As an Eco-friendly company, Pure Fiber promotes a healthy way of life by providing organic bed and bath linens. Pure Fiber has launched a new product line, the Bamboo massage sheet. The sheet is made from 100 % bamboo yarn and the clients will be amazed by how soft and comfortable they are. Retailers and consumers can purchase this product from Pure Fiber or through Scrips Hessco, a company specializing in wellness products.

Pure Fiber Inc has announced that it will include bamboo massage sheets composed of 100% bamboo thread to their 2008 product line. Their purpose is to pave a way into strategically offering an eco-friendly solution for individuals and spas to utilize the benefits behind an eco-friendly lifestyle.

At Pure Fiber, their mission is to produce only the purest of products from the finest materials in the world. A company providing only the most skilled craftsmanship for their line of products, their commitment is to offer consumers a wide selection of ‘green’ goods that should satisfy their every want and need. Catering to individuals as well as high-end resorts and spas their standards have always been for high energy efficiency, material innovation, and design sustainability.

Known as the fastest growing plant on earth, bamboo can easily reach maturity within 3-4 years and is readily available for harvest. With a benefit of not requiring the need for replanting, bamboo can continuously grow all year long. Since they thrive naturally, the use of harmful chemicals and pesticides is completely eliminated. Because of its high renewability, Pure Fiber has taken advantage of such benefits and has innovatively created all natural bamboo massage sheets. One of the best priced for bamboo sheet sets in the industry, and extremely competitively priced in the premium sheet line.

As a part of their product line, Pure Fiber will set out to provide not just comfortability but natural splendor to its consumers. Composed of 100% bamboo yarn, these sheets will take massage clients’ experiences to a whole new level. Some of the benefits include that these sheets are naturally hypoallergenic and odor-resistant but also offers a strong structure when used constantly and continuously. Characteristically soft when compared to the likes of silky cashmere not only will it keep clients warm and relaxed but is great for sensitive skin-types.

From a massage therapist’s point of view, the importance of their job is to satisfy a client’s needs goes hand-in-hand with everything from the products they use to the massage sheets that a client is positioned on. When a therapist has the mind-set to go-green with the environment and the world around them, possible clients will also be in on the benefits. Everything from the treatments to the relaxing oils adds to the perfect complement of Pure Fiber’s bamboo massage sheets that will practically invite people to want more. The simple yet complex task of the art of massaging provides the straightforward luxuriousness of the experience itself come to true wholesome reality.

Retailers and potential consumers can purchase these natural bamboo massage sheets from Pure Fiber directly or through Scrips Hessco, a company specializing in wellness products for healthcare practitioners. With Hessco’s 40 years of experience, Pure Fiber’s products are a sure win-win buy.

http://www.pr.com/press-release/105807

After eight years in Europe, two kids and a high-tech corporate career, Tim McNulty and Chi Park have turned over a new leaf and opened Greendesign, an “eco-goods” store, on Witherspoon Street.Not only does the store offer eco-friendly products, but much of the decor comes from American-made sustainable materials, and 90 percent of the store’s products are made in the United States. The store welcomes its customers with a mat made of grass grown through sustainable methods.

McNulty said that the store has been positively received since its opening. Patrons include tourists, University visitors and Princeton residents.

“Business is actually doing well,” McNulty said. “We’re getting a lot of traffic from people coming to see what we have.”

“The people in this area are very receptive to this idea,” he said, adding that once a day someone tells him that “this is something that Princeton needed.”

Customers have stopped by Greendesign for a variety of reasons. Cora Coyle, a housewife looking for products for her 16-month-old daughter, said she heard of the store through the Holistic Moms Network. The network, of which Park is a member, is a nonprofit group for individuals with non-traditional ideas of parenting and natural living.

“I always try to get the natural, most organic products online or wherever we can find it,” Coyle said. “But it’s hard to find a lot of this stuff, and you want to be able to see what you’re going to buy.”

Ken Vernon, a Hoboken resident, said he was drawn into the store by its eclectic display.

