Green Options

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Bright colors and unnaturally stretchy fibers are nice, but there are times when you just want to go back to the “classics.” Sourced from Wiltshire, Devon, Somerset and surrounding counties in Britain, Farm Yarns spins some of the most exceptional alpaca and organic wool yarn available anywhere.

“The yarn was developed with the idea to offer a yarn that comes in colours as you find it on the animal on the farm,” says the Farm Yarn website.

What’s so great about alpaca? If you’ve ever used it, you wouldn’t be asking that question. Unspeakably comfortable and versatile, Farm Yarns uses baby alpaca wool - “it is warmer than wool, but has a soft feel like silk,” they say. Naturally available in over 20 shades, baby alpaca wool is not actually from baby alpacas. “It is not a description of the age of the alpaca itself, rather a term that describes the finess of the alpaca wool.”

Tidal power isn’t really talked about a lot here in the U.S., but it’s always exciting when a fresh renewable energy technology enters the equation. To wit: Britain just launched a first-of-its-kind contraption that will generate tide power for the Isles.

This past weekend, a 122-foot, 1.2 megawatt upside-down-windmill-looking-thing headed out to sea from the same dock that built the Titanic. The device, called SeaGen, will make enough energy from tidal power to feed about 1,140 homes and is the world’s first commercial-scale system for making electricity from marine currents, according to the Independent.

Over the past several weeks, thousands upon thousands of starfish have washed up dead on Britain’s beaches. The cause, as usual, appears to be humans: investigators say the most likely cause is fishing boats that dredge the sea bottom for mussels, either ripping starfish loose and casting them adrift, or suffocating them under mud and sand.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user M. Buschmann.

Nigel Taylor, curator of Kew Gardens in the U.K., says climate change has essentially made winter a thing of the past in Britain.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons