Talk about the paper chase. Despite accounting for only 5 percent of the world’s population, Americans devour 30 percent of the global paper supply. Our paper consumption swells by another 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year’s as thousands of cards are squeezed into shiny mail slots—and hundreds of presents are bedecked and beribboned, only to be shredded into confetti by greedy, eager fingers. Yet 71 percent of our paper is produced from timber harvested from ecologically valuable and biologically diverse forest habitats. (Think the recent heat wave’s been a real doozy? Imagine the bullets we’d be sweating without the carbon-absorbing superpowers of our trees.)

Due for release in September, Simply Green Giving: Create Beautiful and Organic Wrappings, Tags, and Gifts from Everyday Materials by Danny Seo is a handy volume of over 50 eco-friendly and sustainable gift-wrapping ideas—making a purely decorative and ephemeral indulgence a waste-free one, without looking like you ripped the funny pages from this morning’s paper as an eleventh-hour afterthought. (Or at least without some sleight of hand to make it appear like you did it on purpose, you crafty fox!)

Seo’s simple yet chic ideas range from the slightly obvious (bandannas; scarves) to the ingenious (alphabet tiles in soap for gift tags; VHS tape as ribbon; a package fashioned from leftover “Admit One” tickets). I particularly like his suggestion of hitting up your neighborhood cigar shop for empty cigar boxes handcrafted from wood, and I’ve been building a tiny stash of my own for stuffing with handmade treasures for Christmas giving (thanks to my local hookup.) Don’t scoff at curbside pickup, either, one of my favorite places to gather free bits and bobs. People throw away the darndest things.

Seo read my mind when he suggests inspiring older kids by buying them memberships to environmental or animal-protection organizations—for the beastie-loving hub’s birthday this year, I gave him a membership to the Wildlife Conservation Society, which grants him (and a guest, preferably me) free admission to any of New York City’s zoos and aquariums. No wrapping, awkward silences, or future landfillers involved. And because the money goes to international conservation projects, it’s one of those gifts, as hokey as it sounds, that keep on giving. (Tip: To make sure your organization is legit, or at least running its operations efficiently, check it against Charity Navigator first.)

You’ll note that Wal-Mart carries Horizon Organic (a subsidiary of Dean Foods, which also owns Silk Soy Milk)—one of the more controversial “factory-farmed” organics on the market.

(You can check how your favorite organic milk company measures up with the Cornucopia Institute’s Dairy Survey and Scorecard, in which they rate the different brands of dairy products according to their organic farming practices and ethics.)

Laurie from Slowly She Turned has more on the latest organic-labeling brouhaha. The Gray Lady weighs in on the issue, too.

Photo by 3R Living

(Part of my Green This House program.)

Even with its nightly spritzing of bacteria-squashing vinegar, a heavily scarred plastic cutting board, with deep grooves aplenty for germs to hide out and conspire, does not a healthy home make.

So off we ambled to 3R Living in Brooklyn to drop off a jarful of dead batteries for recycling—I’m trying to get the hub to switch to less-wasteful rechargeable ones—as well as pick up a long-coveted bamboo cutting board.

Bamboo, a member of the grass family and darling of the tree-hugging set, is a remarkably sustainable, cost effective, and eco-friendly plant with over 1,200 different species in China. According to manufacturer Totally Bamboo, bamboo grows to a “harvestable height between 3 to 4 years, some species growing up to 2 feet per day. It has an extensive root system that continually sends up new shoots, naturally replenishing itself. It does not require replanting, making it one of the world’s most renewable sources.” With a yield 25 times that of timber, along with a tensile strength rivaling steel’s, bamboo is a viable and environmentally savvy alternative to overharvested hardwood.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration actually recommends preparing food with plastic cutting boards, rather than wooden ones, because plastic is “less porous than wood, making it less likely to harbor bacteria, and easier to clean.” Hey, would the FDA, wielders of the sacred public trust, ever steer us wrong?

Cough.

In 1993, however, microbiologists Dean Cliver and Nese Ak, from the University of Wisconsin’s Food Research Institute, challenged that notion when they intentionally inoculated wooden and plastic boards with organisms such as Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli, which are common causes of food poisoning. Their results: 99.9 percent of the bacteria died within three minutes on the wooden ones, while the bacteria survived on the plastic boards.

