They still have a lot of kinks to work out, but the city block-sized vertical farm would come with state-of-the-art technology like automated feeders and monitoring equipment.  And it would be right in the middle of your city (eliminating some of the environmental problems with transporting food across the country). You can learn all about it at The Vertical Farm Project.

Of course, there are some naysayers who worry about the problems that might come with vertical farms, like overuse of pesticides and fertilizers.  And then there’s this blahblahblog entry that has some interesting information but doesn’t say much (the first couple of paragraphs are totally pointless, so do yourself a favor and skip to the bullet points).

Seriously, though, if we’re going to continue at the rate we’re going, we need innovation like this.  I say let’s try it out and see what happens.  We either need to try some new stuff or need to stop breeding - which do you think is likelier to happen?

The No-Miss “Healthy Alternative Product” nailpolish is brought to you by No-Miss, Ltd. (They look scary, don’t they? I mean, what’s up with that makeup and what on earth possessed them to use a photo where the guy is holding his cell phone to his ear?  If this picture had been on the brochure, I probably would have skipped the product. Hmm, this site reeks of oddness - notice the URL?)

Product Review:

Price: $6.99 at Whole Foods

Color: Bunnell Blush (the picture looks nothing like the actual, which is a light silvery pink)

Packaging: It’s in a regular looking nailpolish bottle.  The nice thing about it is that there isn’t any extra packaging - just the bottle and the sticker on the bottom.

Animal Testing: Another miss on the does and doesn’t test on animals list.  VeganEssentials claims it neither has animal ingredients nor does animal testing.

Product Quality: I’m about to put on a third layer of polish.  Maybe it’s the wrong color for me, or maybe it’s not as good as regular nailpolish.  I can’t tell.  It does dry very quickly, in fact, it’s probably the quickest drying nailpolish I’ve ever used.  The application is smoother and thinner than regular nailpolish - not thick and goopey.  Other than feeling the need to put on three coats, there is no visible difference between it and a regular nailpolish.  Some things to note:  it does NOT have the overwhelming stench of other nailpolish brands.  I guess that’s because it doesn’t have formaldehyde, toluene, dibutyl pthalate, or camphor.

Colors: Tons and tons, you have to see them for yourself.

Durability:  Hard to tell, but I’ll get back to you on that one.

Comments from others: Here’s a great review from Pragmatic Woman, who also notes that it’s sold on lots of vegan websites, which I can verify is quite true!

Conclusion:  Don’t look at the No-Miss website, and you’ll love the product.

I heard about Plant Love a few months ago and have been meaning to try it. Since I was at the mall this weekend and have been looking for a daytime lipstick, I thought I’d give Plant Love a go.

Notes: The lipstick comes in a biodegradable cardboard box that is “embedded with wildflower seeds.” The lipstick tube is made from corn (also biodegradable). $2 from every purchase is donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Product Review:

Price: $20/tube from Sephora.

Color: Majella.

Packaging: The wildflower cardboard packaging is kind of cool. It reminds me of the homemade sheets of paper you get at craft stores - the kind with flower petals in it. The decorations on the lipstick tube are corny (ha!). People really need to get over the hippy thing. If I was a random shopper, the packaging would only appeal to me slightly. I’m a sucker for good packaging, and this would never catch my attention.

Animal Testing: I didn’t see Cargo Cosmetics on either of the Caring Consumer animal testing lists. Feel free to correct me.

Product Quality: The application is smooth; it glides on nicely and looks great. However, it tastes (and smells) like the cheap lipstick you wore in high school when all you could afford was Cover Girl - and Almay was the stuff you splurged on.

Colors: Apparently, Cargo isn’t tired of the celebrity thing. There are five celebrity-designed colors and six derived from places (don’t ask me how they came up with that one). There aren’t a lot of colors to choose from, but give it time.

Durability: Wears better than I expected. The color lasted for hours, and even drinking didn’t rub it all off.

Gleeful discoveries: Do me a favor and go to the celebrity page. Hover your mouse over the celebrity pictures so the lipstick appears. Did that amuse you as much as it amused me?

Comments from others: Here’s a tidbit from sustainable is good and a sassy bit from Kiss and Makeup.

