Hippyshopper

New Diesel ad fuels green tempers

I've always found so-hip-it-hurts denim label Diesel's advertising strategies to be a tad hypocritical. As a humungous global brand its publicity seems to crop up in a lot of surprisingly underground places, always making a show of supporting struggling 'indie' projects, just long enough for the cool kids catch on before it leaves them to...struggle. But that's an old rant for another time. This latest stunt, however, is twisted even by their standards...

'Don't listen to all this nonsense about climate change!' is the message of this video: 'sure, the world's going to change beyond recognition, but what the hell, we can still have fun!' Bronzed, semi-clad babes and hunks are then seen jet-skiing down a flooded Thames, parading with parrots in St. Marks Square, and 'making out' beside a sunken Mount Rushmore.

Watch it for yourself if you can stand it, then go and recycle every last pair of Diesel jeans you own!

Treehugger offers 'epic' prize for ethical shopping video

Do you have a burning desire to share the virtues of ethical consumerism with the rest of the world? Reackon you could do it in a short film? If so, Treehugger is offering the chance to win $5,000 (or equivalent - we've done our homework here, and this one is open to international readers) a Dutch Citybike, Fluevog Shoes and Tickets to EPIC - the biggest ethical shopping-fest ever held.

Treehugger shares many things with Hippyshopper...

...but above all, the belief that shopping doesn't have to be 'bad' if you keep an eye on what you're buying. And this is why they're supporting the EPIC, which takes place in Vancouver on March 16th-18th. It's set to be a hippy shopper's paradise - a Sustainable Living Expo, where you can discover hip, ethical products and services that allow you to feel good about your purchases. Sounds like heaven? Details on how to enter follow after the jump.

videos should be:

• no shorter than 1 minute and no longer than 2 minutes.
• Shows us the action(s) you are taking to reduce your personal carbon emissions and help put an end to climate change.

Visit Treehugger's competition page for details on submitting your entry; the deadline to enter is Feb. 28th

ReCoup recycles packaging for ethical track

To boost eco-awareness, ReCoup's new single, "Remind You" is packaged in 100% recycled materials.  Wrapped in crisp packets with a recycled cardboard sleeve, it also bears a label made from 100% recycled paper.  Since crisp packets are made from metalized laminate they're very difficult to recycle, but they're a perfect size for a CD single, and the large bags make great mailers.  [GT]

Listen to ReCoup's new single, "Remind You" here

More arts and information

What is plagiarism?

A question that must confront us as ethical consumers, as we consider buying products from companies with lax intellectual property laws, or works by artists who may have done more than draw inspiration from other artists, is: what is plagiarism?  It is defined as passing off someone else's work as one's own, and increasingly considered a high intellectual sin.

But should it be? Great artists have lifted much from each other: the Count of Monte Cristo is based on a much lesser work called Revenge and a Diamond and of course TS Eliot stole from Shakespeare who stole from Plutarch. Star Trek's Tribbles were stolen from Heinlein who stole it from Pigs is Pigs.  So are we choking our own culture in effort to legitimize it?  The Ecstacy of Influence discusses.  [GT]

The Ecstacy of Influence

More arts and information

Get real, '24', say torture experts

Saying 24's depiction of torture is "unrealistic and... kind of boring," David Danzig, director of the Prime Time Torture Project for the New York-based organization Human Rights First, in conjunction with fellow human rights activists, the dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and veteran interrogators with experience stretching from Saigon to Abu Ghraib, issued a joint plea: make use of torture on television more realistic.  "The meeting was an eye-opener," said "24" executive producer Howard Gordon. "We hadn't really thought a lot about torture as anything more than a dramatic device."  Producers at the meeting also indicated they found it goofy that they should have to point out that their use of torture is, you know, just a TV shtick - but producers of "Lost" agreed to appear in a public service video pointing out that TV is not real life.  [GT]

'24' gets a lesson in torture from the experts

More arts and information

Stewart Hagarth's Tide Chandelier

We hear a lot about the useful, practical applications of recycling, but I love the way this 'Tide chandelier', by British designer Stewart Hagarth  works on a whole different level: it's a breathtaking illustration of the value that can come from honouring the things we would otherwise discard and forget...

It's made from hundreds of individual pieces of debris, which Haygarth found washed up on the same stretch of Kent coastline over many years.