From a New York Times article on the findings:

When contaminated boards were left unwashed overnight at room temperature, bacterial counts increased on the plastic, but none of the organisms could be recovered from the wooden boards the next morning. …

The researchers tested boards made from seven different species of trees and four types of plastic and found similar results: wood was safer than plastic, regardless of the materials used. Thus far, however, the researchers have been unable to isolate the agents in wood that make it so inhospitable to bacteria.

If you’d rather put your faith in the FDA, however, steer your peepers toward these vibrantly patterned boards made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled plastic.

Patrick D. Bird, a professor at the University of Florida’s College of Health and Human Performance cautions that we shouldn’t assume wooden cutting boards will automatically “decontaminate” themselves without human interference, and that any type of cutting board, regardless of material, should be thoroughly scrubbed with soap and hot water.

Photo by Apple Computer

(I don’t have an iPod, but Mark’s iPod troubles inspired me to draw up this little guide to taking care of your invalid MP3 player. You can thank Mark, who runs 3R Living in Brooklyn with his wife, for the links.)

Good ol’ Murphy is always hard at work, and if he wriggles his fingers and you drop your iPod on your hard kitchen floor (or some other Machiavellian surface), you’re basically left with a very expensive paperweight or doorstop. What are your options now?

1. Throw it out
Nein! Your iPod contains toxic battery components, including lead, which will leach into landfills and poison our water table, generally bringing about misery and gnashing of teeth for all. Just don’t do it. Electronic waste needs to be disposed of by professionals who know what they’re doing, i.e., not you or me. Now back away from that trash can, with your hands where I can see ‘em.

2. Get it fixed
In our massively disposable-loving society, it’s often far cheaper to purchase a replacement rather than fix something that’s busted. Manufacturing an iPod from scratch consumes far more energy, fossil fuel, and resources, however, than merely spiffing up an iPod that can still be restored. If you want to do right by our one-and-only planet, check out iPodMods, which offers a free diagnostic testing service—you just have to pay for shipping—to figure out whether your little white box is truly toast, or if it has the potential to rise from the ashes anew. A certified technician will contact you with a repair quote 24 to 48 hours after the company receives your iPod. If you’re happy with the price, iPodMod’s crack team will get right on it. If what they quote has one too many zeroes, you can sell it to the company for salvageable parts.

(Also, if you have a head for tinkering with electronic innards, you may be able to fix it yourself like this dude did.)

3. Recycle it
After hearing a lot of kvetching from environmentalists, Apple announced a free iPod take-back and recycling program for anyone in the U.S. The company will dispose of your iPod in an environmentally friendly manner, plus give you a 10 percent discount on a new iPod. Bonus! (Check out option 2 first, though.)

A response from the folks at Paper Nor Plastic:

Dear Ms. Jasmin,

Thank you for your interest in Paper Nor Plastic; and thank you for taking the time to send us your comments. Why are our bags coated with vinyl? We chose vinyl as the inner liner for the benefits it would add to our bag; which includes the water resistant qualities and stiffening of material (allowing the bag to stand alone for easy loading). But the core reason for choosing this bag is the results from our market test (which included earth-friendly material bags) that clearly showed the vinyl liner bag as the winner. Therefore, we agreed to pursue with the vinyl liner. We believe that a little bit of vinyl in each bag can save thousands of wasted plastic and paper bags and this is still helping the environment.

We appreciate your email, you have added new insights with the provided links. For our next round of shipment, we will highly consider using an alternate material for the liner (only if it doesn’t hinder the water resistant and stiffening qualities that attract people to our bags). But for now, we still have inventory and hope you can see the value our customers bring by reusing the bag.

Best Regards,
Paper Nor Plastic

PS. If you send us your contact information, we would be delighted to send you a complimentary bag; it’s quite durable and can be used for many years to come.

My reply to them below the fold.

Click here for more »

New yummies from Tenth and Grant, made from recycled paper/chipboard and printed with eco-fabulous soy-based inks, available at BuyOlympia.com.

