“Consumer demand for safer products drives fastest-growing market segment”

Yes, the cosmetics game is changing! 321 Companies have passed all of the Compact for Safe Cosmetics compliance requirements and 111 are in process!

Here is a list of the champions.

 http://safecosmetics.org/downloads/MarketShiftCompanies.pdf

The Environmental Working group, a founding member of the campaign, celebrates the cosmetic champions! On this celebratory page you will find links to the Skin Deep database pages for every one of the champions.

Congratulations to these companies that have worked hard to make sure their products are truly safe! SPREAD THE WORD! We can change the world through the power of purchase. Let’s do it.

Thank you to Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of the book Not Just a Pretty Face.

Thank you to Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at the EWG, who is responsible for the development of the Skin Deep® database

Thank you to everyone involved with Campaign for Safe Cosmetics for all the time and energy involved in making this happen, including the following founding organizations.

Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow

Breast Cancer Fund

Clean Water Fund

Commonweal

Environmental Working Group

Friends of the Earth

Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition

National Black Environmental Justice Network

National Environmental Trust

Women’s Voices for the Earth

Bravo!!!!

Related articles

• Campaign gets companies to make safer cosmetics (sfgate.com)
• More Companies Making Safer Cosmetics, Group Reports (huffingtonpost.com)

Image via CrunchBase

In this economy the vast majority of Americans are struggling to pay the bills. The  following are some great links with smart ways to save. Sending this one out with love!

FOOD!

FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS

• WIC SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT NUTRITION PROGRAM women, infants & children under age 5
• WIC FARMER’S MARKET NUTRITION PROGRAM
• SNAP  food assistance program

• Holiday Toy Swap with thredUP (thegreensamaritan.com)
• ThredUp lets parents swap kids’ used clothes, toys (sfgate.com)
• Bye Bye, Baby Gap: Trading Children’s Clothes With James Reinhart of ThredUP (fastcompany.com)
• ThredUP Helps Clean Out Your Kids’ Closets For Christmas Toy Swap (walletpop.com)
• Frugal parents skip stores and swap online for kids’ toys (usatoday.com)
• Site for Swapping Hand-Me-Downs Now Aims to Swap Ideas (mashable.com)
• In a Tight Holiday Season, Some Turn to Barter (nytimes.com)

Join Global Green’s “I AM” Challenge!

OK Moving on to the Sustainable Design Awards

This Monday Global Green will honor Bill McKibben and May Boeve of 350 and other innovators and leaders dedicated to raising awareness about global warming.

You can BUY TICKETS HERE!

Related articles

• (video) Bill McKibben: Why I Spent 2 Days In Jail Protesting the Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline (nurturenatureproject.com)
• Bill McKibben: Tar Sands Action response to State Department’s IG’s decision … – YubaNet (press release) (yubanet.com)
• Remixing McKibben: Op Ed Combines With Video to Create Dire Climate Warning (video) (treehugger.com)
• This is What Democracy Looks Like (sustainabilitymonitor.wordpress.com)
• Bill McKibben at #OccupyWallStreet: We Need to Circle the White House and Liberate Obama from that Stunt Double (my.firedoglake.com)
• Looking for a leader (chimalaya.org)
• Public Transport (retrorambling.wordpress.com)
• FDL Book Salon Welcomes Bill McKibben, The Global Warming Reader (fdlbooksalon.com)
• Keystone XL Pipeline Delayed (midd-blog.com)

So, my singer/actress/teacher sister Susannah,

(seen above amidst terrifying gang of stuffed animals),

and I took a trip to New York City recently on our usual starving-artist-style, shoestring budgets!

We are so grateful for wonderful friends who offered us beautiful, cozy accommodations and a delicious breakfast!

We stopped by ABC Home which must be the biggest indoor bazaar in the world.

————————————————————————————————————-

A little about the incredibly inspiring head of ABC home, Paulette Cole.

• In 2004, Cole decided to transform ABC Home, the Manhattan-based retailer of upscale home design, into a mission-based business focusing on the environment and social responsibility. She began by asking furniture manufacturers where they sourced their wood. Today ABC Home sells 650 choices of “good wood” furniture…
• In 2009, She was one of Time Magazine’s Green Design 100. Time Magazine 2009 Green 100: Paulette Cole
• Paula Cole in Healing Arts Magazine: Best of Responsible Capitalism 2009
• This Sept. 2011, Paulette Cole at the Urban Zen WIE (Women Inspiration and Enterprise) Symposium  ForaTV (VIDEO) The Green Revolution Go to 24: 42 for Paula.

Because of her amazing leadership, today, ABC Home carries a huge selection of deliciously pure, non-toxic, and organic products.

—————————————————————————————

ABC Home carries sublimely gorgeous, GOTS certified organic, vegetable dyed  Raksha Bella Organic  Linens. Angels sing when people make fabrics like this. If you listen closely you will hear them.

ABC Home also carries the top organic skin care, and non-toxic perfume and cosmetic lines.

Redflower Perfumes: Pure flower and herb distillations in usda certified organic oil.

Packaged in 80% post consumer recycled paper.

Produced and printed at 100% wind-powered plant in usa.

Two seriously great guys wearing sparkly gold crowns

let me take their picture. LOVE this picture.

In addition, ABC Kitchen, ABC Home’s new restaurant,  just won Best New Restaurant of 2011 by the James Beard Foundation. This restaurant is sustainable, local, and organic – from the decor to the food and they have committed to sourcing 70% of the menu from within 90 miles of the restaurant between May and October.  Have I said that I love Paulette Cole? Paulette, wherever you are, I love you.

