Hippyshopper

Climate Challenge: the game

Now here's a game you can play while claiming you're just doing some virtuous homework. Climate Challenge is a strategy game from the BBC in which you play a European leader who must balance climate issues against voter response. While intended to be fun, it's also loaded with real science, so you can say it's good for you. [GT]

Climate Challenge [via MetaFilter]

More Outdoors & games

Call for proposals for six art gardens in Quebec City

Quebec City's 400th anniversary occurs in 2008, and part of the celebration involves six Contemporary Ephemeral Gardens. Each garden will be designed by a living artist, to be established in the heart of the festivities, and to live only so long as the celebration does, from June 10 to September 28, 2008. Each garden should address the three major themes of the festival:

Where the river narrows;
Your history, my history, our history ;
and Sowing the seeds of culture.

[GT]

A Call For Creation Of Contemporary Ephemeral Gardens [via Land+Living]

Related stories: Iota garden decor | Joan Baez braves bulldozers for LA organic garden | Barnet Garden Project provides chemical-free veg and a hand up

LightCap takes the Firefly one step beyond

My main gripe with the GuyotDesigns Firefly was that inserting the batteries involved a special little (highly lose-able) tool and three AAA batteries. The LightCap Solar Powered LED Light & Water Bottle addresses that neatly by putting a panel right on top of the bottle. It ends up being a little on the heavy side (in the 300 gram vicinity without water) but gives off a bright white light after a four hour sunlight charge. $20 USD. [GT]

LightCap - Solar Powered LED Light & Water Bottle [via PopGadget]

Related stories: 2006 roundup #41: GuyotDesign's Gription, Firefly and water bottles | Review: GuyotDesigns Firefly, Bottles, Gription | Solar Crystal Ball Garden Lights

Squirrels guess the future of their food

Squirrels may not be psychic as such, but they do know how plentiful food will be in the coming months, and give birth accordingly.  Not only that, but to try to outsmart the squirrels, trees use a boom-and-bust seed production strategy, trying to starve the squirrels in lean years so that even when they do overbreed, the trees will still survive.  "It's a little bit tougher when things are unpredictable like seed production years, but the squirrels obviously figured out a cue," said Stan Boutin, a University of Alberta biologist.  Given that us humans have trouble figuring out the seeding cycle, we would do well to observe the squirrel population more closely.  [GT]

Squirrels are great gamblers on nature's unpredictable seeding seasons

Related stories: Grass armchair from Purves & Purves | Moto's biodegradable mobile | Grow your own herbal beauty products

2006 roundup #29: Patagonia wants your underwear

In 2006, everything is up for recycling grabs, from old soda bottles (but we'll talk more about Terracycle later) to your very underwear.  Hippy company Patagonia put out a call for your old Capilene base layers to be returned to their stores for stripping, dissolving and reuse in brand-new hiking gear - but only if it's really, really too worn for any human to reasonably wear again.  The other message: don't buy new if what you've got already does it.  [GT]

Original stories: Patagonia wants your underwear | TerraCycle sells your garbage back to you - as compost

2006 roundup #30: Maplin portable shower makes Glastonbury smell sweeter

If you particularly want a wash every day, even when you're in the woods or hanging at Glastonbury, you may think you're stuck staying at a hotel instead of roughing it under the stars.  Hippy gadgets to the rescue!  Maplin's portable shower (one of the many nifty Maplin eco-gadgets) plugs into your car adapter to heat up the water stored in the jug, so you can be gloriously hair-slicked and content but still frolic with Nature the other 97% of the time. [GT]

Original stories: Maplin Electronic Portable Shower | Top 5 eco-presents from Maplin

Global Warming Smack'em Game

Like Eco-Worrier, I keep whacking David Attenborough by mistake (I do hope the voodoo is fine-tuned on this game) but the basic premise of Stern Climate Skeptic Smack'Em Game is to smite the eco-evil-doers with a rolled-up copy of the Stern Report.  (A Stern fate indeed considering that's 700 pages.)  Given Bertie Wooster holds spot 7 in the top 10 surely some aspiring Hippyshopper can do better?  [GT]

