The latest issue of lit zine The Mad Hatters’ Review’s now up — and some of my poems are in it. All are from a longer series starring alice –
I like how The Mad Hatters’ review puts art AND music with writing. If you’re at work though, you might want to turn off the volume before clicking through –
>> Will I be more depressed about a decade or so from now? “In the U.S., women on average are most miserable at age 40 whereas men are when they hit 50. They found a similar pattern in 70 other countries.” (via 3qd)
>> News flash: Exercise really is good for you. Live like a couch potato and you’ll be biologically older by 10 years than your contemporaries. Errand running, anyone? Also — Will that depressive slump hit me at 60 instead of 50 if I stay active? (via 3qd)
>> Bad news for pot smokers: “Smoking a joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes in terms of lung cancer risk, scientists in New Zealand have found.” But do most pot smokers smoke a whole joint alone at one time? (via Freakonomics)
>> Free Public WiFi: Why they show up on your list of available networks almost everywhere you go — and why they never work.
My eco-blogging now happens at Emerald City. Visit, read, comment, and subscribe.
Photo by Rich Summers via Flickr
Due to overbooking, I won’t be able to make the hoopla happening in front of the Kodak Theatre in conjunction with the CNN Democratic Debate today. I won’t even be able to make the Westside Extension meeting about the Subway to the Sea (though I plan to go to a later one).
But in case your sched’s free and clear today, here’s a couple events you’ll be interested in:
Put the heat on the media to ask presidential candidates about global warming. The California League of Conservation Voters says the “most-watched reporters” are not asking presidential candidates about global warming issues: “Since January 2007, they have asked presidential candidates a total of 2,938 questions. Just 6 of those questions mentioned global warming.” Thus, they’re rallying about it in front of the Kodak Theater, starting at 2:30 pm.
Get presidential candidates to make parks a campaign issue by supporting Teddy Mather — a.k.a. a costumed bear — for the presidency. The National Parks Conservation Association will be demonstrating in front of the Kodak Theatre today starting at 4 pm. You can greet the bear and sign NPCA’s petition.
>> Fifty Nude Women. “People shouldn’t have to rent a porn video just to see bodies,” says filmmaker Margot Roth, before setting out “to make a film that would reflect the many ways that women really look, as a sort of psycho-medical resource.” You can buy the film for $20.
>> L.A. gets 24-hour medical marijuana vending machines. They’re plugged in at at least 3 dispensaries so far, and require fingerprint identification and a prepaid card with a magnetic stripe.
>> Many consumers don’t care that they may be buying blood diamonds, David Lazarus of the LA Times finds. They do, however, seem to like the rebates from De Beers; the diamond company settled a class-action lawsuit “alleging that the company monopolized diamond supplies and fixed prices” and “agreed to spend $295 million on rebates of up to 30% to all consumers who purchased diamonds from 1994 to 2006 — whether or not they were bought directly from De Beers.”
My eco-blogging now happens at Emerald City. Visit, read, comment, and subscribe.
Image via fiftywomen.com
Latest from Emerald City, my enviro-blog at LAtimes.com
>> Organic Rush: South Pasadena’s own eco-store. In the middle of nowhere — or more accurately, in South Pasadena — lies one gem of an eco-store: Organic Rush. Who knew? Here, everything’s green, and everything’s pretty.
>> A case for HOT lanes in L.A. A guest post by Damien Newton, author of the blog Street Heat LA, kicking off a series that takes a closer look at congestion pricing plans to mitigate traffic woes in L.A.
>> Plan B: Adapting to a warmer world. “Plan B: Adapting to a Warmer World,” a six-part special series on “Marketplace,” begins with the premise that we’ve already changed the world irrevocably, and thus works to answer the question: “what should we do to prepare ourselves to live in a warmed world?”
>> A green fundraising coupon book: myGreenSpark. L.A.-area schools have a new green fundraising tool. Kids raising money can get the first green coupon book for Southern California — dubbed myGreenSpark redemption book — and help support green companies while fundraising for their school.
And a linky post:
>> A.M. Greenlist: Villaraigosa’s short-term traffic reduction plan
>> A.M. Greenlist: SOTU, then greener news
>> A.M. Greenlist: Sonar, Santa Monica, Solar
I know the Valentine’s Day question keeping you up at night. Should I opt for VeriFlora certified flowers? Or for fair trade certified flowers?