“As a commercial real estate appraiser, it affects what I do because investors are focusing on building efficiency,” Vernon said. “Nowadays, the hot topic is green buildings.”

Though there are no other stores exactly like it in Princeton, there are stores in town — such as the Whole Earth Center, Olive May Natural Foods and the U-Store — that are of a similar nature, said Jeffrey Domanski GS, associate manager in the Office of Sustainability.

“While [Greendesign is] not an everyday-needs store necessarily, it’s good to see there’s a place within Princeton that’s promoting these types of products,” Domanski said in an e-mail. “I hope there’s an audience for them and that the store helps educate consumers on what sustainability is about.”

McNulty views the store as a place to engage customers in a discussion about what makes a product “green,” while ultimately leaving it up to the customer to make the decision to purchase the product. “We try to educate people when they come in,” he said, about things “like buying one stainless-steel bottle instead of several water bottles.”

One section of the store is devoted to baby products and other environmentally friendly products that are safe for children. Many parents tend to gravitate toward products like these after learning of the harmful impacts of certain products and being unable to find natural alternatives, McNulty said.

His own two children have inspired many of his store’s products, he said, explaining that he and his wife want healthier products for their children.

McNulty and Park attend trade shows in New York and search for vendors online, using criteria such as the vendors’ philosophies and how and where their products were produced to decide whether to sell them at Greendesign.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/09/24/21503/

MHI announces they now are producing thermoformed packaging made 100% from collected and recycled water, juice and sports drink plastic bottles. Trays, clamshells, blisters and more produced with Good Earth(tm) 100% recycled PET are also Biodegradable, Compostable and Recyclable. FDA approved, this proprietary material can be used for food and non food applications.

Good Earth(tm) 100% post consumer recycled content PET is the newest addition to MHI’s proprietary family of eco friendly packaging. This material expands MHI’s existing selection of material options marketed as “Todays’s Most Practical Alternatives” for environmentally responsible packaging.

Developed and manufactured by MHI, a vertically intergrated division of CEI Incorporated, this new proprietary material offers many environmental, performance and cost benefits for those looking to use more eco friendly packaging. This carbon footprint reducing option is not only made 100% from recycled plastic bottles, it is also biodegradable and compostable in a landfill or compost environment. It can also be recycled through existing programs.
Currently, the average person discards 166 plastic bottles annually with 8 out of 10 ending up in landfills.

FDA approval, high clarity, range of colors, temperature range and good strength make it an attractive and practical alternative for a wide range of food and consumer goods packaging. Performance and physical characteristics are the same as or close to the traditional materials (PET & PVC) it can easily replace and does not have any shelf life, storage or heat sensitivity limitations.

Cost of packaging manufactured from this newest Good Earth ™ material is usually less than the traditional material it replaces and is readily available.

Also available (depending on certain factors) is a “closed loop” program where plastic bottles can be picked up and then remanufactured into 100% post consumer recycled content thermoformed packaging for the company or institution returning the bottles.

For more information call 978-745-8876 or visit www.goodearthpkg.com

http://www.pr.com/press-release/106801

According to a new report by J.D. power and Associates’ Web Intelligence Division eco-friendly marketing gets good exposure, Brandweek reports.The report analyzed 40 million blog posts between January-June of this year for several industries including auto, retail, consumer package goods and energy.

Even though General Motors has been criticized by environmentalists for spending millions to lobby against fuel economy mandates, the report shows that GM received 49 percent of positive mentions between January to June, compared with Toyota (46%).

Toyota had the most overall mentions; representing 14 percent of all posts related to automotive brands and sustainability. GM came a close second, with 11 percent.

GM used its sponsorship of Live Earth concerts last year to launch a multiplatform campaign about its environmentally-friendly practices and vehicles.

