apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

This is a great post. The Dishmate is great in the pear scent and costs about $3.00.

Now I'm craving tofu.

Seems odd to me that they're highlighting a $2000 new bike over a used one. Also seems odd that they're highlighting particular handmade soaps, since there are many small soap manufacturers focusing on organic and fair trade soaps.

Also not really seeing how wool insulation is more enviromentally friendly. Sheep are brutal on most enviroments, and wool processing can be just as bad. It would take a pretty detailed analysis to convince me that fiberglass insulation is more wasteful to produce than wool. Also would take a detailed analysis to convince me that fiberglass is *less* wasteful, but since they're both complex and highly processed it's tough to decide which one is worse.

From the NYTimes, 7/1/2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/fashion/01green.html?ex=1184212800&en=082e80dfb308c4f7&ei=5070):

HERE’S one popular vision for saving the planet: Roll out from under the sumptuous hemp-fiber sheets on your bed in the morning and pull on a pair of $245 organic cotton Levi’s and an Armani biodegradable knit shirt.
Stroll from the bedroom in your eco-McMansion, with its photovoltaic solar panels, into the kitchen remodeled with reclaimed lumber. Enter the three-car garage lighted by energy-sipping fluorescent bulbs and slip behind the wheel of your $104,000 Lexus hybrid.
Drive to the airport, where you settle in for an 8,000-mile flight— careful to buy carbon offsets beforehand — and spend a week driving golf balls made from compacted fish food at an eco-resort in the Maldives.
That vision of an eco-sensitive life as a series of choices about what to buy appeals to millions of consumers and arguably defines the current environmental movement as equal parts concern for the earth and for making a stylish statement.
Some 35 million Americans regularly buy products that claim to be earth-friendly, according to one report, everything from organic beeswax lipstick from the west Zambian rain forest to Toyota Priuses. With baby steps, more and more shoppers browse among the 60,000 products available under Home Depot’s new Eco Options program.
Such choices are rendered fashionable as celebrities worried about global warming appear on the cover of Vanity Fair’s “green issue,” and pop stars like Kelly Clarkson and Lenny Kravitz prepare to be headline acts on July 7 at the Live Earth concerts at sites around the world.
Consumers have embraced living green, and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism. But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists, a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls “light greens.”
Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so-called earth-friendly products, from clothing and cars to homes and vacations, when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous.
“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,” said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues.
The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one’s consumption of goods and resources. It’s not enough to build a vacation home of recycled lumber; the real way to reduce one’s carbon footprint is to only own one home.....It’s as though the millions of people whom environmentalists have successfully prodded to be concerned about climate change are experiencing a SnackWell’s moment: confronted with a box of fat-free devil’s food chocolate cookies, which seem deliciously guilt-free, they consume the entire box, avoiding any fats but loading up on calories.
The issue of green shopping is highlighting a division in the environmental movement: “the old-school environmentalism of self-abnegation versus this camp of buying your way into heaven,” said Chip Giller, the founder of Grist.org, an online environmental blog that claims a monthly readership of 800,000. “Over even the last couple of months, there is more concern growing within the traditional camp about the Cosmo-izing of the green movement — ‘55 great ways to look eco-sexy,’ ” he said. “Among traditional greens, there is concern that too much of the population thinks there’s an easy way out.”....He added: “The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 — it’s a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic. It’s diabolically stupid.”
Environmentalists say some products marketed as green may pump more carbon into the atmosphere than choosing something more modest, or simply nothing at all. Along those lines, a company called PlayEngine sells a 19-inch widescreen L.C.D. set whose “sustainable bamboo” case is represented as an earth-friendly alternative to plastic.
But it may be better to keep your old cathode-tube set instead, according to “The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook,” because older sets use less power than plasma or L.C.D. screens. (Televisions account for about 4 percent of energy consumption in the United States, the handbook says.)
“The assumption that by buying anything, whether green or not, we’re solving the problem is a misperception,” said Michael Ableman, an environmental author and long-time organic farmer. “Consuming is a significant part of the problem to begin with. Maybe the solution is instead of buying five pairs of organic cotton jeans, buy one pair of regular jeans instead.”.....

@mollybb Not to be a crank, but links don't violate any copyright restrictions. The author doesn't get anything for your posting the piece.

What about the soy insulation?
http://www.biobased.net/

I agree with much of the NYT article, and would love the link. It won't work if there is anything attached to the front or rear of the link, including punctuation.

As long as people are driven to buy buy buy things they don't need need need, there is a problem.

People do need to eat, but they certainly don't need to eat out of season:
http://www.whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=faq&dbid=28

People do not NEED to watch TV, so that NO TV is better than any kind on the market. I haven't watched TV in years.

My books come from the thrift store (I like reading in the tub and the library frowns on bath-salts-scented books that are a little damp).

Most of my clothing comes from thrift stores. I'd recently purchased some new clothing, like a windbreaker that has reflective tape on it. One of our neighbors was hit on the road out front, crossing the street. And I've been looking for anything reflective since then. I also bought very inexpensive casual shoes that have reflective stripes.

I haven't driven since last year. I generally walk to where I need to go. I have taken the bus a couple times to get to farther places than I can walk.

I push a folding grocery cart to and from the store. Obviously purchases are limited to what will fit in the cart and what I can push. In addition, frozen foods don't take well to being pushed home a couple miles, so I rarely buy anything frozen. Only if I go on a cool night or cold/rainy day do I consider frozen things.

I don't need to buy CFLs or other specialty devices, as I am not trying to define a landing area for space travelers from another galaxy. And you'd think that is exactly what some of the neighbors are expecting from the amount of light streaming from their apartments.

People aren't willing to give up anything in order to "save" the environment. They might switch...but won't give it up.