H&M's Spring 2011 Conscious Collection: Eco Fashion Breezes into April
H&M is making good on its promise to continue expanding their commitment to using sustainable fabrics. Their upcoming Spring, 2011 collection, Conscious Collection is the follow-up for Spring 2010’s Garden Collection. Utilizing organic cotton, Tencel, and recycled polyester, the all-white collection means that it will work with everything from denim…
Fall Eco Fashion Beats the Chill In Style with Keds, Loomstate and Eileen Fisher Organics!
It’s official. Fall is off to a cool start! The best part about fall is the chance to start anew: new initiatives (turn off that a.c. and switch to eco-bulbs), new motivations (make lunch), and new clothes! You want to look street smart even when it is cold and this…
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…
Why Surf? Why NOT to Surf!
Ed. Note: My Dad, Gerry Vartan, is a lifelong surfer (see bio below); this is him with his board. I can never remember a time when my Dad wasn’t scanning the ocean near his Sydney home to check out the breaks; he’s been surfing much longer than I’ve been around.…
Which Cars Win First Prize in Green? Greenopia’s Got the Deets
Guest Post By Ayana Meade According to the newly-released Greenopia Green Care Guide, the top three most eco-friendly cars on the market today are: 1. the Toyota Prius 2. the Honda Civic Hybrid 3. the Jetta Clean Diesel. All three had incredibly high gas mileage and burned cleanly to boot.…
Dose of Reality: Engagements
To produce that single ounce, miners have to quarry hundreds of tons of rock, which are then doused in a liquid cyanide solution to separate the gold. Payal Sampat, the campaign director for Earthworks, the mining watchdog, told The Independent: “Gold mining is arguably the world’s dirtiest and most polluting…
Bamboo: Ecofriendly or Not So Much?
I’ve heard bamboo flooring is more eco-friendly than traditional pine or oak. Is this true? —Cara Truhlar, Montpelier, VT At first glance, bamboo is as green as it gets. It grows like a weed (technically, it’s a grass) and can reach harvestable height in three to five years. This crop—also…
Deplasticize Your Life!
This movie from the 1950’s shows Disney’s “House of the Future” which is totally kitted out in plastic EVERYthing. Ironic that here I am from 2008 writing about how to get plastic out of my life! I haven’t picked up a plastic bag in weeks now*, and I’m looking for…
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…
Green in Paris
So I think I have used up my allotment of fossil fuels for at least the remainder of this year, or more likely the next decade. Why? My husband surprised me with a birthday trip to Paris last weekend. Americans have a love/hate relationship with the French. So of course…