The Green Life

Bike Fashion Hits the Runway

If you've read our post on becoming a bike commuter or our tips for female cyclists, you're got plenty of practical knowledge about how to incorporate cycling into your daily life. But bikes can be more than just an ecofriendly form of transportation--the two-wheeled wonders are rapidly becoming a must-have fashion accessory and clothing designers have taken notice. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, cyclists need clothing that "moves with them when they ride, protects them from the elements, and doesn't get caught in any of their machine's moving parts."

Beyond those basic requirements, bike messengers and road bikers have always sported signature styles, but now the fashion industry is embracing bike culture too. In U.S. cites like New York, Portland, San Francisco, and even Salt Lake City, models are pedaling or pushing bikes onto the runway to compliment their hip, bike-centric clothing.

Mayim Bialik's Latest Role: Green Mom

We know her as Blossom, that spunky adolescent on that eponymous sitcom. But since the series ended in 1995, Mayim Bialik, now 33, has truly blossomed. She’s earned a neuroscience Ph.D. from UCLA, married her college sweetheart, taken on more acting roles, and had two sons. It was that latter development that led her to be the spokesperson for Holistic Moms Network, a nonprofit promoting mothering practices she already espoused: a vegetarian diet, elimination communication, Waldorf-inspired education, a mostly media-free environment, bedsharing, slings instead of strollers, and homemade hygiene products. When Sierra interviewed her by phone, it was over happy background noises made by kids and cats.

Q: So you’re ramping up your acting career again?
A: Yeah, I guess I am. I was on the path to being a research professor. I just found that it wasn’t going to be compatible to be away from my children all day.

Q: Many child actors seem to grow up into Hollywood’s materialism. What was your path to going the other way?
A: I come from a very poor background. My grandparents were immigrants from Eastern Europe, so I always identified with a modest lifestyle. My mom is hip, trendy, and loves shopping, but maybe I inherited the spirit of my great-grandmother and shtetl living. Even when I was 11, I always felt out of sorts getting dressed up. But I enjoyed performing and pretending and felt very comfortable on stage. I never thought I’d become famous. I just enjoyed making people laugh. I’m an old-fashioned performer. I like to sing, I like to dance, I like to have a script and make it come to life.

Q: Why is it important for you to be an environmentally conscious mom?
A: I feel a strong personal responsibility as a member of the planet to live this way. For me, it’s worth the effort, time, and research to make it work. We have a collective responsibility for the planet that I’m going to leave to my kids and their kids.

Q: What are the most important elements involved in green mothering?
A: Gentle discipline. Not hitting, not yelling, being a compassionate parent to your child’s needs. Raising sensitive, happy, secure children is the best gift we can give.

Q: How do you raise kids holistically when their friends are eating junk food?
A: I think when you’re with your child, a lot of these issues aren’t as scary. I know what they’re eating and I know what they’re doing. Their friends’ parents understand his vegetarian and no-TV needs. I give him age-appropriate messages. It’s just like most parents don’t allow alcohol or cigarettes. I tell him that everyone does things differently and that’s OK. It’s very important to us to raise nonjudgmental children who don’t go finger-wagging. When he’s driving himself around, he’s going to make his own decisions, but fast food isn’t something I’m gonna facilitate. Still, at some point he’s going to make his own decisions. You give your children wings so they can fly.

Trendsetter: The NASCAR Environmentalist

Think the term "NASCAR environmentalist" is an oxymoron? Guess again. Leilani Muenter, 33, one of Sports Illustrated's top-ten female race car drivers, is an unabashed eco-warrior. A passionate ambassador for the National Wildlife Federation, she has lobbied Congress to pass the Climate Security Act, makes frequent appearances to educate fans about going green, and buys an acre of rainforest for every race she runs. She took time out of her high-speed schedule to chat with Sierra.

Q: How do you reconcile your car-racing with your environmentalism?

A: I'm not going to apologize for liking fast cars. I have a much bigger voice because of it. If I stop racing, there'll be someone else in that seat. I wouldn't have a platform to reach 100 million people. I was in Norway at the zero-emissions Viking Rally driving a hydrogen fuel cell Ford Focus. When I got out of the car, I drank the water from my exhaust pipe to show how clean it was.

Q: As a conservationist, what are you proudest of?

A: I don't know if conservation is something that lends itself to being proud. My role is that I can speak to a large group of people. If I can highlight the small things we can do, like recycling or eating less meat, those small changes multiplied by millions of race fans could make a gigantic difference.

Q: What are you proudest of in your racing career? 