Stern Climate Change Smack'Em Game [via Eco-Worrier]

Related stories: The Earth Dinner card game | Better than Monopoly: Bioviva, the green board game | CO2FX: global warming game

Google Earth adds environmental content

You can now, with the click of a mouse, add layers to your Google Earth showing 100 areas of the world which have experienced significant man-made depredations (such as sub-Saharan Africa and the British Columbian rainforests). With the before-and-after, you can get a really good feel for just how much obnoxiousness we've commited over the last thirty years. Then you can cheer yourself up by virtually visiting Jane Goodall's chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe reserve. [GT]

Google Earth Adds Environmental Content [via Emagazine]

Related stories: The Google Pedometer | Have a Green Summer with Google and Earth Day Network | I can annotate my house from here with Platial: the People's Atlas

The Green Board Games Company

Green Board Games focuses on board games that use recyclable or recycled materials plus wood from managed forests. All games conform to safety standards from Europe in general and Britain in particular, so you know if your baby chews on one that the most she'll get is a board game with a couple of teeth marks. Games range from science themed products like Aquasaurs to Wikki Stix in neon and with alphabet games. [GT]

Green Board Games

Related stories: Solar aircraft construction kit | The Earth Dinner card game | Recycled cardboard fort from Ecotopia

Bike Friday folding bicycles

Bike Friday is a comfortable, full-size bike. Also, in 30 seconds, the Bike Friday folds down to fit in an airline-size suitcase, so you can very easily take it with you, on planes, on trains, even into your office. No oversize expensive weird luggage that they charge you an arm and a leg for (if they even let you take it on). Plus they're hand-made in Eugene, Oregon (where I ex-lived with the ex-Mr Taylor, who is delightful in his own way but not my adorable John) so you can feel entirely good about owning one. But why trust me when you can test-drive one?

A wide variety of Bike Friday dealers allow you to test before buying, in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Germany, Canada and the US. In the UK, you want to contact the Avon Valley Cyclery in Bath where they'll be totally delighted to let you tool around on one. And more information in general about the Bike Friday in the UK is available at www.foldingbikes.co.uk - until their UK-specific site is online. [GT]

Charge bikes blog with prototypes

Not only is Charge Bikes blog including pics of Charge riders worldwide, they're posting pictures of their prototypes for cyclists to dream on long before the bikes will be available in actual stores.  For example, the Blender Titanium, "winning races soon at a 4X track near you."  But there are more conventional prototypes, such as the Stove ("Take it off road for a bit of old school MTBing or just use it for cruising down to the pub") or their standard Blender ("Simply gorgeous - the new standard").

Titanium is an intensive material to develop, of course, but it does recycle beautifully, and does result in a bike that the rider is just plain more likely to use.  I've had those heavy old steel-frame bikes and I've had a lovely lift-with-two-fingers molybdenum-and-magnesium-frame speed bike and I shouldn't need to tell you which one I rode more.  But, oh, well, yes, it is... dare I say it... titanium is dead sexy, it's true.  [GT]

Oxfam smites FILA, praises Reebok

To coincide with the start of the World Cup, Oxfam have published the findings of their year long investigation into twelve leading sports brands. The full report is available on their Generation Why website.

"FILA was bottom of the league and had failed to address serious labour abuses in its supply chain."

"In one case, a FILA sport shoe supplier in Indonesia with an appalling record of worker abuse closed suddenly and without warning. A year later, none of its 3,500 workers have received any back-pay or severance pay. FILA refuses to reveal its role in the closure or take responsibility for the workers.