Conclusion: Although it’s not the best lipstick I’ve ever tried, I’d buy it again. The only negatives are minor - cheap lipstick smell and cheap lipstick taste, but that’s not a deal breaker for me. If I can wear four inch heels for the sake of fashion, I can certainly wear cheap lipstick masquerading as top notch. It does excel in innovative biodegradable packaging, after all. It’s about time.

Over and out.

It’s a morbid interest, I know.  I blame it on too much free time.

I have no reason to consider any of the Spice Girls as particularly environmental, so imagine my surprise on seeing them on Treehugger.  Further imagine my glee at their spectacular failure - at least in the environmental department. 

Just a brief synopsis: Virgin Records is donating a Lear jet to each of the Spice Girls for their tour.  That’s 47,500 tons of carbon dioxide between the five of them.

I’d say they’re living up to the diva hype.  What a waste - in all ways.

Environmental Smack Down Diva (ESDD): *in best announcer voice* Welcome to the Environmental Smack Down Challenge. I’m your host, Environmental Smack Down Diva.  Before we begin, let me introduce you to our contenders.

(ESDD gestures to one corner.)

ESDD: In this corner we have CFLs and huge amounts of energy savings!

(ESDD gestures to another corner.)

ESDD: And in this corner we have the big bad and brawny Mercury myth!  They’ve skirmished.  Fought. Passed out. And resurfaced, and today they meet again for the final smackdown.  CFLs, Mercury myth, take your places.

(CFLs and Mercury myth meet in the middle of the ring, shake hands, square off.)

ESDD: Just to go over a few rules - no hanky panky, no shattering glass, and no spilled mercury.  We want a clean fight here.  You know the rest!

Bell:  DING!

ESDD: Mercury myth pulls a newspaper out of his glove, The Ellsworth American, and tosses it to CFLs.

Mercury myth: Take that!  Mercury levels in that broken bulb were over 6 times the normal level.

ESDD: Mercury myth references an article about a woman who received a $2k estimate for cleaning up a broken CFL.

CFLs: You’ll have to do better than that to take me down. I have this!

ESDD: CFLs throws down the gauntlet!  It’s an official-looking report!

CFLs: The analysis numbers from Maine!  The mercury levels were only high where the bulb shattered, and even that dissipated to normal levels over a short amount of time. I’d say that trumps your lousy and outdated article!

ESDD: CFLs brandishes the report in Mercury myth’s face.  It’s a report from the government of Maine that lists the mercury levels found at the woman’s house after she broke a CFL.  The results were within normal limits except for the area where the bulb shattered.  But further tests showed mercury levels returned to normal levels before a second test was completed.  Mercury myth can’t take the proof and falls to his knees!

Mercury myth: B-but Energy Star says you have to recycle CFLs.  It’s so much work and people are so lazy! Plus, you have to take special precautions if you break one!

ESDD: CFLs is hovering over Mercury myth.  It looks like…, yes…, CFLs is delivering his famous knockout punch! 

CFLs: [swings] You’re done for Mercury myth!  Energy benefits far outweigh your measly mercury levels, so says Australia, Ontario, and treehuggers everywhere!

ESDD: You heard it here folks, the energy savings for CFLs is higher than the risk of mercury.  Just remember to dispose of your CFLs properly and be careful if you break one.  CFLs have a long life, so when it comes time for you to replace your bulbs in the next few years, use Energy Star’s guidelines.   This is Environmental Smack Down Diva saying Good night and good recycling.

Special thanks to the most famous debunker of all, Snopes, and especially their Light Fingered page.

I saw “An Inconvenient Truth” with a group of like-minded environmental types.  After the movie finished, we turned on the lights, and people started chatting.  Here are some snippets:

Guy 8*: After my wife saw the movie, she ran out and bought CFLs to replace all the light bulbs in our house.

Gal 4*: I’m going to stop at the store on my way home to get them for my house.

CFLs became the “get rich quick” scheme of less energy usage.  First of all, CFLs have been around for years.  Second of all, what about this:

Do you see how much packaging was put into these babies?  I love going environmental, but these lightbulbs are a physical manifestation of an oxymoron.  They may save on energy, but look at the packaging. It’s like a riddle of the chicken and the egg variety, only this one goes something like this:

Which is worse, CFL packaging or an incandescent bulb?

