1. Get out and drink. Take advantage of St. Patty’s deals at your local green watering hole. A few to try:

>> Pizza Fusion Hollywood will offer $1 off all drafts and bottles off their organic and sustainable beers — alongside the restaurant’s usual yummy organic eats. Plus, get $4 Fat Tire and Paulaner Hefe from 4 pm-7 pm.

>> Eco-wine bar Pourtal will have $5 glasses of Vinho Verde (Portuguese “green wine”) all night.That wine’s not organic, but many others at Pourtal are.

>> Library Alehouse will serve Guinness and corned beef alongside farmers market cabbage with potatoes and carrots from Weiser Family Farms.

Know of other green beer deals? Share them in the comments.

2. Or drink at home. Stephanie Rogers at Earth First has a list of organic brews to pick from. Or throw a party and get some local keg beer, which Slate’s Green Lantern is the greenest beer container — as long as you drink from reusable glasses.

3. If you want to drink home all year on the cheap, brew your own organic beer. Sierra Club’s Climate Crossroads shows you how to get started.

4. Become a beer activist. Drink to change the world! Chris O’Brien’s book Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World will turn you into a purposeful beer drinker. Follow up that read by watching Beer Wars, to find out why you shouldn’t be drinking Bud Light.

5. Reeling and ready to take eco-action? Ride, don’t drive, to the Community Meeting about the Metro Westside Subway Extension’s Optional Crenshaw Station. Should the purple line have a stop at Crenshaw or not? Weigh in while the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Report’s underway. The meeting happens on St. Patrick’s Day, Wed., March 17 from 6 pm – 8 pm at Wilshire United Methodist Church, 4350 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles.

6. Or fight the threat of offshore oil drilling with Surfrider Foundation and Environment California. Get to an educational meeting where staff from Surfrider Foundation and Environment California, as well as environmental activists and local community members, will come together to discuss what the threats associated with drilling are, and how communities can fight them. The meeting happens on St. Patrick’s Day, Wed., March 17 from 7 pm – 8 pm at Santa Monica Library – Fairview Branch, 2101 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica.

7. Or stick strictly to St. Patrick’s Day-themed events, and use Google Transit to ride safely to the St. Patrick’s Day festival at L.A. Live.

8. Dine green. Robin Shreeves at MNN has a recipe for Irish brown bread, and Blogher’s own Alanna Kellogg put together a roundup of green food recipes.

9. Eat green cookies. Bake your own — or get organic shamrock sugar cookies from Organic Bouquet. Two dozen cost $59.95.

10. Get crafty. Can’t drink or go out because you’re stuck at home with the kids? Jenn Savadge at MNN has some ideas for eco-friendly St. Patty’s craft projects, like making a coffee filter shamrock, handprint rainbow, or paper mache pot of gold.

11. Appreciate green beauty. Check out these gorgeous photos of Irish landscapes — limestone bluffs, swamp woodlands, pastures for peaceful grass-fed cows — from National Geographic. Enjoy them now, because according to Della Watson at The Sierra Club’s blog, The Green Life, “a report from the Irish American Climate Project predicts that global warming will endanger the Emerald Isle’s verdant fields, cause a drought-induced reduction in the the country’s famous potato crop, and lead to more “bog bursts” (think mudslides).” Even worse, climate change is worsening the quality of Saaz hops used to make pilsner lager!

Earlier: Happy hour with green-tinted glasses

[crossposted on Blogher]

Photo by swanksalot

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>> Do polar bears turn you on — to safer sex? The Center for Biological Diversity’s giving away 100,000 free Endangered Species Condoms beginning on Valentine’s Day, with slogans like “Cover your tweedle, save the burying beetle”!

The freebies are a reminder that creating a brand new American’s about the ungreenest thing you can do for the planet, even if you can afford organic, flushable, biodegradable diapers. No telling where the giveaway spots will be on Valentine’s Day, but you can enter to win a lifetime supply of free condoms! Earlier: All condoms.

