This week’s link love gives you 75 reasons to get in the garden. It’ll make you happy and we’ve got the scientific proof of how that works. Louis C.K. is finally back. The Met Gala stunned and Annie Leonard takes the helm at Greenpeace.

75 Gardening Ideas to Kickstart Your Food-Growing [via Eat Drink Better]

How to Get Happy, Scientifically Speaking [via Well+Good]

This Way Back to His Discomfort Zone: Louis C.K. Returns With His Brand of Dark Comedy [via New York Times]

With hits like these, we don’t have time for misses: Vogue’s look at the best of the Met Gala. [via Vogue]

A happy ending! Annie Leonard of “Story of Stuff” will be new head of Greenpeace USA [via Grist]

Related on EcoSalon

Link Love: Turn Tea Into Dye + ‘Mean Girls’ Turns 10 + Designer Agnes B Makes Her Directorial Debut

Link Love: Stella McCartney Goes All Out for Animals  + Yoga Dates + How to Shop Vintage Like a ProA

Link Love: Diane von Furstenberg’s Morning Routine  + Vegan Cinnabon + Snails are Basically the Cutest Ever

Image via Vogue

The post Link Love: The Science of Happiness + 75 Gardening Ideas + The Met Gala’s Hits appeared first on EcoSalon.

Film as a vehicle to get conscious messages to the masses? Ticket please.

We were so excited this week to get an EcoSalon exclusive with photographer Ben Canales on his “Finding Oregon” time lapse. In Finding Oregon: An Exclusive Look at A Stunning Nature Timelapse, we get respite from our everyday, overloaded, technology-dependent lives and a reminder of the natural rhythms to which we have almost become unaccustomed.

Truck Farm is a great film that hits on the themes that we so often discuss when it comes to food: thinking about where our food comes from, the importance of reconnecting to what we eat, building community and being part of an underground movement that feels empowered to make change. A garden growing in the back of a truck? Yup. it turned lots of heads.

Miss Representation is a documentary that explores the misrepresentation of women in culture and media and how that influences the under representation of women in other realms, like politics and business. We caught up with the film’s writer and producer, Jennifer Siebel Newsom to see what drove her to put this film together (and we were more than inspired).

We’ve covered Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff a few times but loved getting an interview with her recently. Why did Leonard feel the passion to do do what she does? The Staten Island dump, Pacific Northwestern clear cuts and planned obsolescence are three but in The Story of Stuff: A Conversation with Annie Leonard, we learn a few reasons more.

Want to see a good way to make a point? Maybe you should take heed and handle an uncomfortable situation like Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. Because really, when is kicking ass then back-flipping out of a situation not the best way to make an exit? Our weekly series of Women in Film takes a theatrical look at just how you do channel your alpha female (cat).

The post The Friday 5: Take Me to the Movies Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

Ten women who are role models for perseverance, courage, creativity and leadership.

We live in a time where there are many women who are achieving amazing goals and impacting the lives of women and girls around the world. Here are 10 who have impacted and inspired more than they can count.

Judy Blume
She scandalized parents with Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret and other forthright novels about teenage sexuality. For teenagers in the 1970s, Blume’s books were a validation of all that young women felt and questioned. Girls could instantly identify with Margaret and Deenie, characters that alleviated feelings of personal alienation in a time when sex was not as openly discussed and dissected.

Madonna
Who wasn’t captivated by her Borderline video? When Madonna came out gyrating in ruffled ankle socks on the MTV scene, she was flamboyant and expressive and larger than life. She was the original Lady Gaga who pushed sexual, fashion as well as personal boundaries, and offered (to a young generation of women) freedom of expression that many ran with – neon, mini skirts, lace and all.

Oprah Winfrey
Oprah was the first woman to show us that you didn’t have to be white, thin or generically beautiful to be successful in front of the camera. Oprah’s personality, perseverance and business-savvy garnered her a multimedia empire and proved to girls and women everywhere that heart and smarts are what’s important.

Hillary Clinton
After Hillary Clinton spent eight years serving as First Lady, she went on to serve in the U.S. Senate, ran for president, and then became the U.S. Secretary of State. In no matter what capacity she was serving, the former first lady used her political platform and global presence to champion women’s rights. In 1995, she stood up at the World Conference on Women in Beijing and denounced the mistreatment of women around the world, from female infanticide, to forced abortion, to rape used as a military tactic. She famously proclaimed, “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.”

