sustainable style foundation*

from haberdash.org...As a rower and occasional sailor, I have a strong affinity for the water. Perhaps that's why I couldn't pull myself away from the display booth of Sea Bags, Inc. while attending the 2008 ECOLLECTION event at MAGIC. Or perhaps it is the fact that the bags have a great utilitarian design, that they are made from recycled sails, or that they are the perfect gift for anyone that is connected to water in some way (I have plenty of those). But I think what really grabbed me is that this is the perfect manbag. Sure its appealing to everyone from your Aunt Sally in Maine to surfers on Maui, but it truly is a perfect manbag. Its durable, its manly, its all about sailing, etc. Plus they also offer duffels, storage bags, and weekend bags that are just as cool as their totes. Each bag is different which in the end only made me want to by all of them.

from haberdash.org...Finished pouring over GQ and Men's Vogue to see what's in this season? Why not pick up the latest issue of AutoBio and check out what alternative energy cars hot in Paris too. AutoBio just published their 5th issue and each gets better and better as they focus both on design and environmental attributes of the vehicles they profile and review. These cars may be familiar to the European crowds but they are sure to raise some eyebrows in the States since we rarely get a glimpse at the European auto industry's innovations.

I recently took part in the 2008 Paddle to Cowichan, BC, the destination for this year's Tribal Journeys event that takes place each summer in which Tribes from around the Puget Sound and Canada paddle traditional canoes to a host tribe. I was invited by Dannny Marshall, Tribal Leader of the Steilacoom Tribe to be part of their canoe family along with the Carver Camp Canoe Family headed by Phil Red Eagle. The group had just finished carving a hunting canoe called "Flicker" and were getting ready to take her on her first voyage. I've been volunteering with the Steilacoom Tribe for a couple years now, helping with the website and a ethnobotanical garden. Having grown up in Steilacoom, WA it's been great fun and very rewarding to help out since the Steilacoom are not a recognized tribe so have no state or federal funding sources. So it was a big surprise and great honor to be asked to help paddle. I met many wonderful people along the journey, took many pictures, and have many wonderful memories. One of groups that impressed me greatly was the Pink Paddle Canoe Family. They not only paddled many miles with the other 100 or so canoes on the journey, they did it to raise awareness for breast cancer and to honor the many people who have survived or have been lost to cancer of any type.

One of the first statements in our SSF vision is "seven generations" which honors the wisdom of native peoples to act today in ways that respect and benefit those who come seven generations after us. So the opportunity to participate in the 2008 Tribal Journey was very meaningful for me personally and for SSF. I am very humbled to have been part of the journey, to paddle alongside the Pink Paddlers, as well as the many other Tribes that took part in this year's journey.

We get some cool products to review here at SSF, but I have to say...this one takes first prize. Its the Solio H1000, a hybrid device charger that takes power from multiple sources (including the sun!), holds power, and then powers multiple small devices like cell phones, iPods, etc. I'm testing it out on an extended holiday road trip to Utah and Arizona. I received a sporty orange version of the charger you see to the left...very sassy. I charged it a bit via my laptop last night but during the days I'm going full on solar with the charger up on my dashboard. Its fantastic! Its hip, its cool, its small so packs away easily in a bag (or purse) and doesn't get in the way, and it provides power any time, anywhere. All the various adapter cables are great too, this thing will charge any small device! A couple folks have seen it along the way on the dashboard (Oregon still requires attendants to pump gas for you) and they think it's way cool too. Best of all, I found a sporty little orange bag (I think it may have been a pencil or cosmetic bag) for it at a secondhand store in Sierra Vista, AZ that holds the Solio and all its accessories. Now that's sustainable style!

My most recent book review request came from Yale University Press. The title? Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment by Tom McCarthy. Now I am a sucker when it comes to anything history, biography, environment and so would probably give any book in these categories a pretty glowing review, but I must say I REALLY enjoyed this book. It is a very thorough look at our ever so addictive relationship with cars with all its eccentricities from the need for speed, keeping up with the Jones', to ever present power and greed. And he does it with a bit of humor tossed in here and there. Essentially an environmental history of the automobile, McCarthy points out early that scientists and engineers were well aware of the many challenges that came with cars and even goes into Henry Ford's sincere interest in reducing waste in his uber efficient assembly lines. Pop culture played a key role too, from Elvis Presley to Will Rogers. And, no surprise, even early observations of global warming - and how they were ignored - show up in the book. After reading McCarthy's book, we better understand America's romance with the automobile with all its wires, belts, and oh so many other social, political, economic, and environmental 'strings' attached.