A: The fact that I’m using my voice in the sport to emphasize that are things that are important outside the car. But I am proud of my finish at Texas, and of how I did when I ran in the Indy Lite race. I qualified fifth, even though I ended up in a wreck. It earned me respect from the higher-ups in my sport.

Q: How do people in the racing world respond to environmental advocacy?

A: It's been very positive lately. When I first started talking about it, people told me I was committing career suicide, that I would push away sponsors. But if a company doesn't want to work with me because I talk about the environment, those aren't people I want on my car anyway.

Climate Chat: A Green Life Interview with Bill McKibben, Founder of 350.org

Journalist and environmentalist Bill McKibben authored the first general-audience book about climate change 20 years ago; since then he’s done much to expose and help combat the problem. He’s written articles for many magazines, including Sierra. Now he’s founded 350.org, an international climate campaign, and is traveling globally to promote its mission. Here, the recent Colbert Report survivor relates inspiring news from this summer’s travels and why we all should be focusing on one three-digit number.

Q: You've been traveling the world spreading the gospel of a number: 350.  For those not yet in the know, what makes 350 the most important number in the world?

A: We finally know where the red line for climate really is. After the rapid melt of arctic ice in the summer of 2007, our best scientists, led by NASA's Jim Hansen, went back to work and produced a series of papers showing that with more than 350 ppm (parts per million) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we couldn't have a planet "similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted." That's strong language, especially considering we're already well past 350. The air outside today holds 390 ppm -- that's why the Arctic is melting. In other words, stop thinking about global warming as a future threat and understand it instead as a present emergency, one that requires a far stronger policy response than we'd imagined.

Trendsetter: Singer-Songwriter Missy Higgins

After the success of her debut album, Sound of White, this husky-voiced Aussie stole away to a rural part of her homeland for six reflective months to write music under an open sky. Higgins -- one of Billboard’s ten greenest artists, along with Jack Johnson and Willie Nelson -- is a stalwart eco-warrior. Her tours are carbon-neutral, she’s a vegetarian, and she totes her trusty SIGG bottle wherever she goes. Her sophomore album, On a Clear Night, reveals a deep appreciation for the healthy abandon we achieve in the natural world, especially in freedom-cry tracks like “Going North” and “Steer.”
 
Q: You partnered with the Sierra Club to give away your hit single, “Where I Stood,” to benefit the 2% Solution campaign.
A: Being involved in that is great because it’s a really inspiring and realistic way of getting people to make a change, by doing it a tiny bit at a time -- just cutting two percent [of carbon emissions] a year. I think a lot of people panic because they think going green is going to take out all the pleasures of living… But it’s about taking a more realistic approach.

Q: Will you ever sing about environmental problems?
A: I’ve tried, but I can’t figure out a way to do it without sounding cliché. Some people protest through their music, and some have to do it through other means. Midnight Oil does it pretty well [through their music]. They’re big environmentalists.

Q: Is there an environmental issue particularly close to your heart?
A: The drought is so bad back home. I would love to know how farmers could adapt to global warming. Not enough farmers know how to handle what’s happening to them and it’s really sad to see. It’s devastating my country. The fires recently were impossible to control because the whole place is so dry.

Celebrity Chatter About Going Green

Ever wonder whether celebs who claim to be ecofriendly really walk the walk when fans aren't watching? We got the inside scoop on Adrian Grenier (who plays Vincent Chase on HBO's Entourage and hosts Planet Green's Alter Eco) from Grenier's Entourage costar Kevin Connolly:

"Adrian's really done his best to make Entourage as green a set as possible. For example, I'm a big hand-washer. I like to wash my hands all day, so when we go to the makeup trailer, Adrian makes me use one paper towel the whole day to dry my hands. After I dry my hands, I have to hang my paper towel, and I make sure he's watching! I'm like, 'Adrian, do you see this?' It's great! But really, at the end of the day, it's simple things. Like, I'll finish the water bottle and he'll just say, 'Refill it. What's the point of getting another one?'"

MORE GOOD LINES

"I'm hoping to get a greenish car. A green or a blue car at least, not just a normal car. And I'm a maniac about recycling. I'll pluck things out of the trash that have been erroneously thrown there that could be recycled." --Mira Sorvino

"It's not that the world's gonna die -- we just might not survive it. It might just shrug us off. So we need to be a lot more present... and responsible for ourselves." --Rosario Dawson

"I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise, what is there to defend?" --Robert Redford

"One thing that is missing from the environment is laughter. All of these environmental problems, you feel totally overwhelmed...I do everything for laughs. I thought that my Green Porno should make green fun and so maybe convert more people to it, because part of me is also turned off by the green speech because it's always so negative and it always fills me with great guilt." --Isabella Rossellini

--collected by Susan L. Hornik

Trendsetter: Brad Farmer, Wave Protector

Seventeen years after he imported surfing's sharpest environmental tool, the Surfrider Foundation, from America to his Australian homeland, Brad Farmer is returning the favor. He recently flew to California to help the Save the Waves Coalition launch a global version of his brainchild, National Surfing Reserves Australia, which has designated nearly a dozen Aussie surf spots as sacrosanct. The title transcends semantics: It adds a new layer of governmental protection, buttressing coastal zones threatened by wave-wrecking development proposals.