I really dig these passport holders by FoxMachine as a crafty way to reuse paper ephemera, but not keen on the possibly vinyl¹ contact paper unless it was thrifted or repurposed.

¹What is contact paper made of? I’m not having too much success on Google. I actually have a roll of the stuff from yonks ago.

The Center for Health, Environment, and Justice has a shiny new site up for its anti-PVC campaign. Learn about vinyl’s environmental and health hazards, how to protect your family, and which companies are phasing out PVC. And while you’re there, take action and get Wal-mart to honor its sustainability pledge by wiping PVC out from its supply chain.

From shower curtains to sippy cups, PVC products are ubiquitous. The bare-bones summary:

• Polyvinyl chloride, also known as vinyl or PVC, poses risks to both the environment and human health. PVC is also the least recyclable plastic.
• Vinyl chloride workers face elevated risk of liver cancer.
• Vinyl chloride manufacturing creates air and water pollution near the factories, often located in low-income neighborhoods.
• PVC needs additives and stabilizers to make it useable. For example, lead is often added for strength, while plasticizers are added for flexibility. These toxic additives contribute to further pollution and human exposure.
• Dioxin in air emissions from PVC manufacturing and disposal or from incineration of PVC products settles on grasslands and
  accumulates in meat and dairy products and ultimately in human tissue. Dioxin is a known carcinogen. Low-level exposures are
  associated with decreased birth weight, learning and behavioral problems in children, suppressed immune function and disruption.

I got it! C.O.V.E.N: Crafters Opposing Vinyl Entirely. Yes? No? Bueller?

Liz, who rocks muchly, from Pocket Farm talks about why she elected voluntary simplicity and lists some helpful suggestions on being frugal. She and the folks at Path to Freedom remain incredible sources of inspiration and fonts of wisdom.

Coincidentally, I have Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich checked out from the library and in my to-read pile.

Speaking of using what’s already at hand, a couple of nights ago, as my husband was washing up after dinner, he loudly complained that the turmeric I cooked our cabbage dish with was staining all the dishes and not coming off. “Sprinkle on some baking soda,” I hollered back. A few minutes later: “IT’S A MIRACLE!”

Photo by Misha Gravenor/Getty Images

• New York usage breaks 2005 energy consumption record
• Heat wave does lasting damage across California
• Utah heat wave could cause rolling blackouts
• Extended heat wave impacts Central Valley crops
• Heat wave straining power
• Heat wave, drought hit U.S. farmers hard
• Racing dogs perish in heat wave
• No end in sight to Europe’s heat
• Heat wave worsens toxins in already-closed lake
• Air quality dives as temps rise
• Heat wave causes a pileup of livestock carcasses
• Global warming, not just heat wave
• Scientists split on heat wave cause
• Does heatwave prove climate change?
• Global warming disputes heat up Congress

From Gristmill:

More heat = more electricity usage.
More electricity usage = more carbon emissions.
More carbon emissions = … you get the idea.

We’re digging our own graves, suffice to say. Our home is kept cool by a couple of box-window fans and desk fans, and plenty of water we keep chilled in two pitchers in the fridge. (Chekhov hangs out in the bathtub if he’s feeling the heat.) “We can just suck it up now,” I told the hub, “or face a future where babies spontaneously combust in the delivery room because it’s THAT HOT.”

I say this in jest but you know what I mean. Says the NRDC, “Unless we act now, our children will inherit a hotter world, dirtier air and water, more severe floods and droughts, and more wildfires.”

Every bulb you switch prevents roughly 1,000 pounds of global warming pollution over the life of the bulb.

Feel free to steal this linky button. Just save it to your own server, si’l vous plait. (Original illustration © Environmental Defense)

The bags at Paper Nor Plastic remind me a great deal of the ones I already use to bag my groceries—down to the nifty way both heavy-duty types fold to the size of a flattened brown paper bag—and I wouldn’t be surprised if they shared the same manufacturer. One notable difference, however: The ACME Earth Tote is made from Cordura nylon, while Paper Nor Plastic’s are made from vinyl-backed polyester. Both nylon and polyester are petroleum-derived, which admittedly isn’t terribly sustainable in the first place, but we all know how I feel in particular about vinyl, that most vile of textiles. (To recap: I hate it with the fury of a billion dying suns, a special brand of loathing I reserve for ex-boyfriends and Bush scions.)