Eco-marketing is paying off for other industries too. Pentel’s eco-friendly Back To School campaign has also received enthusiastic response from the market, with spots on Good Morning America, and a feature on the cover of National Geographic’s Green Guide.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/09/25/gm-receives-49-positive-mentions-in-blogsphere/

Six kilograms of carbon dioxide a day. If that sounds like little more than an obscure scientific measurement, think again. In the years to come it’s a figure we may have to get used to. Why? Because, say climate scientists, that’s the maximum daily amount of carbon dioxide each of us can generate if humanity is to have a chance of keeping the rise in global temperature below 2C.

That figure, endorsed by Lord Stern, then the government’s chief economist, in his 2006 report on the economics of climate change, is one of the best illustrations of the scale of the challenge of powering our world without endangering the planet.

Compare it with the amount we emit now. Britain generates about 10 tonnes per person each year - about 27kg a day. America generates about 60kg of CO2 a day, according to the Atlas of Climate Change, and China about 9kg, a figure rising as the country develops.

How, then, can humankind cut those emissions to 6kg by 2050, as Stern and like-minded climate scientists say we must? It adds up to about two tonnes a year, roughly equal to the amount emitted by a person in Mozambique.

Power generation lies at the heart of the debate. Around the world there are about 5,000 large power stations that burn fossil fuels, mostly coal or gas. They emit the equivalent of about 11 billion tonnes of CO2 a year - a huge chunk of the 49 billion tonnes generated globally by human activities, according to figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The panel says energy supply is responsible for 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Transport accounts for about 13% and buildings about 8%. Stern’s latest report, Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change, states: “The importance of technological innovation in delivering this transformation can hardly be overstated.” In other words, technology is the best hope we have of cutting emissions.

According to a report from the consultancy McKinsey & Company, each unit generated will have to be made to produce 10 times more of everything - of CO2 power, food, consumer goods and so on - than today. And we have just 40 years to achieve that if the global temperature rise is to be kept below 2C.

John Pothecary is a divisional managing director at RPS, an international con-sultancy specialising in the development of energy resources and environmental management. He believes that global leadership is one of the biggest issues. “There are all kinds of technologies we can use to cut carbon emissions, but first we need the political and financial systems that will ensure they are adopted,” he says.

Pothecary is partly referring to the negotiations under way to draw up a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, which will set emissions reduction targets. The negotiations will culminate in a United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, which will, hopefully, produce a new protocol.

It will have to set global targets for cutting carbon emissions that are perceived as fair and achievable. For the energy industry, Copenhagen is a giant fork in the road, the outcome of which will influence its actions for decades. A successful protocol could lead to a system of carbon quotas whereby each country would have a ceiling placed on its CO2 emissions. Any excess emissions would have to be covered by buying quotas from other countries, otherwise the country would face a fine.

If it worked, such a system could transform the relative costs of different fuels. Coal, for example, whose abundance makes it the cheapest bulk source of energy, could become the most expensive because it generates the greatest emissions. Nuclear and wind power, which currently cost two to threeCO2 times more than energy from coal, could become far cheaper in a low-car-bon world, and oil and gas may lie somewhere in between.

Such shifts would create a powerful incentive to develop the new technologies Stern refers to. Perhaps the most important is carbon capture and seques-tration, a system of stripping CO2 from power station emissions and storing it underground. In theory this could be adopted by most coal and gas power stations, turning them from polluting monsters into low-carbon paragons.

What happens if Copenhagen fails to create a workable protocol? The stresses on the process are showing. Even Britain, which likes to portray itself as setting a lead on green issues, is already lobbying for aviation to be excluded from the EU’s target of getting 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

David Eyton, research and technology vice-president at global energy giant BP, says: “It’s cheaper to produce energy from fossil fuels than from renewables, and there are plenty of them, so we will keep producing them and people will keep using them. That is our primary business for now.

“The policymakers at Copenhagen have to bridge that gap in costs and address greenhouse gas emissions. The decisions they make will determine our investment portfolio and the products we offer people for decades to come.”

Goodwill in short supply

Can global treaties on our climate lead to real cuts in carbon emissions? History suggests not. Lawrence Susskind, professor of urban and environmental planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has looked at the achievements of other global treaties on the environment and found them sadly wanting.