JK Rowling
JK Rowling created the most well-known trio in young adult literary history and enchanted children around the globe, all the while living a real life rags-to-incredible-riches story. With the Harry Potter series, Rowling made reading a fantastic journey that no one wanted to miss so even kids that had no interest in reading were spellbound. Watching children gobble up these giant 600+ page tomes is truly amazing. From the midnight bookstore parties to unprecedented numbers of first print runs, it was a publishing phenomenon that we will probably never see again in our lifetime.

Mia Hamm
When Mia Hamm and the other players on the U.S. Women’s World Cup team came onto the scene, they made girl’s soccer popular and cool. Their World Cup triumph made the world notice female athletes. Mia Hamm posters graced millions of girl’s bedroom walls, and girls saw that sports equal teamwork, friendship and solidarity.

Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg is an engaging speaker and her passion for women in business is infectious. She is known for telling women to “lean in” to their careers and keep climbing the ladder, no matter what, because it is possible for women to lead and have a family. As COO of Facebook, the most popular and well-known company on the planet, we have to wonder how much higher her star can rise. Perhaps she’ll show us that the sky really isn’t the limit.

Kirsten Gillibrand
U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand replaced Hillary Clinton as the junior democratic senator for New York in 2009 – a good fit since Gillibrand also has a passion for women’s rights and leadership, and tirelessly campaigns for more women to get involved in politics. A mother of two small children, she makes balancing a family and helping to run the country look easy. She represents women in a forum where there aren’t many women’s voices or perspective, reminding those in government what challenges half the workers in the U.S. and the majority of consumer decision makers face. Gillibrand, and the small number of other women in government, show girls that women can have an impact on how our country is run.

Annie Leonard
EcoSalon just interviewed Annie Leonard a month ago, and anyone who spends twenty years trotting the globe to find out where our trash goes earns the label of saint. In her Story of Stuff videos, Leonard boils complex topics down into simple examples using straightforward language that everyone can understand. Leonard also wants people to understand how empty materialism is and how much it harms the planet and walks the talk wherever she goes.

Melissa McCarthy
Finally the best friend character – the underdog – gets the glory. For once, it’s not the glamour girl, but the girl next door who is being recognized for her talent, her humor and her hard work. McCarthy, who stars on the sitcom Mike and Molly, spent years as the Gilmore Girls sidekick and broke out recently because of her show and women-centered comedy hit, Bridesmaids. Humor and personality should always win.

image credits: NJ State Library, David Shankbone, Alan Light, Marc Nozell, Beacon Radio, Global Sports Forum, JD Lasica, Freedom to Marry, The Story of Stuff, Audi USA, Kara Allyson

The post 10 Women Who Inspire Us to Succeed appeared first on EcoSalon.

A weekly round up of EcoSalon’s top stories.

This week on EcoSalon, we learned:

That wine is more than just a social platform in 20 Unusual Uses for Wine.

Fast fashion and knocking off Native Americans don’t mix in How the Navajo Nation Beat Urban Outfitters.

We are getting smarter at watching for toxic junk in 7 Beauty Ingredients to Avoid.

A couple that stays together changes the world together in The Eames Influence: A New Film About the Sweethearts of American Design.

We’re tired of having so much stuff but don’t know what to do with it in The Story of Stuff: A Conversation With Annie Leonard.

The post The Friday 5: Abridged Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

Annie Leonard talks about the path to a healthy community, taking back our democracy and the three things that make people happy.

Annie Leonard has spent twenty years investigating where our stuff comes from, how we use it and where it goes. She is the creator of The Story of Stuff project, a series of films that discuss democracy, water bottles, cap and trade, electronics and cosmetics. She has traveled to 40 countries and visited hundreds of factories and dumps. Leonard has observed the effects of over and under-consumption all over the world, and is dedicated to building a clean, green, healthy, safe community for everyone.

We caught up with her recently to talk about how the Staten Island dump, Pacific Northwestern clear cuts and planned obsolescence helped fuel the passion that is now her career.

How did you start down this road of activism? What influenced you and when?

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and I went camping a lot as a kid. I loved the feeling of being in forests. There was something about it that felt so grounded and so good. So, when I saw these vicious, huge clear cuts, I remember feeling that something is wrong, so I planned to be a forest activist when I grew up. I went to college in New York City, which is a funny place to go to be a forest activist, but it turned out to be really smart.

