Green Options

We paid a visit recently to one of my favourite toy stores in the whole world, Hot Toads.  The physical store itself isn’t all that impressive — it’s a small, concrete-floored basement room in a medical building, with sparsely-stocked wooden shelves, draped with puppets and stuffed toys hanging by clothespins from simple lines strung across the room.  The back wall features a working 10-foot long model train table made entirely out of Lego.

But it’s not about the decor — it’s what they carry that makes this place special.  Plan Toys.  HaPe.  Schylling.  Plastic toys made from recycled milk jugs.  Non-toxic wooden toys.  Toys intended to enrich the mind and body of your children, not just feed into consumerism and branding.

And for me, it is a local store, within driving distance, right here in Atlantic Canada.  Unfortunately for my American friends reading this, while they do take online orders, Hot Toads only delivers within Canada.  Sorry, eh?

One of the many cool items they have is a line of large toy cars called E-Racers, from HaPe’s Bamboo Collection.  I had a nice chat with the fellow working there, and learned that apparently these were the first toys to be made from bamboo.  I was surprised that, while bamboo has been used for clothes, cutlery and dinnerware, flooring and even wallpaper for some time, the idea of bamboo toys was still relatively new.

He also filled me in on a fact I had previously been unaware of.  Of course, bamboo is the new golden child of the eco movement: it grows easily and quickly without pesticides, and is therefore a readily renewable resource with low environmental impact.  Bamboo wood is attractive and sturdy, and bamboo cloth is soft and has natural antibacterial properties.  As worldwide consumer demand for bamboo has increased dramatically in recent years, some companies have taken to clear-cutting hardwood forests in order to make room for bamboo plantations.  And despite bamboo’s rapid growth, difficulty in seed propagation combined with over-harvesting has even threatened some species to near-extinction.

Ugh.

Host Sean Daily talks with environmental politics blogger Tim Hurst, editor of RedGreenandBlue.org and publisher of Ecopolitology.org, about his writing and the role of new and social media in environmental politics and activism.

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Green Talk Radio host Sean Daily talks with environmental politics blogger Tim Hurst, editor of Red, Green, and Blue, about his writing and the role of new and social media in environmental politics and activism.

10. Top 10 Renewable Tech Gadgets By Michelle Bennett–posted on Cleantechnica, May 5th, 2008

9. Top 10 in Green You Should Follow on Twitter By Maryanne Conlin Milker–posted on Ecopreneurist, February 3rd, 2009

8. My Top Ten Quick, Healthy, Sustainable Snacks by Megan Prusynski–posted on Eat. Drink. Better., June 13th, 2008

7. The top ten office environmental pet peeves and why Xerox went green By Olga Orda–posted on Green Options, [...]

When rumors began swirling around the green blogosphere, first at Greendig, that Van Jones would be named Green Czar (a story they later pulled back from a bit, awaiting an official announcement), then at Grist, and WSJ’s Environmental Capital, I was immediately reminded of what our very own David Anderson, founder of Green Options Media, wrote back in October.

This week, our eco-vlogging friends at ZapRoot take a thorough look at animal rights, food labeling, and sequestering carbon in middle eastern rocks. Mix in some of their trademark snark and - poof! You’ve got a finished product that is both educational and entertaining.

February was a big month for GO Media — we celebrated our first anniversary in business! Of course, there were also the usual celebrations: Valentine’s Day, Presidents Day, and Groundhog Day (hey, that’s celebrated…!).

Here at sustainablog, we were keeping an eye on broad developments related to sustainability (as always).  From business to religion to the presidential primary season, we found many great stories to share… here are a few of them.

February 2008

• Chad Crawford dug into the green evangelical movement.
• Carol McClelland shared an overview of cleantech trends and opportunities presented at Cleantech Forum XVI.
• I took a look at “low hanging fruit” approaches to sustainability, and their potential to oversimplify our environmental impact.

If you are an avid Twitter user, you might have been able to notice the power of social media and the perhaps terrifying way this new phenomenon can impact businesses large and small. This past weekend when #Motrinmoms surpassed “Obama” as the most searched for term on Twitter , it forced J&J’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare into a company in dire need of a social media crisis plan!

But, I contend, Twitter was only part of the story!

From Ad Age:

Two days after a new ad push for Motrin triggered an online backlash, J&J’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit is pulling the campaign, from the New York office of independent shop Taxi, and begging a vocal mommy-blogging nation for forgiveness.

Though the ad had been out for a month, it finally caught the attention of our own prominent Green Options blogger, Jessica Gottlieb who started Twittering about it and published this piece More Outrage as #MotrinMoms Reaches #2 On Twitter on Eco Child’s Play, as well as this one on her own blog, the news spread like wildfire and resulted in the ad being pulled from the website and replaced with an apology.

I had a bit of an inside view of this phenomenon, as Jessica and I both write for Our sister site, Eco Childs Play and Silicon Valley Moms and I follow her on Twitter. So, as a social media marketer, it was interesting to me to watch this whole grass roots campaign develop over the weekend.

With fourteen days left until the U.S. presidential election, the heat is on. As much as all eyes are on the candidates, everybody’s pulse is on the economy. People all over America are wondering who will better serve the U.S. Economy and bring it to where it needs to be. What are the candidates saying?

John McCain says that Barack Obama’s tax policy is not conducive to building a strong economy. Obama says he wants to spread the wealth around. Joe [...]