“More than 400 multilateral agreements such as the Kyoto protocol on climate change now exist, addressing problems including the loss of endangered species and habitats, ocean dumping, the shipping of hazardous substances, and desertification,” he says. “Yet there is no evidence to suggest that any of these are working with perhaps the one exception of the Montreal protocol on ozone-depleting chemicals.”

What all these treaties have in common is that they are administered by ad hoc secretariats, depend for funding donated by the very countries they are supposed to be regulating and are highly politicised - so the science gets distorted.

Even when they are agreed there is no central agency, no United Nations Environmental Treaty-making and Enforcement body with the means to enforce them. It means any successor to Kyoto is likely to prove just as pointless and ineffective as the rest.

Gas flow improved

Natalie Davies, 26, joined Shell in March last year and now works as a project services engineer based in Assen, northeast Holland. She is part of an extensive project to renovate and update the facilities and equipment used in processing gas from the huge Groningen field to make them more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Davies is Shell’s on-site representative, monitoring contractors that install ultrasonic gas-flow meters, which measure the gas before it is sent to the supplier. This includes filling the plant with nitrogen and helium to make sure connections don’t leak.

The hands-on role complements her theoretical experience, and she will eventually become a cost and planning engineer. Her work also counts towards chartership with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Away from the spanners and slide rule, she is enjoying learning Dutch.

Davies joined Shell after gaining a masters of engineering from Cambridge University. After two years of general engineering courses, she specialised in manufacturing and took an internship one summer with a manufacturing company. Her time there led to a job offer, but she preferred the variety of options on offer at Shell.

“I wanted to join the energy sector because we are going to face huge challenges and I’ve always thought it’s better to be part of it and make a difference,” she says. “Being on the inside, I feel I can do that. It’s great to be on site and see in practice how everything works. It makes a lot more sense to see it yourself.

“It’s also a great learning opportunity and has flexibility and freedom too. If I see something interesting, I can speak with the contractor and find out what they are doing.

“I’m confident that schemes in the company are such that I will be challenged in whatever position I want to do. I’m quite ambitious and see myself moving to technical project management. There is flexibility and if I don’t like something, I can move, as it’s such a huge company.”

Dangers ahead

Greenhouse gases increase the atmosphere’s ability to trap , of which humanity releases heat. The best known is CO2 about 50 billion tonnes a year. Some is used by plants or absorbed in the sea but the rest stays in the atmosphere for decades. Levels have risen from about 280 parts per million before the industrial revolution to the equivalent of 430ppm.

This has helped warm the world by about 0.7C, with another 0.5C expected from gases already in the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that if greenhouse gas emissions rise at present rates, levels will reach 550ppm by 2035 - with temperature rises of 3C-4C.

Brown’s balancing act Follow the money

The International Energy Agency recently published a study on the cost of low-carbon technologies aimed at keeping global temperature rises below 2.4C. It found that the world needed to spend an extra £23 trillion from 2010 to 2050 to decarbonise power generation and promote energy efficiency measures that would stabilise the climate.

“The average year-by-year investments needed to achieve a virtual decarbonisation of the power sector include: 55 fossil-fuelled power plants with carbon capture; 32 nuclear plants; 17,500 large wind turbines and 215 square metres of solar panels,” said the report. “It also requires widespread adoption of near-zero emission buildings and deployment of nearly a billion electric or hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. In the coming decade we need a global revolution in the way we produce and use energy.” Gordon Brown has already pledged the nation to cutting its emissions by 60% by 2050 compared with 1990 levels, and is likely to raise that to the 80% cut expected to be recommended by his new Climate Change Committee in its first report next month. Brown, however, has made it clear he also wants Britain to build more airports, roads and coal-fired power stations, and to expand its economy.

