Happy Earth Day!

Around EcoSalon HQ, opinions are divided. While some of us have our reservations about Earth Day – our Editor-in-Chief Sara Ost has a great answer to the question “does Earth Day still matter?” over at Treehugger today – it is an important day for rallying big names around a very important cause, and with enough people rallied around the cause, awareness of environmental issues is more likely to take hold every other 364 days of the year. Former President Bill Clinton is one of those big names, and as a Digg Dialogg Earth Day Special, he sat down with Boback Firoozbakht to answer user submitted questions about the environment, Earth Day and climate change. Take a look at the video, and weigh in with your thoughts about our environmental progress.

Here’s to sustained conversation about the environment every day of the year!

It’s my annual winter visit home in L.A. and we’re braving the dreaded dead heads, again. Yes,  several of my family’s favorite restaurants are decorated – and disgraced – with massive, wild animal trophies on their walls. Trophies, indeed.

Now don’t get me wrong. My people aren’t hunters, just valley folks who like meat. My father’s side came from the meat packing industry in Nebraska. My sister-in-law’s kin founded Hoffy, the packagers of those hot dogs sold at the iconic Pink’s and plugged by singer Pat Boone. My relatives don’t mind seeing deer heads and bear skins tacked on a wall while enjoying a good rare steak. But my daughter does.

“It’s barbaric,” exclaimed 10-year-old, Lauren, with tears in her eyes, when confronted with the stuffed buffaloes, gophers and bucks mounted at Clearman’s Northwoods Inn in Covina.

Dining at the Inn has long been a post-Disneyland stop, starting with my parents when we four kids were little ranch hands. Cherie and Aaron really went in for the burgers, bowls of red cabbage and the mugs of beer, not to mention the buckets of peanuts and ever so folksy tradition of discarding the shells onto the redwood floor. Yes sir, kids, good clean American fun, except for those sad eyes on the stuffed heads with antlers.

The prized kill passes for nostalgic western memorabilia. And it is shocking for a sensitized child to encounter the animal trophies of yore, which emerge as the anti-green in their eyes. It’s especially jarring for Lauren after spending the day at the “happiest place on Earth“, a theme park peopled with woodland critters personified as our pals.

Try to explain to a child why trophies remain on our walls at a time when we shun fur coats and animal testing, a time when global campaigns are waged to protect our defenseless forest friends.

“This restaurant is very old, like from the 60s, and they hung the trophies because it didn’t upset people back then,” I assure my girl,  hoping she will settle down and agree to eat dinner with us. When she was younger I lied to her, telling her the animal heads at the Inn were fake, just like the taxidermy dioramas at the old San Francisco’s Academy of Science, just replicas of real animals. But now, I have to be honest and apologetic and coax her to remain inside the joint and enjoy her meal amid the walls of death. It’s getting more challenging.

I have to admit, I forget about the taxidermy at the Inn until I’m there and Lauren falls apart. I don’t think we will return next year. Really, the salad swimming in mayo and peanut shells on the floor aren’t worth the battle.

And yet, there are more miles to go on this annual trek before I rest.

My brother has made a dinner reservation at the Saddle Peak Lodge to celebrate my mother’s 82nd birthday. The upscale grill in Malibu Canyon is a favorite of the tony celebrities who live in my brother’s exclusive gated community of Hidden Hills, a ranch-filled paradise where multi-million dollar spreads are interspersed with horse trails and dog runs for its animal loving residents. I hear J-Lo just bought a large property there for just herself and the twins. Don’t tell the tabloids!

The problem is the Lodge they all love showcases numerous animal trophies on its walls, as well as exotic game on its overpriced menu. Holy antlers!

This time, I’m protesting. I have put up a stink about returning to the Lodge for yet another celebration; you’d be surprised how much convincing it has taken. Still, it looks like Lauren has won out this time. We will not be back in the Saddle Peak again, bypassing it for a new hip Hollywood spot, BLT Steak on the Sunset Strip with $40 entrees and $10 side dishes of mac and cheese, lobster mashed potatoes and poached green beans. The modern and stark eatery has no dead heads – just large prints and paintings of  various cows and bulls, a sort of homage to the fare you will be enjoying.

Ironic, isn’t it? Those who wouldn’t think of wearing a fox coat to dinner agree to linger over $52 New Zealand Elk Tenderloin amid the corpses. The roaring fire, the delicious wine, the tender elk, all can make you forget. Make you forget, that is, unless you happen to be a 10-year-old child of the eco age.

This is the latest installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Main Image: Fury Scaly

Northwoods Inn, Saddle Peak Lodge

If you’re sending correspondence through the mail these days, why not design your own stamps to promote your green message?

Many sites, including Zazzle.com, allow you to either select from their designs or customize your own using photos or images downloaded from your computer.

If you decide to make stamps for a special occasion, remember to weigh whatever you’ll be mailing before you order so you can specify the correct postage amount. If you aren’t going the route of Evites or other email invitations, using stamps that say something special, and green, is a great option.

Here are ten designs I found at Zazzle with cool green themes:

1. Six Reasons to Plant a Tree

2. Fair Trade Only

3. Got Bamboo?

4. Dreaming of a Green Christmas

5. Hang Dry

6. Love Your Mother

7. Love it or Leave It

8. Kiss Me

9. Like No Tomorrow

10. Burn Fat Not Oil

Images: Zassle.com

I had so many special hideouts in nature growing up – tucked behind the boughs of Grandma’s weepy plum tree, under the cedar beside the frog pond on Huckleberry Lane, on the cool patch of grass inside the heady lilac thicket. Perhaps you did, too. Treehouses never quite captivated me the way a quiet spot beneath a live tree could. In first grade, I would frequently get in trouble for wandering far from the playground into the woods by myself, and for bringing back leaves and pebbles for safekeeping in my desk. Those teachers just didn’t understand.

