. Here are some things you can start doing at home right now to protect our water for the future.

* Low-flow shower heads can cut your water use in the shower by more than 30%. You can also reduce your water use by installing a, low-flow toilet that uses less water.
* Household cleaners are flushed away then go through treatment facilities, but trace elements become part of the water cycle. A lot of household cleaning can be accomplished with good old white vinegar and baking soda. (Really!) For ideas visit H2Ouse.
* Shower with a friend! It saves an average of 200 liters of water and it’s lots of fun. You’ll have a helping hand scrub those parts of the back you can’t reach on your own.

Learn more:

* This blog has links to find out what’s happening with the world’s water.
* Environment Canada’s Conserve water page.
* If you want to see how much water you’re using, and aren’t afraid of giving your e-mail address to the government, check out Environment Canada’s water use calculator.

Turns out, I use a lot of water…

Your daily average water usage: 478L

Your province’s daily average: 425L
Canadian national daily average: 335L

baking, bottled water, cities, cleaning, conservation, dress, drinking water, giving, Global Warming, health, Home, Lush, News, oceans, oil, reduce, resources, soda, water

Dumping once again

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by Jennifer Veilleux · 10/02/06

This morning I read this article about toxic sludge being dumped by a tanker in the ocean and washing up on the shores of the Ivory Coast. The kid in the picture above has sores on his body from exposure to this stuff. People have gotten ill from exposure and inhalation of the pollutant and some have even died. Efforts are underway to clean-up and dispose of the waste. But, once a dumping action happens, it is so hard to contain and clean it up. Heinous events like this are inexcusable and I cannot believe more cannot be done to prevent them.

Companies and corporations have a great ability to damage our planet and need incentive to act responsibly. There is a serious need for a global environmental body of law and team of enforcers to make sure that the law is enforced. Where are the regulations we really need to make sure that things of this nature cease? We cannot keep dumping in our oceans and think that the waste will just disappear.

Whatever someone does in one place, in one country, in one moment, will impact the world.

I am reminded of a research trip I took to the island of San Salvador, located far east in the Bahamian Islands. While I was there, I took a trip out to the almost completely uninhabited eastern shore and hiked down to the beach from the road. I came around a bend in the path and was shocked at the site of garbage; garbage as far as the eye could see in all colors of the rainbow. Anything that floats and large pads of petroleum waste were polluting an otherwise pristine tropical beach. I was told that this garbage washed in from cruise ships and whoever else happened by and decided to dump their waste in the water. In investigating the waste, I found languages from around the globe including Japanese, Russian, and English. There are laws against this. 

I remember when I was a kid in Connecticut, they shut down the beaches because medical waste was washing up on the shore. 

There is not one place on the planet that has not felt human presence in the form of pollutants. Even in Antartica, coke cans sometimes wash up next to the penguins…

I am also reminded of images of sea birds covered in oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, back in the 1980s. This tragedy prompted Congress to pass the Oil Pollution Act in 1990, tightening regulations on oil tankers.

I hope that the same will come out of this recent careless act in Africa.

Africa, birds, car, corporations, Easter, epa, Events, Exxon, garbage, health, Home, mom, NYTimes, oceans, oil, oils, paper, Pollution, Tea, waste, water

Poor Unfortunate Coral

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by Danelle Brown · 05/28/06

As beach season officially begins, it is important to remember the fragile state of the ocean and try not to take the beach going experience for granted. It’s harder for us Americans to comprehend the most obvious affects of global warming such as the melting of glaciers and the starvation of animals of the Tundra. An article published on May 22nd in the NYT, brought the effects of global warming a little closer to home. The focus of the article is that of the coral reefs of the Florida Keys and the Virgin Islands. Right now there is an epidemic of coral bleaching and other coral illnesses caused by the rising temperature of the ocean. The unfortunate result is that many once abundant species of coral are now finding their way onto the extinction list for the 1st time ever.

Thankfully, there are some organizations who are trying to recapture our focus on the ocean-life and its water. The popular company clothing Patagonia, for instance, has teamed up with Oceana, a non-profit that is dedicated to protecting & restoring the world’s oceans in a new campaign called “Oceans As Wilderness”.

Animals, clothing, Global Warming, Home, NYTimes, oceans, Tea, water