Seen close up, the objects are mainly transluscent plastic; sunglasses, cigarette lighters, children's beach toys and some unidentifyable objects combine together in one unified whole. The spherical shape they create represents the moon, which affects the tides, and in turn washed up the debris.

Book Review: Lisa Harrow - 'What can I do?'

There's a wealth of information out there on how to be green, but don't you sometimes wish you had it all in one place?

This handy A-Z guide, compiled by actress Lisa Harrow, is a good starting point for any aspect of green living, and being made from light, recycled paper could be easily fitted into a bag to help you make green decisions on your travels.

The book emphasises small, simple changes that can be made to your lifestyle, with practical, realistic suggestions, like how to recycle your mobile phone, making tasty organic meals, generating your own energy and choosing ethically sourced coffee.

We at Hippyshopper certainly approve of this approach, as we could all do more to get greener, and know that it isn't always easy!

At just a fiver, it's also great value. Order from www.booksattransworld.co.uk

Meet Captain Ozone - eco superstar from the future...

The world needs more green heroes. Al Gore may talk a lot of sense, but his dress sense doesn't exactly put him in the super-league. Captain Planet has never done it for me with his dodgy green mullet, and as for the 'celebs' who claim to be green...well, I'll never be taken in again after Chris Martin's Chelsea Tractor Shocker.

So imagine my joy when I was greeted with the words Captain Ozone wants to be your friend on a certain social networking site. Hoping to have stumbled across the earth's true saviour I decided to google him...

I found that amongst other things, the Captain has a love of old toilets, his own clothing line and claims to come from the year 2039. Then I found this video...take a look and judge for yourself whether this is our long awaited green superstar!

Spoof ad in The Times

Tee hee - check out this spoof ad (printed in The Times today).

Fake airline 'Spurt' tells the world "Flying: Your Patriotic Duty" followed by "Sod them. Let's Fly." On the facing page, a penguin says: "I might only be a penguin, but I know a global disaster when I see it melting beneath my flippers."

The alliance behind the ads includes Greenpeace and the RSPB - and good for them!

[Via EcoWorrier]

Related story: London's treehuggers on the big screen

Campaigning made easy with Friends of the Earth Campaign Express

Friends of the Earth wants you! And best of all, enlisting won't mean you have to wear a scratchy uniform or learn complicated salutes or even give your bank details.

Nope, just fill out the form here and you will receive three campaign packs a year on a current issue - like GM food or nasty chemcials.

Each pack gives you easy actions to put pressure on the right people at the right time. As Friends of the Earth put it: "When an MP gets 100 letters they take notice, when a company director gets 1000 postcards in the morning mail, things happen."

Related stories: A Year of Living Generously | Save the Rain 

Knit a river at the Eden Project

Attention knitters! If you fancy getting your needles round an unusual and worthwhile project, Carla Wentink, a guide at the Eden Project in Cornwall is raising awareness of World Water Day by knitting a giant woollen river. The Project already has a proven track record in quirky knitted items, having made the 'world's largest knitted Christmas tree' last year, which also helped a lot of good causes.

If you feel up to the challenge, Carla can be found over the next few weeks with a very large ball of blue wool at various locations around Eden, and is inviting members of the public to join her until World Water Day itself (March 22). WaterAid, the charity behind World Water Day, is an international non-governmental organisation dedicated to giving people access to clean water. If you're a health freak, you might also want to try out their 'hydration calculator', which tells you whether or not you're getting enough of the wet stuff. And if they can't tell you, who can?

Re:Vision call for entries

Re:Vision is a series of competitions for visionary thinkers. That's what the website says, anyway, and I have no reason to disbelieve it.

Re:Volt is the first of Re-Vision's contests and it calls for new ways of thinking about energy. You've got until 1st April to come up with something fabulous, but must register for entry before 15th March. Get innovating, people.

Related stories: Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year | Convenient Truths: A green video contest

Appropedia Assimilates WikiGreen

WikiGreen is no more - long live Appropedia! A wiki (which means anybody-but-anybody can contribute) designed to "Reduce poverty through International Development" and "Increase Sustainability through the use of Appropriate Technology", Appropedia has swelled enormously since it absorbed WikiGreen but remains cool, green, and free information. Drop by and add your expertise! [GT]

Appropedia

More Arts & information

2007 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition opens for entries

Thinking of entering the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition? Why not snap a pic that shows how oil and gas companies are damaging the environment?

Friends of the Earth is urging entrants to consider entering topical images into The World In Our Hands section. The deadline is 27 April 2007 so get snapping.