Q: Less than 1 percent of Americans surf regularly, while 14 percent of Australians do. Won't that make it tougher to create surf reserves in the United States?

A: Much tougher--unless you redefine the demographic reach. Anyone who engages in recreation in the intertidal zone is a surfer. Barack Obama is a surfer. Your mum walking the beach, she's a surfer. Suddenly you've multiplied your number from 3 million to 30 million.

Q: At a recent roundtable on this project, Mark Massara, the Sierra Club's Coastal Programs director (and a surfer), warned against emphasizing a surf spot's positive fiscal impact. A surfer might value a wave at $50 million, but a developer will argue that the jetty-protected marina he wants to build in its place will be worth twice that.

A: Massara is right. Natural coastal environments are beyond value. They're priceless, and they can't be replaced.

--interview by Steve Hawk

Study Finds GPS Navigation Systems Make Drivers More Efficient

A just-released study commissioned by Navteq, a leading provider of digital map data, shows that drivers using Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation devices drove fewer miles (actually, kilometers in this European study) and spent less time driving.

Conflict of interest? Perhaps. But the study, based on more than 2,000 individual trips, 20,000 kilometers (about 12,500 miles) of driving, and almost 500 hours on the road, found that drivers with GPS devices experienced a 12 percent increase in fuel efficiency, a nearly 2,500-kilometer (1,550-mile) drop in distance traveled per driver per year, and a per-driver average of more than 400 Euros ($530) in annual savings on fuel.

The study evaluated drivers with and without navigation systems, taking traffic into account, in the Dusseldorf and Munich metropolitan areas in Germany. No participants in the study had previously used a GPS navigation device. The study also revealed a learning curve, with bigger reductions in driving time and fuel consumption once drivers had familiarized themselves with the GPS systems.

Trendsetter: Swimmer Christopher Swain

Christopher Swain, the first person to swim the length of the Columbia River (more than 1,200 miles), is a passionate guy. And not just about his sport, but about rivers and oceans too, and about teaching people why it's important to keep them clean. In April, Swain, who has also swum the Hudson and Charles Rivers (315 and 80 miles, respectively), will attempt to swim more than 1,000 miles from Marblehead, Massachusetts, to Washington, D.C.

Q: How do your swims raise awareness of clean-water issues?

A: If you're in the business of conservation, you've got a responsibility to get outside. You're not doing your job if you don't. It's not about e-mail blasts. It's about what you can go out there and experience and come back and testify to. If you look at the people who've really done anything--John Muir, David Brower, Rachel Carson--you can feel it in their writing. Your credibility is going to come from your experience.

Q: Do you worry that the water's toxicity will affect you?

A: Yeah, so I manage my risk. I hardly eat seafood to avoid accumulating mercury. I go to a clinic to test for PCBs, I wear goggles and earplugs, I gargle hydrogen peroxide, I don't swim near pipes, and I'm judicious about not swimming within three days of rain to avoid runoff. I've gotten rashes and had my lymph nodes swell up to golf-ball size from swimming through sewage.

First Dog Will Enjoy the Green Life

The vote is still out for the much-anticipated White House dog breed, but Michelle Obama told People magazine she's stumping for a Portuguese water dog. With daughters Sasha and Malia so excitedto bring the pooch home, it's also noteworthy that the Obamas stand committed to taking the time to find a rescue dog.

Early names "Frank" and "Moose" received a presidential veto, but when the yet-to-be-named pup arrives in April, it'll reside in a swank, eco-friendly house created by Sustainable Pet Design. The Summa Canum (Latin for "top dog") has walls built with reclaimed lumber from our seventh president Andrew Jackson's estate and is painted with nontoxic zero-VOC paint and varnish. The stately Greek columns will support a green roof to be planted by the girls themselves.

Future plans include adding solar panels and radiant floor heating, but that will be after the Summa Canum is delivered to the White House by singer and environmental advocate Neil Young in his super-efficient LincVolt. Not too shabby.

--Jordana Fyne