Welcome to Carnival of the Green #203! We’re excited to be your hosts. What is this Carnival, you ask? Al Tepper and Nick Aster cooked up the Carnival of the Green years ago over a few beers, and since 2006 it’s been hosted by our pals at Treehugger. Popping up weekly, the popular carnival features links to can’t-miss articles from green blogs near and far. Before you dig into the latest green news from our friends featured here, make sure you check out last week’s carnival at Pure Natural Diva. Now, let’s get to it:

Kate Galbraigth at the New York Times‘ Green Inc. asks: Is Solar Power Expensive or Competitive?

Eco blogger Sally Kneidel has the details on students assessing the biodiversity of Africa’s tiniest critters.

On a budget? Millie Kay G. has 12 Homemade Gift Ideas to Fit a Small Budget.

Wondering how to slash your gas costs and save as much as $5,500 a year? The Digerati Life has the how-to.

If you’re in Brooklyn, you’re in luck: Jeff McIntire-Strasburg of Sustainablog has the details on the world’s first and only green bowling alley.

Remember that far-out walking fish with limbs and hands everyone was loving in the blogosphere? The one that’s virtually extinct? You know the one. Learn about a group of students who are working to save the endangered axolotls.

Powwownow explores misleading claims from the airline industry.

Frugally Green considers the tale of the Three Little Pigs as it relates to building development. Why don’t we make things to last anymore?

Lisa Sharp at Retro Housewife Goes Green evaluates consumerism and Christmas.

Mike Sowden explores our love-hate relationship with UV rays at WebEcoist.

And Katherine Butler of Greenopia shares 10 Women We Love in green.

Stay tuned for the next Carnival of the Green at the Evangelical Ecologist.

The coolest indie rocker chicks on Earth. Danny Seo’s gift guide for moms everywhere. The Albright girls (as in Madeleine Albright) on giving back. Dr. Manhattan’s animation supervisor (yes, we asked that question). A grape goddess, an eco entrepreneur, King Corn director Aaron Woolf, designer diva Trina Turk and the bestselling author of Living a Wabi Sabi Life: here’s a curated selection of some of our favorite interviews with green movers and shakers.

Trina Turk Talks Textiles for the Home

9 Eco Designers Sound Off on Mega-Collaborations

A Conversation with Aaron Woolf, Director of ‘King Corn’

Katie and Madeleine Albright: a Mother’s Day Gift That Keeps on Giving

Tips for an Eco Mother’s Day from Green Style Guru Danny Seo

Josie Maran on the Best Natural Makeup Trends for Fall

The Starre Behind Eco Chick

Original Green Artist Kenny Scharf – Still Basking in the Limelight

Bahar Shahpar: Interview with an Eco Pioneer

Interview: Prairie Underground – a Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Rock ‘n Roll

I’ll Take Manhattan, Doctor Manhattan That Is

Q&A with Torch Films: Greenlighting New, Low Impact DVDs

The Trail to the Tastiest Organic Red Wines from a Certified Grape Goddess

What’s In a Name? The Inspiration Behind 7 Eco Labels

The Ceramic Industry: Is a Little Green Better Than None at All?

Here’s a Little Ditty about Henry and Kate (But More About Henry)

Sustainably Successful: Men in Eco-Fashion Part 2

The Science of Sleeping on the Healthiest Pillow: It’s Not All Fluff

Vert Couture: Chicago’s Fashion Week Gone Green

Dry Clean Only? An Eco Expert Tells Us When It’s Safe to Ignore Labels

Interview: San Francisco Activist Leads Petition to ‘Honor’ Bush’s Environmental Legacy

Living a Wabi Sabi Life: an Interview with Robyn Griggs Lawrence

Interview with The Ditty Bops: the Greenest Musical Act on the Planet

Interview with Susan Dix Lyons of Clinica Verde, a Model for Eco-Oriented Community Health Care

Designer Spotlight: Christian Rathbone’s 5 Favorite Décor Pieces

Moda Spia: Interview with Designer Ursula Dean

Interview: Katherine Sturgis

Interview: from Wall Street to Eco-Chic

Laura Jones, SUST Ambassador Checks In

Green Home Tips from Wanda Urbanska of Simple Living TV

We’ve interviewed so many great green folks, we’ll be sure to feature another round of links soon.