Defra, the environment ministry, has indicated that it expects Britain to meet up to a third of any future carbon emission reduction targets by purchasing carbon credits from developing countries, through an international trading system.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/careers_in/careers_in_energy/article4836600.ece

While the East Coast swelters in temperatures that are in the high 90’s, I waited for the usual environmental propaganda to say that this was proof of global warming, but it has not yet been pumped through the usual mainstream media system of lies about the climate.

Instead, the reality is that the Earth continues to cool and one interesting example of that was a news item out of Aspen, Colorado. The Aspen Skiing company announced on Monday, June 9, that it will open Aspen Mountain from June 13 to June 15 for skiers and snowboarders. It seems that record winter snowfall has left an average of more than three feet of snow on the upper slopes.

In late May, despite Green predictions that the Arctic is melting so fast that it will provide a new route, a Northwest Passage, for ships, a group of eco-tourists on a vessel offering polar expeditions found themselves trapped when a former Soviet icebreaker, refitted for visits to the supposedly disappearing ice, was trapped in late May by ice.

According to Quark Expeditions of Norwalk, Connecticut, the ship included a heated indoor swimming pool, exercise rooms and a sauna, and I am sure the passengers, tiring of looking at a sea of ice appreciated them. Eventually, after being in the icy grip of Mother Nature for a week, winds and tide permitted the ship to break free of the ice pack.

In April, approximately on hundred sealing ships were trapped in ice floes off the northeast coast of Newfoundland while they were participating in the annual seal hunt off Canada’s easternmost province. It required the Canadian Coast Guard to rescue a number of the trapped vessels and their crews. However, at one point, an icebreaker sent to free them actually found itself trapped. As reported, “In addition to three icebreakers on hand, the Coast Guard is flying helicopters in to provide food and support to the stranded sailors.”

So much for the blather about the North Pole melting.

In May, meteorologist Anthony Watts issued a report on the way temperatures continue to cool. The new global data revealed a whopping three quarters of a degree Celsisus drop in temperatures since January. That may not seem like much, but climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer, formerly of NASA and now the principle research scientist at the University of Alabama, said that, “If you exclude the anomalous 1992 cooling from the Pinatubo volcano eruption, it’s the coolest May in 20 years.”

Even the U.S. government, courtesy of NASA, has admitted that the Earth is now a decade into a cooling cycle and it is likely to last at least two or three more decades.

Question: Why do both candidates for President keep talking about global warming?

All this is occurring as the Public Broadcasting System is preparing to foist a two-hour pack of lies in a television spectacular called “Heat.” Check your local listings for more of the same brainwashing and propaganda that has nothing to do with the realities of a Sun that has been largely devoid of magnetic storms, sunspots, for a few years now. It is the Sun that determines how warm or cool the Earth will be and this is a known sign of cooling. It has real scientists very worried.

And, of course, this planet is now approaching the end of the latest interglacial period between ice ages, about 11,500 years on the average, so some massive climate shifts will occur at some point, changing everything we humans have grown accustomed to over the past centuries.

What we called “civilization” coincides with this period between ice ages. A new one is going to ruin a lot of plans.

By Alan Caruba

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3457

You may have a green message to share with your customers, but be careful. Many consumers — as many as 70 percent, according to one study — consider environmentally friendly, eco-green claims as marketing scams.

And with astonishingly good reason, according to TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, which analyzed 1,018 consumer products making 1,753 environmental claims in six categories of goods found in big-box retailers. Of the 1,018 products analyzed, all but one made claims that were, at worst, demonstrably false to, at the very least, misleading.

From that study, TerraChoice developed a list of what it calls the six sins of “greenwashing” — a relatively new term for the practice of misleading consumers regarding the environmental benefits or friendliness of products or services.

Those six sins are the hidden trade-off, no proof, vagueness, irrelevance, fibbing and the lesser of two evils, which is defined as a green claim that may be true but distracts from a greater environmental risk, i.e. “organic cigarettes.”

But honest and effective eco-messaging can happen. It starts with knowing your audience and speaking to them with honesty.