Sure, the savings over the lifetime of the bulb are probably greater, but shouldn’t they extend the environmentalism one step further and include the packaging? 

With that thought in mind, I scoured the internet and found this idea for reusing the packaging to store burned out bulbs.  It’s a great idea, but I’d have to hold on to the packaging for years before one of my CFLs burns out.  I’m trying to reduce clutter, not add to it. 

No, the real solution is to package CFLs like other lightbulbs - sans the plastic.  Lucky for me, I found some CFLs at lowes with this kind of packaging:

Hurray for lucky divas everywhere! 

And lucky for the rest of you, CFLs really do reduce energy usage, as this guy says in his summary of what we want to know about CFLs. 

They also save you money.  I’m all for that.

Diva on out, yo

*These numbers have no meaning.

My next step was to check out the competition - who are the other environmental divas out there? There’s not much, let me tell you.

I did find Elizabeth, a non-diva, who posted this blahblahblog entry, where she claims she’s not a diva (we believe you, Elizabeth). You know the blahblahblog type, right? Where the blogger rants on and on about something you might be interested in if he/she didn’t kill it with his/her ranting to the point where as you’re reading your brain starts going “blah blah blah” and you skim the rest of the entry to see if there’s anything good (there rarely is)? Yeah, that’s what that entry is like, but hey, at least she isn’t using comic sans.

Other than Elizabeth, there wasn’t much in the way of environmental divaism out there. Hurray for the niche-filler (me)! But what to blog about that might keep me even mildly interested? A couple of things:

• Consumerism (sounds lame, but I’ll spin it)
• Daylight savings (uh, what? are you kidding here?)
• What to shop with (surely there’s something other than those hideous canvas bags)
• Where to shop (now we’re talking!)
• Pro-environment shopping and products that replace non-environmental products
• Whatever else I feel like writing about

So, I’m going diva, environmental style. Get ready for a diva with a conscience.

Because a Diva Cares

P.S. Aside from a bit o’ ranting, Elizabeth has some interesting posts. This bit on polyester and consumerism is readable if you ignore the bit about not buying clothes for a year.

I’m too diva for hum vees too diva for hum vees
vees ain’t going to seat me

I’m too diva for M-hertz too diva for M-hertz
So diva it hurts
And I’m too diva for spray cans too diva for spray cans
light bulbs and fake tans

And I’m too diva for trash bins
too diva for trash bins
no way I’m not recycling

I’m shameless you know what I mean
And I drink coffee hot in a pink mug
Yeah in a pink mug in a pink mug yeah
I poor my ‘bucks latte in a pink mug

I’m too diva for cardboard too diva for cardboard
too diva to store
And I’m too diva to be fat too diva to be fat
Too diva to be fat what do you think about that

I’m a diva you know what I mean
And I buy bamboo clothes on the internet
Yeah on the internet on the internet yeah
I use my credit card on the internet

I’m too diva for my too diva for my too diva for my

‘Cuz I’m a diva you know what I mean
And I flaunt my canvas bag at the market
Yeah at the market at the market yeah
I flaunt my canvas bag at the market

I’m too diva for my pic too diva for my pic
no glossy no glossy pic
I’m too diva for hum vees too diva for hum vees
vees ain’t going to seat me

And I’m too diva for … this blog

The idea behind this phenomenon is that black backgrounds and white text use less energy to load on a page. Hence, environmentaldiva’s black background (although black and white was too undiva-ish and I had to have pink somewhere, right?).

Moving on.

The black-background/white-text phenomenon has been blogged about quite a bit, including this entry by prissycook (a delightful read, I suspect she’s a bit of a diva). And treehugger.com (probably anti-diva), of course, covers it. However, skeptics abound, as demonstrated here with this Google post that debunks the energy-saving notion. It includes links to the sites that do the real debunking, but beware the poor grammar if you click some of the other links.

Where does this leave me with my black background and pink text? It’s not quite diva enough for me, but I’m keeping it as a visual indicator that I support energy reduction (for now, but a diva can change her mind).

Signing off,

Go, go, Diva, go!