Eco-Chic Consumerism

Take a stroll through your local mall and try for just a moment to elevate yourself from the state of somnambulance into which you typically enter (assuming you’re even a mall shopper at all).

Now, with your new perspective take a look around and notice how much stuff is surrounding you – stuff that is produced using countless resources, manpower and time. Now consider how much stuff will be thrown away to make room for the new stuff. Think of all the clothes that are tossed in the trash to accommodate this year’s model and how this year’s will soon meet the same fate.

Yet, so long as we continue along with our national fetish to always own the newest, be it clothing, TV’s or sunglasses, more and more stuff will continually be produced, requiring evermore resources, manpower and time – time that could be used more… productively.
So, how can you, as a fashion-savvy, ultrahip, semi-consumer serve the Earth while serving your consumer tendencies? Ever hear the eco-phrase "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?" It's the middle word that can pull us through this particular quandary.

Thrift shops, garage sales and antique shows can be a goldmine to the savvy shopper for all manner of goods from wearables to collectibles. Walk around NYC's lower east side and you'll find some of the hippest style mavens in the world. Ask them where they got their duds and the response will more often be "Goodwill" than it will "Hugo Boss."

Garage sales are a great place to find toys. As any parent can tell you, kids outgrow their toys almost as quickly as they do their shoes. Consequently garage sales can yield you in-demand toys with little road wear for bargain basement prices.

Who needs Pottery Barn when you've got a place like the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Southern California, Brimfield in Massachusetts or Renningers in Pennsylvania? You can get home good ranging in style from Victorian to country to modern and everything in between at a decent antique show. And the best part is, you don't have to pay for shipping.

Being environmentally conscious doesn't always mean wearing hemp and using organic dental floss. It can also mean something as simple as rethinking an old system. You don't have to buy new to get yourself a new look.

SWITCHGAS- Key to Alternative Fuel?

This interesting news just hit the wire today. Debate had revolved around the fastgrowing plant switchgrass could be processed efficiently as a biofuel. It seems evidence shows that it can...

Switchgrass shows promise for ethanol production: study

CHICAGO (AFP) — A large-scale trial of switchgrass suggests that the crop may be a more viable plant source of biofuel than previously thought, according to a study released Monday.

A five year trial of the native North American prairie grass on farmland in the Midwestern United States revealed that the crop produces 540 percent more renewable energy than energy consumed in its production.

Previous estimates, based on small scale research plots, suggested the grass would yield a net energy production of about 343 percent. Net energy production is considered an important measure of sustainability.

"When you go to the farm scale, results are better than predicted," said Kenneth Vogel, a research geneticist with the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service based at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.

"There is a lot of potential to make further improvements," he added. "The plants used in this trial were developed for pasture and conservation. We're now breeding plants specifically to be used as energy crops."

Global biofuel production has tripled from 4.8 billion gallons in 2000 to about 16 billion in 2007, but still accounts for less than three percent of the global transportation fuel supply, according to US Department of Agriculture figures, as quoted in Amber Waves, a USDA publication.

Concerns about energy security, climate change and soaring oil prices drove policymakers and scientists to develop alternative energy sources that would allow them to break their dependence on foreign oil.

The unprecedented run-up in oil prices in the past six years has kept the pressure on, but rising demand for biofuels, among other things, has led to higher prices for some of the commodities that are currently used to make biofuel - such as corn and vegetable oils.

In the case of corn, it is thought that competing food and feed demands on grain supplies and prices will eventually limit expansion of grain-ethanol capacity, so researchers have begun to explore alternative plant sources for second-generation or cellulosic biofuels.

Switchgrass like some other fast-growing, high-fibre grasses and wood by-products is rich in cellulose, a material that can be readily converted into sugar and fermented to make ethanol.

It is thought that cellulosic biofuels made from perennial plants such as switchgrass will require fewer agricultural inputs than annual crops such as corn, and will offer better yields, lowering the price of bio-ethanol.

Scientists are also hopeful that they can deliver better yields and efficiencies through improvements in crop management and by breeding strains of switchgrass better suited to be converted to ethanol.

In the paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers reported that newer breeds of switchgrass have yields 20-30 percent higher than earlier strains.