I e-mailed the company a polite inquiry, with relevant links about vinyl’s noxious life-cycle, indicating that Paper Nor Plastic’s resultant impact should actually befit its plaintive plea to “Help the Environment!” instead of working against it.

After volunteering with the NYC Fair Trade Coalition at CitySol on Sunday—where I got to meet the very lovely Allison of aGaIN NYC, whose bags are even more gorgeous in person—the hub and I rewarded ourselves by paying a little visit to our pals Ben and Jerry. My wrapper just had a couple of cows, but the hub’s pointed us toward the company’s spiffy, interactive anti-global-warming site, LickGlobalWarming.org.

You can learn all about global warming with a flash-card memory game, send an automated e-mail or fax to your senator, and discover what you can do to reduce your personal CO₂ emissions. The colorful and animated Guide to Understanding Global Warming is also a great way to introduce the subject to kids without having them crap their pants in terror.

And if you haven’t already, check out how Ben and Jerry feel about federal spending priorities and urge Congress to channel some of the $30 billion the U.S. spends on nuclear deterence a year toward education and healthcare for children. (Just $2 billion annually could provide health insurance for 1 million of the nation’s 9 million uninsured kids, for instance.)

Spewing hellfire and brimstone from the pulpit takes an environmental turn. In a word, Bible-fondlers: duck!

From The Times Online: “The Bishop of London has declared it sinful for people to contribute to climate change by flying on holiday, driving a ‘gas-guzzling’ car or failing to use energy-saving measures in the home.”

Richard Chartres will encourage vicars to preach more green sermons and warn congregations that it is now a moral obligation for Christians to lead eco-friendly lifestyles.

Chartres, who chairs the bishops’ panel on the environment, said: “There is now an overriding imperative to walk more lightly upon the earth and we need to make our lifestyle decisions in that light.

“Making selfish choices such as flying on holiday or buying a large car are a symptom of sin. Sin is not just a restricted list of moral mistakes. It is living a life turned in on itself where people ignore the consequences of their actions.”

For example, unless you live in Italy, those custom-made Italian tiles = ETERNAL DAMNATION IN THE TENTH CIRCLE OF HELL, capisce?

Semi-related: Have you been turned on to Blogging the Bible by David Plotz, yet? It’s fantastic. As an elementary schoolgirl in the Cloistered Nunnery Academy for the Budding Bi-Curious, I once had the noble idea of reading the entire King James Bible (in the school chapel during recess, no less) but never got beyond Genesis because I was thrown off by the two conflicting stories of the Creation of Man. My verdict, even at that tender, impressionable age: The Bible is SHODDILY EDITED. It’s also now apparent that the Council of Nicea could have done with a copy editor or two. (If you’re trying to sell me something, at least get your story straight.)

I’ve added a couple of new finds to my post on sustainable gardening tools. And to make this rundown easier to find—I’m likely to update it as I stumble upon other suitable candidates—I’ve linked it to Sustainability 101 on the sidebar to your right. (It makes sense to be listed there, no? Well I think so and I’m not taking any lip from anyone who thinks otherwise.)

Also, the hemp-canvas gardening gloves are currently on sale at the New York-based Hemp Sisters for $13.99 (down from $15).

Instead of lovingly enveloping your care packages in non-biodegradable styrofoam peanuts, try 100 percent recycled peanuts or organic corn starch ones that dissolve easily in water. Better yet, run your old magazines, waste paper, or junk mail through a document shredder and cram nests of shredded paper in with your precious cargo, along with crumpled-up newspaper for extra padding. (You can also include a note to remind the recipient to recycle the lot.) We also like to save any padded envelopes, bubble wrap, or decorative tissue we receive in the mail for purposes such as these in the future.