Okay — maybe not. But now that we finally have fair trade certified flowers on the market, the question’s gotta come up sooner or later. What are the differences, and which certification is “better”? After all, both certifications claim high social and environmental benefits — as well as high-quality flowers:
To find out the real differences, you have to delve deeper. For starters, who’s running these certification programs? Fair trade certification’s done by the nonprofit TransFair USA. While TransFair often gets critiqued — from corporations for being too tough, and from fair trade activists for being too lenient — the org’s been quite successful of late at both introducing big corporations into fair trade certification and retaining — and in Dean’s Bean’s case, bringing back — die-hard fair trade companies.
In contrast, VeriFlora certification’s done by a company called Scientific Certification Systems — which has the unfortunate distinction of also running Starbucks’ CAFE practices program, which has standards that are lower than, but often marketed as superior to, fair trade certification. In fact, the Sacramento Bee found that SCS didn’t even visit a farm that it had given CAFE certification to; an Africa-based company was hired to do the job — and apparently didn’t do it very well, because when SacBee started investigating, the inspector person got fired for doing a bad job.
That said, VeriFlora standards are different from CAFE standards. So: How do the VeriFlora and fair trade certifications stack up? That answer’s rather time-consuming to come by. While the Fair trade certification standards for flowers is available in a modest 12-page document (PDF), VeriFlora’s standards come in a whopping 127-pager (PDF). Turns out, the reason the VeriFlora document’s so long’s because it contains all manner voluntary and non-mandatory criteria….
The main difference between VeriFlora and fair trade certifications: While VeriFlora generally falls back on the laws set by the local government, fair trade generally sets its own baseline standards — which are likely to be a tougher standards than the labor laws (or lack there of) in many countries. For example, fair trade certification REQUIRES a minimum of 3 weeks of paid annual leave, and REQUIRES that all workers receive medical examinations at the employer’s expense. VeriFlora, in contrast, requires only that full-time workers receive “a vacation plan that meets national or local law”; employers aren’t required to provide medical services at their own expense, although they must make sure that workers be given time and transportation to access medical care.
The other difference between the certification programs: While VeriFlora simply requires that workers be ALLOWED to organize, fair trade certification REQUIRES workers to organize into a “joint body.” Why? With fair trade certification, workers receive a fair trade premium — over and above regular wages — based on a percentage of the sales price of the flowers. (The amount of the fair trade premium is between 8 to 12% of value of the flowers at the customs front of the exporting country; more details on page 12 of this PDF) That premium has to be spent on community development initiatives, and the joint body — with leaders democratically elected by the workers — decides what initiatives those will be. VeriFlora too encourages community development, but basically leaves the issue at the discretion — and purse strings — of the employer.
So fair trade certification appears to be the tougher standard. However, new complications arise here: Some VeriFlora certified flowers are also organic certified, while no organic AND fair trade certified flowers exist — which can seem odd, since both VeriFlora and fair trade certifications agree that flower farms should try to go organic. However, fair trade certified flowers just came onto the US market last fall — and the farms producing them haven’t yet gotten organic certification. VeriFlora, on the other hand, has been around much longer, giving their farms time to move toward certification. In addition, VeriFlora certifies farms in the US and Canada, which often are more readily able to pursue organic certification, financially or otherwise. Fair trade certification, in contrast, only applies to products originating from “third world” countries.
We also have to keep in mind that, at this point, even the VeriFlora AND fair trade certified flowers combined add up to a very small percentage of the flower market. And outside a few pockets communities, fair trade flowers are only available online via 1-800 Flowers and samsclub.com. Comparatively, VeriFlora certified flowers are much more widely available; Trader Joe’s sometimes carries some, for example. And VeriFlora certified flowers still smell much sweeter than conventional flowers.
So if you’re buying flowers locally, try to look for organic or VeriFlora certified flowers. If you’re buying online anyway, however, go for flowers that are fair trade certified, or VeriFlora AND organic certified.
Wouldn’t it be great if we just had one pretty flower certification that incorporated all these details into a nice tidy rosy bunch, instead of what seems like an endless proliferation of certification programs? After all, it can get costly for flower producers to worry about — and pay for — all these different certifications, as Amy Stewart, author of Flower Confidential (which I reviewed here) points out…
[crossposted on ViroPop]
A twice-weekly sharing of eco-shwag.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get caught up on these giveaways –
Today’s — or last Friday’s — giveaway is a copy of myGreenSpark, a green coupon book for SoCal fundraisers covering LA and Orange counties.
I wrote more about the book on Emerald City; check it out, then let me know if you want it by leaving a comment or email by Friday. Drawing happens Saturday. U.S. addresses only –
Chai drinking chocoholics: The Valentine’s Day treat you’ve been waiting for’s officially arrived. Yes, I already told you where the fair trade chocolate and flower deals are this Valentine’s Day — but here’s one more sweet deal to enjoy: Organic, fair trade SLO Chai Chocolate!
