The Environment by Heather Heron collection features a nice selection of handcrafted products made from reclaimed and recycled fabrics. One of the coolest is this repurposed military tent surf bag. Also available in surplus Japanese denim, the board bag features salt and sun-resistant hemp rope and recycled, organic leather ties....read more
The 2010 Environmental Performance Index, which ranks the world's nations according to environmental policy and performance, was released last week at the World Economic Forum. The index is compiled every two years by Yale and Columbia University researchers. Leading the rankings is Iceland, which is powered almost entirely by renewable energy sources. Rounding out the top 5 are Switzerland,......read more
SHFT helped launch Green Music Group (GMG) in Hollywood on the night before the Grammys. Guster, Dave Matthews Band, Maroon 5, and The Roots jammed together and kicked off the new initiative, which was born out of Reverb. Since 2004, Reverb has greened over 80 major music tours while conducting grassroots outreach to over 10 million music fans. They founded GMG to create an environmental......read more
From Neatorama: On April 20, 2010, a mayday call from the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico reporting an explosion aboard signaled the beginning of one of the largest man-made environmental disasters in the United States. Today, the environmental, economic, and political repercussions of the oil spill are just being felt – but what happened the day the rig went ablaze,......read more
"Permaculture" is quickly becoming something of a buzzword. But what exactly does it mean? Wikipedia defines permaculture as "an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies." It is a very broad topic, but essentially refers to living sustainably with our environment in every way imaginable. The......read more
With all the bad news about the environment constantly flooding the media, it's not always easy to feel positive about things. Recently, if we're not stressing about the oil spill, we're worried about the fate of climate legislation. Environmental progress almost seems like a "one step forward, two steps back" scenario. At SHFT, we try to stay focused on all the good......read more
National Geographic and Globescan teamed up for the third annual Consumer Greendex study, which evaluates the "greenness" of shoppers in various countries around the world. The study monitored 17,000 consumers in 17 countries, taking into account energy use, transportation, food, housing, and knowledge of environmental issues. The end result is a vaguely scientific index of sustainable......read more
After a midterm election that saw the House of Representatives shift from Democratic to Republican control, it's become abundantly clear that comprehensive climate legislation is going to be incredibly difficult if not impossible to pass. That's all the more evident when you consider that two dozen members of Congress who voted for the Waxman-Markley climate legislation a short while......read more
COP16 kicks off in Cancun, Mexico today, and expectations are low. It seems like not that long ago that the Copenhagen talks failed in such spectacular fashion. We can still taste the defeat. Tastes bad. Despite the dreary outlook, there is potential that something good can come from the meetings. But any chance at success will require that leaders shift their approach. In a recent NYT op-ed......read more
When 5,000 red-winged blackbirds dropped dead from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas on New Year's Eve, people got a little freaked. A few day's later, 500 dead and dying red-winged blackbirds fell onto a Louisiana highway, and no one felt any more comforted. Experts try to allay our fears. "It's not surprising if it's one or two events like this," said Melanie Driscoll, a senior bird biologist......read more