There's No Such Thing as Green Fashion

It's been bugging me for a while that the movement towards being "green" has manifested itself in the fashion industry. The bottom line to climate action is that we need to be a world of less "stuff." As much as I like the aesthetics of fashion, it breeds an irrational desire for a particular brand of object. So all of these "eco" blogs about green designer jeans & organic cotton are starting to get to me. We aren't experiencing climate change because we spray pesticides on cotton crops.

Lika Volkova is an interesting clothing designer because she's decided to cut out as much as possible of the supply chain between the designer and the wearer. I don't sew my own clothes because it's hard. But Volkova begins with the assumption that I, as the sewing novice, and she as the clever design whiz, can make designer clothes happen at home, in a wild, world changing clothing collaboration.

Pretty cool.

Green Your Block: National Day of Service

September 11, 2009
United We Serve, National Day of Service


Create an event in your neighborhood
or
Find an Event Near You

Green for All & the Hip Hop Caucus have joined up for a national service day to bring our communities & residents into the clean energy economy. The coalition behind this includes all the movers and shakers of the climate action movement. This nation-wide day of action focuses on 4 project areas:

• Education and awareness
• Legislative advocacy
• Youth activism
• Private-sector development

photo from greentheblock.net

Pittsburgh: It's what's GUD

Got to spend a week at home in Pittsburgh last week, and green is the name of the game. Three examples of what's going on in the biggest city in Appalachia.

GUD (Green Urban Development)
Community Projects in Pittsburgh

GET:Larimer: Green Ecological Tourism
Why this group is GUD: Development group of local small business owners looking to make Larimer the go-to green showcase for Pittsburgh. Looking to use an inclusive community empowerment model, but they are still in the process of collecting ideas & partner organizations. They are a project of U.S.E.D. Urban Solutions for Ecological Development.

Lawrenceville: an area gaining in popularity and within an easy bike commute to downtown Pittsburgh. In the last 5-10 years, this middle-class neighborhood has developed a local buzz around it's ability to attract artists & restaurants and re-populate a declining urban area.
They've even posted a litany of YouTube testimonials to tell you why it's a great local place to live.

Braddock: see my earlier post about a mayor working to bring life, art, and functionality to an urban town Pittsburgh.

Other resources:
Walls are Bad - Pittsburgh's City Guide to the Outdoors
Sustainable Community Development Network

Cool Brazilian Roofs

(this video is in Portuguese)

Show from Andre Trigueiro's "Cidades e Solucoes" about three climate-friendly roofing technologies being used in Brazil. Summarized below.

1) Ecotelhado -- Green roofs in Niteroi, (the Brooklyn of Rio de Janeiro), they use modular synthetic tiles & a multi-layer system to absorb rainwater & short scrubby plants that don't need a lot of water in the first place. The plants can be used on flat or pitched roofs, or as vertical walls. The tiles insulate the building (ie. lowering interior temperatures), are low maintenance & don't grow into the building structure. Typical green roof technology.

2) Green Building Council Brasil -- running a "campaign" to paint residential roofs white. (Better than the idea on Good to paint highways white, um, roads are dirty), This lowers the temperature inside the house & reflects heat, lowering the city "heat island" effect. They presented in D.C. and aparently the Whitehouse is amenable to the concept. This is an inexpensive, simple solution, good for cities, and particularly for the tile roofs commonly found in Brazil. Idea: Let's use a whitewash so it sticks to the clay instead of Sherman Williams.

3) A roof made from juice boxes? (my favorite) replace corregated tin roofs with a composite material made from recycled milk/juice boxes. This is so cool! In Brazil, milk comes in a box similar to the juice boxes we use in the US. It's a plastic/cardboard laminate that we don't recycle here because it's a pain to separate into its individual parts. In Niteroi, 17 companies shred the stuff & turn it into a strong material that you can use for cheap roofing. Benefits: it comes from a waste material, doesn't conduct heat like tin roofing does, so the house/factory/etc. stays cooler. Doubt: Not very flame retardant. Idea: I wonder if you could spray paint the panels white.

NOAA Chief on Oceans and Global Warming

Yale Environment 360 interviews the head of NOAA (you know, the weather advisory & ocean guys) about returning scientific research and evidence to the forefront of the organization. Jane Lubchenco is (gasp) a real live scientist who believes that the organization's responsiblity is rigorous data collection and analysis, and then the translation of those results for the rest of us. Sweet. No more multivariate statistical regressions for me!

read interview here

Dancing for the Climate: Powershift Australia

Using dance to engage the public & get fun, positive attention for climate change. The video takes a little while to get going, but it's a great action. Powershift is a youth conference to create leadership around clean energy and green jobs. I attended the US version in March '09 held in DC.

Urban Gardening: New York

Hhere's a look at some urban gardening that's going on around the US.


NYT featured a nice article about rooftop gardens with fun photos. --->
Image via Andrew Wilson, NYT





New York Sun Works has an impressive cadre of worker bees bringing fresh food to the rooftops, office buildings, and yes rivers of New York. In 2007 they launched a carbon-neutral river barge/greenhouse that grows veggies and hosts visitors to learn about hydroponic horticulture and alternative fuels. Sun Works also has interests in a myriad of projects related to vertical greenhouses & sustainable engineering. Their technology focuses on hydroponics, a growing method I'm not crazy about when it comes to "big picture" food production. On the other hand, the diversification of methods, and the experimentation is hugely important -- and it looks like they're working in a thorough and thoughtful manner. They have a cool lookin' brochure here.

Although, if we're counting looks, I'd say that this Uros community did a better job on Lake Titicaca, and they didn't even need solar panels...

Nominate Someone! Boston Youth Leadership Award

Boston seeks to nominate youth leaders for multi-cultural award. Read below for quoted text:

“We Are Boston”
Youth Leadership Awards:

"Do you know a New Bostonian resident or an individual, under 21 years old, whose parents are immigrants, who deserves a special recognition? The Office of New Bostonians is looking for a young person who has the perseverance, courage and idealism of a New Bostonian. The nominee must have made significant contributions to empower his/her community, demonstrated cultural pride or promoted cross-cultural understanding/collaboration and be an inspiration to his or her peers."

Nomination Form Here
Nomination Deadline: June 30 (extended)

Why is this important? This is an incentive from the City of Boston to encourage youth from diverse family backgrounds to take an active role in re-imagining and creating the community of their hopes and dreams. It asserts that Boston's success is tied to the active participation of all residents, and that youth from different cultural backgrounds have something special to bring to the table when it comes to community engagement. It creates a positive reward for the recipient, but more importantly, it sends a message to the recipient's peers about what their larger community/city expects and rewards. This is a direct request from the City that respects and recognizes the individual's unique identity and background as a desired component of community development.

Send your nominations!

Election in Iran

This is a video of an election protest in Iran from June 17, after the June 13 election. Most of the US media images of the election have shown rioting and shouting, but this one is silent. It's amazing to see such an enormous group of humanity standing silently for something bigger than themselves. You can see the progression of protests in a collection of first-person videos. I am humbled by the passion and perseverance.

Bogota: Paths for Sustainability

PBS did a series in 2007 called E2 Design (I don't have TV, so my mom just sent me the link almost two years later...) about design solutions for sustainability. One of their shows was about Bogota and the things that a developing, cash-strapped, recently violent city is doing to be a model for sustainability. This story also reminds us of the power of education: The city's mayor took the sustainability discussion he learned from the U.S. and combined it with values from his community.

You can watch the video online.