The best of the week at EcoSalon, hand-picked for your clicking pleasure.

Think river towns are on the wane? You could be right – but only in the popular media. With their new competition and partnership with American Rivers, Outside magazine wants to remind people that river towns haven’t gone anywhere, and they’re just as charming (and environmentally conscious) as ever.

Mark Twain is credited as saying golf is “a good walk spoiled.” In fact he probably didn’t say it at all, but for critics of the sport, it has remained a rallying cry. How many of them have the environmental cost uppermost in their minds? As Allison Ford discovers, golf remains a water-guzzling monster, and it’s getting thirstier each year…

Anyone who is anyone has an embarrassing pair of flares in the closet, kept for sentimental value but utterly unsuitable for the light of day. But lo! Are they due for a comeback, as this history of flared pants gently suggests? Should I jump the fashion gun and strut proudly down the street in those tan bell-bottoms that lurk in my wardrobe? Will I? Not a chance.

Lazy, warm evenings are upon us, complete with the tantalizing smells coming from next door’s barbecue. So fight back! Practice your July 4th outdoor entertaining skills with these 11 essentials for a bash to drive your neighbours crazy.

Finally, know the name Natalie Coughlin? Yes, she was the swimmer decorated so handsomely with medals at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. What you might not know is that’s she’s a keen urban farmer – check out our interview with her on the subject.

The post The Friday 5: Out & About Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnLightning strikes twice (make that four times) as many men as women.

A study by Popular Science Magazine has determined that out of everyone who is hit by lightning, 82%  are men.  In my house this has led to lots of merry speculation about the reasons for this lopsided statistic. My daughter thinks it’s because lightning is attracted to men, much the same way that mosquitoes are reportedly drawn to people with type O blood. Interesting though it may be, I can find no scientific evidence to support this idea.

My husband subscribes to the more Hemingway-esque theory that men get hit by lightning because they are more likely than women to be outside doing manly activities like playing golf, being lumberjacks, and participating in soccer riots. To his credit, immediately after voicing this theory, my husband retracted it, on the grounds that it made him sound like a lifetime member of the He-Man-Woman-Hater’s club. Besides being condescending to women, this suggestion ignores the fact that women also spend lots of time outdoors: playing professional soccer in nearly empty stadiums, dragging garbage cans to the curb (because someone has to do it), and walking across town when we grow weary of being groped and harassed on public transportation. It’s just that, unlike men, we are willing to interrupt these activities during life-threatening electrical storms.

Yes, it’s as simple as that: women don’t get hit by lightning because we are smart enough to go indoors during thunderstorms. The people at Popular Science agree with me on this, although they word it more delicately, saying that, “men are less likely to stop outdoor activity when stormy weather hits.” Inevitably, one has to wonder why this is so.

Golf is one of the most likely ways for men to become lightning-bait, which is not surprising, since it is a summer-time activity that strands large groups of people out in the open when they’re holding long metal sticks (also known as “lightning rods”). I live right next to a golf course and during thunderstorms a distinctive blaring horn will sound to tell the golfers to come indoors. Minutes later there is a second round of horns for the die-hard meatheads who ignore the first warning. Recently I asked a member of the club if women golfers were, in fact, more likely to heed the first warning – he laughed and said “Oh women don’t need the siren at all – they come in at the first sign of a storm.”

My theory on this is that women have learned  over time to be more alert to the signs of danger. Years of sharing elevators and subway cars with sweaty predators and perverts have taught us to recognize a threat when we see it. Women do not ignore danger, maybe because the repetitive panic that accompanies peeing on sticks to see if we’re pregnant has taught us that foolish acts can have dire consequences. Finally, we simply lack the macho bravado that makes men feel like sissies if they run inside at the first sign of thunder.

I haven’t read any statistics about it, but I’ll bet that fewer women than men are killed during the Running of the Bulls in Pamploma. This is because women, by and large, have the good sense and finely honed survival instincts to spend their leisure time doing something that doesn’t involve racing around medieval European side streets while being chased  by large, bloodthirsty mammals with horns. Women, in general, live longer than men, and while much of their superior longevity can be explained by a pragmatic lack of idiocy, something else seems to be at work here too. Despite our quaint and anachronistic reputation as the weaker sex, a recent study just reported that women are much less likely to die from most forms of cancer. Women also have much lower rates of heart disease and we are practically exempt from hemophilia.  Some might say that we are the lucky sex. And while I would never dream of claiming we’re the smarter sex, at least we know enough to come in out of the rain.