Pictured is last year's winning image titled Beast of the Sediment.

Related stories: World Pinhole Photography Day | How much oil did your bottled water cost?

Climate Change Experiment results

A quarter of a million people took part in the BBC's Climate Change Experiment, alongside expert scientists. Each person downloaded a computer model that used spare processing power to predict future climate.

Scientists at Oxford University received and compiled the data to create the most comprehensive prediction yet for the Earth’s climate up to 2080. The results show that we should expect a 4°C rise in temperature by 2080 according to the most likely results of the experiment.

The results confirmed that heatwaves are on the rise and, by 2080, summer temperatures of 40°C will be common. Winters will also be warmer and wetter and storms will be more frequent and more severe. Sobering news after this week's severe weather.

Read all about it at the BBC Climate Change Experiment site and watch Sir David Attenborough discuss the findings on BBC 1, Sunday 21 Jan, at 8pm (24 Jan in Scotland) in the programme Climate Change - Britain Under Threat.

Related stories: Donate your spare (computer) cycles | Reviewed: Dave Reay's Climate Change book

Monday ethical celeb: Jack Nicholson's 30 year old solar-hydrogen car

Ecorazzi picks up a great video clip about how nearly 30 years ago, Jack Nicholson had a solar-powered hydrogen car. "It’s like a standard Chevy. I backed it up, you know, because the last time the auto industry tried to destroy an independent industrialist, they said a “Tucker” wouldn’t back up. Remember that?” He also points out that, “If nothing else, this will revolutionize car-assisted suicide. Instead of carbon monoxide poisoning, you’ll just get a steam bath…” Which sounds like a better planet-wide situation than the one we've got now - if only we'd been up on it back then. (Not that I was, er, born yet.) [GT]

Time Warp: Jack Nicholson Drives A Hydrogen-Solar Car….In 1978

Related stories: Sir Paul the garbage picker | Rock tours damaging environment, says Radiohead singer | Should HarperCollins compost OJ?

Guide Me Green

Whether you're a consumer looking for ethical businesses, want to go greener, or want a job in the green sector, Guide Me Green has something for you. The Ethical Directory is particularly interesting, offering analyses of how ethical a company or product is, from shampoo to jeans. They also donate 5% of all profits to charity, with the current charity being Global Action Nepal. [GT]

Guide Me Green

Related stories: WorldChanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century | The Ethical Travel Guide | Guide to Less Toxic Products

EcoReports lets you know how green you are

To let the public know how green your organisation is, set up an EcoReports facility. Or, as a member of the public, you can nominate a company for an EcoReport (which will presumably be both a good thing and a bad thing for them, but on the whole help them figure out how to fix the bad). You can also subscribe to an information feed to keep tabs on how a given company is doing in the green scheme of things. [GT]

EcoReports [via EcoStreet]

Related stories: Top concern for ethical investors is workers' rights | Subscribe to GOOD and they'll give your money away | Teenage Tycoons To Turn Tenners Into Social Profit

Monday ethical celeb: Sir Paul the garbage picker

Sir Paul McCartney has been an avid garbage picker for years. "I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like to see things in skips. I go past a skip and I'll say, 'I could use that. That's a cupboard, that's a nice bit of wood.' I'll see a rubbish heap and see an odd bit of a bicycle or something and think, 'Picasso's Bull's Head'. I'll think, 'Interesting shape that,' because he used the bike seat didn't he. Only last night I saw some stuff in a skip and had to be pulled away." [GT]

Paul McCartney Is a Garbage Picker [via ecorazzi]

Related stories: A window on ethical consumerism | Send empty ink and dead mobiles to therecyclingfactory.com | Don't bin your wheels: make them a specialbike

Ecosexuals want a literal roll in the hay

“I was dumbstruck,” says Pearson. “I think I ate my entire meal in silence. Pork plus NutraSweet? That was definitely our last date.”  Part metrosexual, part hippy, the ecosexual wants a "sexy conservationist" or a "romantic recycler" for a partner, and won't take steak for an answer.  Claudia, for instance, wasn’t happy when her boyfriend bought her a kitchen composter so she could recycle leftovers. “I was miffed that he was trying to tell me what to do, and he was miffed that I wasn’t using it,” she says. They, too, eventually parted ways. “It wasn’t just the compost,” Claudia says, “but it raised some control issues that we couldn’t resolve.”  Just read on.  [GT]

