More at his Web site. Purr.

Add a hearty serving of Planet Green to your life by copying the HTML code below and pasting it into your e-mail signature, Web site, or MySpace page.

We’ll have a different tip each month to help you spread the word about just one thing everyone can do to make our planet a little bit greener. Insert the code now, then lean back and relax—our Internet elves will magically replace your existing tip with a new one every 30 days or so.

Photo by piper, under a Creative Commons license

Take Action, Start a Petition
The Care2 Petition Site makes it a snap to start your own petition. First, identify the target of your protest, then draft out a call-to-action message and decide on your goal number of signatures

Quote of the Day: Carlo Petrini on Taking It Slow
“The quest for slowness, which begins as a simple rebellion against the impoverishment of taste in our lives, makes it possible to rediscover taste.”

Event of the Day: Farm Aid 2007
Are you going to Farm Aid?

Farm Aid 2007: The Press Conference
While we’re recovering from yesterday’s completely awesome Farm Aid 2007, here are a few clips from the press conference, courtesy of the official Farm Aid blog.

Quote of the Day: Marion Nestle on Advertising to Children
“Adults may be fair game for marketers, but children are not. Children cannot distinguish sales pitches from information unless taught to do so.”

Click here for more »

Photo by purplekey, under a Creative Commons license

Quote of the Day: Ray Anderson on Flight
“Drawing the metaphor of the early attempts to fly. The man going off of a very high cliff in his airplane, with the wings flapping, and the guys flapping the wings and the wind is in his face, and this poor fool thinks he’s flying, but, in fact, he’s in free fall.”

North Branch Mocha Brownie Soap
Coffee grounds are a natural deodorizer you can between rub your hands to get rid of the pong of garlic, onions, or fish after you’re through preparing the nosh.

Data Storage Just Got Shinier, Sexier
Personal data storage meets personal accoutrement with this heart-shape Swarovski-crystal-encrusted pendant—part of a new line by Philips and Swarovski known as Active Crystals.

How to Hack Your Swiffer
We scoured the Internet landscape to find the best ways of fulfilling Zaccai’s sustainable dream, so you can haul your pre-green Swiffer dust mop out of retirement and back into action picking up cat hair and errant dust motes.

Quote of the Day: Peter Nicholson on Why Design Matters
“Design, whether in the form of fashion, architecture or other discipline, is essential to achieving greater sustainability.”

Click here for more »

Photo by Wired

A Very Special Interspecial Reunion
A lion that was raised by humans, but was released into the wilds of Africa, reunites with his former handlers a year later. What else can Treehugger say but “OMGKITTIES!!!11!!!”

Wired’s Artifacts from the Future: Fusion Food
Possibly coming to a produce store near you: Monsanto’s Cinna-Del, the only GM apple that expresses both cinnamon and sugar, only $26.99 per kilo!

Penguins March into New Patagonian Marine Park
Squawk if you’ve heard this one: The government of Argentina is creating a new marine park along the isolated Patagonia coast to officially safeguard more than half a million penguins and other rare seabirds, according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

Peace, Love, Earth: Yeah, Baby
Designer Anna Mkhitarian reinvents that tired hippie standard—the ol’ peace sign—into physical, wearable mantras that, though unsubtle, remind us what our groovy voyage on Spaceship Earth is all about.

Global Warming Wants to Eat Your Flesh
We’d have used a picture of flesh-eating bacteria diligently at work, but all our options made us want to disgorge the contents of our stomachs, so here’s a nonthreatening—dare we say even cuddly?—microscopic look at the insidious beasties themselves.

Click here for more »

In theaters Aug. 17—that’s tomorrow!

Illustration by Christian Northeast/The New York Times

I’m not a Potter-head, though my husband is¹, and one of our bookshelves holds a Polaroid of us wearing the iconic black-rimmed spectacles at a Barnes & Noble release party for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (Chekhov promptly sat on mine the next day, snapping them in two, possibly to indicate his lack of enthusiasm for J. K. Rowling’s oeuvre.) I do adore these illustrations by Christian Northeast, however, from an article about Harry-mania by an equally unimpressed Christopher Hitchens in The New York Times.