I would walk to school every day, and there would be these huge, literally shoulder-high, piles of garbage. And I started wondering, what was in all those bags? So I started looking in garbage and I was amazed to see that it was almost all paper. My beloved forests are being chopped down to be made into paper, and the paper is going into the garbage, but where does it go afterward? So I took a field trip to the dump on Staten Island where New York City’s garbage goes. I really recommend everyone go visit the dump. It’s a fascinating thing to see the back end of where all our stuff comes out.

I’ll never forget this moment. I stood there as a sophomore in college looking out at this pile of waste. As far as I could see there were shoes and appliances and books and food and everything you could imagine, and I thought, “My God, we have a real problem. We have built our economy on the unsustainable flow of materials from resources to waste.”

So I decided to figure it out. I studied garbage and waste management in school. I went to Washington DC, worked for environmental groups and spent the next twenty years traveling around the world visiting factories where our stuff is made, visiting dumps, and interviewing people about toxins and chemicals and pollution and garbage and consumption and figuring out how to put the pieces together to understand what was going on. And that’s what I summarized in The Story of Stuff film and book.

When did you create The Story of Stuff and what was your goal?

For about ten years, I had been practicing different ways of talking about where our stuff comes from and where it goes, and I was finding that the more that I learned about it and the more my expertise grew, the less I could communicate with people in a way that they found accessible and relevant.

I tried to figure out if there was a way we could talk about environmental issues that’s fun and easy and welcoming and not all science, charts and graphs, and not all about guilt and fear and shame. Guilt and fear and shame are not powerful places to hang out, yet so many environmentalists bombard the public with those things.

So I developed this talk and turned it into The Story of Stuff film. I must have given that talk a hundred times, and every time, someone would say, can you make a movie of this? So, after three years of resisting, I did the talk one last time and a friend of mine filmed it. We took the film to Free Range Studios, who are these absolute geniuses at capturing different issues in these do-gooder films online.

We put it online free in December 2007. Our goal – our dream – was that 50,000 people would watch it. We thought if we could get 50,000 people to watch this film, then we could really get people talking about this stuff. To our utter amazement, we got 50,000 people in one day. We are now at over 12 million views of the original film and we’ve made additional films and now we’ve had 20 million views total. All of our films are these short, fun films that look at really serious issues about what’s wrong with our materials economy.

I have been so excited about the response, because these are difficult issues to talk about, everything from planned obsolescence (where product designers make stuff designed to break) to corporate influence in democracy. We’ve found a fun way to talk about it and people are watching and having these amazing conversations all over the world. The films have been watched in over 200 countries, shown in schools and churches and synagogues and festivals and conferences – it’s so cool to see all the ways people are using them to spark much-needed conversation.

Where do your ideas for topics come from?

I have been looking at how we make, use and throw away stuff for a long time, so I have lots of things I’d love to talk to people about, but first we pick issues we feel are big chunks of the problem, things we need to be talking about. We also pick things that tend to be technical or there’s just not a lot of discussion about it – things like manufactured demand or planned obsolescence or corporate hijacking of our democracy. We also focus on what our viewers want to hear. We get hundreds and hundreds of emails every week and I really like to get a sense of what people really want to understand more about.

I would talk about how it is absolutely possible to build a safe, healthy, fair society – I am absolutely convinced of it. The technology exists, the research exists, we absolutely could do it, but people would raise their hands and say, yes, but we can’t because we are butting up against the coal industry and the oil industry and corporations have too much control of Congress and we can’t get good laws passed because corporations get mad. So we made a film about corporate power and some steps we can take to reign in corporate power in our democracy so we can take our democracy back.

Our next film is called The Story of Broke. Wherever I go and talk about how we can make a safe, healthy, fair and fun society, people write back and say, “There’s no money for that. It’s a nice idea, safe products and clean energy – but there’s no money for that.” But the truth is – there IS money for it. There’s a lot of money for it. It’s actually our money, because it’s our government and we’re giving that money right now to nuclear reactors, loan guarantees, and enormous subsidies for incredibly profitable oil and gas companies. So we should get involved with what’s happening to it. And right now it’s being used to prop up the dinosaur economy and what we should use it for instead is to build a healthy, fair future.