Mom likes to tell the story about the time I responded to my grandparents’ question about what I’d been doing out in the backyard with a shrug and a careless, “Oh, you know, just drinking in life.” (I was nine.) Nature has always held so much magic for me, as I’m sure it does for many of you. Sometimes I just can’t believe how lucky we are to live with such profound beauty.

I hope you don’t mind if I share a few of my favorite places and scenes from around the world. Let’s just take a moment to be grateful for this incredible planet we get to live on.  Take a little break, share, and enjoy. This is what we’re all working to preserve, after all – and how beautiful it is. We live here. Wow!

Halla, Olof S

Marksburg, Germany, zemzina

New Jersey at the Delaware River, joiseyshowaa

Maldives, Ahmed Amir

Mt. Rainier from Tipsoo Lake, Washington, Alaskan Dude

Fremont, California, Tony

Unidentified field, kwerfeldein

Monteverde, Costa Rica, Adam Baker

South Haven, Michigan, James Jordan

Top image: Munnar, kcbimal

A for Apple, B is for Beluga, C is for Chullo. Pretty baby!

Parents on planet Hollywood and elsewhere are headed in that fruity, foamy and woolly direction in declaring devotion to Mama Earth via naming their young.

In the roaring Nineties, when real estate and dot comers were soaring, we saw a return to the Old Testament with the names  Sarah, Jacob, Rachel and Eli in vogue.

“Eve and Adam, please leave the great room until Mommy is finished closing her Genentech deal.”

Now that resources are scarcer than ever, green is the rule for everything cool. Nature-bound moms and dads can reference all good things from fiber foods and soothing teas to fair trade crafts and endangered species in getting that family branding just right.

Here is an A-to-Z reference guide on the eco-friendliest labels for your bouncing baby Gore:

Acai (boy) Agate (girl)

Boho (boy) Bark (girl)

Corky (boy) Coral (girl)

Deepak (boy) Dibbler (girl)

Energy (boy) Etsy (girl)

Free (boy) Flax (girl)

Gore (boy) Glacier (girl)

Hemp (boy) Henna (girl)

Indri (boy) Ivory (girl)

Jungle (boy) Jute (girl)

Kale (boy) Kharma (girl)

Leonardo (boy) Laurie David (girl)

Marsh (boy) Mauritius (girl)

Nash (boy) Nectar (girl)

Otter (boy) Oolong (girl)

Prius (boy) Polar (girl)

Quince (boy) Quantum (girl)

Rooibos (boy) Rummage (girl)

Stevia (boy) Sprig (girl)

Tiger (boy) Teak (girl)

Urban (boy) Urial (girl)

Vegan (boy)  VivaTerra (girl)

Wolf (boy) Watson (girl)

Xeri (boy, girl)

Yosemite (boy) Yurt (girl)

Zen (boy) Zona (girl)

*For catchy middle names with eco associations, we at EcoSalon suggest: Bradley, Sara, Amy, Tina, Irani, Vanessa, Barrington, Derby, Fitzsimmons, Chaityn or Lewis.

Share with us what you have namestormed!

Image: Will Foster

The landscape of the world is always changing. Geological processes like tectonism, denudation and volcanism have shaped the face of Earth as we know it over the course of billions of years. Unfortunately, much of the natural phenomena on the planet today is transforming for the worse due to human encroachment. Whether the effects of global warming, deforestation, urbanization or heavy tourism are to blame, the fact of the matter is that these precious gems are rapidly deteriorating right before our eyes.

The snowfield of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is quickly thawing. Signs point to global warming.

Farming, irrigation and development are draining the water necessary to sustain the Everglades in South Florida. Restoration plans have done little, as this landscape now covers only half of its original territory.

Rising water temperatures, which cause coral bleaching, and increasing acidity levels are gradually killing the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia.

Scientists estimate that sometime between 2030- 2050, the last glacier in the Swiss Alps will have melted away.

The cypress forests throughout the Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana have been decimated to manufacture mulch. Every year, 25 square miles of these stunning wetlands are lost forever to the sea.

Rampant tourism in the Galapagos Islands is causing more disturbance than this fragile setting can long endure.

Due to increased temperatures, the ice shelf of South Georgia Island, a region rich in wildlife, is disintegrating.

Deforestation is the leading threat to the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica. The clouds this region is named after are beginning to dissipate as a result, which will eventually deprive this lush landscape of the moisture it needs to thrive.

Pollution and urbanization imperil Kathmandu Valley in Nepal.

The Mexican Michoacan Mountains are being defaced by illegal deforestation.

Global warming has already claimed over two-thirds of the glaciers within the pristine boundaries of Glacier National Park in Montana.

The Dead Sea in Israel is receding at an alarming rate (approximately three feet every year) because its primary water source, the Jordan River, is being sucked dry by the local populace.

Rising sea levels may spell doom for Australia’s Fraser Island.

The rainforest habitat of the island of Borneo, a territory divided between Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, is endangered by farming and logging.

Since 1978, the glaciers in Alaska’s Kenai Fjords National Park have receded about a half-mile and continue to diminish further with each passing year.

Before you book a plane ticket, keep in mind that claims of eco-tourism can be deceiving and many of these delicate settings are best left untouched. If your heart is set on visiting these spots while you still can, visit the International Ecotourism Society, Conservation International or the Nature Conservancy for tips on how you can experience these wonders without further contributing to their ruin.

Images: wikimedia, minds-eye, Eulinky, dino_olivieri, derekkeats, baxterclaus, gokarna, cmanon, Andrew Kalat, laura padgett, peterjoel1, Chi King, Alaskan Dude