From The American Frugal Housewife by Mrs. Child, 1832:

On general frugality:

If you are about to furnish a house, do not spend all your money, be it much or little. Do not let the beauty of this thing, and the cheapness of that, tempt you to buy unnecessary articles. Doctor Franklin’s maxim was a wise one, ‘Nothing is cheap that we do not want.’ Buy merely enough to get along with at first. It is only by experience that you can tell what will be the wants of your family. If you spend all your money, you will find you have purchased many things you do not want, and have no means left to get many things which you do want. If you have enough, and more than enough, to get everything suitable to your situation, do not think you must spend it all, merely because you happen to have it. Begin humbly. As riches increase, it is easy and pleasant to increase in hospitality and splendour; but it is always painful and inconvenient to decrease. After all, these things are viewed in their proper light by the truly judicious and respectable. Neatness, tastefulness, and good sense, may be shown in the management of a small household, and the arrangement of a little furniture, as well as upon a larger scale; and these qualities are always praised, and always treated with respect and attention. The consideration which many purchase by living beyond their income, and of course living upon others, is not worth the trouble it costs.

(Emphases are mine.)

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Another simulation along the lines of 3rd World Farmer, CO₂Fx: Global Warming Simulation is a game, based on data from the National Science Foundation and targeted at high-school students, exploring “the relationship of global warming to economic, political and science policy decisions.”

I heartily suggest reading the instructions before diving in because the game interface isn’t terribly intuitive. (Or maybe I need a stronger cup of tea to go with the organic chocolate-chip pancakes my sweetums made me this morning. If aliens somehow replaced my Jiffy Pop-igniting husband, I’m not complaining.)

[via HippyShopper]

Photo by Bernd Opitz/Getty Images

Chez Chekhov is on the second floor of an apartment rental, and other than the jungle wilds of darkest Sumatra our laissez-faire landlord allows to flourish unbridled in the backyard, we have no greenery to speak of. Yet color me unsurprised when I discovered that lawns are the single most irrigated crop in terms of surface area in the U.S.—about 128,000 square kilometers or 40 million acres in all. NASA researcher Christina Milesi estimates we pour as much as 238 gallons of fresh, usually drinking-quality water per person, per day, to keep our lawns pert and verdant. Now consider that more than 1 billion people lack access to a safe supply of drinking water, holding water-related diseases responsible for 80 percent of illnesses—and the loss of 14,000 lives a day—around one thirsty globe.

Any carbon-dioxide-absorbing benefits lawn surfaces provide as they grow are offset by the 800 million gallons of gas burned annually by lawnmowers chugging along the grassy perimeters. And if people bag their lawn clippings and toss them into the landfill, instead of recycling the clippings on the grass, the oxygen-starved conditions actually increase the production of greenhouse gas methane.

We haven’t even touched upon the estimated tens of millions of pounds of fertilizers and pesticides homeowners often apply to their lawns at many times the recommended levels. “For what purpose?” Sally Kneidel kvetches on her blog. “Most yards don’t grow a single thing we use for food or clothing or fiber—they’re purely ornamental.” Nitrogen runoff from fertilizers is also a major source of water pollution, resulting in algae overgrowth and the development of dead zones where any chance of aquatic life is pretty much toast.

In most of the U.S., lawns aren’t natural, Milesi says.

When she had the ecosystem computer models generate a “control” scenario in which lawns were not irrigated or fertilized, she says, “The only places I could grow grass in the conterminous U.S. were a few areas in the Northeast and the Great Plains.” Everywhere else, lawns have to be coddled to keep them going and to keep weeds and other plants from taking over.

Now, a “delawning” movement is making its way across the country, replacing the ubiquitous lawn with native plants “from prairie grasses in suburban Chicago to cactus gardens in Tucson,” harkening back to an earlier period in history when yards were regarded as utilitarian spaces for raising vegetables and small livestock.

From the New York Times:

“Diversity is healthy,” [Fritz Haeg, founder of Edible Estates] said. “The pioneers were ecologically-minded out of sheer necessity, because they had to eat what they grew. But we’ve lost touch with the garden as a food source.”