Graphic: Jon Phillips of Spyre Studios

Follow Friday? Check. Meatless Monday? Check. Trashless Tuesday? Tell me more.

We’re trashy, but it’s not because of Paris or Perez Hilton. Americans generate…well, let’s just say we’re full of it.

In 2002, Zero Waste America said, “Waste management in the U.S. is in a state of anarchy with no effective federal plan in place to maximize recycling and minimize waste.” Succinct. There’s no shortage of such cheery information available to the curious eco soul, like the fact that Americans create enough waste to circle the globe six times with full dump trucks each year (with enough left over to get halfway to the moon).

To be fair, that’s an aging statistic – we’ve gotten slightly better, but we still throw away over four pounds of trash per day per person so “slightly” is putting it generously. While cities like San Francisco are zealous about recycling and composting (sometimes a little too zealous), we have managed to create so much waste that it’s actually given the adventure travel genre a fresh direction. Let’s not forget that we’ve festooned the Pacific Ocean with a Texas-sized problem known as the Great Garbage Patch which no kelp bed could ever hope to compete with. As they say, America’s #1!

That’s the bad news in merciful brief (start Googling at your own peril). The good news is that tools like Twitter, Facebook and blogging enable us to take meaningful weekly action together. For example, Meatless Monday is helping even the most stubborn steak-lovers take the road less carnivorous, because everyone can go veg for a day without feeling deprived. Why not trend trashless one day a week, too?

Trashless Tuesday is exactly what it sounds like: a day free of trash. (This means not generating trash to begin with.) Here are a few easy tips to get started today:

1. Put that canvas shopping bag to use.

The less you shop on Tuesdays the easier it will be to avoid generating waste, but if you must hit the store, bring that canvas shopping tote. If you’re anything like me you have a small army of them by now, stashed like sardines in your car trunk or hanging in the kitchen pantry.

2. Don’t buy packaged food.

Not that you’d be tempted by the likes of Lunchables, but look for things that come pre-wrapped courtesy of nature, like bananas, and stay away from packaged groceries. Choose vegetables that don’t need bags like avocados, tomatoes, onions, potatoes and carrots. It can be as easy as choosing loose-leaf over the plastic cartons of California spinach. (Of course I’m not trying to trick you into carrying over Meatless Monday an extra day. I’d never!)

3. Avoid avoiding.

Saving the shopping list for later in the week? There’s no real environmental gain in putting off purchasing the styrofoam-encased flatscreen until…say, Wednesday. Ditto necessities like toothpaste. Avoid simply avoiding shopping – instead, use the opportunity to proactively consider wants vs. needs. (And when buying that toothpaste, choose the one in a stand-up tube that comes without unnecessary additional wrapping or box packaging.) This is a tough one for me.

4. Stop the trash trail in its tracks.

At home, save and reuse or upcycle things that don’t actually need to go in the garbage. As for food waste, get thee to a compost bucket purchase!

5. Psst…follow our tweets.

Look for a trashy stat and waste-not tip every Trashless Tuesday on our Twitter feed, or search #trashlesstuesday.

P.S. Meme me, baby: If you’re into Follow Friday and you’re also into green, don’t miss out on #EcoMonday.

Image: ghedo

I had so many special hideouts in nature growing up – tucked behind the boughs of Grandma’s weepy plum tree, under the cedar beside the frog pond on Huckleberry Lane, on the cool patch of grass inside the heady lilac thicket. Perhaps you did, too. Treehouses never quite captivated me the way a quiet spot beneath a live tree could. In first grade, I would frequently get in trouble for wandering far from the playground into the woods by myself, and for bringing back leaves and pebbles for safekeeping in my desk. Those teachers just didn’t understand.

Mom likes to tell the story about the time I responded to my grandparents’ question about what I’d been doing out in the backyard with a shrug and a careless, “Oh, you know, just drinking in life.” (I was nine.) Nature has always held so much magic for me, as I’m sure it does for many of you. Sometimes I just can’t believe how lucky we are to live with such profound beauty.

I hope you don’t mind if I share a few of my favorite places and scenes from around the world. Let’s just take a moment to be grateful for this incredible planet we get to live on.  Take a little break, share, and enjoy. This is what we’re all working to preserve, after all – and how beautiful it is. We live here. Wow!