Susan Goldberg is a slightly lapsed treehugger. Although known to overuse paper products, she has the best of intentions – and a really small SUV. Catch her column, The Goldberg Variations, each week here at EcoSalon.

Image: kcdsTM

The post Put Down the Golf Club and Go Inside…Schmuck appeared first on EcoSalon.

Green is now in play in the games of tennis and golf, part of the ritzy turf beyond the perennial rye grass planted in Wimbledon in 2001 and the countless courses of manicured sod watered daily worldwide.

Can eco gear improve the sports? At least it makes the athletes feel they’re endorsing something other than Wheaties, Buick and American Express.

Here are some winning new classics now sustaining the social sports we love.

Lela Designs from Canada uses chemical-free bamboo, organic cotton, PET fibers, to create updated sophisticated golf wear, worn by at least two LPGA professionals, Mhairi McKay and Jeannie Cho-Hunickie.The argyles are adorable and could even be sported off the links. Which courses are the friendliest for the wearing of the green? See here and here.

Tennis bag, anyone?The Wilson red and black backpack made from EARTHGUARD (recycled PET fabric, PVC free and up to 25% lighter) is said to be the most carried bag on the Pro Tour, toted by Federer and more top players. You can pick one up for $40 at Tennis Express.

Earth friendly balls are on a roll like these high performance ones from Dixon. The Dixon Earth golf ball which has proven a champ on tour is said to outperform the Nike One Platinum, Callaway Tour ix and the Titlelist Pro V1 in independent testing by PGA TOUR partners club.

And don’t put the balls on anything but an eco tee, made of natural resin, not wood, that breaks down in a year.

Load it all in your solar powdered golf cart from SunDrive, which really saves energy on the mega courses where walking is strictly for the birdies.

Perhaps the only tennis balls going eco are the ones being repurposed, such as these former championship ones born again as dog toys by The Recycled Retriever, $4.45 a bag.

Meanwhile, there is a noteworthy re-purposing ball program in which the GSA has sent more than two million used balls to Japan to be used on furniture in schools. They are placed on the bottoms of tables and chairs to minimize floor damage.

Main image: Lela Designs

The post How Green Is My Volley! Tennis, Golf Score Points for Eco Elements appeared first on EcoSalon.

From organic cotton garb to reusable serving ware, they have raised the bar in San Francisco this week as more than 1,500 Jewish teen athletes from 40 U.S. cities and four international countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Israel and Canada) compete in the Maccabi Games 2009.

This year, for the first time, organizers introduced a Green Team – a committee chaired by Miriam Gordon, an environmental activist, and games director, Jackie Lewis. Their game plan: a zero-waste event that completely circumvents the dreaded landfill.

Instead of the usual bottled water and other plastic beverage containers supplied to thirsty players, the participants have been issued reusable stainless steel water bottles to be refilled throughout the week of competition.

Garbage cans at every venue, from the polo fields in Golden Gate Park for soccer matches to the ritzy Meadow Club for golf – will be called eco-stations with recycling and composting labels for dispensing with waste.

“It’s a whole new way of doing the event,” Gordon told the Jewish News Weekly, adding that in addition to the reusable bottles, the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (the event sponsor) will serve athletes kosher meals on reusable/compostable plates with reusable utensils.

Apparently, this will also cut down on a huge litter problem on fields and event sites witnessed at past games held throughout the country.

Lewis says it’s not unusual to see water bottles scattered on the ground or thrown in the garbage because the kids are so preoccupied with matches, they aren’t thinking about what they are doing (ahh, yes, those clueless days!).

But greening the event reinforces the message that the kids must learn to be the stewards of the planet and do their part to conserve resources and consume wisely. In other words, be keen green teens!

Other gold medal eco moves:

The transportation company hired to drive the teens uses buses that run on biofuels, posters have been printed on reclaimed cardboard, volunteer tees were made from organic cotton and the food served to athletes will be mostly organic and locally-produced. The organizers also made an effort to produce fewer paper programs and notices, and whatever they did print was double-sided and on post-consumer, recycled products.

Not to miss a beat, even the pins (above) that the San Francisco delegation was issued to trade with other athletes were forged of recycled PVC-plastic.

There’s also an online component that allows spectators and participants to calculate their carbon footprint during the week of games. They can offset the pounds of carbon produced by making a contribution to the Jewish National Fund or the Carbon Fund.

Images: Luanne Bradley

The post Jewish Teen Summer Olympic Games Reach for the Green appeared first on EcoSalon.