"Reebok has done the most to uphold sportswear workers' rights in Asia, while other big brands such as Nike, Adidas, Puma and Asics have improved over the past year."  [Phil]

Certified Fairtrade Football

During Fair Trade Fortnight CityHippy declared his pick was a fair trade football for £12.90.  Well, move over, because NaturalDiscovery has a new fairtrade football in stock for only £9.99.  At that price even public organizations like schools and community centres should be spending the extra few quid to do the right thing.  It's particularly creepy to think of children making children's toys.  This football, however, is made by Pakistani village women to give them part-time work close to home.

We're talking a 32 panel, size five ball with a balanced latex bladder (stop snickering, you) and compliant with official standards.  The workers not only get a decent wage, but health care and improved working conditions.  You do, of course, have to blow it up before using, a procedure not unlike whistling.  You do know how to whistle, don't you?

[GT]

Free your floor space! With the Cycloc

The Cycloc is an industrial-strength bucket-shape, optionally available in 100% recycled black (or red, white or green non-recycled, but black is always chic and recycled black doubly so) plastic, that lets you tidily hang up your bike without having huge ugly hooks on the wall.  Assembly: drill some holes, bolt to the wall, cover the bolts with a nice little finishing panel, hang bike on it.  The bike's own weight keeps it stable.

The Cycloc is structured so that you can thread a lock through it if, say, you're installing it in your office or an otherwise public space.  It's won a half dozen design awards for being a simple and needful little device.  £49.95 from Nigel's Eco Store. [GT]

Green snow hols: take the Eurostar

Planning a last minute escape to the slopes in the next few weeks? Ditch the early check-in, dehydrating plane journey, rubbish four hour coach journey and the attendant carbon emissions. Take the train instead. This year, Eurostar's offering a terrific-looking ski train from £180 return to France, including Moutiers, Aime Le Plagne and Bourg St Maurice. It may be a touch more expensive than a plane tickets, but it's also quicker, more comfortable and far greener. Full info over at Eurostar.com.

Snow's up - get your eco board on

It's that time again to throw yourself down a mountain - word has it that Austria and Switzerland are both snowy and open for business - so what better way to celebrate than buying an eco-friendly board? To the best of my slope knowledge, the company to go for is Arbor: it's the only explicitly green board-making outfit out there. Based in the US, it gets wood from 'environmentally-friendly' sources and donates an unspecified portion of profits to charities protecting Hawaii's Koa trees (though there's no FSC badge equivalent to certify the wood's origin, so you'll have to take Arbor's word for it). According to Snow+Rock - whose buyers I know, and they know their boarding kit - the Arbor Element in the picture is ideal for intermediate boarders and above. Time to get practising, eh? £410 to you from Snow+Rock's store. Check out the Respect the Mountain site for tips on green ski and snow travel and accomodation. [found via Snowboard Club UK]

Related stories:
Respect the Mountain, dude - wristbands
Surf's up for the eco board

Surf's up for the Eco Board

This here is the Eden Project's Eco Board, the greenest surfboard since wave-riding got caught up in the age of fibreglass and petrochemicals. Unlike the average modern board, this one's made from balsa wood and laminated with a hemp and plant resin. According to Eden, it's so green it'll break down and compost if left to rot. You can't buy one yet - the prototype is designed to kickstart the surf world into making green boards - but you can scope it out for yourself at the Eden Project until 31st August as part of the centre's Full Circle Surf Show. [photo copyright Apex Photo Agency Ltd] [Via Treehugger]

Respect the mountain, dude

So, there's been so much snow in Europe this year, it looks like the ski season's going to run into late April and possibly even May. With all those extra bodies hitting the valleys - including, ahem, us - the Ski Club of Great Britain's Respect the Mountain campaign couldn't have come at a better time. It's basically a short manifesto on not littering slopes, travelling to resorts without planes where possible and choosing eco-minded accomodation. To show your support, you can buy one of these neat green wristbands for £2 from their site - the cash goes to the Woodland Trust for tree planting and research into skiing's impact on the environment. You could also just donate a few pennies direct to the Woodland Trust.