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Related News

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THAT'S MY BAG, BABY!!!

Almost overnight, it seems, every supermarket and lots of non-super ones have come out with their own reusable shopping bags. Bully for them! We credit Trader Joe's with being the first (whether they actually were or not) but are grateful for every chain that has adopted this great green initiative.

Now that carrying your own bag to the store has become the "in" thing, you'll find yourself with myriad choices in your bag style, size and material. Below we've compiled links to sites where you can purchase some pretty funky carry-alls. Of course if paying $15 for something in which to carry a $3.99 box of Ring Dings seems a bit ostentatious you can always just grab one of the offerings at the checkout of your local supermarket. At a buck or two they'll do the job just as well, if not as stylishly.

• Reusable Bags
You'll find anything and everything to do with reusable bags right here. Lots of choices and a broad price range, from a $4.95 plain organic cotton tote to the Heavy Duty XL Hemp Tote. Our fav on this is site is the Basura Bag, which is made from juice bags collected from the streets in the Phillippines.

• um, random
This site of quirky items featured a few quirky canvas bags. Our favorite has a gorilla face illustration on one side. There's also a cool Asian-inspired catfish bag. You can look funky fresh while saving the earth, all at the same time! Not a bad thing at all.

• 1 Bag at a Time
Schoolteacher and company founder Lisa Foster created this company after a trip to Australia in 2005 ingrained in her the importance of reusability, something already firmly ingrained in the Aussie culture. She's actually the supplier of Ralph's, the supermarket giant, bags.

• Envirosax Mono Bags
These bags are tres chic and, at $34.95 per, tres expensive. These bags have been mentioned in magazines ranging from OPRAH to ELLE to METROPOLIS, so you know when you buy one that you'll be very haute, not to mention green.

• BAGGU
We like these a lot. Designed by a mother/daughter team these are made of nylon, which means they're lightweight yet strong, easily cleaned and portable (they come with their own 5"x5" pouch. 4 colors to choose from.

• ECOBAGS
Another in the category of haute bagging. They specialize in mesh bags that were featured on OPRAH a couple of times, and so have a very large following. All their bags have a summery Hamptonseque feel to them.

SPONSIBLE CHALLENGE #2

Periodically we like to challenge corporations to step up to the plate and do the right thing. Whether it's putting an end to overseas sweatshops or simply not doublebagging at checkout, we see a chance for positive change where others see business as usual. This time however, we would like to challenge you, the sponsible reader.

With 2008 still fresh as new fallen snow we figure it's a great time to start the year off on the right foot. Our request to you is to get in the habit of doing one good deed a week. We're not even asking for a daily commitment out of you here, just once a week. By "good deed" we mean any of a variety of things. Here are a few examples:

• Stop and talk with a homeless person/buy them a meal
• Volunteer at an elder community
• Go out of your way to make sure that plastic bottle gets recycled rather than dumped
• Buy CFL bulbs or better yet, LED's
• Power down your computer and turn off your lights when not in use
• Adopt an animal
• Make a donation to a charity
• Ask a waiter or waitress how they're doing and really mean it
• Praise a child on a good job
• Drop clothes and home items off at your local thrift shop
• Volunteer at a soup kitchen
• Recycle your companies used batteries- collect them in a container in the copy room
• Call an elderly relative and just listen
• Plant a tree
• Work with your local elementary school to plant dozens of trees
• Go for a run without headphones
• Love yourself

As you may have noticed, good deeds don't only apply to others. They can be done to yourself, to flora and fauna as well. The point is, the more we treat ourselves, our neighbors and our earth with love and respect the better our world will be, simply by default.

Let us know how you got sponsible and we'll publish your efforts right here, to help inspire others to follow your lead. Consider this challenge a group effort.

JOHN EDWARDS FOR PRESIDENT

Let us first say that we will throw our support behind whoever ends up the Democratic nominee running for the presidency.

It is clear that the Democrats, en masse, take global warming more seriously than do the Republicans. Likewise, they are for the concept of a "We" society, as Michael Moore so eloquently put it in Sicko, as opposed to a me society. That means greater federal government assistance for those in need here in the U.S.