In search of a nice Gaia [via Commons blog]

Related stories: "Legalize DDT for indoor use", begs bedbug sufferer | Plonk: kills bugs dead | 2006 roundup #11: The year of DIY solar

2006 roundup #12: Los Angeles urban farm bulldozed

There were bigger stories and bigger injustices in 2006, but the story that touched me came from Daryl Hannah's environmentalist video blog, involving the  bulldozing of an urban farm in Los Angeles.  The farm had supported dozens of dirt-poor migrant families with its produce, and the produce - absorbing massy carbon dioxide from the smog - was spectacular.  But, a corporation bought it to turn into warehouse space, and though it sold for $6.5 mil USD to them, they demanded $16 mil USD from the Public Land Trust to give it up.  Folk singer Joan Baez tree-sat to try to save the farm but ultimately it was destroyed.  [GT]

Original stories: Los Angeles urban farm bulldozed | Joan Baez braves bulldozers for LA organic garden | Daryl Hannah on green architecture

New BBC1 series - Exploring Borneo

Every night from the 1-5 January, BBC1 is airing a new natural history series, Exploring Borneo.

The programmes focus on the Heart of Borneo; an area about the size of the UK with breathtaking biodiversity. In 2006 alone, 50 new species of animal and plant life were discovered there.

Tune in at 7pm on New Year's Day for the first episode.

[Via WWF]

Related: BBC's Planet Earth

Guardian's top nature books 2006

And what is it all for, after all? Well, it's all so we can have a nice place to live. The Guardian has a listing of the 2006 top nature books, and it reinforces the idea that it's not simply about us, but the birds and the foxes and the rhinoceroses as well. I seem to have missed a lot of lovely books on the British wilderness, so reading up on that will be one of my 2007 resolutions. (So I have five more days to lie about first.) [GT]

The call of the wild

Related stories: Friends of the Earth UK Book Store | MyBookYourBook UK book cooperative | Book STEPS - the Irish holistic mail order book service

Organic Burns Dinner

Warm up in green style at the Organic Burns Dinner at the Inverness High School on 27 January.  Put on by the Soil Association of Scotland, the food is all prepared (organically, of course) by the Inverness students, providing them with useful experience on start to finish dining, and gives you a chance to have some sustainable delights.  £28 for SA members; £35 for nonmembers, which includes a four-course dinner, drinks, and entertainment in form of an interpretive dance piece devised around the Ploughman Poet's most famous poem, Tam o' Shanter. For more information, visit the REAL Project's blogspot.  [GT]

Organic Burns Dinner [via GreenGirlsGlobal]

Related stories: Acorn House Restaurant trains restaurant workers in the art of hippy | Jamie Oliver to power, turbines to restaurant speed | Julie's Restaurant fined for claiming non-organic meat is all-green

Review: The Truth about Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why

The Truth About Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn't and Why
by Jeff Gillman (Author), £9.89

We've all heard dozens, probably hundreds, of home gardening remedies that "really work".  Well, Jeff Gillman has taken hundreds, maybe thousands, of these remedies and brought in the science.  Does putting ammonia in plant water provide helpful extra nitrogen?  (Not unless you know what you're doing, and even then, probably not.)  How about gravel for drainage?  (No.)  Do Hydrogels mean you don't need to water as often?  (No.)  Do ground brussels sprouts control weeds?  (No.)  Does dosing your plants with B1 help?  (Only the tiniest plants, such as cuttings in scientific test tubes.)  Gillman does an excellent job of explaining what the remedy supposedly does, what it really does, and a round-up paragraph of "what it means for you".  The book is packed with sensible explanations of why you shouldn't do most things your grandmother told you - but smile, and be nice about it.  Only flaw?  I finished it and wanted more.  4/5.  [GT]

The Truth About Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn't and Why

Related stories: Review: Melissa's Great Book of Produce | Review: Redux: Designs that Reuse, Recycle and Reveal | Review: It's Easy Being Green

2006 roundup #35: Edward Burtynsky and WorldChanging

Edward Burtynsky is, in my relatively educated opinion, the finest landscape photographer working today.  He photographs some of man's harshest works - shipbreakings, mine tailings, oil rigs - and gives them the beauty, weight and complexity of Degas ballerinas.  But don't just take my word for it; in 2004 Burtynsky won the TED Prize, which entitles the winner to make a wish.  His: “encourage a massive and productive worldwide conversation about sustainable living.”  The result was a Burtynsky teamup with eco-team WorldChanging, and this year they came out with WorldChanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century.  In stores now.  [GT]