Halla, Olof S

Marksburg, Germany, zemzina

New Jersey at the Delaware River, joiseyshowaa

Maldives, Ahmed Amir

Mt. Rainier from Tipsoo Lake, Washington, Alaskan Dude

Fremont, California, Tony

Unidentified field, kwerfeldein

Monteverde, Costa Rica, Adam Baker

South Haven, Michigan, James Jordan

Top image: Munnar, kcbimal

Hi everyone, we’re starting a new series here at EcoSalon called the Reader Spotlight. We have so many cool readers, we thought, why not introduce you all? Carla Rose caught our attention because of her fun tweets and thoughtful comments. Thanks for chatting with us, Carla!

How does your best friend describe you?

I’m usually told that I have a great sense of humor.

Vital stats: where ya from, whatcha do?

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area where I reside. I am however, moving to Portland in September. I am building and rebuilding my retail website at greenandchic and I manage two blogs.

Your favorite eco brand is…

Good question! There are so many eco brands out there that I love. I would have to say Weleda for bath, body, skin and hair care products.

The company you’re wishing would go green is…

Walmart. So many people shop at these stores, if they went green – not just greenwashing – I think it would make a huge impact.

What other green blogs do you recommend to everyone here?

thegoodhuman, craftingagreenworld, greenandgorgeous

Your biggest pet peeve is…

Unreliable people.

What is the coolest compliment you’ve ever received?

The coolest complement I’ve ever received was when someone told me I always make their day.

What’s your current favorite thing?

I know it may sound crazy, but my current favorite thing is cold cream I purchased from this Etsy seller, Au Naturalle. My skin has never looked better since I started using it!

What’s a talent or trick you have that amazes your pals?

People tell me that I should be a voice over actress since I can sound just like a newborn baby. There are other people and things I can imitate pretty well, too.

If you were going to repaint your living room wall today, what color would you pick?

It would either be a dark blue/turquoise or olive green.

We couldn’t resist sending Carla a little gift (we love doing that around here). You can check out Carla’s online happenings at greenandchic, or follow her tweets and say hi. Thanks for sharing, Carla! Now, I wonder who’s going to be next…

Wild Rose 24 Hour Moisturizer for Normal to Dry Skin with SPF 6

I couldn’t love this moisturizer more and I’m very sad to say I’m nearly halfway through it. Oh well, at least I still have half left! It’s fresh and rosy, with a cool, watery texture that sinks into your skin fast but leaves behind an amazing, greaseless sheen. I do wish this had a higher SPF than 6, but the scent, feel and performance are great. Really – and this is coming from the woman who has tried it all, from Clinique to Estee Lauder to La Mer – eww, mineral oil – to Origins to Burt’s Bees. That’s a long-winded way of saying I’ll be buying this for a long time to come. Because of the low SPF, if you’re fair like me you will still need something with more protection if you’re going to be gardening, hiking or hanging out with your clinician friend, Carrie.

Silicon-Free Face Primer

This. Is. Awesome. I was glad to finally get rid of my old Smashbox makeup primer, which I almost never used (partly because I don’t wear face makeup and partly because Smashbox’s primer is not good for your skin or the planet). Most days I don’t wear much on my skin, but this is perfect under powder or concealer if you don’t wear foundation. A little goes a very long way – just the tiniest nib of a dab of a dot will do ya. The tube is generously sized and a pea-sized amount would slick on for miles, so I fully expect to wake up a decade from now with this still in my makeup drawer. I should probably check out the expiration date with the Korres folks.

Pro-Vitamin B5 and Rice Bran Lash-Strengthening Mascara

I was excited to try out an organic mascara; this one disappoints. I’m lucky to have naturally thick lashes, but this formula is so thin and the color is such a dull brown, I felt like I actually looked worse after application. To be fair, I’m very picky about my mascara, and I like a rich, thick formula because I refuse to apply more than one coat. The really bad thing about this product is the strong smell. I don’t know if it’s the rice bran, but it was very medicinal – like crushed aspirin. Sorry, Korres!

Lip Butter Lip and Cheek Tint

Back to the yummy stuff. I love the lip butter. It’s silky, light, tastes and smells delicious, and somehow manages not to be thick or sticky while also staying on my lips for several hours. And it makes a great eye and cheek tint, too! It feels the way I think a lip gloss should feel – creamy and healing, without being goopy or shiny. It doesn’t have the congealed texture of something like chapstick or Carmex and it’s also not drying like a lot of so-called lip treatments are (you know the ones, where you have to reapply every five minutes or run the risk of chapped lips).