We have more ideas and requests that we can possibly do. We want to watch the response to each film and pay attention to what’s happening in society, and we really want to respond to our viewers. We’re trying to provide the information that they need to engage in the conversation. One of the things we definitely want to look at in one of the next couple of films is solutions. We want to really focus on how many solutions are out there – there are so many, it’s just incredible how possible it is to make clean, green, safe, healthy stuff.

What direct impact has The Story of Stuff had?

It’s interesting with online work is that you don’t really know what direct impact it has really had. Part of what we do know is anecdotal. We hear lots and lots of stories from people who say, “I never thought about where our stuff comes from and where it goes until I saw your films. And because of that film, I am rethinking the role of stuff in my life. I am looking for ways to buy stuff used, to share things, to find happiness through other ways than going shopping.” Thousands and thousands of incredibly heartwarming stories like that make us really happy.

We can track how many people watch it online and people have watched it in every single country except one in the middle of Africa. We can track what resources they download and those materials have been downloaded tens of thousands of times. So we absolutely know that we are contributing to thinking and talking about these issues. The only way we’ll really know if it’s working is if we can build up enough power in this country to demand a clean, green and healthy economy. Then we’ll know that we’ve won.

If you could tell everyone in the world (or just the U.S.) to make one change in their lives to make the biggest impact, what would it be?

I think if I could just pick one, what I would say is to develop the infrastructure and culture for sharing. There are lots of solutions to the problems we face that are very complex and technical, but there are also some that are very simple, and bringing back sharing is one.

As we’re in tough economic times and as we’re bumping up against the planet’s limits, we are going to have to learn how to live well with less stuff. It’s crazy in this country for EVERY single house to have a wheelbarrow, a power drill and a lawn mower and a cupcake tin and all these things that you only use a few times a year. So if we share, it means we have to mine less metals, cut less trees, we can make our resources go further if one lawn mower or power drill can serve six families instead of just one.

Perhaps the most important part of sharing is that it’s better for our happiness. Because if you’re going to share something, you have to talk to people, you have to have friends, you have to have community. And the more we can develop friends and community and get out of our social isolation that this country is experiencing, the less we’re going to feel the need to go out and go shopping because we can find fun and meaning in our sense of community. It’s better for the planet, better for our economy, and way more fun.

Speaking of possessions, what is your most cherished possession?

You know what I really love? I love my clothesline. Because I’m often so busy, having a clothesline in my backyard makes me pause twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon, to just spend ten minutes standing in my garden. It makes me feel connected to the natural environment because the sun is drying my clothes. It just makes me slow down and take a breath and just have a moment to reflect on my day and have gratitude for all that I have. When I travel, I even take a little clothesline with me.

Who are your real-life heroes?

People often ask how I remain so hopeful and it’s because there are so many people helping to make the world better in so many ways. But for me, the real heroes are the everyday moms who are just trying to get dinner on the table and get their kids to do well in school, who are standing up and taking a stand against corporate polluters. People like Lois Gibbs. She was the mother at Love Canal (a town near Niagra Falls, New York).

For decades, a chemical company had poured their toxic waste into a canal and covered it up with dirt. Then they sold it to a school district for some nominal fee. Lois Gibbs and the other moms began noticing a very high rate of rare and very serious diseases, a lot of miscarriages, and kids getting really sick. She figured it out, about this toxic waste that was seeping into the school as well as into a bunch of the basements in this town.

She was a mom without a college degree in any of these issues, and no scientific training. She started putting together the data and faced enormous ostracism from the community. She risked threats of violence and she still demanded that the government come and clean up the mess, and move the people out of there whose houses were built on this toxic waste site.

It’s people like that, who, when life is hard enough, are able to still find the strength to stand up to the forces against us, and demand something better. They inspire me so much. I just feel like if they can do it, I can certainly do it.

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Two things. I am very proud that The Story of Stuff has been so well-received. I am enormously happy that we figured out a way to talk about complex issues in a fun way.

I am also happy about how I have been able to integrate many of the lessons I’ve learned into my own life. So that my life, while far from perfect, has been made better by changes I’ve made because of the things I’ve learned from doing this research. For example, there are six households on my block that are very, very good friends and we share everything from childcare to cutting each other’s hair to a pickup truck.

When people ask me how do I know sharing and having community is better than having massive credit card debit and going to the mall, I know because I live it. I can speak with a real authenticity, that sharing, that taking meaning through community and making the world better is just way more fun than being on this hyper-consumption, consumer mania treadmill. I’m happy with my work and I’m happy with my community.