>> Fake Plastic Fish’s Beth Terry complained about all the plastic Valentine’s Day crap at her local store — so I put together a plastic-free romance guide of eco-friendly Valentine’s Day gifts — complete with an upcycled, handknit teddy bear. Yes, I knit a bear –

>> Salon’s feminist blog Broadsheet has a great list of what to click this Valentine’s Day if you’ve decided not to go to any of the green Valentine’s weekend events I recommended happening around town. Salon’s list’s good for both Valentine’s Day lovers and haters –

Image via endangeredspeciescondoms.com

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1. Find your love for wheels. Two wheels, that is. Singular, a magazine for happily single people, is organizing a Valentine’s Day Beginner’s Mountain Bike Ride in the L.A. area. Bike 5-6 miles through the Sullivan Canyon in Brentwood on Valentine’s Day from 10 am to 1 pm. Plus, Singular magazine can be a great Valentine’s Day gift for all your happily single friends.

2. Make art for the environment’s sake. Clear your Saturday night for Lucent L’Amour, an annual “visionary lovefest” with art exhibits, bands, and other live performances happening this year at the Shrine in Los Angeles. In the midst of all the entertainment will be Lighting in a Paintcan, when 20 live painters will create art pieces with used and recycled paint. A silent auction during the event lets attendees bid on the pieces — with the proceeds going to buy art and music supplies for local underfunded schools. Support eco-art and a future generation of local musicians and artists too, while enjoying the lovely spectacle.

3. Lust after free fair trade yummies. WorldofGood.com’s giving away 15 fair trade gift baskets — worth $98 each — filled with a handmade bear, chocolates, cocoa, and candles. To win, all you have to do is reveal who you’re going to give the gift basket to and why in 75 words or less.

Winners will be judged on a “variety of factors including, but not limited to, originality, humor, sincerity and/or desperation” — so a humorous note about why you sincerely deserve to eat the entire gift basket yourself could work. Enter by Feb. 7 — and even if you don’t win, you’ll get a coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase of fair trade goodies from WorldofGood.com.

4. Embrace public transit and celebrate Valentine’s Day a few days early by taking the bus or train to the Move LA Valentine Celebration. The local pro public transit nonprofit is raising funds while celebrating car-free travel in L.A. with music from KCRW’s Tom Schnabel, live music from Latin salsa band Opa Opa, and more. The party begins Thurs., Feb. 11 from 6 pm – 10 pm at The Center at Cathedral Plaza, 555 W. Temple St., Los Angeles. $50 gets you in.

5. Spread the handmade love. Why buy a single Valentine for one person when you can get bargain package deals on Etsy for all your lovers? At the L.A.-based Marmoset shop, get a pair ($4) — or quartet ($8) — of handmade Valentines crafted with upcycled and reclaimed paper to send to everyone you love — in post-consumer recycled brown kraft envelopes, of course.

6. Have a crayon heart. Want little gifts to go with those cards? An instructables member who goes by Some Art Mama’s put up photo-illustrated, step-by-step instructions for turning old crayons into pretty little hearts. Collect old crayons and a few simple supplies — and a little messy work later, and your homemade, eco-friendly, pretty-as-well-as-useful gifts will be ready.

7. Find love for your glove. Lost a glove? Find your widowed glove a mate by sending it in to Glove Love, a cute little initiative by a green website called Do The Green Thing that pairs up single gloves with sorta-matching partners. Jasmin Chua at Ecouterre calls it a “matchmaking service for lovelorn mitts.” You can also buy a pair of pre-loved, mix-and-matched Glove Love gloves for £5.

The bad news: As you may have guessed from the “£,” Glove Love’s in the U.K. A closer-to-home green glove idea’s to plan a Valentine’s Day clothing swap — that includes lonely accessories like single earrings and gloves, or if you’re bold, shoes — to mix-and-match or upcycle.