Of further interest:
1. How to Convert a Lawn to a Native Meadow or Woodland
2. Native Plant Finder
3. Buzz Kill: Wild Bees and Flowers Disappearing, Study Says

Photo by Charmoné

Charmoné is a line of animal-free, sweatshop-free, and eco-friendly designer shoes debuting in August. Created by Jodi Koskella and Lauren Carroll, who are based in San Diego and New York respectively, the Italian-made shoes are meant to embody the ideal of “where style conscious meets social conscience.” The line features high-end Italian microfibers that structurally resemble leather, resulting in a lightweight, breathable, and colorfast shoe. These kicks don’t come cheap, however, ranging from $275 to $325, but at least you’ll tread easier knowing they weren’t made in some sweatshop in China.

“I’m not interested in creating another Birkenstock,” Carroll tells Riveria. “I have a lot of friends who are vegetarians and I’m very eco-conscious myself. It’s a younger generation now; they like the values of the hippie generation, but they won’t tolerate some of the fashion implications.” Hmmm.

[via Hugg]

While I definitely applaud the company’s entreé into the sustainable-fashion world and am heartened by an alternative for the Manolo Blahnik- and Jimmy Choo-obsessed crowd, at the same time I’m reminded of my previously stated ambivalence toward green luxury goods, along with a quote Mollie of One/Change recently posted:

The urge to buy a new pair of shoes, sheets, or whatever else it may be often arises in response to feelings of discontent. But when you let your unhappiness talk you into a quick-fix shopping spree for stuff you don’t acctually need, you are contributing to the degradation of the environment—depleting our natural resources while filling the air, water, and soil with life-threatening emissions and waste.—Pat Daniel, Ph.D.

(Still, I could really use a new pair of knee-high boots, since my very versatile old pair has been worn beyond redemption—with noticeable, gaping rips—and I’d pay a premium not to crush the backs of sweatshop laborers in the name of vanity, albeit a functional vanity so devoid of frippery it’d make Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection weep silent, hot tears.)

My pal Juanita and I were having one of those to-and-fro chats on e-mail last night when she mentioned practically fumigating her bedroom with Lysol. I blanched at this, of course, and told her that I preferred disinfecting with white distilled vinegar these days.

You can find straight 5 percent vinegar, which is a natural disinfectant because of its acetic-acid content, easily in the condiments aisle of your supermarket. According to Heinz, as quoted by Care2.com, several studies demonstrate that vinegar kills 99 percent of bacteria, 82 percent of mold, and 80 percent of germs/viruses. (At Care2’s recommendation, I spray my cutting board daily with vinegar and let it sit on the rack without rinsing. You can do the same with the rim of your toilet seat and the inside of your garbage pail.)

Vinegar, according to the Vinegar Institute—admittedly not the most objective of sources, but myriad other sources appear to concur—is also an effective deodorizer, grease- and soap-scum-cutting cleaner, and mineral-buildup dissolver. (Hey it had to be doing something worthwhile to have been a household staple for the last 10,000 years.)

Another favorite technique of mine is using a mixture of 1/4 cup of white distilled vinegar with 2 cups of water to clean mirrors and other glass surfaces—and then wiping it off with scrunched-up newspaper for a streakless, fiberless shine. (Toss the newspaper in with the paper recyclables when you’re done and you have a practically zero-waste affair.)

Over a thousand uses abound at VinegarTips.com, including using vinegar to kill weeds, eliminate ants, and soothe sunburns. Its best features? It’s non-toxic, exudes no chemical fumes, safe around kids, environmentally friendly, and cheap, to boot. The only downside is its sharp characteristic odor, but that dissipates after a while.

Photo by Eco-Me

I’ve written about the importance of making over your home into a chemical-free sanctuary, while sharing some of my own favorite on-the-cheap homemade cleaners that easily trump toxic, immune-system-stressing chemicals any day. (Windex? Buh-bye. Lysol? Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.)

Still, if gathering the necessary supplies is proving inconvenient, or you’re feeling lazy, check out the 100 percent natural DIY kits from Eco-Me, a company that kicked into high gear after the founder’s 36-year-old sister was diagnosed with breast cancer despite no family history of the disease. (“Could my sister’s breast cancer be linked to the pollutants in our environment or toxic chemicals in our homes?” she asked herself.)

