Posts from — June 2007

GRAIN a 16th year hold international non-governmental organization (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people’s control over genetic resources and local knowledge, has just published a special issue of Seedling which focuses on biofuels, or as they like to call them, agrofuels.
In this special edition, Seedling argues that the wide-scale cultivation of agrofuels will actually make things worse in many parts of the world, notably South-east Asia and the Amazon basin where the drying of peat lands and the felling of tropical forest will release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than will be saved by using agrofuels.

More than 30 groups from around the world are calling for a Moratorium to stop the EU rush for biofuels (or agrofuels). They warn that agrofuel production for EU markets will accelerate climate change, destroy biodiversity and uproot local communities.
2007-06-27 | Joint Press Release by EcoNexus, Biofuelwatch, Corporate Europe Observatory.

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For those of us trying to travel to the beat of our own drum, Elizabeth Gilbert’s down to earth writing in, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia is definitely worth checking out. This book is delightful, funny, at times sad, but an inspiration throughout. Elizabeth takes you along for the ride as she searches to find herself: through food, prayer and love.

Sharing in the gastronomical delights of Italy, searching for spiritual discipline and joy in the majestic lands of India, seeking love and balance in the exotic Bali…you are sure to be transported.

As Kan Lamat so eloquently states, “As a hitchhiker thru many lands, my wanderlust delighted and splashed in the puddles of scenic descriptions and friendly faces that fill this book. Many memories resurfaced, particularly in India, and future plans were altered to taste in a bit of the lovely author’s experience. As a holyman, I love watching myself and others be dragged, kicking and screaming, by our divine guidance to a more healthy, holy self…As a walking advertising campaign for everything I love, I have found that I can turn anyone onto this book simply by handing it to them with the words “pick a paragraph… any paragraph.” I have yet to have anyone simply shrug off what they randomly read.
I second that one Kan!

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Kombucha, the “mushroom drink”, also known as the “Manchurian mushroom” is a healthful drink made from a culture that grows on tea, sugar, and water. The increase in popularity of Kombucha can be seen with the many commercial brands now entering the retail marketplace and from the myriad of web pages about the fermented beverage. Becoming more and more common amongst the health-food and yoga set, with annual sales of $34 million according to a recent article by Katy McLaughlin for The Wall Street Journal (6/23/07), we decided to go in for a closer look.

Kombucha has been described as possessing some fantastic therapeutic qualities, if you can stand the way it looks, tastes and smells. God knows I couldn’t bring myself to drink it the first few times I tried…at least not with my eyes open. At first glance, it reminded me of the first time I tried egg drop soup as a child. It just didn’t seem like something meant for human consumption, seemed a bit too slimy. Well after much procrastination, I finally took the plunge. Conclusion: Ginger is the best flavor being that it’s the only flavor that seems to mask the yeasty acidity that I associate most Kombucha drinks with. A few tips for Kombucha selection: - Buy it from a well-stocked health food store – Whole Foods carries a great selection. - Buy a bottle that has a small mat floating on the top – this suggests that it is still alive.- Don’t be alarmed by the taste, Kombucha tastes strange.

The claimed benefits: [Read more →]

Come 2008, New York City will begin offering eco-conscious travelers its first green boutique hotel. Greenhouse 26 plans to land LEED Gold from the U.S. Green Building Council with its environmental practices—including conservation of energy, electricity, water, materials and waste.

Designed by Arpad Baksa of Arpad Baksa Architect, the Chelsea-based 19-story, 28 room hotel, will be the first to employ a geothermal heating and cooling system. Another design first: Thermal breaks on room terraces. U.S. buildings have not tried out this ingenius method, which uses a thermal barrier as insulation to prevent terraces from conducting outdoor heat or cold inside.

Other green amenities include high-tech occupancy sensors for individual rooms, which will also let staff know when rooms are empty for cleaning; certified organic products including soaps, towels, robes, and mattresses, a bar/cafe with exclusively organic fair and the one amenity I’m especially curious to find out more about: a 500-square-foot, first-floor roof garden

The hotel will be located at 132 W. 26th Street. Opening is slated for Spring 2008.

