Archive for the ‘Outdoor + Environment’ Category
Wend Gets Mentioned on Greenupgrader
I was so excited to learn today that Wend got an excellent mention over at GreenUPGRADER, one of my preferred green blogs on the web.
A sample:
…the features include outdoor adventures, eco-minded company profiles and products, a Greenery section, with an overall cutting edge feel that is a welcome relief from the typical outdoor mags.
And GreenUPGRADER gave a particular shout out to my own article How Many People Could Your Cotton T-Shirt Hydrate. It’s always nice to be reminded that you’re doing good things!
Mountainfilm On Tour
I was stoked to receive the Mountainfilm 2008 guide in the mail yesterday. Sent to me in order to get a feel for what this year’s film festival will be like, the guide made me want to immediately book a ticket for the upcoming event in May. If you’re not familiar with Mountainfilm it’s an annual film festival dedicated to “educating and inspiring audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving, and conversations worth sustaining.”
So it’s not just a collection of climbing and hiking films; there are also ones about conservation, social justice and cultural issues. All things that we should be concerned about! Last year’s films include Carpa Diem, Losing the Elephants and Flow (a personal favorite documentary about water issues).
But for those who can’t make it to the actual festival held in Telluride, CO, there’s Mountainfilm On Tour. A selection of films from the festival are taken on the road to reach audiences that otherwise would not have experienced them. The tour is coming to Portland tomorrow which I’m excited about, but if you live elsewhere, be sure to check out the tour schedule.
Win a pair of END shoes and a Wend subscription!
We’re doing a cool contest over at Wend in conjunction with END Footwear. From the Wend blog:
To help you be the hip, eco-aware kid on the street, we’re launching a sweet contest via Twitter. Want to enter? All you have to do is:
1. Follow @wendmagazine and @ENDfootwear
2. Tweet “Just entered to score a WEND mag sub and a pair of sweet END shoes! Just follow @wendmagazine and @ENDfootwear and RT http://xr.com/aya”
We’ll be giving away 3 one-year subscriptions, and each one comes with a pair of END shoes, hot off the Spring 09 line! Get to tweeting!
Good luck from your friends at WEND + END!
If you’re not familiar with END, it’s a Portland based shoe company committed to responsible design. Learn more about the END team and their philosophy here.
Get a Subscription to Wend For the Holidays!
We’ve got a cool Holiday Subscription Offer going on at Wend: Buy one get the second half off. I mean really, what better way to say “Happy Holidays” than by signing someone up for a Wend subscription? Plus in this crazy-over-anything-green day and age, you can’t go wrong with a magazine that’s printed on FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified paper and donates 25% of subscriptions to environmental non-profits.
Trust me, this is the one gift you don’t want to be without this season. It’s smart, it’s green, and even Sasquatch is doing it. Take advantage of the Holiday Subscription Offer now! When gray and rainy March comes around and you need some travel inspiration, you’ll be glad you did.
Zen Recycled Art
I read about this Buddhist temple in Thailand constructed out of recycled bottles a few weeks ago — and even wrote about it on Gadling — but I just now came across more photos of it at Green Upgrader. The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is about 400 miles northeast of Bangkok, making it just far enough away from the city that it’s still enough of a hidden gem. The monks of the temple used green and brown bottles from around the area, helping to clean up their community, and create a stunning structure.
The great thing about recycled bottles as decoration — and about 1.5 million have been used in the temple, giving the nickname “Temple of a Million Bottles” — is that the colors don’t fade, giving a timeless color show when the sun shines through.
Monday Humor
I know I know… the election is over, but I couldn’t help myself with this comic from Plenty Magazine. The mag published similar comics every once in awhile and their simplicity makes them hilarious. Check more out here.
Vote for Water
Doesn’t matter who you’re voting for, you still need to give up that bottled water addiction. At least that’s the stance Tappening takes. Because America uses 17 million barrels of crude oil a year just to make disposable plastic water bottles, the ad campaign advocates drinking tap water and getting the issue of bottled water on the political agenda.That’s a good thing considering how many of those plastic bottles end up in landfills, the ocean and beyond. Consider that next time you go to pull a bottle off the shelf.
Find out more about Tappening here and check out more of their ads here.
Salmon in Eagle Creek
Spent Saturday hiking Eagle Creek Trail in the Columbia Gorge where dozens of salmon were attempting to swim upstream. That section of the creek is basically the end of their run, meaning there were already a few dead fish floating in the water. Somehow I managed to get these three on camera… how they made it over that ledge of rocks in their exhausted state is beyond me. Being that close to them reminded me of how important they are to our ecosystem, which is why we should do all we can to support them.
Want to learn more about how you can help wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest? Check out Save Our Wild Salmon.
Fall issue of Wend is out!
After a summer of hard work, the fall issue of Wend is finally out! The funny thing about working on a magazine is that you spend so much time researching and writing articles, then editing them, then proofing the pages before they go to the printer, that by the time the issue arrives in the office, it feels like old news. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love this issue!
There’s an amazing story by Gregg Treinish and Deia Schlosberg, the first two people to hike the entire length of the Andes, as well as plenty of other stuff to inspire you to get out and do something! You can preview some of the articles here.
DIY plastic bag
Finally a smart way to re-use plastic; make a new bag out of it! It entails taking a whole bunch of old plastic bags, ironing them into crazy forms, and sewing it all up into the above finished product. The instructions are all over at Plenty Magazine and I have to say I really feel like I need to make one… check back with me in a couple of weeks (I have to track down an iron first!). And for those in need of something more heavy duty, you can even go all out and make a messenger bag from recycled trash bags. You’ll immediately exude “green” and “resourceful” and be able to show-up all of your friends who are toting their old school purchased packs.
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