I watched Citizens United v. FEC. It is particularly relevant since we are facing an election in the next year. Do you think that people will stand up and demand change, or are they so discouraged that they won’t try, and no change will happen for a long time?

I think, both. I think people are already starting to speak up, like this amazing protest in front of the White House last month about the Tar Sands pipeline. I watched it feeling so hopeful, because they weren’t just Greenpeacers and Rainforest Action Network types, there were people who said they never attended a protest before, but they just couldn’t take it any longer. They realized that corporations all over Capitol Hill are making their voices heard, and if we are going to make our voices heard, it is time for really dire action. I saw one interview with a rancher who said he’d just had it with the government’s inability to act on climate change. I saw a grandmother from Texas. It was just so inspiring to see regular folks saying “I’ve just had enough. I’m ready to put my body on the line to have my concern for the climate be heard.”

I feel very hopeful about that kind of things that’s happening all over the world – people getting involved. I also think people are frustrated, especially after this last presidential election when people volunteered and donated money and knocked on doors and did all this work for change, and there hasn’t been enough change. And so I’m worried that people are going to choose to check out of the political process and I appeal to them – this is NOT the time to do that. The most important battle that we will ever face in our lifetime is wrestling back our democracy from the corporate interests. We have got to stay engaged, we have got to not hand over our democracy.

We have to really encourage people we know to get involved in making our voices heard. It is absolutely true that these super-rich, big companies are controlling the dialogue right now, but there are more of us, than of them. So every day that we do not voice our opinions, we’re actually voting for the status quo to continue. We’ve simply got to engage.

This country is way too incredible and wonderful and valuable to just hand off to people who don’t actually care about it. So we need to take our country back. And then, once we’ve done that, we can deal with the kinds of issues that I talked about in The Story of Stuff. We can make our products safe and our schools good and our environment clean. But we’ve got to get the power so our government is working for us, instead of the big companies.

What is your idea of true happiness?

It’s hard for me to separate my own ideas and thoughts from all the data that I’ve read. I’ve done a huge amount of looking into what actually makes people happy. I was very interested in the fact that we have more, better, cooler stuff than at any time throughout history, but our happiness levels are actually going down.

It turns out that there are three things that make people happy. The first one is the quality of our social relationships and having friends and family and community. The second thing is having leisure time and not working around the clock. We work so many hours in this country. We work about 300 hours more per year than our counterparts in Europe do. So we’re exhausted and socially isolated. The third big one is having meaning in life.

That resonated so much with me. For me, true happiness is if everyone on the whole planet has those things. A healthy, strong community, some leisure time, so we can invest in art, in community, in family, the environment, civic activities, and having a purpose in life.

Visit The Story of Stuff to view the videos and be notified about new topics.

Images: The Story of Stuff Project

The post The Story of Stuff: A Conversation with Annie Leonard appeared first on EcoSalon.

Navigating the world of green beauty is a little like wishing we were in an episode of Mad Men. Everything looks really hip and cool, but there’s always a rancid egg martini you could accidentally ingest. False labeling is afoot, and it can be difficult to discern what’s free of toxic ingredients and what’s just free of truthful advertising.

Confused? Scared? Wanting Don Draper and his hugs of deceit? Not to worry! There’s calm and certainty out there and we have found it. We asked some of our favorite green notables to weigh in on their favorite sustainable products.

Meaghan O’Neill, Editor-in-Chief, Treehugger.com

I’m not a massive beauty junkie. I only wear makeup on occasion, so my beauty routine is pretty simple. I think I’ve cleaned everything on my body and in my house, (from the dishes to my son,) with simple old Dr Bronner’s Castile Soap at some point. But I do, of course, need a few things to perk up my skin and de-frizz my hair from time to time.

My absolute favorite products come from a local skincare maker Farmaesthetics. At first, I thought for sure that I’d say the Nourishing Face Cream is my go-to eco-luxury. Then I remembered the Lip Softener. Or could it be the Cinnamon-Clove soap? It’s hard to decide which is best when they all smell so wonderful and work so well, with honest-to-goodness ingredients and old-timey recipes that every woman should know about. These aren’t complicated or expensive products, but they are magnificent.

