And an excellent response to the Why Bother? article by Michael Pollan

Reading the "Why Bother?" article, I got all worked up in my pathetic own way, and rushed out to buy lettuce, leek, and parsely seedlings, and a small but pricey darling little rosemary. Filled with good intentions and feeling clean in my soul, I thought, "yes- I will grow my own lovely tomatos! and be free of the eveil, consumer cycle!" I even thought how nice it would be to be able to get a damn tomato without having an existential crisis at the supermarket, where I can spend an easy 20 minutes reading labels on tomatos and feeling torn between my puny pocket and my puny concience. Is the local greenhouse tomato a more ethical purchase than the organic from Spain? Is the $1.99/lb washed out looking hulking tasteless thing even food anymore? Is there anyway I can justify (ethically or financially) buying the gorgeous little on-the-vine ruby red ones? And it usually ends with me realizing that my quick stop for some food has turned (once again) into a minute theater of the absurd, and I quickly get some, feel horror at the register, and then let the damn things shrivel in the fridge.

Yes, I thought, I shall grow my own.

But then...

I quite like to garden, you know. I like to plant, and I love seeing things come up. I am decent at keeping plants alive. I know about what many of them want, and at least always set out to provide them with what they need. But.

Full sun? Nope. Do I get home from work (the days I get home before 10 pm) filled with a wholesome urge to drag a hose around and hand-squish pests? Nope. Have I ever managed to grow enough tomatos to justify the amount of labor, expense, and sheer pain-in-the assness of it all? Nope.

So when I read Salon's Andrew Leonard's response to Pollard's article, I felt a great easing of the soul, in that maybe I am not alone in being The Worst Person Ever.

In Leonard's response, he points out that "growing your own food is work -- ask any peasant. To be able to enjoy it as play, or as an almost spiritual exercise that connects you more deeply to the earth and all living things (some of which you must kill: Die, all aphids and snails!) can be a tough call after a long day or week at the office. It can also be an affectation that is only accessible to those who spend their Sunday mornings working their way through the New York Times, before deciding where to put their snap pea trellis."

He even goes where Pollard not only feared to tread, but didn't even acknowledge was on the map- the "what-if-you-don't-have-a-back-yard class warfare morass... everyone is landed gentry, or at the very least, can plant basil in a windowbox." issue.

Well, I have these little seedlings, and I will assuredly plant them, and I especially hope to enjoy the leeks, as leeks are my favorite veggie, but I don't really feel that in any way a little suburban vanity gardening is a solution.

I don't see a solution. When rice is being hoarded and wealthy governments are talking about rationing and poor governments are trying to hold back their starving masses, yeah- me growing some Brandywine heirloom tomatos really isn't going to make a fucking difference. They might be tasty, but that is all.

Is it really eco-friendly shopping?

"Paul Hawken, an author and longtime environmental activist, said the current boom in earth-friendly products offers a false promise. “Green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase,” he said.

“We turn toward the consumption part because that’s where the money is,” Mr. Hawken said. “We tend not to look at the ‘less’ part. So you get these anomalies like 10,000-foot ‘green’ homes being built by a hedge fund manager in Aspen. Or ‘green’ fashion shows. Fashion is the deliberate inculcation of obsolescence.”

He added: “The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 — it’s a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic. It’s diabolically stupid.”
LINK

LA takes eco-friendly shopping totes to predictable absurd heights, but still, this seems like a good thing.

This is somewhere between laughing, crying, and cheering.

"There's paper. There's plastic. Then there's the $960 reusable Hermes shopping bag.

Originally designed for discerning Europeans, it hits America this summer, and if it sounds like an exotic fluke, consider the new $843 grocery tote by Italian designer Consuelo Castiglioni of Marni.

Or the $495 organic cotton canvas shopper, due out in June from Stella McCartney.

Or the now-famous I'm Not a Plastic Bag by the British handbag designer Anya Hindmarch, which has been selling at more than 10 times its $15 price on EBay.

A spokeswoman for Hermes, for example, said that their new Silky Pop, a hand-wrought silk tote that collapses into a wallet-size pouch of calfskin, was intended as a high-end alternative to the extra fold-up shopping bag that many European women already carry in their purses. ("Say you're out walking. You decide to pick up a few apples, you pull out your bag," she explained, then quickly added: "Though obviously, Hermes clients usually aren't shopping for their own groceries.")

