Do You Know Where Has Your Salad Been? Use This Tool!

As the public becomes more aware of ways to cut down on our carbon footprint – one area to keep in mind is our food intake. Just where does most of our consumption come from?

Beyond the produce sticker on loose fruit at the grocery store sometimes it’s tough to know where your food originated.  

Here’s a cool tool from Fresh Express to check out just how far your salad has traveled. Just type in the code found on the front of your salad mix bag and you’ll learn where your greens originated!

Track your greens here!

Posted by Beth

Meeting the Skinny Bitch Herself! Kim Barnouin Lecture & Book Signing

The Skinny Bitch herself came to Philly to talk about the “V” word.

Kim Barnouin, author of Skinny Bitch, discussed Veganism and her popular best-seller last evening at the Free Library of Philadelphia. She brought up some interesting topics including: the often controversial tone of Skinny Bitch (She & co-author Rory talk like that in ‘real life’. Plus, America’s in a food crisis: we need “Tough Love”, not babying); the increased awareness of Veganism (the book came out 4 years ago and we’re now seeing veganism popularized by Kind Diet and more); organic foods and protein to name a few.

Kim also brought up the environmental impact of animal-based food. The carbon footprint is huge:

Have you measured your Carbon Footprint?

Only 7% of Americans have tried to measure their carbon footprint, according to the Sacred Heart University Polling Center.

Use this handy calculator to measure your carbon footprint:

if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget(’49ffe645-2ec8-4a49-9614-e9f7824eed88′);Get the CoolClimate Carbon Footprint Calculator widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox! Not seeing a widget? (More info)

Posted by Julie

Real or Faux Green? Eco-Marketing Deceptions

Eco-friendly products have flooded the market – which is great to see! Unfortunately, you have to be aware of possible impostors – some supposedly green products have a more damaging carbon footprint than a simpler, non-green branded product. How can you tell if a product is really green or if it’s just marketing?

This Sincerely Sustainable blog post shows the ANDREA air filter as a green imposter. While the intentions of ANDREA are good – transforming plants into air cleaners – there’s a huge carbon footprint from creating this gadget (between sourcing, transportation and creating the manufacture and sale).

A better alternative than ANDREA? Mother nature’s “houseplant” – A novel concept, and it costs about $197 less than the $200 price tag.

Other ‘green’ marketing scams & questionable companies include:

XPN's Eco-Friendly XPoNential Music Festival

I’m quite excited to hear some of my favorite bands this weekend during 88.5 WXPN’s XPoNential Music Festival. Also, I can rest easy knowing XPN’s taking many eco-friendly steps for a low impact festival (especially after all the controversy regarding U2′s outlandish Carbon Footprint…)

Village Green is coming back to the Festival for its second year, where Delaware Valley environmental leaders can teach concertgoers about sustainable and eco-friendly products and services. Topics such as renewable energy, solar power, green building materials, organic soil, bamboo clothing and socially responsible investing will be discussed. Bringing tykes to the Kids Corner? Interactive demonstrations for kids to learn ‘how to keep the earth happy’ are an extra incentive to bring your eco-activists to the three-day festival.

Village Green Participants ’09 include:

XPN’s Eco-Friendly XPoNential Music Festival

I’m quite excited to hear some of my favorite bands this weekend during 88.5 WXPN’s XPoNential Music Festival. Also, I can rest easy knowing XPN’s taking many eco-friendly steps for a low impact festival (especially after all the controversy regarding U2′s outlandish Carbon Footprint…)

Village Green is coming back to the Festival for its second year, where Delaware Valley environmental leaders can teach concertgoers about sustainable and eco-friendly products and services. Topics such as renewable energy, solar power, green building materials, organic soil, bamboo clothing and socially responsible investing will be discussed. Bringing tykes to the Kids Corner? Interactive demonstrations for kids to learn ‘how to keep the earth happy’ are an extra incentive to bring your eco-activists to the three-day festival.

Village Green Participants ’09 include:

U2: Outrageous Carbon Footprint?

A glimpse into U2’s collective carbon footprint from Helen Roberts of carbonfootprint.com has sparked controversy among environmentalists.

This year the world-renowned band’s tour (from 44 shows) is reportedly emitting the equivalent carbon footprint of a return flight to Mars. According to guardian.co.uk U2 will create enough carbon to fly all 90,000 people attending one of their Wembley dates (in London) to Dublin. Hmm, but isn’t Bono supposed to be somewhat of an environmentalist?

What can you do to lighten your own ‘entertainment footprint’?

U2: Outrageous Carbon Footprint?

A glimpse into U2’s collective carbon footprint from Helen Roberts of carbonfootprint.com has sparked controversy among environmentalists.

This year the world-renowned band’s tour (from 44 shows) is reportedly emitting the equivalent carbon footprint of a return flight to Mars. According to guardian.co.uk U2 will create enough carbon to fly all 90,000 people attending one of their Wembley dates (in London) to Dublin. Hmm, but isn’t Bono supposed to be somewhat of an environmentalist?

What can you do to lighten your own ‘entertainment footprint’?

Looking for a good Friday the 13th scare?

Looking for a spook on this Friday the 13th? I’ve found the scariest of them all.

The Eleventh Hour, narrated by Leonard DiCaprio, gives a gripping view on the current climate crisis, packed with expert opinions ranging from Stephan Hawking to NASA, NRDC, James Woolsey and many more activists. The film analyzes the evolution of global warming, citing the impact from humans – our population evolving at rapid speeds, consuming massive resources, money driven societies, and culture. If we keep going at this current rate, we may lose 1/3 – 1/2 species in the world since 50-55,000 species become extinct each year. While many have the brain power to solve this problem, it’s been greatly delayed…

Top Reasons to Refuse Bottled Water

Glancing down a grocery aisle, bottled water looks so tempting. The beautiful graphics of green trees, exotic water from Fiji or France… it looks so healthy. It’s easy to be duped by this misleading advertising.

Growing up the Philly suburbs, I never bought water. Luckily, our tap was clean and my Dad didn’t get the point in buying a typically free product. (Who knew Dad’s crazy protest was actually helping the environment? )

The bottled water industry is an environmental termite. When you’re drinking a bottle of water, you’re consuming approximately 1/2 of that bottle in oil – talk about hurting your Carbon Footprint!

Why is bottled water so bad?