8. Get green bling. Have too much room in your jewelry box after upcycling the earrings sans partners? Keep your shopping eco-friendly by opting for recycled and ethically-sourced jewelry. I love my Peace Love Earth recycled sterling silver necklace from Annatarian (right, $60), and have my eye on a recycled Silver Butterfly Pendant from Brilliant Earth ($50). Of course, buying pre-loved jewelry is an even greener option — so don’t forget about my guide to pre-loved fashion shopping in Santa Monica!

9. Give with chocolate. Yes, that “with” is supposed to be there, because why would you give chocolate to others when you can eat the perfectly delicious stuff yourself? Okay — Nicobella’s organic fair trade vegan dark chocolate truffles (my review here) come in a pack of six, so sharing does actually come easy — but purchase a $27 duet pack of these and $2 will be donated to help the victims of Haiti through the Happy Hearts Fund, thus letting give with your chocolate while eating it too.

Get the pack by emailing nichole@nicobellaorganics.com or calling 609.792.5231. Fair trade chocolate, by the way, also gives chocolate producers a fairer share of the profits from the money you spent on the delectable desserts.

10. Write a love poem. The Valentine Peace Project collects poems about peace and love, written by individuals who want to share peace and love. Anyone can write a poem to contribute to the project, whether online or in their neighborhoods.

Photos via marmoset/Etsy, Do the Green Thing, Nicobella, Singular, WorldofGood.com

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Do you know Crayola’s Law? It’s simple: The number of colors doubles every 28 years! (via Kottke)

Which makes an environmentalist wonder: What happens to all these crayons and their often strangely-named colors when they get too stubby to draw with? Colorful eco-thinkers have been turning old crayons into new, pretty crayons for years — and an enterprising green company called Crazy Crayons even has a national crayon recycling program for those too lazy to melt down the bits and ends themselves.

But for eco-crafty people into upcycling — and saving money — here’s a crayon upcycling idea perfect for Valentine’s Day: Turn them into colorful Valentine’s Day gifts!

An instructables member who goes by Some Art Mama’s put up photo-illustrated, step-by-step instructions for turning old crayons into pretty little hearts. In addition to old crayons, you’ll need melting cans (upcycled soda cans!), wooden sticks (upcycled popsicle sticks, perhaps?), a large pan, and a mold with heart shapes. A little messy work later, and your homemade, eco-friendly gifts will be ready.

I wish I had old crayons just to make these myself! If this post’s inspired you to go out and buy crayons, however, opt not for new paraffin-wax Crayolas but for soy wax-based, beeswax-based, or recycled crayons — like those made by Crayon Rocks, Stockmar Beeswax Crayons, and Crazy Crayons.

Photos by Some Art Mama via Instructables

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Love the holiday gifter but hate the gift — and maybe even temporarily love the gifter a little less due to the hideousness of the “gift” you got? We’ve all got our horror gift stories — but we need not jettison the unwearables and unusables and unlook-at-ables into the landfill. Here’s how to turn those abominations into new admirable gifts and creative endeavors, reducing waste while having a little fun:

1. Put it on Etsy and submit it to Regretsy. If you haven’t discovered Regretsy yet, you’ve been missing out on a lot of horrified laughter. This site — with the tagline “Handmade? It looks like you made it with your feet” — proudly features the ugliest and scariest of goods put up for sale by people who fancy themselves crafters. We’re talking handmade destroyed jeans — a.k.a. extremely old dirty jeans with holes containing a disembodied knee, no less! — to an eco-intentioned but just grotesque crapeau made with upcycled prune juice containers.

I know what you’re thinking: Regretsy’s fun, but how exactly will a website pointing out how ugly my “gift” is actually help me get rid of the gift? Believe it or not, quite a number of items that make it onto Regretsy sell quite well! April Winchell, Regretsy’s creator, told Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog she loves it when the fugly items sell: “People send me emails and say, ‘I sold a painting, so revenge on you.’ But that’s what I wanted the whole time!”