Annie Leonard, Director, The Story of Stuff Project

My beauty secret is free and available at home, as well as scientifically proven to help us look and feel great. And yet, we too often don’t get enough: sleep. Adult women need an average of seven to nine hours of sleep a night. After work, parenting, housework, and volunteer and community activities, it seems there’s often not enough time. That’s our mistake; we need to see sleep not as a luxury to do after everything else is done but a necessity critical to our well-being. We can’t take care of our families and the planet if we don’t take care of ourselves.

My tips for getting more sleep are to watch less TV, eat well, and exercise. Getting enough sleep makes me look better, feel stronger, think more clearly and – if you ask my family and co-workers – much more pleasant to be around!

Stephanie Rogers, Green Writer and Beauty Editor, Eco Chick

My favorite beauty product is really simple, cheap and natural: organic virgin coconut oil. I use it as both moisturizer and a deep conditioner for my hair. It’s a lip balm, eye makeup remover and a main ingredient in lots of homemade beauty treatments. It’s packed with antibacterial lauric acid so it won’t make you break out, and it smells so good! As far as I’m concerned, no $60 bottle of fancy exotic oils could ever replace it.

Aysia Wright, Co-Founder of Project Green Search

I’m a huge proponent of organic and natural ingredients, as well as testing for safety and transparency in labeling. But if it doesn’t perform as well as its toxic counterpart, people aren’t going to use it and “green beauty” becomes equated with “doesn’t work”. That said, some eco lines have nailed it, keeping their line very natural while delivering results. But for certain products, especially hair care, I have found that lines using tested synthetics along with the natural and organic ingredients perform better than those lines only containing natural and organics. Frankly, as a woman with hard to handle hair, I’m not willing to have bad hair all the time and these products are still safe and they get the job done.

In terms of my favorite product? My favorite hair product would be John Masters Organics Citrus and Neroli Detangler. And for face, it is Tata Harper’s Resurfacing Mask.

Amy DuFault, Fashion Editor and Co-Owner of Shift

I love everything about Farmaesthetics – the smell, the packaging and of course, how well it works with my temperamental skin. Their herbal cleanser and Nourishing Lavender Milk are pretty much my go-to products in my bathroom. But I also love their Sweet Milk Exfoliate which really gives a nice scrub and leaves you with rosy cheeks after wards which is really what we’re all going for right? And after the bottles are empty, I use them as bud vases.

Mary Vance, Holistic Nutritionist

I love using olive oil to soften the skin on my face and hair, but my favorite product is Benedetta’s Precious Nourishing Facial Oil in palmarosa. It’s a combination of plant and essential oils. Deeply regenerative, it is high in wrinkle-fighting antioxidants. Benedetta’s products are handcrafted in small batches in Northern California, near my home, so I’m buying local. And everything they make is organic or biodynamic.

Image: secretlondon

The post Green Experts Polled: #1 Favorite Eco Beauty Product appeared first on EcoSalon.

Eco-Fashion Superhero?

Alicia Silverstone’s recent bestseller, “The Kind Diet,” tempts its readers to embrace a healthy, vegan lifestyle that will have them “feeling great, losing weight, and saving the planet.” Silverstone divides the diet into three levels: flirting, going vegan, and superhero. Offering up three non-judgmental pathways appealed to me as a great reference point for how to buy eco-fashion. As we get more conscious about how the production of our clothing impacts the environment, more women are turning to eco-labels for their latest fashion purchases. Most of us are flirting, checking out what is available in the eco fashion world and perhaps buying the occasional eco-friendly piece. Then there are the superheroes – we salute you! – who are buying everything in green – from their lingerie to their workout wear.

I find myself going eco at midlevel. For the last few years, I’ve been shopping in my closet, thrifting, rummaging around vintage stores, buying from local eco designers, skipping by fast-fashion, and generally keeping my clothing wantonness in check. But, the point at which I get a little stuck is wardrobe basics. I’m talking about the basic tees, leggings and simple knitwear like a black turtleneck, V-neck or long cardigan. These pieces are indispensable stalwarts in my wardrobe working hard to anchor my more adventurous attempts at flair.

As someone on a tiny clothing budget, my strategy used to be saving money for the more exciting stuff by skimping on the basics. When I heard Sally Singer, the features editor of Vogue, agree it’s best to save your money for the wild purple chubby and buy your basics at Club Monaco or H&M, I figured I was on the right track.

