Monthly Slow News Summary: September 2011

On Slow Food:

• "There is no magic bullet for producing good food at low prices.": How $8-a-dozen eggs threaten real food reform in The Atlantic. 
• Meanwhile, Forbes and Ecocentric report on Slow Food USA's $5 challenge.
• EcoSalon posted a terrific round-up of their best Green Plate posts. Go read 'em all.
• Organic Authority talked about fortified foods.
• EcoSalon's Foodie Underground tried their hand at making fresh cheese. (My husband tried this a couple of years ago, and it is every bit as easy and delicious as this post makes it sound.)
• SmartPlanet posted a video link to Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini's recent 90-minute lecture at U.C.Berkley, and summarized the high points.
• From DinnerTool's blog: 5 Ways Slow Food Can Help Your Family
• " That old food pyramid that today’s parents grew up with, with the carbohydrates on the bottom floor? Basically wrong. The obsession with fat and calories as a measure of healthy eating? Also wrong." A Boston Globe article on why fighting childhood obesity is harder than it might appear.
• GOOD's Cord Jefferson drew our attention to this amazing infographic of what we eat, on average, and explained why 42 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year is far from good news.

Bethan Laura Wood's Stain ceramic cups are treated with a pattern
that is revealed with time and use as the material becomes tea-stained.
Not new (from 2007), but such a brilliant example of Slow Design that I had to share.
More recently she has used the slow design principles to create
handmade lace Confetti and a chandelier made of ice.

On Slow Design, Slow Home, and Eco Products:

• SlowMama's Leah Moss did a great post on learning to say "No, thank you."
• I am totally coveting Dutch designer Christien Starkenburg's timeless, eco-friendly, locally-made Slow Wood tables. Although shipping them halfway around the world would defeat the whole point. 
• Merida Home posted a primer on all the reasons polyvinyl chloride (that's vinyl or PVC) isn't such a great thing to have in our homes. 
• You all know about GreenYourDecor's Green Room In A Box series, right? Go see the most recent one, which is so chic it'll put all thoughts of green equaling granola out of your head.
• Kelly Anderson from Calgary's Refreshed Designs wrote a primer on Slow Home Studio's work; meanwhile, Apartment Therapy's ReNest continued their in-depth month-long series on the slow home principles with articles on kitchens, dining rooms, bedrooms, storage, lighting, water conservation, energy conservation, and more... all summarized here.
• More proof that the greenest brick is the one that's already built, in both senses of the word green: the eco-retrofit of the Empire State Building has earned USGBC's LEED-Gold designation, at a cost of only $0.25 per square foot. That's news that should have commercial building owners everywhere rethinking their next renovations.

Missoni's line of fashions and homewares for Target was introduced early this week
and has probably already sold out.
I wonder whether their legendary Italian-made quality was diluted for the mass market.
Someone do a proper analysis of whether those items are actually slow-fashion or fast-fashion, mmkay?
Artwork via Gabriela Romero on Pinterest - please let me know the artist if you recognize it!

On Slow Fashion:

• Grace from High Fashion Girl summarized the points against fast fashion, and listed 10 tips to 'favor the tortoise' and slow down your wardrobe. "It pains me to write this, because I have convinced myself that fast fashion  is the only kind of clothes I can afford (and god, do I love H&M), but this is a marketing ploy and a lie. I've bought into it just like everyone else."
• Swishing founder Lucy Shea announced that she'll do no shopping, only 'swishing' (going to clothing and accessory swap parties, so dubbed by the UK's Futerra) for the next year. Go girl!
• SlowFashioned reviewed Lucy Siegle's book To Die For, and had a brilliant post on deadly denim sand-blasting practices and a round-up of recent news reports about fast-fashion factory conditions.
• Lara McPherson had a guest-post on Aussie site My Year Without Clothes Shopping summarizing the "Is Fashion Sustainable?" panel discussion from Melbourne's Fashion Week in March. Good stuff.
• Online tool Fashioning Change got coverage by both SlowFashioned and Ecouterre. 
• New York Fashion Week is in full swing - check EcoSalon and Ecouterre for comprehensive coverage of all the relevant stories for slow fashionistas. Inhabitat have a great roundup of the best eco runway shows for those of us with a more casual interest in fashion.
• Of course it's fashion week in other places, too. Even here in Edmonton, in a week or so. Here's a story on emerging Aussie designers and "the rise and rise of great little stores specializing in great little independent labels".
• Meanwhile Abigail Doan mused on EcoSalon, "Might the next chapter in ethical fashion be all about the genius of place?".
• Lou Sagar drew our attention to the WWF Deeper Luxury report calling on high-fashion brands to adopt more stringent sustainability and social responsibility standards, and observed, "The paradigm shift in what we associate with style and success, is moving quickly to incorporate "awareness" to social issues and sustainability practices." 
• Ew. Perc stays on your dry cleaned clothes.
• Professors from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the Nova Scotia Agricultural College are hosting a conference in mid-September on restablishment of a fibre and natural dye industry in the province. I can't wait to hear what comes out of it.