This month's Vogue mentions all four in a call to arms of sorts, urging fashionistas to become more bag-wise: "No loitering, girls," contributing editor Sarah Mower exhorted. "Today, let us go out and harness the power of fashion to change the way the nation shops. One stylish act of rebellion in supermarkets, delis, drugstores and designer emporiums and at market stalls is all it takes: Say no to plastic bags. Whip out your own brilliant alternative. Make people stare. Break a habit. Set a trend."" LINK

Fashion continues to face climate change, in very strange ways.

I can't tell you the frisson of wierd joy that tingles up my spine when I run into these fashion/climate change things. It's like tiny lizards.

Fashion writers are on the whole, I believe, out of their pretty minds- it takes a very special person to come up with a sentence like "The glinting metal teeth of an open zip, with connotations of aggression and sex, is the motif of this new age of power dressing."

But even these idiot-sauvants are catching on to the feeling that something, somewhere is just not right.

"Fashion designers are not, on the whole, overtly political. However, they naturally pick up on and channel the mood around them. It may or may not be reading too much into a few frocks to wonder whether it is a coincidence that, at the very moment when the people of Europe and America are rapidly waking up to the momentousness of the crisis facing the planet, fashion is making a decisive switch from pastoral prettiness to a bleak urban-warrior stance. If New York, where fashion week featured several high-profile ethical and environmental events, represented the fashion industry trying to work out how to do something about the potential end of the planet, then Milan, perhaps, represented the industry trying to work out how to dress for it. Which I guess must be a good thing. After all, if we're going to save the planet, we really don't have time for a wardrobe crisis every time a polar ice cap melts, do we? " LINK

Well, I certainly don't. I'll just wear the melting dress. Although, the melting dress was quite pretty- maybe not so chic anymore?

Ahhh, fashion. So fun, so fickle, so damaging?

"Disposable" fashion?

Inexpensive, trendy clothing is a huge market, in the US and in Europe. Companies like H&M, Old Navy, Target, and others have recieved lots of positive attention for making high style at low prices available to the masses, there are hidden costs- both environmental and other.Target, for one, is being sued by Williams Sonoma for copyright infringement, with Williams Sonoma accusing "Target Corp. of systematically copying its designs on a range of products, from Christmas stockings to votive candle holders." LINK That is interesting in itself, and, well, it kind of makes a lot of sense. High style at a great price? Yeah, stolen goods bought on the cheap. But anyway, I digress.

Environmentally, the idea of "fast fashion" (think fast food), is disastrous. A Cambridge University report examines the environmental impact of thefast fashion movement, and it is bleak. In order to make the clothes so inexpensive, they are generally less well made, and will not last as long as a well sewn item, and as one shopper says " “If it falls apart, you just toss it away!”

This is a really good article about how some of the big stores in the UK, like Marks and Spencers, are trying to keep up their sales while being eco-conscious and the same time. Delicate balance, but at least they're trying. LINK

And actually, that dress up top is disposable fashion, and environmentally sound- it's made of dissolving polymers!!!! How cool is that?!?!? And not only that, but the flowers on the dress turn into a brief art show when it melts!

"The fabric is knitted from a clear polymer - polyvinyl alcohol - of the kind used in sachets that release detergent in washing machines. The dresses will dissolve and turn into a form that can be recycled as a bottle.
However, they break down so slowly that they can survive a sweaty party.

The dresses are decorated with cleverly designed flowers that slowly give off a dye when they dissolve, making them move around like sea anemones in the huge goldfish bowl."

LINK

Christ. Ok, granite countertops are definitely out.

""People have found it easy to just walk into the forest and start mining," Mr Saldhana said.

The first quarry we visited was north of the city near Mount Shivaganga.

The workers there were completely without protection for their hands, feet or eyes, and spent their days splitting blocks with hammer and chisel.

Their pay is around £1.50 ($3) a day.

Twelve migrant workers slept in one room. Most were once farmers who had been driven from their land by drought.

The following day we travelled south of Bangalore and walked into a granite quarry where old women and children were breaking rocks. "
LINK