That was before I committed to a low-impact lifestyle and declared that my look should be elevated by this new focus. So, no more cheap basics for me. Not surprisingly, I found myself frenziedly flicking through a fast-fashion outlet’s sale rack today.  Hoping to find long black cardigans and plain white tees to get me thru until summer. Before long, I caught myself and remembered my pledge to sustainable fashion. While it’s true that there are far greater eco-friendly clothing lines than ever before, they just can’t compete with fast-fashion prices. Isn’t this getting down to the nitty-gritty of the green consumer dilemma?

In a recent study, despite economic woes, 35 percent of survey respondents say they would pay more for “˜environmentally-friendly’ products. But is paying $2 more for laundry detergent the same as justifying a plain black tee priced $30-50 more than the one in H&M. Or, the leggings you can buy at express for $26 for two pairs? It’s in this sticky, uncomfortable place that you find your defining moment as an ecologist.

Thanks to people like Annie Leonard, who invites us to trace the true cost of our belongings, we now know the true price of something made unbelievable cheap – hello H&M seven buck tees – is paid for quite literally by the environment, by the low paid worker tolling in bad conditions and the third world countries forever struggling to get on their knees.

The path to committing to the environment is a process that doesn’t have to take superhero strength, but perhaps, small acts over and over again. Luckily the leading edge of the industry is giving the green light too. What’s hot now is dressing with integrity in belief and action. While the eco design community produces pieces that have to be more expensive there are positive trade-offs to turning conventional wardrobe strategies on their head. Eco-basics are artfully designed and generally crafted better, making them cost-efficient because they won’t fall apart as fast. Think “Investment Basics.” Not just investments for your wardrobe, but for the planet too.

Check out my Investment Basics picks

Soft supple tees and leggings from SUST-their Disco tops are cut oh so flattering.

Edun’s plain and patterned leggings are cut in fabric that is long wearing and has great appearance retention (no sagging!)

Loomstate for simple knitwear such as hoodies and long cardigans.

Image: Bernhard Willhelm spring and summer 2006 by Christopher Moore

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“Get real! This is the biggest crisis humanity has faced,” warns Annie Leonard in her latest environmental education video, The Story of Cap & Trade. It is getting mixed reviews as the dust settles since its recent release.

A follow up to her widely popular animated eco tutorial, The Story of Stuff, it offers a pureed breakdown of how energy traders (greedy corporations and industries) and Wall Street financiers hope to get rich off of pretending to save the planet. The method to the madness: capping carbon emissions by giving permits to the polluters, who will in turn have the free license to pollute, especially in the third world where lax standards pose disastrous consequences for farmers and villagers.

Leonard’s release of the video comes on the heels of what many considered the failed talks for climate change solutions at Copenhagen, and identified the devils in the existing caps and trade proposals. These include issuing free permits to major polluters rather than selling the permits instead and allotting dividends to citizens and paying back ecological debt.  She also cites fake offsets which let polluters make false claims about what they will do the cut emissions, as well as the most dangerous devil of the plan – distraction.

Leonard tells us relying on the scheme weakens our ability to make strong laws away from fossil fuels.

While climate talks in Europe or on Capitol Hill have yet to scratch the surface on global caps on carbon emissions, the video illustrates (with charming, monochromatic animated stick figures) that education of the masses is crucial for curbing any crisis, as witnessed with the AIDS public information campaigns of the early 80s.

Leonard is adept at making sense of it all with her wholesome, kindergarten teacher approach to feeding our overwhelmed brains one truth at a time. In the end, she basically throws up her arms to declare about the process, “It’s protecting business as usual.”

Not all agree. “Just colossally ignorant,” is how one Grist writer sums up the video’s treatment of the trade entities, such as Enron, and how Europe has botched its attempts at handing out permits to cut emissions. Of course, many of the critics calling the critique of cap and trade deceptive also lump Leonard with the rest of the “Left” making up all of this hogwash about fossil fuels contributing to climate change.

Meanwhile, eco activist Michael Gaworecki, writing for Change.org, agrees with the video’s arguments, but says he isn’t sure the cap-and-trade plan isn’t the best mechanism for lowering carbon emissions that we can put in place  in enough time to make a difference.

“America needs to take the lead on stopping global warming if we’re to stand a chance, and anything perceived to interfere with unfettered capitalism is unlikely to fly in the good ol’ US of A,” he says.

Gaworecki adds that the few alternatives, such as a straight-up tax on carbon pollution, could be simple and effective, but “would never make it out of the American Congress alive.”

Image: Telegraph

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