¹And he very thoughtfully keeps me abreast of everything that happens in and outside of Hogwarts, even when I pretend to have been momentarily struck deaf.

Illustration by Christian Northeast/The New York Times

Photo by bcanna, under a Creative Commons license

I’m looking to beef up the Fashion & Beauty section of TreeHugger—my upcoming day job, for those just tuning in—and would love to know what you would like to see more of. Do you like the product reviews the way they are now? Or would you prefer to read in-depth product testing? Would highlighting new products be more useful or product roundups by type? What are some of the problems you’ve faced maneuvering the world of eco-friendly fashion and beauty products and how could we help make it easier?

My deepest thanks in advance—I don’t throw around exclamation marks lightly, but here you go!

Comment below by August 10, 2007 and stand a change to win a copy Felt Frenzy by Heather Brack and Shannon Okey, with my thanks. I’ll pick a winner at random on the 11th.

Photo by Amy R. Singer

One of the surprises from Knitty.com’s Spring 2007 issue: The Everlasting Bagstopper, designed by the chief knitwit herself, Amy Singer. Using only two skeins of Hemp for Knitting’s allhemp6, the bag includes a drawstring closure for extra security, which is a nifty touch.

Related article:
1. Yarn Review: Hemp for Knitting allhemp3

Photo by yamiq, under a Creative Commons license

Answer summer’s call to sun, surf, and sand, if you must, but remember to slather on the sunscreen, wherever you may roam, to ward off crispy bits, premature aging, and potential skin cancer caused by the sun’s UV rays.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hasn’t approved new chemicals sunscreens since 1978, which means that the United States has at least 12 fewer approved—and possibly safer and more effective—sun-blocking ingredients than Europe does. (If you do some quick mental math, that means the FDA has been dawdling on this matter for the past 29 years; it made its last resolution back when the Internet was merely a gleam in Al Gore’s eye, Michael Jackson still looked human, and I was a mewling bairn whose only concern was making doodie.) At the same time, sunscreen products on the shelves go largely unregulated, says the Environmental Working Group, which analyzed the safety and effectiveness of more than 700 name-brand sunscreens.

The Washington, D.C.-based non-profit found that a staggering 84 percent of 785 sunscreen products (with an SPF rating of 15 or higher) offered inadequate protection from the sun’s rays or contained questionable ingredients. “Ironically, some popular sunscreen chemicals break down when exposed to sunlight and must be formulated with stabilizing chemicals,” says EWG, in a press release. “Others penetrate the skin and present significant health concerns.”

In fact, EWG found 50 percent of the products currently on the market to bear claims—such as “all day protection”, “mild as water,” and “blocks all harmful rays”—on their bottles that are “unacceptable” or misleading under the FDA’s draft sunscreen-safety standards. Because the FDA’s standards have not been finalized, however, companies are free to flout and hype up claims that have led to recent class-action lawsuits, involving major brands such as Hawaiian Tropic, Banana Boat, Bull Frog, and Neutrogena, in California, says EWG.

Of the 700-plus sunscreen products EWG scrutinized, it can recommend only 130. It promotes caution with 618 of the products and suggests outright avoiding 37 of them. (Learn more about the methodology used here.)

Check out EWG’s database of sunscreen products it rates the best or considers the worst. Or use its search tool to find out how your current sunscreen product rates. Plus, if you have to spend any amount of time outdoors, be sure to read these tips for both grownups and kids. Apply sunscreen early and apply often. Well, unless looking like freshly tanned leather (or Dina Lohan) is your thing—I don’t judge¹.

¹I will completely judge you.

Photo by Interweave Press

On sale now: A special felt issue by Interweave Press. As a free online bonus, the editors have thrown up their own favorite ways of recycling and reusing old wool sweaters, including repurposing a “shrunken disaster” into a teddy bear, house slippers, and even a yoga-mat bag.

Photo by Interweave Press

Related articles:
1. One-of-a-Kind Woolen Gifts
2. Recycled Wool Felt
3. Recycled Wool Blankets, Scarves
4. Cozy Up
5. Better Latte Than Never
6. Hello Cupcake!

The cuteness seriously broke my brain. (The second video has the same intro, but is different from then on.)