Epic Slow News Summary: April - May - June 2012

Well, the move is finished, the old house is staged and on the market, and life is getting back to normal at my new home... so it must be time to see what we've missed in the news over the past three months. Obviously this won't be an exhaustive summary - please leave a comment if I missed anything noteworthy!

This bag is part of graphic designer Maria Ballestar's Mankind Manifesto activist pack. Via. 

On Slow Home, Slow Design & Eco-Products

• I'll have these flat-pack birdhouses for my garden, please. And maybe one of these microalgae lamps as a carbon sink (but what happens when the algae die and rot?).
• Treehugger provided a great analysis of the changes to LEED certification - hooray for them making it more challenging, to answer the critiques about ill-planned add-ons like bike racks and shade awnings being used to get conventional buildings certified.
• "Great things take time." - William McDonough on the seemingly slow adoption of Cradle-to-Cradle design principles
• The Tiny House movement now has an article in YES and its own documentary. 
• SlowFashioned reminded us that handmade quilts are THE slow home accessory.
• Another pendant lamp made from a propane cylinder by a Canadian designer - this one by Montreal's La Firme.
• Slow Furniture - or rather, a sweet campaign to support British craft affiliated with bespoke furniture website Lapaloosa - got some press in The Independent. (I'm pretty sure people were using the term 'slow furniture' before November 2011 - see this and this and this - but it feels like nitpicking to point that out when this new UK group's aims are so sympathetic to the goals of the slow movement in general. Carry on.)
• I've talked before about reupholstering vintage furniture with good bones, instead of buying new furniture - here is a great piece from Apartment Therapy that talks about real-world reupholstery costs. (As usual with AT, the article itself is flawed by its' focus on only one region, so read the comments for more great advice and an idea of costs in other parts of the States.)
• I've just discovered Slow Luxe Life, the blog of decorator Andrea May. Check out her explanation of slow design (which she uses to mean what others call "slow home"), then page through her weekly profiles of American makers and designers. Inspirational!
• If your version of Slow Home includes a healthy dose of minimalism and simplicity, you really should sign up for the "SlowHome BootCamp" from our friend Brooke of Aussie blog Slow Your Home. If it isn't, well, maybe you should read her Nine Kick-Arse Reasons To Slow Your Home. Go on, we can do the boot camp together.
• NYT's In Defense Of The Decorator makes the point that high-end decorators have access to skilled artisans (and help to save dying arts by specifying handmade, one-of-a-kind objects from those artisans), and that regardless of your budget, spending on a professional to guide your purchases and manage your renovation projects is an investment in your home and furnishings that can save you money and headaches in the long run. 
• Hmm, these are stats from the US, but they indicate that when the housing bubble collapsed, more larger homes for families who can still afford mortgages under more restrictive lending rules were built.  (I wonder what proportion of large new houses are being built as multigenerational homes?)
• Builder Online on the changes that all those baby boomers becoming seniors could wreak on the housing industry.
• The best long read of the last three months in slow design might be Steve Mouzon's 6-part series on reincorporating living traditions into architecture - and all the disruptive technologies and ecological and economic trends that make it imperative to reexamine why we build what we build. Seriously, go read all of it NOW.

Check out the beautiful interiors of Johannesburg's SLOW In The City, which seems to be a mashup of a private members' club and business incubator, with a definite sustainability and slow movement bent. The operators also run the SLOW airport lounges in several South African domestic airports. Their philosophy: "Welcome to a calmer world, a place to celebrate pleasure over pressure, quality over quantity, mindfulness over mindlessness, SLOW is the equivalent of a long deep breath." LOVE. Via.

On Slow Fashion

• The past few months saw the publication of great slow fashion 101 articles by A Bit Slow for ecouterre, sustainablog, Molly Green, and Sustainable Sartorial - and designer Julia Roebuck examined how we can educate teens about fast fashion's harmful effects.
• Speaking of. I'm pretty excited about new book "Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion" by Elizabeth L. Cline after reading the review in the Los Angeles Times. (There's an excerpt at ecouterre!)
• Ecouterre profiled Nervous System's 3D-printed jewelry, Coach's catcher-mitt wallets, Diana Eng's adorable ladybug pins, a certification for recycled clothing, an ethical school uniform campaign, and a product that lets you make your own oilcloth.
• I'm Obsessed With This profiled London slow-fashion stylists Rewardrobe - I'll take the Re-Styling package, SVP.
• Skilled artisans to make luxury goods using traditional techniques are in short supply. It's presented as a problem (kids these days don't want to be lacemakers!), but there's an opportunity here for the slow movements and transition town groups of each region to get involved in promoting apprenticeships and hosting weekend beginners' workshops to make sure skills aren't lost.
• SlowFashioned shared a brilliant infographic demonstrating what women spend (in the USA) - almost 400 hours per year shopping, WOW - and reminded us of the nastiness lurking inside most shampoo bottles.
• Speaking of nasty, while nobody wants melanoma, it turns out that the dihydroxyacetone in spray tans is a mutagen (ie, can cause cancer), and zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreen might generate free radicals that can also cause cancer (although frankly, this study has design flaws - wouldn't using skin cells make more sense than lung cells? - and all the scaremongering news articles on this are based on a single press release on research that is "soon to be published", while reputable scientists generally wait until after their work has been published in a peer-reviewed journal before publicizing it.). But the alternatives to mineral sunscreens tend to be pseudoestrogens, so my family will be covering up and following the EWG's advice on which mineral sunscreens work best.
• The Telegraph told us in a great article on an upcoming slow fashion event that nearly a third of UK town councils have had to institute textile collection services as more people toss out their old clothes. Meanwhile, Ecouterre report that 20% of UK women have tossed out a garment after only one wear, and 20% estimate their wardrobes at more than 100 pieces of clothing, according to a survey tied to department store Marks & Spencer's new clothing recycling program. Ecouterre also shared this infographic showing that the average American throws out 65 pounds of textiles per year. Eep.