For $29.50, you get a home-cleaning starter kit that includes an all-purpose spray cleaner, a wood-polish spray cleaner, a scrub cleanser, spray bottles and other accessories, a microfiber cleaning cloth, a bottle of Eco-Me’s essential oil home blend, and mixing instructions. (You’ll still need to add oil, vinegar, and baking soda to your supermarket shopping list, however.) Your kit comes in a handcrafted, eco-friendly, and recyclable burlap bag. Plus, a percentage of proceeds are donated to charities including The Breast Cancer Fund and Cancer 101. (Refills are also available.)

If you’re a woman over 40, please be sure to ask your doctor about getting an annual mammogram. It may sound scary, but early detection gives us the best chance of fighting a disease. Don’t deprive yourself and those who love you of that opportunity. (You’ll find a trove of resources about breast and gynecologic cancers in the back issues of my former place of employment.)

At Meranie’s behest:

The Worsted Witch’s Chocolate-Oatmeal-Yogurt Muffins
Makes 6 large muffins

• 1 cup organic, whole wheat or unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup organic rolled oats (not the instant kind)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup organic honey (I used Ecomeal’s Brooklyn-made organic honey)
• 1 cup of low-fat, plain, unsweetened organic yogurt
• 2 large organic eggs, whisked
• 3 tbs organic, fair-trade cocoa powder (I used Green & Black’s Maya Gold Hot Chocolate)
• 1 cup organic, fair-trade chocolate chips (I used fairly traded organic chocolate chips by Sunspire, but recently discovered some certified ones I’ll get for next time)
• 1 cup raisins (optional)
• 1/3 cup butter (more if you want a more cake-like consistency)
• 3 tbs grapeseed or other vegetable oil
• 1-1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp cinnamon powder

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cream together butter, honey, and eggs. Add the rest of the ingredients, leaving baking powder and baking soda last. Mix well.
3. Lightly grease a muffin pan. (We don’t need no steenking paper liners.) Pour batter into pan.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of muffin comes out clean.
5. Allow muffins to cool for 5 minutes.
7. Watch in horror as family members duke it out for last remaining muffin.

Photo by the Jonathan Levine Gallery

I sure love them cupcakes, even if they cost $300 a piece (yikes!) These are by the retrofab Nouar.

Uh … prints, maybe, for the rest of us?

Photo by Andreanna Seymore/Getty Images

Not sweating ’bout climate change, yet? Well your kids will be, and they and their children may not remark too kindly upon your apathetic thumb-twiddling decades from now. From the San Antonio Express News: “Down-to-earth teens concerned about global warming.”

High school student Stacey Flores concedes that until recently she wasn’t all that clued-in on the specifics of global warming.

She’d heard “bits and pieces” about rising world temperatures but didn’t really put it all together.

Then she was assigned a project in chemistry class about the increasing fury of hurricanes and how that might be tied to greenhouse gas emissions. Her eyes were opened, she says.

“A lot of kids my age don’t watch the news,” she says. “When it comes to global warming, we’re like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ But the thing is our generation is going to have to deal with this. When our parents are gone, when our grandparents are gone, people are going to be asking us: ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’” …

Recently, a study by the Bush administration conceded that the Earth’s lower atmosphere was growing warmer and humans are to blame, although controversy still exists on that last count. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the Earth’s surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century, “with accelerated warming during the past two decades.”

The rise in temperature may already be having dramatic effects. Satellite images, for example, show a retreat of ice in the Arctic.

All this has some teens worried. After all, they’re the ones who are going to inherit a world potentially plagued by droughts, storms, floods and forest fires.

If you feel it necessary to use aluminum foil, be sure to give those shiny crinklies a good scrub with some soap and water so you can reuse them in the future. Or recycle them with your soda cans. Not only is the production of virgin aluminum highly resource intensive, the mining of bauxite to make the aluminum is also extremely taxing on the environment. The upside is that aluminum is 100 percent recyclable and can be reworked indefinitely without any degradation in quality. Recycling aluminum also takes as little as 5 percent of the energy you’d need to manufacture virgin aluminum, so buy recycled aluminum foil when you need to, and when you’re through, just keep on recycling that aluminum over and over and over again.

According to eco-maven Umbra, the amount of aluminum Americans toss out in three months is enough to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.

Photo by Papa Stour

I only wish they were kidding, but then again, I’m not one for hardboiled eggs, which I hope these are for.