So why not try Etsy-Regretsy-ing your “gift,” maybe offering it for just the price of shipping? Putting an item on Etsy to simply get it featured on Regretsy is gaming the system a bit, I suppose — but the sheer scariness of items like the masturbating dinosaur wall art already makes me think some Etsiers must be deliberately dabbling in craftwrecks….

That dino sold, BTW. So did the crapeau! Did you get it for Christmas?

(more…)

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They say it’s easier to reach goals with a co-conspirator– So if you’re looking for last-minute green New Year’s resolution to challenge yourself with in 2010, consider joining one of these:

>> Current Green’s ONE GREEN THING New Year’s challenge. If you already have a general green goal — but are afraid it’s not specific or task-oriented enough — try Current Green’s program. This flexible challenge basically lets you set whatever goal you want — but also offers a more specific 5-step programs to turn your nebulous ideas into real eco-action.

>> The Compact. Started a few years ago by a group of Northern Californians who pledged not to buy anything new for a year, this eco-lifestyle challenge and its thrifty members are still going strong. Recently, longtime Compact member Katy Wolk-Stanley wrote about her un-consumer lifestyle at Fake Plastic Fish. Read about her experience to see if you’re up for the challenge!

>> The No Impact Experiment. Started by Colin “No Impact Man” Beavan’s eco-nonprofit No Impact Project, this experiment invites all to sign up for a week-long eco challenge, with the goal to “help you live a happier life that will result in a happier planet.” If long-term commitments aren’t your strong suit, starting with this week-long dealio might help you kick off 2010 with an eco-success under your belt. An added bonus: The challenge has iPhone apps!

>> The 2010 Happiness Challenge. Like the happiness idea behind The No Impact Challenge — but need a longer-lasting program? Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, is running a year-long happiness challenge — complete with a happiness project toolbox — that’ll tackle a new area of life each month. This challenge isn’t eco-specific, but is customizable — so remember to inject your own green motivations into the project.
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Tempted to tackle all 4 projects at once? Don’t let your leftover eggnog-fueled enthusiasm get the better of you. Make too many green New Year’s resolutions and you’ll overwhelm yourself into eating processed fast food while driving a Hummer!

Okay — Maybe green LA girl readers are unlikely to ever go the Hummer route, but do make resolutions in moderation. In the Wall Street Journal How We Decide author Jonah Lehrer explains the neuroscience behind why too many resolutions lead to unfulfilled resolutions: “Willpower, like a bicep, can only exert itself so long before it gives out; it’s an extremely limited mental resource.”

Photo by robotography (now in the UK)

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Heard about Concord., Calif.’s money-saving — and sad and brown — Christmas tree? I took a little walk today to find a similar friend in my own ‘hood — Santa Monica’s slightly sad Christmas tree! A treehugging neighbor must have planted the scraggly yet still living tree recently.

For the rest of you — unless you went the rental or eco-reusable route — it’s time for treecycling. Don’t just set it in your alleyway at random as that’s illegal, as per L.A. Municipal Code 57.21.06! Dry trees can create a fire hazard.

Ready to part with your holiday tree? Every city in the L.A. area has its own set of rules — so follow the guidelines for your ‘hood. Remember to take off all decorations from your tree to reuse next year — That’ll also help make the chipping and mulching process go more smoothly.

Beverly Hills: Put your tree next to your trash bin on trash collection day.

Culver City: Put your tree next to your trash bin on any trash collection day before Jan 31.

Los Angeles: You’ve got 3 options:

1) Place the tree next to your green bin or the street’s curbside for collection on trash collection day,
2) Chop up the tree and put it in your green bin, or
3) Haul the tree to one of many drop off sites on Sat., Jan. 2 – Sun., Jan. 3 between 9 am – 4 pm.

