I have combed through 100’s of emails over the past couple of weeks and these are my top picks for Earth Day related events, products and thoughts. Be kind to Earth today.
Events |
Thursday April 23 Project Earth Day in NYC
Project Earth Day is a high-energy annual event held in the dynamic fabric of New York City’s built environment. It is put on by EGBNY (Emerging Green Builders) as part of Earth Week celebrations. A fashion show and design competition.
Here is what they say:
Project Earth Day challenges the next generation of designers to survey the current landscape and reevaluate the way they think about environment and development. Bigger does not necessarily equal better, and so we’ve asked our designers to suspend disbelief here, to start with an any inspirational image, and to play with scale and proportion, to exaggerate telescoping ideas or images that are important to them, while still executing the highest of technical design, and following the good, better, best philosophy of our Eco Design Principals Check List. We know that without sacrificing creativity, innovation is happening and today’s designers are continuing to find new sustainable solutions to old problems.
Travel through the looking glass to our wonderland, present-day New York City, viewed through a distorted lens where big is small, small is big, and the worlds of building and fashion collide through an exploration of scale.
In these modern times, individuals, companies, and even countries often consume more than they produce, using resources and creating waste in disproportionately large shares. This has seemed to work until now, but things are clearly not as they seem. The time has come for us to shift the weight and take a step back to consider a different reality – one where size is relative and small changes can have a huge impact. True sustainability is ultimately a carefully achieved balance between commerce, humanity, and the environment.
Product |
Green on the Go App from 3rd Whale Mobile for your Iphone or Smart Phone.
Usually I would pick a fashion related item, but these days, everyone I know expresses their style through their pda; Not only is their “phone” an expression, their apps are a topic of at least five minutes of conversation. This app for your Iphone is super cool for those of us who are on the go, and want to know how to make a green choice. I haven’t had a chance to check it out in practice, but can’t wait too.
Thoughts |
From Frank Scura at ASEC (Action Sports Environmental Coalition)
I met Frank once and thought he was awesome and hilarious, but he is one of those folks who “walks the talk”. Here is what he sent out this week along with his tips. I wanted to abbreviate it, but it was all too entertaining and right on…so, here you go, Frank’s options in their entirety….
“Correct me if I am wrong but the idea of Earthday is to honor & celebrate this wonderful Planet that gives us everything and asks us for very little in return. The earth gives us our very life, our sustenance, our family, our friends, our cars, our cities, our air and virtually everything but our soul and our free will. So why not use a little bit of that free will to honor our precious provider the best way you can, and do it with soul by treading as lightly as possible for just one day a year. I mean feel free to go as crazy as you want don’t let me stop you, celebrate it for a week, or a month or 364 days a year and go pollute on just one. Knock yourself out, have fun with it, express your self, release your inner tree huggin hippie and go play in the mud. Now I am not going to tell you how you should celebrate this (my favorite of all holidays) day, but her are a couple of suggestions we put together to get you started. As my late father Luigi used to say, “this is just asuggestion, it’s free information, and I’m just offering it to you, what you choose to do with it is entirely up to you.
Option #1 (The Most High): Don’t do anything, call in well (not sick) to work or whatever you got goin or planned, don’t drive, don’t eat, fast, do a mini vision quest and don’t eat or drink and stay in one spot without moving for 24 hours. Go plant stuff, restore local watershed as long as you can get there by walking or riding a bike. Install solar power, water catchments & gray water at your house along with a permaculture garden. Emulate Daryl Hanna’s lifestyle!
Option #2 (The High): Walk, skate or ride a bike to work, school or whatever. Pack an organic lunch in all reusable containers and don’t use anything disposable. Pick up trash along the way or go to the beach or a scenic area before or after and clean up. Clean up the beach when you are done surfing. Plant an organic garden, buy nothing and use no electrical appliances. After all of that hard work and sweat don’t take a shower. Buy local, go to the farmers market!
Option #3 (Be Stoked): Car Pool or use public transportation, don’t watch TV, bring your own coffee mug, reusable mug, to-go-ware for take out food so you don’t use disposables (by the way, who ever told you that there was such a place as “away” was lying, there is no “away” you can’t throw anything away, it goes somewhere, usually to a land fill, a barge or somewhere else lame and that somewhere it goes sucks). Recycle everything and don’t use anything you can’t recycle. Plant a tree or an herb garden or something organic and positive and make sure it survives and thrives. Shop at Whole Foods. Take a Dr. Bronners bath, that is wear you just heat up a little bit of water and add some Dr. Bronners soap and wash yourself and rinse with a wash cloth (as the Doc said “alvays washing towards the heart!”)
Option #4 (The Bro-bra & Sista): Eat some organic food, try to use a high mileage vehicle, eat less food, don’t drink any soda’s, recycle all of the containers you get. Pick someone up hitchhiking, pick up some trash and recycling, be friendly to people. Get a vasectomy or a hysterectomy, eat fresh not packaged food, and plant something. Shop in the natural product section of your grocery store.
Option #5 (The Cookamongus): Drive your Hummer (or any other SUV or low mileage vehicle) everywhere, even to the corner liquor store, go terrorize people who are using non motorized transportation. Eat nothing but fast food all day and throw the trash out the window; go throw a bunch of plastic bags and bottles in the ocean. Believe that the Bush administration environmental policies were cutting edge and good for the economy and the department of the interior did a great job from 2000-2008. Believe that Obama’s “Clean Coal” & “Nuclear” energy programs are environmental solutions. Subscribe to the idea that we can’t hurt the Earth we will just kill ourselves and the earth will be just fine. That is like cancer thinking it can’t kill it’s host, yo dumb ass that means that even if you are right we are all dead and we were the cause of it. Go spotted owl & Bald Eagle hunting. Do all of your shopping at convenience stores like 7-11.”
I just got back from NYC where one thing you see a lot of are bags; Retail shopping bags, plastic bags, etc. This trip I experimented with using my Longchamp shopper and stuffing as much of my shopping in that one bag as possible. I did it. I carried my purchases around with me all day. It felt very chic and I felt oh so much better knowing that I had done my part that day. We have heard so much in the media about the plastic bag and their damaging effect on the earth. And, even though many retail bags are paper, it is still great practice to have a shopping tote for clothing as well as for your groceries. We have highlighted a lot of great alternatives to shopping bags on the site over the past few year...check them out. Remember to pick out something fun that expresses you and your personality.
Last weekend one of my best friends treated me to one the top ten food experiences in my life. This is an area I am constantly researching, believe me, I love being a “foody”. Cascadia Restaurant based in Seattle with Chef Kerry Sear offers Saturday Market Tours with a cooking class, lunch and wine pairings. How amazing is that? I learned so much about where the restaurant buys their food locally, how they select their food and how we can too. I learned so much and have truly been inspired to keep on the path of cooking seasonally with local foods that are organic…how perfect. Cascadia’s site notes, “Since our first day to the present day, we've sought out locally sourced ingredients, worked with organic growers, and supported sustainable processes and techniques whenever possible. Rather than relying on single-source ingredients no matter what or overpromising on our menu's organic elements, we rely on best-source ingredients from a wide variety of farmers, ranchers, markets and more…” Chef Sear truly made every recipe seem so easy and accessible, but knowing me, I will just end up at Cascadia as always to enjoy one of their fabulous prix fixe tasting menus in a couple weeks. [cascadia restaurant]