The Democrats also roundly support an assault weapons ban, stringent background checks for potential handgun owners, withdrawal from Iraq, legalization of and support for embryonic stem cell research and an overhaul of both our healthcare and educational systems.

One frontrunning Democratic candidate, however, is strongly opposed to campaign financing, a practice that is all but synonymous with malfeasance, and that candidate is John Edwards.

Edwards is the only Democrat besides Dennis Kucinich who has made the abolition of corporate financing of political campaigns a key issue of his run at the presidency. It can't be overstated how destructive corporate financing can be to our very Democracy. It has surely influenced the current state of not just our nation, but the entire world.

Could George W. Bush have even had the chance to co-opt the presidency twice if not for the network of corporate cronies, from lobbyists to local elected officials, who used their considerable influence to control the voting scenarios in states like Ohio and Florida? And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

We also applaud Edwards' strong stand against on nuclear power as an energy source. With so many options out there, why must we choose the only one whose byproduct is a poison? Sure, containment of the waste water is improving, but nothing is guaranteed free from breaking. Oil tankers are evidence of this.

W do admire Barack Obama for his eloquence and clear empathies for the common man. Our concerns with him are the number of ties to corporate interests he seems to have and the fact that he doesn't come off as decisive on certain issues, particularly military involvement in Iraq. Our concerns with Hillary are similar, particularly in her strong ties to corporate America.

You can see a detailed account of where our candidate, John Edwards, stands in relation to all his major opponents at 2Decide.com. Also, check out John Edwards' website, JohnEdwards.com.

Whomever you decide to vote for we implore of you to just get out and vote. It is both a right and a privilege and as much a civic duty as is paying taxes.

PICK A PREZ

It seems as if the presidential candidates have been campaigning since early last year for an election that's still 11 months away. Maybe that's because they have. But with the primaries and caucuses upon us the time is nigh to start seriously considering to whom we will give our precious vote.

Here at sponsible, environmental concerns, along with human rights, healthcare, education, foreign relations and employment issues, are high on our priority list when it comes to picking a candidate. The environment is after all our lifeblood, and without it we wouldn't be voting at all.

Grist and AlternativeEnergy.com have teamed up to present us with a comprehensive survey of all the leading presidential contenders' positions on the environment. Interestingly, the viewpoints of the candidates within the two major parties don't vary so much as do the party positions themselves. Almost to a man (and woman), the Democrats show a relatively strong stance on issues such as raising CAFE standards and supporting alternative energy projects while the Republican candidates show less commitment in these areas.

We encourage you to read through the entire list and do your research on a variety of issues before handing your vote to a candidate. Maybe even more importantly, we ask that you exercise your right to vote, in both the primaries and the general election, and that means on the various proposals that will share space on your ballot with the candidates. The 60% rate of voter turnout that we usually see in presidential elections is far too low, especially now, when so much is at stake.

Tomorrow sponsible will be making its endorsement for the next President of the United States of America. We'll give you a hint as to who it may be for now though: Our candidate is not a member of the Republican Party. Big surprise, huh?

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VIDEO OF THE DAY

John Edwards and Bill Maher talk the North Pole and ethanol.

BE A CYBERHERO

2008 is a day old and what have you done? That is, besides wake up late and clean up the champagne glasses and confetti? While we don't expect you to have taken much in the way of sponsible action after a night of noisemakers and Ryan Seacrest, we do have a simple way you can do good from the comfort of your own Barcalounger, and it won't cost you anything more than a press of a finger.

By now you've probably been on a few of the sites that plant a tree or save a parcel of rainforest each time they're accessed. Maybe you experienced a sense of satisfaction after clicking on such a site but promptly forgot about the URL. Well, now's your chance to get that warm, fuzzy feeling all over again.

Ecologyfund.com keeps a database of such eco-friendly sites. You can hit links of up to ten of them every day to plant trees, preserve land, and even save the atmosphere.

Thanks to Ecologyfund you've got the chance to make it a happy new year for a host of flora and fauna, not to mention that part of you that gets warm and fuzzy after you've done a good thing.

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VIDEO OF THE DAY

Musician Vlad, with the help of one of those cool new ZAP! Xebra electric trucks and the students of the Academy of Arts and Ethics in Santa Rosa CA, plants a tree.