Original story: WorldChanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century

"Legalize DDT for indoor use", begs bedbug sufferer

Whether a media hoax or a spinoff of climate change, bedbugs are supposedly sweeping New York City. Certainly, New Yorkers are incredibly concerned about them, in a bizarre case of bedbugs actually making someone crazy. "Diane" at Bedbugger blog isn't the only one who wants DDT legalized "for indoor use" against the pests. Exterminators are using some pretty heavy stuff to get rid of them, "making them unable to harden up and penetrate. I didn't ask what the substance does to bipedal mammals." Bedbug victims can get really paranoid, to the point where, "Paul further demonstrates that among obsessed victims, exposing oneself to toxins and risking having a two-headed-monster child suddenly seems to become a good idea, if it means keeping the bugs at bay." Fascinating read on one of the biggest obstacles the hippy mindset faces: crazy people like having a nuclear option. [GT]

Bed Bugs & Beyond

Related stories: Insect Lab Clockwork Insects | Reviewed: Alfresco Beauty without Bites | Plonk: kills bugs dead

Natural Friends lets you find someone greeny to love

Your eyes met across a crowded grocery shop. You were buying organic goat mozzarella; he was buying spray cheddar in a can. Yikes! Maybe you should try Natural Friends, a dating services aimed specifically at putting two greens together to make, er, two happier greens. The perfect introduction agency for ethically-minded, environmentally-sensitive, country-loving, health-conscious, single non-smokers. Indeed! [GT]

Natural Friends

Related stories: Green Singles dating service | The Earth Dinner card game | Green insurance for your fuel-efficient vehicle

2006 roundup #38: The Ethical Gourmet heads a hot list of cool green tomes

The Ethical Gourmet: How to Enjoy Great Food that is Humanely Raised, Sustainable, Nonendangered, and that Replenishes the Earth
by Jay Weinstein
£9.25 from Amazon

Green books abounded in 2006 (favorites: Simply Green: Parties by Danny Seo; High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxins and Human Health by Elizabeth Grossman; Melissa's Great Book of Produce: Everything You Need to Know About Fresh Fruits and Vegetables by Cathy Thomas) and while nearly all of them had something significant to recommend them, The Ethical Gourmet is way up there because it covers all the bases: how to buy, what to buy, where to buy, why to buy; sustainable, local, organic.  It also addresses (too briefly, but most ignore this entirely) that organics won't take hold until they're affordable.  It has a good range of mid-level gourmet recipes, which serve as an excellent way to get anybody who likes to eat interested in what they can do about the politics of their food.  [GT]

Original stories: The Ethical Gourmet | Melissa's Great Book of Produce | Simply Green: Parties | High Tech Trash by Elizabeth Grossman

If you want to see the polar ice caps, go before 2040

Simulations of global warming patterns indicate that the polar ice caps have a high chance of melting entirely by 2040. The problem: water heats up faster than ice (which is why it's water rather than ice, of course). The more the caps melt, the more water there is. The more water there is, the warmer the area gets, so the caps melt faster every year. It doesn't take much of this - another 3 decades or so - before the whole place is loose and free. Similar studies over the past few years have predicted similar results; some giving as few as 25 years and some as many as 50, but all surely well within my lifetime. [GT]

Arctic ice could disappear in summer by 2040: study

Related stories: Sir Richard Branson pledges £1.6bn for global warming | CO2FX: global warming game | Stop Global Warming and save endangered animals

Platial gets even cooler with MapKit

We were positively delighted by Platial  the first time it came up: the idea of an atlas anybody could annotate seemed to have, pardon me, a world of possibilities.  Maps of hydrogen refuelling stations, maps of vegetarian restaurants, maps of places to buy fair trade coffee - endless!  Well, Platial's latest trick is its Mapkit, which embeds the annotation capabilities right in your web site, and allows addition of sound, photos and video.  Already in use at Canada.com's Vancouver site to find everything from Chinese food to nightclubs.  [GT]

Platial Mapkit

Related stories: Platial: I can annotate my house from here | Find hemp in America with MapMuse | Have a Green Summer with Google and Earth Day Network