A study by TNS, “The Green Life,” categorized consumers along an eco-spectrum. Eco-Centrics (13 percent of population) are highly educated, high-income urbanites who take pride in doing their part to protect and nurture the environment. On the other end of the spectrum, Eco-Villains (7 percent) are Midwestern, middle-income men in small and midsize metro areas who have dismissed environmental concerns.

That just means businesses must figure out levels of knowledge and layers of concerns for their target audience.

For instance, Eco-Centrics want to know how products are made, is there animal testing and does the company make sure overseas workers aren’t exploited. But for the Frugal Earth Mother (17 percent of the population, characterized as practical prudent women in lower income, rural households), the focus should be on dependability and safety.

For Kansas City-based Indigo Wild, getting out the word on its environmentally friendly soaps, candles and lotions did not mean climbing the mountaintop and shouting “We’re green, green, green!”

Instead, Indigo Wild lets its products speak for itself.

“When people scream ‘green this, green that,’ that becomes their sole focus, and that’s not who we are,” said Sally Nielsen, vice president of public relations. “We’re very particular about our ingredients — it’s a culture that we’ve lived instead of a label we’re putting out there.”

But for Weston-based McCormick Distilling Co., nothing less than going to proverbial marketing mountaintop — Times Square — would do when it came to trumpeting a new eco-friendly 360 Vodka.

And vitally important, said Robert Tomei of TNS, is walking the talk, which for 360 Vodka means a number of initiatives, including bottles made of 85 percent recycled glass, labels made from recycled paper and printed with soy ink, and vinyl billboards that are repurposed into purses, handbags and totes.

•When developing an eco-friendly marketing message: Be honest. Be accurate. Be transparent.

•Learn more about the six sins of greenwashing at www.terrachoice.com.

•Know your audience — most marketers agree there’s no point in wasting time or money targeting Eco-Villains.

By JENNIFER MANN

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/656540.html

EAST PROVIDENCE — All eyes shifted to 12-year-old Tray Thornton.

“I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,” he sang while busting his own choreographed moves. “I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright, sun-shiny day!”

The dance steps on stage were not a hand wave here and jazz fingers there.

He shook his shoulders in an on-beat spasm of sorts, dramatically covered his eyes on the word “blind” and fanned his arm out in a big circle to represent the sun.

The other 40 Edward R. Martin Middle School sixth graders smiled, but barely swayed as they also sung the Johnny Nash hit. Their House B teachers said they had never seen Thornton so animated before. He said it’s how he gets “into character” as well as the easiest way to get the audience’s full attention.

After all, the musical — titled Greensical — had an important message.

Through game show skits and songs, the students emphasized why it’s crucial for everyone to do their part to take care of the planet and environment. The children wrote the play themselves over the last six months and changed the lyrics, with some assistance from teachers, of a couple of songs to make them fit with the eco-friendly performance.

They performed the numbers twice last Thursday — in the daytime for the rest of the school’s sixth graders and for the community that evening. They hope to improve it a bit and take the show on the road — to the city’s elementary schools — next school year.

“We started a green team to increase our awareness early in the school year,” said Barbara Burns, one of four teachers who helped the children. “They did the research, we began to recycle more in the classrooms and they started writing the play in January.”

They took a field trip to Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation, the state agency that runs the Central Landfill in Johnston and oversees Rhode Island’s recycling efforts. The students also used recycled goods for their props and had their programs printed on recycled paper.

In addition, “we did a school-wide survey of environmental practices and the students interviewed the janitors and cafeteria staff,” Pam Thacker, a science teacher, said. “We want to bring that message forward so the kids can see we need their help.”

The first song said just that.

Sung to the Brady Bunch theme tune, the students belted:

“… Here’s the story ’bout the careless humans, who were busy thinking only of themselves. Dirty smokestacks and toxic water, it was not so nice. Until one day when they all looked out the window. And they saw what they had done to planet Earth. Then they knew that they had to stop polluting. It was getting worse and worse and worse and worse.”

They also rewrote the lyrics to the Beatles hit, “Paperback Writer.” It was now “Paper Recycler.”

