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

How Sustainable is Your Favorite Wine? Greenopia Rates 25 Wineries

Greenopia has just rated 25 wineries for their environmental impact. Here’s why:

Any oenophile worth her spitting glass has heard the dire stories about how global warming will affect wineries, altering the very microclimates that make it possible to grow champagne in Champagne, France and enable growers to eke out a Pinot Noir under a very precise set of conditions. Wine production is a multibillion dollar-a-year industry in the United States, and wine-growing regions are set to migrate northward (or shrink- by up to 80%- disappear altogether) as warm days with moderating sea breezes shift with the increased temperatures, and general local and worldwide climate disruption alters the conditions and locales where grapes have been growing for hundreds of years.

So it makes sense that the wine industry (and vino lovers) would take action against climate change and environmental degradation.

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When (Skinned-for-Their-Fur) Animals Attack! PETA Video Awesomeness

Sometimes a picture (or in this case, a well-made commercial) says more than ten books on the subject ever could. Next time I see a Croc bag or rabbit-fur earmuffs, I will totally think of this awesome ad.

“Stolen for Fashion”—Learn More at PETA.org.

Duck Feeding: The Rules

My kids like to feed the ducks, but does this do more harm than good?
—Martin Meisenheimer, Los Angeles, CA

While your neighborhood mallards aren’t going to be swinging by the drive-through anytime soon, ducks, like people, love their junk food. They will happily gobble up white bread, refined sugar, and processed fats, but those foods are not as healthy for them as the leafy greens, acorns, insects, and crustaceans they would be eating naturally.

Still, feeding ducks can be a fun family activity that might help spark a child’s interest in wildlife. If it’s an experience you don’t want to skip, try offering the birds a healthier snack, such as poultry starter with a crude protein content of 27 percent or more, which is available at farm stores.

Scientists who work with wildlife express additional concerns about feeding a flock because it causes ducks to gather in larger-than-normal groups. The stress of being in a crowd can make individual ducks more aggressive, and can even alter the group’s migration timing (or encourage the ducks not to migrate at all). Large bird congregations can also foster the spread of disease. “Infectious disease is opportunistic, and these emerging diseases are continually challenging wildlife,” says Milt Friend, founding director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center.

If you skip feeding the ducks, don’t forget that kids can also learn from and enjoy water birds by watching their behaviors or taking pictures. Just leave the “Happy Meals” at home.

Originally printed as Starre’s “Green Guru” column for Audubon Magazine.

Lucky Day at Fashion Ethic = Crazy Deals

OK, I don’t normally post emails or releases directly from stores, but these are really amazing!–SV

Today, 08-08-08, Fashion Ethic celebrates their customers with a Lucky Day!

As the world comes together for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, we wanted our customers to experience a day seen as triple-lucky (8 is a lucky number in several Asian cultures), so Fashion Ethic is offering deals, discounts, and giveaways on this day that will come just once.

Shop our collection of eco-friendly and socially conscious apparel from “Fashionably Responsible” designers and lines like EDUN, naturevsfuture, Ryann, Peligrosa Knits, Emily Katz, and MORE.

ALL orders receive a FREE black BAGGU reusable bag and 8% of all the day’s sales will be donated to World Wildlife Fund…

…Plus, Shoppers can choose from 3 lucky deals:

Use code TANKYOU to receive one FREE SPUN tank with $50 purchase of SPUN’s organic cotton tank, tee, or tops

Use code EDUNTEE to receive one free EDUN tee with purchase of any other EDUN apparel

Use code ETHIC08 to receive $80 off a purchase of $280 or more – including already reduced clearance items!

And there will be a special sneak peek at Fall items from Sublet Clothing, Kelly B, She-Bible, and other Fashionably Responsible lines on the blog.

Event starts at 12:01am PST and ends at 11:59pm PST on Friday, August 8th at www.FashionEthic.com. One code per order, while supplies last.

Wind Farms: Beauty or the Beast

I took this photo of the wind turbines in Palm Springs, CA

I’ve heard the two windiest spots on our planet are the Coachella Valley of California and South Africa. The wind in California has prompted the installation of thousands of windmills in the Coachella Valley, which generate electricity for nearby Palm Springs and areas spreading toward the Los Angeles basin.

Standing majestically, like some invasive alien lifeform or uniform militia, the windmills have now become the major landmark of the Palm Springs region. Assembled in the desert like something out of a Pink Floyd movie, with towers as high as 150 feet and turbines as wide as the wings of a 747, the windmills are striking.

The American Wind Energy Association calculates there is enough available land in the Midwest or in just 100 square miles of Nevada’s windiest regions, to house enough wind farms to supply the energy needed to power the United States. The U.S. has been slow to move into wind power, although it is now picking up significantly. In the early years of development, windmills were simply too expensive to produce, install, and maintain. However, over the last ten years, the expense of windmill power has dropped over 80%. Following in the footsteps of progressive countries, such as Denmark, where over 10% of energy is windmill generated, the U.S. has finally been increasing wind energy production.

There are three main arguments against wind farms:
-the environmental impact of the windmills
-energy used to produce and store energy
-the usual NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome.

As far as the environmental impact goes, massive turbines can disrupt local ecosystems and wildlife. For example, flight patterns of migratory birds have been altered and birds have died due to collisions. A solution to this is that wind farmers and scientists are working together to avoid placing windmills along flight and migration paths, while also working to avoid endangered plant and animal territory.

The production of the windmills is not without the depletion of non-renewable resources. The storage of the energy harnessed requires battery use, which means toxic waste. The windmills can be massive, which requires large transportation services as well as the use of raw materials to build them.

As for NIMBY, the windmills can cause a fair amount of noise pollution. Besides noise, some people consider windmill farms eyesores. Some people think these problems can be avoided through decentralization of power generation. By going ‘off the grid’ and building homes in windy areas, people can have their own windmills right in their back yard. (RITBY?) Excess energy can be sold to local utilities, which makes the turbines a good long-term investment.

In this time of climate crisis, utility companies need to be willing to participate in a metering program in order for this to happen and right now, the U.S. still has a far way to go before this works as well as it could. Energy utilities generally only pay 35-40% of the retail rate (due to government energy subsidies.) This could be interpreted as a way to dissuade individuals from pursuing this type of self-sufficiency. Wind certainly seems to be a better option, in comparison to coal, oil or nuclear energy.