Set your TiVo, put a sticky note on your TV or call a friend with cable: tonight is the first episode of The GREEN, presented by Robert Redford on the Sundance Channel. Television's "first regularly scheduled programming destination dedicated entirely to the environment" begins tonight (and continues every Tuesday) at 9 pm on the Sundance Channel. The GREEN block of programming will include the show "Big Ideas for a Small Planet" (tonight's episode is about fuel), as well as "Ecoists", a feature on high-profile celebs and environmental activists and "Eco Biz", highlighting people and businesses driving change in the business world. Learn more about all the good, green stuff to watch at the Sundance Channel website, and tune in tonight to see it in living color. [Sundance Channel presents "The GREEN"]

easyJet, one of Europe's low-cost airlines, has released its 2006 corporate and social responsibility report. In it, they promise greater efficiency in the air and on the ground, leading to 27% less CO2 output than rival companies flying the same route. While they admit that this is accomplished with an average of 26% more seats in its Airbus A319s, which leads to a lower fuel-per-passenger figure. The company doesn't sell carbon offsets for its flights through the website just yet, but has pledged to make it easier to do so, so an "offset this flight" check box may be coming to their online flight booking soon. Easyjet's CEO Andy Harrison also suggests there are technological advances in the works that would cut CO2 from flights. "I believe that we are on the cusp of major advances in aircraft and engine technologies which will lead to dramatic reductions in emissions," he says. For more details on their social and environmental efforts, read the report [PDF]; we'll see if easyJet can keep its efficiencies promises. [easyJet] via [New Consumer]

Best known by many as the guy that sang "Like a Rock", the song they used to use to sell Chevy pick-ups, Michigan-native Bob Seger has since changed his tune about the cars, trucks and gas that put his home state on the automobile-making map. On his latest album, Face the Promise, he again turns to writing about cars, though with a slightly different message. In "Between," he sings:

World keeps getting hotter
Ice falls in the sea
We buy a bigger engine and say it isn't me.

Seger is a big Al Gore fan, took his kids to see An Inconvenient Truth and says, "The overuse of oil is just wrecking our economy." Listen to more of Bob's new philosophy at NPR. Rock on, Bob!

As we sit smack dab in the middle of the festivities at the North American International Auto Show, a few sustainable autos have been making big waves, and none more than the Chevy Volt electric car, which looks like it could be pretty great. In the midst of all this, the folks over at AutoblogGreen have taken the time to pause and look at another concept that could also change the way we get around: the Hypercar, conceptualized by L. Hunter Lovins and Amory B. Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute. It's been something of a sustainable wet dream ever since it was introduced in 1991, including radical ideas (at the time) of ultra-light weight and super fuel-efficiency that would change automobile transportation forever; with electric cars like the Tesla roadster arriving later this year, the Hypercar seems closer to real-life possibility than ever, and there's lots to learn about it. Check out the original post for more. via [AutoblogGreen]

Hats off to Seventh Generation President & CEO Jeffery Hollender, who recently converted his 1983 Mercedes diesel station wagon to run on pure vegetable oil. We mentioned it awhile back, and it's really good to see the head of one of the more sustainable companies out there walking the walk. Now that he's made the conversion, Hollender's car is just like his products: no petroleum additives necessary. He also calculates that, at 30 mpg, his car emits about 25% of the CO2 of a Prius, and that each person that switches from a car that burns gasoline and gets 22 mpg to one that run directly on vegetable oil would save 550 gallons of gasoline, and avoid releasing 6,500 pounds (3.2 tons) of carbon dioxide into the air every year! Kudos to Jeffrey for making such a sustainable lifestyle choice; he says he feels proud each time he climbs behind the wheel, and we think he should, too. His conversion was done by Gilead Garage in Randolph, Vermont. [The Inspired Protagonist]

