It’s National Farmers Market Week so I’d like to take a moment to thank farmers everywhere for doing what I haven’t been able to do: grow enough vegetables for an entire meal. If you’re like me you spend alot of time and money and maybe ended up with a cucumber or two. My final tally is something like 1 cherry tomato, 3 strawberries and a couple green beans. That’s taking “small plates” to the extreme. Turns out this whole organic gardening thing is much tougher than it seems especially if you want to actually eat.  I don’t know if I’m giving up gardening yet but I’ll ponder the pros and cons over an organic carrot from the farmers market.

The Deepwater oil spill disaster is over (we hope) but is it too soon to ask, where should I buy gas?  I’m all for a clean energy future but I still have to buy gas today…where should I go and does it matter? Are any oil companies “greener” than others? Watch the video and see what I find out and then let me know where you buy your gas or if you’ve made any changes to your fuel consumption since the spill.

Resources:

Greenopia’s Green Oil Guide

Lisa Margonelli’s Oil on The Brain: Petroleum’s Long, Strange Trip to your Tank.

Earth Day turned 40 this year which made me wonder, is it Over the Hill?

Birthdays are a time for presents, margaritas and hopefully reflection (try to reflect before the margaritas) so on Earth Day’s 40th it seemed natural to reflect on it’s history and it’s current relevance.  Earth Day was born before me so I’ve always known a world with it and was pretty unaware of it’s significance. I  had no idea that the public support of Earth Day and its organizers helped usher in the Clean Air Act, The Clean Water Act and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency.  For more info about it’s history check out the documentary, “Earth Days.” But in my lifetime I haven’t associated Earth Day with having much influence over policy or environmental issues so it really made me question it’s relevance today. I attended Earth Day Network’s Climate Rally in DC to find the answer and what I realized is that while it would be great to see a strong climate bill passed, Earth Day’s relevance isn’t necessarily tangible.  It’s just what happens when a billion people come together.

I know I’m not supposed to call it global warming anymore because that seems to confuse people. Personally, I like Thomas Friedman’s term: global weirding. Whatever you call it, it’s the planet’s fast track to destruction.  Scientists say 350 parts per millions C02 in the atmosphere is the safe upper limit for humanity. We’re at 387. Um, that’s a problem. So global warming expert Bill McKibben founded 350.org to bring awareness to the issue and inspire action around the world.

DC’s Day of Action can be summed up in two words: rainy and inspirational.  I met the amazing Michele Roberts, Campaign & Policy Coordinator for Advocates for Environmental Human Rights. She can give a speech, crack a joke and carry a sign all while dodging traffic in heels and torrential rain. Watch how she works up the crowd.   Next, I run into my friend David Piller, who you’ll recall as my “hemp husband” from the Hemp Fashion Show.  Remember when I said “seems like there’s nothing this plant can’t do?” Well, I was right because apparently it can also help fight global warming.  All in all, a soggy good day that proves that no matter what nature or global warming deniers throw at us, we’re gonna show up and shout chants that rhyme with Obama.

On my mission to explore hemp fashion, I decide to volunteer in a hemp fashion show at the Green Festival in Washington, DC because you can’t really know hemp by looking at it, you gotta walk a runway in it.  Not only do I learn how to do the hemp strut, I also learn a really surprising fact about hemp–one that will fire up your inner activist and send you straight to Vote Hemp’s website to learn more.

Organizations Featured:

Vote Hemp

Hemp Industries Association

Companies Featured:

Capitol Hemp

Crucial Hemp

Dash Hemp

NuHemp

Ruth’s Hemp Foods

Way Out Wax

Featured in Fashion Show:

Conscious Clothing

LiViTY Outernational

Mountains of the Moon

Rene Geneva Designs

Vital Hemptations

Sure he loves his family, wine and the NY Jets, but does he love our mother earth? I brave the unattractive (yet eco friendly) fluorescent lighting at American University to get  Gary Vaynerchuk to reveal how green he really is…

While you might think the idea of 20 college teams competing to build a solar powered house on the National Mall in DC sounds cool, you might also think it sounds rather dull.  You want drama, tension, conflict…maybe even an upset?! Well, it’s all here. Just wait til you get to the shower test scene.