Black Gold: Fast Food Nation for coffee

Eco-documentary Black Gold aims to do for coffee what Super Size Me did for, er, fast food. Juxtaposing consumers willing to pay £3 for elaborate coffee drinks, against the plight of farmers who are barely paid enough to not be called slaves, Black Gold draws attention to the fat profit margins of corporations like Starbucks and how little it would take to remedy the situation. Fair trade beans are readily available for about £4 per kilo, which, speaking from experience, is enough to easily make a month's breakfast lattes (provided you, as I do, have your own espresso machine - they're cheap enough now that it's an excellent investment contrasted against the price of coffee house coffee!). Or, I could do non-fair trade beans for £2 a month. Wouldn't you pay £2 extra in order to wipe out injustice in an entire industry? Why won't the coffee corporations? Hopefully films like Black Gold will shake things up past the point where bean counting is the only measure of coffee taste. Meanwhile, you can check our Related Stories for where to stage your own coffee revolution. [GT]

Black Gold

Related stories: Fairtrade coffee brewing at Nestle | Monmouth's Ethical Coffees | Cafedirect rustles up Fairtrade whole beans

Farewell City Hippy, Hello Green Girls Global

With Carnival of the Green #52, CityHippy goes into resource-only mode, with no new material in the foreseeable future. CityHippy founder Al (who was also Deputy Editor at Hippyshopper) is now Head of Marketing at the super-green NaturalCollection.com. Not only that, the CityHippy girls have founded GreenGirlsGlobal, a new blog for eco-conscious ladies worldwide. Namaste, Al, and best of luck to the new GGG! [GT]

Carnival of the Green #52: This is the last post on CityHippy | GreenGirlsGlobal

Related stories: StyleWillSaveUs | Sustainable Style Foundation | Carnival of Green #26: Save the Ribble edition at Hippyshopper

Decoding odours, one molecule at a time

Have you ever wondered why it's important to go with natural scents instead of plumping for the much cheaper synthetic? The reason: scent is powerful. Like any sense, tampering with it is risky, and the nose plugs straight into the amygdala, the primitive center of the brain that controls the fight-or-flight response. In some, this results in Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance, where the afflicted experiences significant physical and/or mental symptoms simply because they smelled something they can't handle - and that smell is nearly always waste (smoke, fumes) or synthetic perfume (including "linen fresh" or "country lemon"). We still don't totally understand how smell works, so if it's possible to have an extreme reaction, it's also possible that you're being subtly impaired by anything from the smell of your shampoo to the sheets in your dryer, and completely unaware because our brains aren't terrific at connecting things we can't see, to subjective effects. But we did eventually realize that, for example, CFCs destroyed the ozone layer (which is bad) and in all probability, 50 years from now people will look back on our artificial scent craze with the same bemused condescention we give medieval ladies who ate arsenic "for a whiter complexion". [GT]

Decoding Odours | Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance

Related stories: Calmia essential oil fragrances | Smell nice twice with Neal's Yard Orange and Geranium | Loving Lovely Organic beauty goods

‘The world does not need more people.’

Is the planet full? Should we stop the world and get off? Do a significant core of environmentalists, when you get down to it, hate humanism? So argues Frank Furedi at the always provocative sp!ked. And while humanity often, er, sucks, Furedi says, that's not necessarily a good reason for most of it to suddenly blot itself out. Instead of celebrating man’s efforts to transform nature, history and civilisation have been recast as a story of environmental destruction. From such a standpoint, the application of reason, knowledge and science can easily be dismissed as problems since they help to intensify the destructive capacity of the human species. ‘Humans are, literally, a species out of control’, notes one misanthropic writer (5). In other words, humanism itself is the problem. [GT]

Putting the human back in humanism

Related stories: Is recycling utter rubbish? | Do carbon offset schemes work?

Greendrinks.org: get snockered with the eco crowd

The idea of GreenDrinks is that you might prefer to get snockered with your fellow greens than all alone - better consumption of resources if you share!  Actually, it's more about the social end, with the potential to develop new contacts, make friends, brainstorm and generally have a good time with people who are going to have a similar level of respect for how consumerist a good time should (or should not) be.  It was founded in London in 1989 (and still going strong) but has since spread out across the globe.  If there isn't one in your area yet, you're encouraged to found a new chapter.  Cheers!  [GT]

GreenDrinks

Related stories: Save the earth: don't go to work | Get free Divine chocolate AND a £5 coupon at ZeroPointZero | Yay or Nay: Ashton Kutcher donates $50k to Habitat for Humanity if he gets 50,000 friends