Pasadena: You’ve got two options (PDF):

1) Place your tree at the curb before 7 am on your trash collection day between Jan. 4 – Jan. 15, or
2) Drop off your tree at one of two sites: Eaton Blanche Park (3100 E. Del Mar Blvd.) or Robinson Park (1081 N. Fair Oaks Ave.) between Dec. 28, 2009 – Jan. 2, 2010 from 7 am – 2 pm.

Santa Monica: You’ve got three options:

1) Drag your tree to Clover Park (25th and Ocean Park), Douglas Park (Chelsea and Wilshire), Christine Emerson Reed Park (Lincoln and California), or Los Amigos Park (5th and Hollister) any time during the month of January.
2) Drop off the tree at the City of Santa Monica Transfer Station at 2401 Delaware Ave. during 6 am – 2 pm, Mon. – Sat., or
3) Chop up your tree and put it in your green bin, if you have one.

West Hollywood: Put your tree next to your trash bin on any trash collection day on or before Jan 16.

My neighbors are apparently really happy to declare Christmas done, because the Santa Monica park near me’s already a tree graveyard!

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>> Want Santa to call you? Click here. He called me, to find out if I’d been naughty or nice. See3 Communications can connect you with the big red man. You will have to share your phone number though, or Santa won’t know how to reach you. (via EarthFirst)

>> Should Santa slim down — by bicycling instead of getting dragged around on a sled, and by nibbling on Rudolph’s organic carrots instead of gobbling down Tollhouse cookies? One Australian public health expert says yes.

>> Most Santas at SantaCon don’t seem to have a weight problem, at least judging by nerve’s photo feature. Most also don’t appear to be male.

>> Santa packs heat, robs Nashville bank at gunpoint. One Santa was very naughty this year.

Screenshot via See3 Communications

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For all my fellow atheists, here’s a couple of god-free Xmas stories to read through on this green Xmas day:

>> A Porn star’s holiday party. One Nerve writer dares to attend an X-rated party — “for science.” Unfortunately he makes the mistake of taking as his date a prudish jetlagged girl he’s had a crush on for years. “It’s harder to mingle at an orgy than you might think,” says he.”

Joining me over the buffet was not so much a transsexual, but a man with huge fake boobs who made no attempt to dress or act like a woman. He had nice tits, I’ll give him that.

>> Atheist Xmas celebrations — or the joy of celebrating a godless Christmas. I consider Christmas mostly a pagan holiday, and use it as an occasion to celebrate and trade gifts. Torie Bosch has an oldie but a goodie at Slate about her godless celebratory tradition:

Even without believing in the divinity of Jesus, I think that I mark the holiday the same way as many of the faithful—a time to donate to causes I believe in, to welcome the winter from the comfort of a warm home, and, most importantly, to reconnect with family and friends.

Earlier:

>> What Would Jesus Buy?
>> Clicklist: Innovations and atheists
>> Clicklist: Xmas for atheists
>> First Fridays at NHM: Atheists have a heaven too –
>> Tuesday questions: An atheists’ eco-holiday

Image via the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

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I warned you not to get suckered in by Black Friday sales and encouraged you to spend less on crappy gifts this season — so hopefully you won’t be burdening your loved ones with any of the top 10 worst Christmas gifts this season!

But in case you forgot to forward on my posts to your friends and family, here’s a tip for how to deal with really, really bad gifts you get this season: Throw a Save the White Elephant party!

That idea comes courtesy of BBMG, an eco-minded marketing company that’s running a “Save the White Elephant” campaign this season. The idea: Keep your unwanted “gift” out of the landfills by finding it a new home — by regifting it to someone who does want it.

Of course, you don’t want to take this “one girl’s trash is another’s treasure” thing too far by forcing “gifts” like the Eyebrowed Lorgnette (right) to an unsuspecting friend. That’s where the party idea comes in. This way, every party attendee knows that all the gifts are “gifts.” Sure, it’s possible that a partier will actually want one of the “gifts”; otherwise, the unwanted items can at lease serve a one-time function as holiday party favors that remind everyone not to buy crap in the coming year before, um, getting “donated” to Goodwill?

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