And there you have it; 3 out of 4 ain’t bad. In addition to the luscious textures and pleasant scents, the packaging is great – matte, minimal and substantial.

Now, just for you: Korres is providing readers of EcoSalon a discount of 30% all products purchased online at korresusa.com until September 30th, 2009! Just use promo code ECOSALON when ordering and you’ll get this amazing discount. Enjoy!

Editor’s note: If you want more beauty product reviews and recommendations, be sure to check out articles from our resident beauty expert, Katherine Butler.

And we’re not talking about that kind of sleeping together. The couple that snoozes together, loses together. Or rather, the couple that sleeps together, doesn’t.

That’s the latest finding from British scientist Neil Stanley. While American science reporting tends to focus on banishing the endemic muffin top, our friends across the pond have a none-too-wee fixation with la difference. If it’s not a breakthrough study finding that those helpless men are distracted by breasts or are just distracted in general, it’s the juicy promise of death by nuptial that keeps the html dot uk flowing.

Marriage is depressing. Marriage is expensive. Marriage not only ruins your waking life, your night life and your sex life, it also ruins the part of your life you’re not even consciously participating in. Oh, for heaven’s sake, is there no rest for the wedded weary?

The study reports that if you’re shacked up and sharing a bed, you experience 50% more sleep troubles than singletons. Sleeping together is downright unhealthy. So weird – I’m not married for this exact reason! Strategic brilliance from Ost, yet again.

My properly chilled Scandinavian grandparents may have been onto something with their separate sleeping arrangements. As a child, I remember thinking it was sort of weird that Grandpa and Grandma had a bedroom like Lucy and Ricky’s since we weren’t living in black and white anymore, but then being glad for it because it made jumping on the bed(s) twice as fun!

Just ponder the upside of hitting the hay in different stables. You’re fast asleep when a handsome stranger steals into your bed and has his way with you (so it’s actually your hubs and he has a spare tire, but work with me here). Absence makes the heart grow hornier, as it were. Sleeping apart makes sleeping together an extra special thing. Also, you get the eternal thrill of doing it in someone else’s room. Aside from making sex just like college all over again, there’s the benefit of never again having to argue over how many pillows ought to be embellishing the duvet. Oh, and the health thing.

Image: j9

Have you gone vintage with your produce yet? You may have spotted a colorful array of heirloom tomatoes at the farmers’ market but wondered what sets them apart from regular tomatoes, which are hybrids. While their name may sound fancy, heirloom vegetables are simply a throwback to the type of produce everyone used to eat before mass production intervened. These vintage varieties have been around for at least 50 years and are often passed down through several generations of a family because of their desirable characteristics. Plucked straight from the vine, heirloom produce has become a staple at local farmers’ markets because its thin, ripe skin makes it tricky to transport. In addition to tasting fresher and sweeter, heirlooms also boast health and environmental benefits:

Nutrient-rich

Recent research shows that heirlooms actually contain more nutrients than hybrids. It appears that irrigation and fertilization techniques used by commercial farmers to get high yields have an unwanted side effect: the concentration of minerals in these plants decreases. Heirlooms also outshine hybrids because they don’t suffer from what scientists call the “genetic dilution effect.” Plant breeders often cross varieties without giving much thought to maintaining nutritional value. High-yield plants are usually rich in carbohydrates but lack an abundance of vitamins and minerals.

Friendly to the environment

Heirloom farmers usually grow organically, so you’re supporting sustainable agriculture when you choose heirlooms over hybrids. Heirlooms also help maintain biodiversity in our food supply. By keeping different varieties of a crop in existence, we are lessening our dependency on monoculture farming. When farmers use these older varieties, they’re able to breed resistance to pests and diseases into modern crops without resorting to the use of dangerous pesticides.

Image: clayirving

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Melissa Lum. Melissa is a freelance lifestyle writer. She blogs about health and wellness topics at The Good Goji.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) does not see fit to extend the same moral courtesy to human animals, specifically the female kind. In the organization’s latest sexist campaign for vegetarianism, an overweight woman in a bikini is faced with the emboldened slogan: “Save the Whales”. Beneath the words runs a helpful tagline: “Lose the blubber: go vegetarian.”