The beauty of digital Origami comes to life with students in the digital masters program at Sydney’s University of Technology. By studying trends in parametric modeling, digital fabrication and material science, the team created an amazing display which reflects on the beauty and tradition of the Japanese art but delivers its aesthetics in a modern setting. By using 3500 recycled cardboard molecules, the design students, under the guidance of lecturer Chris Bosse, examined various aspects of architectural foundations through small elements of design. The result: a fabulous installation that examines space and the elements of design including arches, walls tunnels and traditional structures. According to Boss, the aim of the project is “testing the fitness of a particular module, copied from nature, to generate architectural space, with the assumption that the intelligence of the smallest unit dictates the intelligence of the overall system. The geometric paper shapes fill the room, having been placed on top of one another and attached to ceilings and walls that are superbly illuminated by expressive neon lighting which further emphasizes the angular structure of the work itself.

A derelict multi-storey building has become a major work of art in Liverpool city centre. A 26ft diameter egg-shape cut from the front of a former Yates’s Wine Lodge building opposite Moorfields Station has been made to rotate on an axis. The revolving facade of the building rests on a specially crafted giant rotator, usually used in the shipping and nuclear industries, it acts as a huge opening and closing window, offering recurring glimpses of the interior during its continuous cycle during the day.The piece, entitled “Turning the Place Over” has been created by sculptor Richard Wilson for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture Year. It is set to be in place until spring of next year when the building is set to be demolished. Wilson, who is known for his works on architectural canvases which draw heavily for their inspiration from the worlds of both engineering and construction said, “We don’t often associate these materials with movement but we’ve made a piece of architecture as an event or as a performance to attract people’s attention and prove that Liverpool will be the centre of culture in 2008.”
(cost:$900,000)

Turning the Place Over by Richard Wilson

Interview with Richard Wilson

A dear friend of ours recently turned us on to a great new book called Visionary Plant Consciousness: The Shamanic Teachings of the Plant World In it, 23 leading experts reveal the ways that psychoactive plants allow nature’s “voice” to speak to humans and what this communication means for our future. Exploring the relevance of plant-induced visions and shamanic teachings to humanity’s environmental crisis, the book comes complete with winning contributions from Terence McKenna, Andrew Weil, Wade Davis, Michael Pollan, Alex Grey and Katsi Cook to name just a few.

Visionary plants have long served indigenous peoples and their shamans as enhancers of perception, thinking, and healing. These plants can also be important guides to the reality of the natural world and how we can live harmoniously in it. In Visionary Plant Consciousness: The Shamanic Teachings of the Plant World, editor J. P. Harpignies gathers presentations from the Bioneers annual conference of environmental and social visionaries that explores how plant consciousness affects the human condition. Twenty-three leading ethnobotanists, anthropologists, medical researchers, and cultural figures present their understandings of the nature of psychoactive plants and their significant connection to humans. What they reveal is that these plants may help us access the profound intelligence in nature–the “mind of nature”–that we must learn to understand in order to survive our ecologically destructive way of life.

J. P. Harpignies is associate producer of the national Bioneers conference and coproducer and founder of the Eco-Metropolis conference in New York City. He is the author of Political Ecosystems: Modernity, Complexity, Fluidity and the Eco-Left and Double Helix Hubris: Against Designer Genes, the editor of Visionary Plant Consciousness: The Shamanic Teachings of the Plant World, and the associate editor of Ecological Medicine and Nature’s Operating Instructions: The True Biotechnologies (The Bioneers Series). Interested in hearing more from JP? He will be at the Open Center in NYC on Friday, June 22^nd for a booksigning & evening lecture.

Image courtesy of sam-gilbey.com

MTV Networks International just launched a global, youth-focused climate-change campaign last week called, MTV Switch. The multiplatform campaign will run 35 public-service announcements on tv, online and on mobile.

The campaign, geared towards 15- to 25-year-olds, plans to promote an environmental-friendly lifestyle by delivering simple tips on how the viewer can take small actions to make differences in eliminating the world’s carbon emissions.

Write down all your thoughts, memories and stories in this handmade elephant journal. A patchwork elephant outlined by detailed stitching and made of royal purple, golden yellow, juicy orange and rich red is flanked by pretty flowers on the off-white cover. Open the journal and find colorful pages for sparking your creativity and holding your precious thoughts.This journal is “tree free” and made from recycled cotton rags.

Made by gifted artisans in India.

Availabe at:

Run, don’t walk…go get your FEED bag. The FEED bag is designed to raise awareness and funds for hungry children and to help them get into school and out of hunger. Each FEED bag sold provides a school year of meals for one child in need and gives them the hope of an education and a regular meal.

Whether you tote your FEED bag to school, work, play, or shop, remember that your bag helped to FEED and educate one child for one entire school year.