Photo by Papa Stour

This, on the other hand, is a fantastic idea for felted sweaters from your closet or the thrift store.

You are what you eat, and to help us along is World’s Healthiest Foods by the nonprofit George Mateljan Foundation with its detailed listings of, well, the world’s healthiest foods, complete with nutritional information broken down into specific minerals and vitamins necessary for our long-term wellbeing. Thanks to my CSA, it appears that my packed lunch is the cancer-fighting special: cabbage, red beets, green peas, garlic scapes, and turnip greens. Coincidentally, so was the chocolate chip-oatmeal-yogurt whole wheat muffin I had for breakfast (freshly baked yesterday with honey instead of processed sugar).

You’ll also find loads of recipes, and suggested meal plans to combat specific ailments or for general health.

I also recently discovered that adding a pinch or two of oregano or thyme into your teaball when you make a cuppa packs a mighty punch of antioxidants, along with a very slight minty flavor that’s extra flavorful. (We like antioxidants—which are potent combos of minerals and vitamins—because they help battle cancer, reduce cellular damage from free radicals, boost immunity, and possibly slow down the aging process¹.)

¹I’ll get back to you in about 30 years on that one.

Photo by NASA

Every NYC Fair Trade Coalition tabling I’ve volunteered at, including the one I dragged my sister to on Saturday, you’ll always get a couple of smart-alecky yahoos who’ll ask you why you’re doing this—Why bother? You’re just one small group of people. You’re just one person. Nothing’s going to change unless the big political guns get involved. Major Debbie Downers. Then I bring up Susan B. Anthony, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks … Abraham frickin’ Lincoln. The odds were phenomally stacked against them; their contemporaries pooh-poohed them. One person who said no to the status quo.

And yet if it hadn’t been for that one person, women would still be barred from voting booths. Racial segregation would still be a wanton, rampaging disease.

Small moves. Big changes.

But for every smart-alecky yahoo, you’ll educate someone and recognize the glimmer of newfound resolution in their eyes; an intent and decisiveness that wasn’t there before. And you sense a barely perceptible shift in the way they’ll make their choices now. These folks will go out into that messed-up jumbled world of ours and communicate these new ideas to other people, propagating like phagocytes fighting an infection.

And that’s why I do this.

“There’s no such thing as impossible; there’s only not trying.”—Charles de Lint

(Welcome home, Discovery.)

I hope I know what I’m getting into. Any advice for a total newbie? Book recs? (Is it a bad sign that I sleepwalked through the two plant biology classes I took in college? And giggled at the botany majors behind their backs?)

I admit that when my wife came to me and suggested that I switch laundry detergents from our typical “toxic to everything but clothes and maybe still even then” brand to Seventh Generation that I was skeptical.

Yes, it is slightly more expensive and yes, if I was a Mexican wrestler my wrestling name would be El Cheapo. (P.S.: I’m half Mexican and LOVE Mexican wrestling.)

But I have to say that I continue to be amazed at how the scented and unscented Seventh Generation [vegetable-based, non-toxic, and biodegradable] detergent not only cleans laundry but keeps whites stunningly white. Where I used to resort to soaking clothes in toxic bleach—Seventh Generation makes a green version of that too—just to keep shirts from dinginess, the Seventh Generation detergent takes one look and says, “Yo, I got that.”

Since I am the dedicated launderer of clothes in the household, the comparison between regular detergent and Seventh Generation was easy to see. Living in muggy, humid New Jersey and working muggier, humidier New York City means a lot of dingy clothes that need extra care to scrub clean.

Since we have to rely on the local front-loading machines at the Laundromat, soaking whites in bleach is not always an option. (You’re actually supposed to stay there, hover until a light does or does not turn on, then add your bleach in a split second. Oh, and you can’t soak.)

The point of all this is the fact that after using Seventh Generation for about six months, I have just now actually read the label closely enough to realize their mission—based on a Native American tribe’s belief—is to protect the Earth for the seventh generation of your own family. Which I guess is a pretty good way to think about things.

Also, you can mix the whites and color clothes in together, wash on cold and dry on normal, and nothing runs at all. Which is more than I can say for other detergents, hands down.