From June 18 to 24, Slow Food is being celebrated in Britain - Via. 

On Slow Food

• First, the huge news: in the wake of all the contoversy over changes in Slow Food USA's direction, their president Josh Viertel is stepping down.
• From Slow Food International, there were great articles on the Slow Food Kids events in the UK, the diversity of seafoods in British Columbia, choosing fresh fish - and how to help those affected by the earthquakes in Slow Food's spiritual home.
• This is SO funny: http://ecosalon.com/foodie-underground-quick-fixes-to-pretending-youre-a-foodie/ Wait, I have to have tried kale chips to be a foodie? Busted!
• You have got to read this thoughtful article about the USFRA's Food Dialogues PR campaign. 
• Hey Canadians: SlowMama's Ann Waterman shared a genuine HBC trading post pancake recipe that you have got to try.
• This Swedish Caramelized Rhubarb Jam recipe from EcoSalon looks pretty yummy, too.
• On the local front, Edmonton hosted Slow Food Canada's annual conference this year. I wasn't able to go (moving, sigh), but luckily for me there were tweets by local bloggers and this swell video by Kevin Kossowan. Check out the incredible meal they had for the gala! However, I was able to attend and live-tweet the Food In the City conference meant to inform the City of Edmonton's food strategy (see videos from the conference here). One of the biggest challenges facing that initiative is that every expert seemed to have a different definition of 'local food' - so watch for that pitfall in similar conversations where you live.
• Both Vue Weekly and Avenue reviewed Velo Fare, the (ahem, awesome) cookbook coauthored by Edmonton bike blogger par excellence Sarah Chan and culinary Leanne Brown, in which they explored different parts of town by bike and brought home ingredients for delicious locally-sourced meals with inspirations from all over the globe.

On Slow Travel

• South Africa's national parks blog explained slow travel.
• Could you slow travel for 8 years with your child as a single parent?
• Lonely Planet listed 9 amazing slow travel destinations.
• I love these 5 tips for slow travel from Take Your Big Trip.
• BootsNAll listed a series of 'live like a local' travel experiences that look absolutely fascinating.
• Here's one I missed: GranTourismo profiled Slow Travel Berlin back in January.

On Sustainability

• On urban planning: "Just because it's denser doesn't mean it's greener." 
• I want walking direction signs like these in my city. (In some of the towns we visited in Japan this time last year, they were marked on metal plaques on sidewalk street corners instead.) 
• Both GOOD and MacLean's reported on why young people are driving less than previous generations.
• Arctic sea ice is now thin enough to let light through, causing blooms of phytoplankton that will have knock-on effects through the whole arctic marine ecosystem. Meanwhile on land, Ed Struzik explains how climate change may mess with the denning habits of the polar bear - not just their feeding habits. Oh yeah, and the pending collapse of the ice shelf in Antarctica could trigger a much warmer climate cycle called a super-interglacial in the Arctic.
• Varroa mite infestation combined with a viral infection may play a huge role in bee colony collapses - and scientists worry that we don't really know yet what's happening with wild bee populations.
• Surely you have read the planetary tipping point news articles? This is huge, and a bit scary. Here's the original paper in Nature.
• And while politicians are still arguing over whether climate change is happening and whether humans are causing it, scientists are warning that the last IPCC report was much too conservative in its predictions.

On Slow Living

• Remember I mentioned The Slow Living Summit 2012? They've posted lots of videos from the conference online, AMAZING stuff. There have also been a public radio interview and followup articles at Locally Grown News, ClimateWire, and the Commons.
• The Globe & Mail explained slow work.
• Sustainable Business Oregon interviewed Amy Cortese about locavesting (an idea related to slow money).
• Brooklyn had an urban farming pop-up shop called Hayseed's. Brilliant.
• Slow Beauty (explained here) shared articles on trends toward slowness in the spa and wellness industry and creating downtime for our children. 
• Slow Japan rounded up some great documentaries on sustainable living.
• Ben and Jerry (you know, the ice cream guys) are spearheading a campaign for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizen United. 
• Turns out some of our gardening tools and products can contaminate our home-grown veg with lead and BPA. That bargain garden hose seems like less of a bargain now.
• Sadness. Slow Family Living report that BrainChild will no longer be a print magazine. They were the only parenting magazine that I felt didn't insult my intelligence when I was a new mom, and I'll definitely buy their compilation book when it is released.
• My kids are already in a school with a project-based Reggio Emilia approach to the curriculum, so I don't feel any need to homeschool per se, but I love the idea of afterschooling that Tsh from Simple Mom shared. We already are supplementing school with a moderate number of extracurricular activities and family field trips and reading literature at bedtime, but if our homework load is small next year I'd love to incorporate some ideas from afterschooling into what we do.
• Slow Family Online reviewed new book Playborhood, about strategies for building community and creating neighborhood-based (instead of behind-privacy-fences-or-inside-houses) play lives for our children. Kindle edition bought, now to read it!
• Zoe from Slow Mama on slow parenting.
• 10 good reasons to ride a bike and a primer on bicycle commuting = I need to take a break from writing and go for a ride in the sunshine.