The Huffington Post has created the HuffPost Hybrid Movement, a virtual photo album for everyone to post pictures & captions of their hybrid cars. To help encourage the movement, they've rounded up a few celebs & high-profile people to pimp their rides. Larry David, tongue ever in-cheek, quips "I needed something to make me feel smugly superior." Tom Hanks goes off on a hybrid rant, saying, "I love my hybrid, it's got a battery and a gas engine and a computer, a super computer, you know the computer batman had? Well they shrunk it down now and they put it into this car, and it's like you're driving the batmobile in this thing. It tells you when the battery is driving or the battery is recharging when the gas.now talk about freedom dave, another one, I've owned this car for a month and I had to fill it up with gas just the other day, I put 14 dollars worth of gas in my car, that's how much it cost to fill up, in l.a. I bought two gallons of gas. Now I'm not lying it did cost me 14 bucks, If I had it now I could drive home to l.a. I'm not going to do that now because it could take awhile and rita gets cranky in the car for along time, but its got a computer on it that thing the batman thing." Whew -- that's a mouthful! Arianna Huffington brings us back to earth with, "Driving a gas-sipping hybrid is a smart and easy way to help end America's dependence on foreign oil. So my Toyota Prius is an automotive two-fer: a pleasure to drive and patriotic to boot." Hybrid drivers everywhere are encouraged to snap a picture, load it up on the site and leave a message about how much they love it. Let's hope it's as contagious as actually owning the cars has been. [HuffPost Hybrid Movement] via [Ecorazzi]

Zipcar, the fab car-sharing service based in the Bay Area (they've spread to New York, Washington, D.C. and north to Canada; check 'em out in the sourcebooks: mobility and New York City and San Francisco under "mobility"), celebrated it's one-year anniversary this week by announcing it will double it's Bay Area fleet of 200 vehicles. In honor of its birthday, Zipcar conducted a survey to see how Zipcars were affecting the lives of the company's members, and the results are impressive: 5% said that they have postponed or canceled purchasing a vehicle because they are involved in car sharing; nearly half of members walk and use public transit more often than before joining Zipcar; Bay Area Zipcar members report they save an average of $4,500 per year compared to the average cost of owning and operating a car in the city and members are driving 50% fewer vehicle miles traveled than when they owned their own vehicle.

With 5,000 members in the first year in the Bay Area alone, it sounds like Zipcar may have to hustle to keep up with the demand for its handy service. [Zipcar] via [AutoblogGreen]

Could this be the next Elmo-esque toy craze? The H-Racer from Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies is a toy hydrogen car. It comes with it's own fuel cell refueling station that creates hydrogen fuel by combining solar power and water. Apparently it doesn't run for all that long, but that's because it's fuel cell is so small. But hey, still way cool for any budding eco-kid on the block. I remember having many a remote-controlled car growing up...all battery powered of course. The H Racer is like a chemistry set and toy car combined.

Just like buying stuff is impossible to avoid, so too is getting around. School, work, errands and fun keep us all on the move. In our ongoing look at quick changes you can make to your lifestyle by the end of the day, we'll peruse the idea that you don't have to drive yourself everywhere you need to go.

C is for Catch a ride. There are tons of ways to get out from behind the wheel. Hop on the bus, join a carpool, ride a bike...the list goes on and on. Why should you do it? It's cheaper than driving yourself, there's less parking to worry with, and you get to bypass traffic using the HOV lanes. It saves time, money, energy, fuel and the headache of being stuck in traffic (again). There are lots of excuses to go solo: schedules don't match up, mass transit isn't nearby, don't like to wait for the bus, etc. and we've heard 'em all before, so here's a list of resources to get you off your duff and carpooling and bus-riding like a pro in no time.

Carpooling networks and services:
NuRide
eRideShare
Carpool Connect
Rideshare Online
CommuterLink
Drive2Day

City-specific programs:
San Francisco/Easy Bay: Casual Car Pool
Seattle: Carpool Match NW

Mass transit:
Los Angeles -- Los Angeles County Metro
New York -- Metropolitan Transportation Authority
San Francisco -- SF Muni
Seattle -- King County Metro

October is also International Walk to School Month. For the first time, events have been stretched out over the entire month, so check out what's happening in your neck of the woods when it comes to hoofing it. It isn't just for students any more!

Over at AutoblogGreen, there's a nice two-part summation of the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to alternative fuels (Part 1, Part 2). Aside from simply defining how CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), E85 (85% ethanol), biodiesel, SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil) and Electricity work, there's also a pretty good analysis of pros & cons, as well as real-world issues like cost, availability and long-term sustainability. After the rundown of what's what, what goes where, they ultimately pick the winner. Which is it? We won't ruin the surprise, but here's a hint: the fuel at the top of the heap isn't a liquid. Be confused no more, and read it here. [AutoblogGreen]