On Slow Living:

• Both the International Journalists' Network and the late, lamented edmontonian discussed the need for a Slow News movement.
• Ever thought the stuff at a craft fair was overpriced? Think again. Why handmade is "so expensive".
• I heart designer Natalie Chanin, and her new column on EcoSalon. So far, she's written philosophically about making her design process open-source, running a business while raising a young family, and craft as a wellspring of hope in troubled times. Wonderful stuff.
• EcoSalon also published a thoughtful post synthesizing several recent studies that reveal how the recession is changing consumer habits, possibly forever.
• The Atlantic also talked about consumer habits in a great article on how the sharing movement is shaping the economy. 
• High end consumers in the UK are taking up urban farming: Putting the Chic in Chicken Coop.
• Why moving more frequently is related to shopping at chain stores: For Americans, Mobility Breeds Uniformity
• There's now a Slow Fragrance movement and a Slow Communication Manifesto, which reminded me of this post about writing snail-mail on gorgeous stationery.
• YES! Magazine are brilliant. This month they've done a must-read article on how localism can save the economy. Actually you ought to read the whole issue.
• On a related note, Richard Louv posted on Nature's Own Stimulus Package.
• A friend sent me this TEDxAtlanta talk by Ellen Dunham-Jones on Retrofitting Suburbia. She talks about major demographic shifts in suburbia (thanks to Baby Boomers retiring and Generation Y buying starter homes), converting inner-ring-suburb parking lots and strip malls to new uses that better serve communities, the value of Third Places, the need to upgrade transport corridors to pockets of suburban new urbanism, and the regreening of suburbs. Planning geeks and anyone thinking of entering the (brilliant!) Strip Appeal competition sponsored by UAlberta's City-Region Studies Centre should watch this.
• Transition guru Rob Hopkins has a new book available for preorder. Want want want. While we wait, here's a transcript of his recent podcast on New Thinking In Transition.
• Create The Good Life! posted on life-long learning.
• SlowMama's Ann wrote about her successful VBAC, and Zoe wrote about her long wait to adopt. I love the way they both framed motherhood in the context of the slow movement. Also, Zoe wrote a series of posts about her visit home to Nova Scotia that left me desperately homesick and craving wild blueberries and fresh seafood.

Starting September 17th, an exhibit of Slow Tech concepts will be part of this year's London Design Festival.
via Protein.

On Slow Travel:

• I *love* the idea of Poko Design's Guerilla Green Map of Barcelona. 
• EcoSalon made me want to pack my bags for Maine, Vancouver Island, and San Fran.

On Sustainability and Environment:

• NPR pointed out that this year, disasters have been declared in all but two of the United States.
• In related news, a new report links extreme weather events to global warming.
• Arctic sea ice "has melted to a level not recorded since satellite observations started in 1972 – and almost certainly not experienced for at least 8,000 years, say polar scientists." Um, wow.
• Surely you've seen the news about the ongoing KeystoneXL protests. It seems that even a former premier of Alberta thinks the pipeline is a bad idea, although not for the reasons you might think. I also recommend you check out economist and oilsands expert Andrew Leach's most recent blog post.
• "For the first time, a majority of the world’s largest public corporations are including steps to combat climate change as part of their business strategies."