Come on gals, take a joke. What’s a little fat-shaming in pursuit of a good time?

There’s no shortage of adjectives (or profanities) that come to mind to describe such a mean-spirited billboard. And if you can get through the confusion of it – don’t be a whale! wait, save the whales! don’t be a whale so we can save the whales! whales are great, except you, blubber butt! – it’s also very telling.

A friend of mine, John Haslett, is a professional adventurer and author of the sea memoir, Voyage of the Manteno. In the book, he writes about the behavior of people in survival situations – that is, people under extreme stress. An inevitable few will rapidly decline into paranoia and eventual insanity. Some – many more than you would think, observes Haslett – simply give up. Some rise to the challenge, while others become childish or cheat. I think we can figure out which part of the life raft we’d find PETA hugging.

With admirably relentless energy, PETA has managed to jump from the margins of activism and enjoys frequent mainstream media attention. To the dismay of many vegetarians, when Newkirk speaks, people do listen. A group like PETA has just as much potential to wear at our social fabric as any loudmouth pundit. These are not just crazy tactics; PETA’s stunts are part of a carefully-woven, and unfortunate, strategy. Deliberately divisive, PETA is antisocial in a wide cultural sense. Desperate to win, they resort to the ridiculous and alienate those whom they hope to convert. What a dark, lonely world these small-minded people inhabit! I don’t know about you, but I don’t want anyone this stressed out trying to advocate for anything except another cocktail.

The woman who is concerned with social and environmental justice should be quick to leave PETA to the spiral it’s so enthusiastically sliding down. Sociologists explain that it’s common for oppressed groups to target each other as they jockey for autonomy. PETA abusing using women as a tool to achieve their goals is just one more example in a long history of horizontal violence. Not very original, is it? One can easily imagine that in the hive-mind of PETA headquarters, there is only room for the conflict view of reality: it’s either women for animals or women over animals. I guess PETA can’t conceive of women and animals, or at least not for the blubbery among us!

Any position worth defending can be done with integrity. If you have to take a cheap shot to score a point, you don’t belong in the game. Or put another way, when the end justifies the means, the means become the end.

Recommended reading on this topic: Feministing, Deceiver, Jezebel, Huffington Post, The Frisky, DoubleX

Well, not quite. It was more like pondering: What was the purpose of this S? Psychoanalyzing: Was I marking my territory? Journaling: Did I have nothing more interesting to display than a letter? (Yet again that master’s degree in liberal arts proves useful.)

Stick with me here, R. The letter as decor is a popular motif. But is it a classic element of style, like Danish chairs – or is it a bland substitute for a more original statement? I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to feel like the world of wall decor is going to turn into one big L.L. Bean towel if we don’t nip this thing now.

Let’s take a scroll and decide:

Yeah, it’s not looking good.

Damn, that’s cute. Maybe we’re going to be okay.

I’m not sure why but I find myself wanting to draw a squiggly red line on that wall.

Words are useful. A little obvious maybe, but useful. I get it.

Although I admit this one does remind me of that Far Side “school for the gifted” cartoon.

As seen on Apartment Therapy, an advertisement for wooden letters. Which means there is a whole marketing department for this somewhere. Uh-oh. (Maintaining editorial credibility, AT points out that we are witnessing the beginning of the end, and it is not good.)

Then again, letters are less silly than, oh, I don’t know, pink plastic ducks flying across your wall.

A letter is nice.

Really nice.

Super, duper, freakin’ nice.

What a nice G.

Nicest and perhaps most literal display of narcissism ever.

For nice little girls. Complete with an ehow-to-do-it.

Also nice.

Still pretty much nice.

When nice attacks!

There are places where a bold letter creates a statement, adds drama or lends a warm touch (especially if it’s a full name or an inviting word). But doesn’t it seem like a lot of the time, sticking a letter on the wall is just filling space rather than defining it?

Images: diaperchest, make-baby-stuff, Oh Joy!, Centsational Girl, blueantstudio, HGTV, visualize/designsponge, Amelia M Bell, Apartment Therapy, Design*Sponge, Living Etc, ehow, lovemyearth, tinydecor, countryliving