Using the popular Amazing Race show for inspiration, the opening scene was teams competing to find the cleanest water around the world. Oh Zone, the character played by Thornton, and his team went to Lake Ladoga in Russia because it’s a lake where some bottled spring water comes from. A test, however, showed the sample was dirty.

The winning team — which consisted of Patti Planet, Ethan All and Lauren Green (played by Debra Gomes, Corey Lopes and Gina Salisbury, respectively) — went to Antarctica for their water sample.

Said Gomes, “It’s so old and uninhabited that no one could have dirtied it.”

In other skits, the audience learned the benefits of hybrid cars, energy-efficient light bulbs and that Ohio’s Mt. Rumpkey, a giant garbage dump, towers over the state.

“Maybe if we had more people join in we could actually make a dent in Mt. Rumpkey,” said Roy Cycle, a character played by both Katie Bockes and Tyree Simmons.

Paul Lootion (in real life known as Ryan Almeida) responded, “I don’t think so dude, take a look at those trucks coming in to the landfill. They are all full of more trash. It’s never ending!”

The entire cast said, “Ohhh nooo!!!”

Salisbury ended the skit with, “People, we gotta do something because we’re destroying our planet one trash bag at a time!”

By Alisha A. Pina

http://www.projo.com/news/content/EB_EPROV_GREENSICAL_5_06-05-08_FLAD7D4_v23.3577d1d.html

The hippies are coming! The hippies are coming!

That may have been what the Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival initially attracted in its first few years of existence. The four-day festival at Clinton Lake State Park in Lawrence, Kan., prides itself in bringing in plenty of big names from the jam band scene along with premiere acts in alt-country, Southern rock, reggae and bluegrass while raising awareness for environmental issues.

For its fifth year, Wakarusa is trying something different.

The festival, which takes place Thursday, June 5 through Sunday, June 8, is expanding its musical horizons even further. They are bringing in indie rock mainstays like Built to Spill, piano-playing singer/songwriter Ben Folds, country legend Emmylou Harris, goofy alt-rockers Cake, underground hip-hop acts like Blackalicious and Del the Funky Homosapien and Uncle Monk, a bluegrass duo featuring none other than Tommy Ramone, the last surviving member of the seminal punk rock quartet The Ramones.

These are just a few groups on a jam-packed lineup including headliners like The Flaming Lips, Sound Tribe Sector Nine, Keller Williams, Zappa Plays Zappa, Mickey Hart Band featuring Steve Kimock and George Porter Jr., Galactic, The Avett Brothers and a ton of others.

Brett Mosiman, co-director of Wakarusa, realized that this year instead of having similar genres competing for the festival’s crowd over the four-day period, it would be beneficial to the festival to do a little bit of counter-programming with the more than 120 bands on the festival’s lineup.

“I think of part of it was just getting a handle on the fact that we have 300 or 400 hours or music,” Mosiman says. “If we wanted to keep five or six stages, we had to broaden the booking.”

The festival’s five stages will have music playing nearly 24 hours a day, which will be perfect for attendees who pay between $129 to $169 for a four-day pass.

But this year, Wakarusa is hoping that their diverse lineup featuring several big-name acts will get more of a local audience from Kansas City and other areas close by to get the Wakarusa experience, even if it’s only for a night.

“We kind want to offer a little something more for the people here in the regional community,” says David Barrett, director of marketing for Wakarusa. “We want people just to come out to Wakarusa for a day and see what it’s like.”

Or a weekend. Wakarusa is offering its usual single-day tickets for $49 while also offering a weekender pass for $99 in case people couldn’t take off four days because of something silly like jobs or kids or things like that.

While you are at Wakarusa, you may notice how friendly the festival is to the environment it occupies. The generators run on biodiesel. Recycling also is a huge emphasis. Last year’s festival recycled 8,000 pounds of waste that would normally end up gracing local landfills. They are also instituting their first-ever composting program, so whatever food you don’t want (or think tastes like crap) can go towards growing a happy little plant. Bob Ross would be proud.