This sweet-n-spicy yummy’s brought to you by two socio-eco conscious companies based in San Luis Obispo — SLO Chai and Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates. We’re talking 65% bittersweet chocolate paired with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, star anise, and other Indian spices.
The chocolate may be 65% bittersweet, but the product itself’s all sweet, with none of the ethical bitterness associated with conventional chocolates that use illegal child labor. SLO Chai Chocolate’s fair trade and organic certified. Plus, a dollar per bag of chocos (15 pieces for $5.99) will be donated to the nonprofit Project Hope and Fairness to help pay for farming equipment for 10 cocoa-farming villages in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, and raise awareness about labor issues in the cocoa industry.
SLO Chai Chocolate’s created by serious fair trade and organic advocates. Tom of Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates not only makes the chocolates, but he also runs Project Hope and Fairness and organizes group excursions to visit West Africa, both to educate visitors and to aid cocoa farmers. Tom’s also a professor; Le Meems at Hallelujah says he was her favorite grad school professor — and recommends Sweet Earth. And Jennifer of Earth Friendly Weddings says Sweet Earth Chocolates make great wedding favors.
Tamra and Joel Pace of SLO Chai, for their part, have been delighting their local farmers’ market patrons with fair trade, organic chai for years now. I got to meet them — along with their son Bohden — when they were in LA last year. Their Vanilla Spice Latte is the best chai I’ve tasted — not too sweet, with no weird aftertaste that you get after drinking some of the non-organic chais.
Perhaps most importantly, the latte can be used for delicious mixed drinks! My favorite: Bermuda Chai-Angle. Yummy –
Yes, there are other organic chai chocolates, like Dagoba Chai Chocolate bar. That bar, however, is not fair trade certified, though Dagoba does claim all of its chocolate is procured ethically. Dagoba is a company that’s generally known for its commitment to socio-environmental issues; however Dagoba’s now owned by Hershey’s, which isn’t so concerned.
I still think Dagoba’s a good option, especially as you can find their goods in Whole Foods and other stores. But if you’re going to buy online anyway, I’d go with Sweet Earth.
[crossposted on BlogHer]
Latest from Emerald City, my enviro-blog at LAtimes.com
>> A Zero Waste Plan for Los Angeles. The City of L.A. is talking trash, working to develop a citywide Zero Waste Plan to turn L.A. into a zero waste city.
>> Plastic bag ban news from Oakland to China. L.A. County chickened out on a plastic bag ban, but the city of Oakland’s fighting hard to make its ban happen. Oakland passed a plastic ban last year that was supposed to go into effect last week on Jan. 18. Unfortunately, the plastic bag industry sued, delaying things.
>> New in BYO: The Mug Project. Feel like the only person toting your own to-go mug? The Mug Project’s here to give you some love. A couple guys in Jamaica Plains, Mass. started this social site for mug-toters living the bring-your-own lifestyle.
And a linky post:
>> AM Greenlist: Writing novels on public transit
Does Ugly Betty heart candy wrapper purses? From my laptop, it looked like the bag Betty was toting in the last episode looked a lot like an eco-friendly bag made from candy wrappers.
Even if I’m wrong, lemme take this moment to note the growing popularity of purses and totes are made from recycled candy and other foil wrappers. The most popular of these are the ecoist bags (left), which look chic and stylish.
Betty, however, looks like she’s carrying one of these Foil Wrapper Shoulder Bag with Woven Strap (below) from MYO Accessories, a company that works with weavers from Mexico combating poverty while supporting indigenous cultures.
All the companies touting these recycled foil wrapper bags seem concerned both with environmental and fair labor issues. From what I’ve seen, ecoist has the best quality control and the sleekest products — even if their goods are more expensive. More “hippie” groups like Global Crafts offer similar — but more crunchy-looking — products at a somewhat lower price.
Get ‘em while they’re hot. Jennifer Holsman of TopButton notes that recycled candy wrapper bags have a side benefit: “they encourage us to ditch our already long forgotten New Year’s resolution of trading in sweet treats for treadmill time.” BeachDiva of Social Diva Blog loves ecoist: “Whenever I wear my clutch to an event I get no less than a dozen compliments.” And JP of Green Deals Daily liked ecoist bags enough to post a video about them.
Share your own review of foil wrapper bags in the comments –
[crossposted on BlogHer]