Next time I am going to bring my suit case and move in like Corduroy the bear in the children’s book by Don Freeman.

We look forward to trying brunch there!

——————————————–

For this trip, we ate lunch at Gust Organics Restaurant, the first USDA certified

Organic Restaurant in New York. I have heard

that it’s USDA certified organic bar is the first of its kind on the planet!

Very reasonably priced!

This was our outrageously sweet and adorable waitress!

We drank yummy green drinks!

and ate the following truly delicious meals.

Here’s a blurry page from their incredible menu.

Every town in America needs a Gust Organics!!

No, really,

EVERY town needs a Gust Organics instead of McDonalds!

Listen up venture capitalists, the time is now!

Anyway

For the red meat eaters out there,

I had to take a pic of this organic beef burger restaurant sign. Go NYC!

No antibiotics. No growth promoting hormones. No pesticides in the cow’s food.

Some very cool eco-friendly displays at Anthropology

Old tennis rackets with mirrors

Reused glass orange juice bottles, jars, and

other glass containers make beautiful terrariums

test tubes and gutted light bulbs hold dried flowers

Man on his way to Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science.

And on a final note, no trip to NYC is complete without the amazing

funked-up-musician-on-the-subway experience.

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• GustOrganics Launches World’s First Certified Organic Street Cart in New York City (prweb.com)

“	RT @zerohedge: RT @ErikSchatzker: Columbia’s @JeffDSachs tells me #occupywallstreet shouldn’t be dismissed, likens it to Arab Spring http://t.co/8TPM6TOr
	brightabyss October 8, 2011

“	The top 1% of American income earners receives more pretax income than the bottom 50%. http://t.co/RdTxmhdh #occupywallstreet
	JeffDSachs October 5, 2011

“	In 1981, personal savings rate as % of disposable income in US was 106%. By 2005, it dropped to 1.4% http://t.co/RdTxmhdh
	JeffDSachs October 7, 2011

“	The last time America had such massive inequality of wealth and income was on the eve of the Great Depression. http://t.co/RdTxmhdh
	JeffDSachs October 6, 2011

Related articles

• The Price of Civilization by Jeffrey Sachs (guardian.co.uk)

Meet Project Green Challenge’s extremely cool founder, Erin Schrode!

Contestants who complete the 30-day Challenge can apply for the Challenge Finals. Ten finalists will be selected to participate in Green University, a two-day eco summit held in California this December. Students will be flown to San Francisco where they will learn from esteemed eco leaders, present experiences from the 30-day Challenge, and work together to create unique platforms for social action.This new slate of projects will be implemented by Teens Turning Green and youth nationwide in 2012.

Be there or be a trapezoid!

There is a revolution going on in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America, a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat. THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.  www.thefutureoffood.com

2000+ events. 180+ countries. A single day to Move Beyond Fossil Fuels. 350.org’s 2011 day of action, Moving Planet, brought together Moving Together.

Photos and Videos submitted by thousands of organizers and activists around the world!

Music by Alex Forster: http://www.alexforster.net

Related articles

• 24th of September, A Day of Protests (theramblingsofateenagegirl.wordpress.com)
• Global warming: Day of Action under way (summitcountyvoice.com)
• Heather Libby: Interactive ‘Moving Planet’ Shows Thousands Taking Action on Climate Change (huffingtonpost.com)
• Love your Moving Planet (texasgreenreport.wordpress.com)
• Sept. 24 Climate ‘Day of Action’ includes Colorado bike ride (summitcountyvoice.com)
• Hub Rally Part of Climate Change Protests (bostonist.com)
• Moving Planet (mccaulayandmaestro.com)
• It’s Time for Moving Planet! (treehugger.com)

Eleven Voluntary Initiatives 

http://www.visionsmc.com/2011/03/25/ted-turners-voluntary-initiatives/

 By Ted Turner

1. I promise to care for Planet Earth and all living things thereon, especially my fellow human beings.

2. I promise to treat all persons everywhere with dignity, respect, and friendliness.

3. I promise to have no more than one or two children.

4. I promise to use my best efforts to help save what is left of our natural world in its undisturbed state, and to restore degraded areas.

5. I promise to use as little of our nonrenewable resources as possible.

6. I promise to minimize my use of toxic chemicals, pesticides, and other poisons, and to encourage others to do the same.

7. I promise to contribute to those less fortunate, to help them become self-sufficient and enjoy the benefits of a decent life including clean air and water, adequate food,  health care, housing, education, and individual rights.

8. I reject the use of force, in particular military force, and I support the United Nations arbitration of international disputes.

9. I support the total elimination of all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and ultimately the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.

10. I support the United Nations and its efforts to improve the condition of the planet.

11. I support renewable energy and feel we should move rapidly to contain greenhouse gases.

http://www.missrepresentation.org/home.html

From the Video’s Youtube Information:

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WHERE: All over the world.

WHEN: September 24, 2011

FIND OUT WHAT ABOUT EVENTS IN YOUR AREA by entering your location: http://www.moving-planet.org

These are some of the events taking place near Hartford, CT, USA

Compassion for the Earth: Puja in the Park Buddhist Meditation and Chenrezik Chant

Hartford

United States

Journey of the Universe – Movie

West Hartford, CT

United States

Sing out to Save the Children!

West Hartford

United States

Some Green Ways to Energize our River Valley

Windsor

United States

NOTHING IN YOUR AREA? DO SOMETHING WITH A FRIEND OR BY YOURSELF!

Read more about it here: http://www.moving-planet.org