They will also have a sustainability meeting featuring the editor of Mother Earth News, Brian Welch, a campus tour of human rights awareness and a no-sweat fashion show to display clothes not manufactured in sweat shops.

If you ask Mosiman, these activities are an essential element of Wakarusa’s identity.

“(They’re) all the normal things for us, but I don’t think they are normal for most festivals,” Mosiman says. “We just consider that part of the brand now.”

And another characteristic of the Wakarusa brand is the vendors. The 75 food, arts and crafts vendors will be selling a little bit of everything. On the arts and crafts side, you could pick up clothing, glass marbles, art, glow-in-the-dark light covers, bottle holders and goods made of bee wax. As far as food goes, Madina Salaty, Wakarusa’s vendor coordinator, says they have everything from “healthy options to junk food.” You’ve got your pizza, hamburgers, fries, but you’ve also got organic and vegetarian options, Cajun, Indian, Middle Eastern, Mexican and Chinese food to choose from.

Salaty says that while the number of vendors has slightly increased this year, high gas prices have kept vendors who consistently travel many miles to sell their products at Wakarusa from making the trip.

“We have lost several vendors,” she says. “They have specifically told me that that’s the reason.”

The location of Wakarusa should be enough for people to ignore the prices at the pump. The festival will once again place at Clinton Lake State Park, southwest of Lawrence, Kan. The 1,500 acre facility has plenty to offer those who aren’t just there for the music, with beaches, an 11,000 acre lake, horseshoe pits and hiking trails.

“The amenities are really like no other festival that’s held in a field or a polo ground,” Mosiman says. “It’s really like a family vacation.”

Mosiman knows the traveling aspect of Wakarusa may be less tempting with gas prices so high, but he thinks that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying a unique musical experience, no matter how long you decide to stay.

“I think it’s impacting everybody, and our big message is that you still got to have fun. You have to cut loose,” Mosiman says. “Don’t let those greedy oil bastards take away your fun and your Wakarusa weekend.”

For more information, go to www.wakarusa.com.

by Blake Hannon

http://www.stjoenews.net/news/2008/may/30/loud-outdoors/?diem

The environmentally and socially responsible apparel company, hessnatur, was founded in Germany in 1976 and has a history of conscientiousness and commitment to earth and people. hessnatur will start to offer their products to customers in the United States of America via web this summer and via catalogue in the fall. For its US launch, hessnatur enlisted world-renowned fashion designer Miguel Adrover as creative director.”We are very pleased to introduce hessnatur to the US market. Americans, we truly believe, are ready to embrace a way of dressing that is kinder to the earth and the people who live on it,” said Managing Director of hessnatur, Wolf Luedge. “Miguel Adrover is a unique talent, whose dedication to environmentalism is apparent in not only his garments but in the way he lives his life. Miguel brings an exciting level of creativity and inspiration to us.”

Apparel for women and babies will be available - 100% organic clothing for babies and 100% natural for women, most of which is organic cotton, wool, linen and silk. Recognized as an organic pioneer, hessnatur initiated the world’s first organic cotton farming project in Sekem, Egypt, in 1991. hessnatur’s social and environmental work was recognized this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the company was the recipient of the Public Eye award.

In 2002, hessnatur set the standard for humane labor conditions. With the Clean Clothes Campaign and the Fair Wear Foundation, hessnatur developed an innovative system for humane production. In 2005, hessnatur was the first German company to be certified by the Fair Wear Foundation. Recently, hessnatur embarked on a partnership with Dr. Muhammad Yunus, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, and his Grameen Foundation, supporting its stellar work in fighting poverty. hessnatur is introducing organic manufacturing processes to the Grameen Knitwear Project, and is paying a bonus above fair purchase price for the goods, with the funds going directly to the Grameen Foundation.

http://www.earthtimes.org

http://www.organic-market.info/bio-markt/en_inhalte/inh_index.htm?link=Meldungen&catID=0&docID=645