Wicked Hemp Men's Hiking Boots

If you’re looking to experience the great outdoors this summer, hiking can be a great way to commune with nature. Here are some options for eco-friendly footwear that will keep your feet sturdily on the right path.

Patagonia, an outdoor sports retailer with a focus on minimizing their corporate footprint, offers a wide range of hiking boots and shoes for men and women, ranging in price from about $120 to $200. The company also offers a ‘product footprint’ pop-out for each item, allowing customers to learn about the mills and factories around the world that provided materials for each style.

Wicked Hemp by Wicked Footwear, meanwhile, offers a selection of fair trade hemp hiking boots and shoes for men and women, several styles of which are also vegan-friendly.

La Sportiva has their own entrance into the ecologically-conscious footwear market with their FC ECO line, including the FC ECO 3.0 GTX for men and women. All three available models use 100% recycled nylon mesh on the upper and 40% recycled nylon for the lining, as well as recycled nylon laces and 15% recycled EVA content in the midsole.

The World Wildlife Fund has released their Living Planet Report today, and the news isn’t good. According to the WWF’s findings, demand on natural resources has doubled since 1966. Today, the global community is currently using the equivalent of 1.5 planets’ worth of resources, and it takes the earth a year and a half to regenerate the natural resources that people consume in a single year.

“We are living as if we have an extra planet at our disposal. We are using 50 per cent more resources that the Earth can sustainably produce and unless we change course, that number will grow fast — by 2030 even two planets will not be enough,” said Jim Leape, WWF’s Director General, in a statement.

The report also found that biodiversity is still being lost, and high-income countries have five times the ecological footprint than their low-income counterparts: the U.S. leaves the fifth largest footprint out of the 130 countries included in the report, while Canada follows at eighth.

But all is not lost. These dark tidings can be reversed if we start making better choices, the report explains. The WWF recommends more protection for natural capital and biodiversity, more efficient production systems, a better pattern of consumption, redirected financial flows that support conservation over consumption, and equitable resource governance.

The WWF has released the report in the lead-up to the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, which will kick off in Rio de Janeiro five weeks from now.

By NOAA National Ocean Service: Flickr

Conservative politicians may be pushing the idea that people value job creation over protecting the environment in tough economic times like these, but that’s not what a new poll from Yale and George Mason Universities reveals. According to interviews they conducted between March 12 and March 30, 2012, 58% of those polled said that environmental protection actually improves economic growth and provides new jobs. Only 25% felt that the environment had no effect on economic growth or jobs, and a mere 17% felt that it actually reduced economic growth and cost jobs.

As part of the same poll, 62% of respondents said they felt protecting the environment was more important, even if it reduced the amount of economic growth, compared to 38% who chose economic growth even if it caused environmental problems. Meanwhile, 70% of those surveyed felt that corporations and industry need to do more to address global warming, and 67% felt that citizens also need to do more to address the issue.

The study, which was conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, surveyed 1,008 American adults. You can view the full details of the study on Yale’s website.

Buying organic salmon isn’t going to be a simple matter of looking at a label anymore. Canadian farmed salmon has just been granted an “organic” classification at the same time as Infectious Salmon Anameia (ISA) is ravaging both farms on the East cost and another “organic” salmon farm in British Columbia. Critics of the plan are fierce in their assertions that it allows the status quo to continue in conventional aquaculture in Canada while slapping a greenwashing “organic” label on Canadian salmon.

Additionally, 100% organic feed is not required for the fish and fish farmers may still use synthetic pesticides.

Bottom line? If it isn’t wild Canadian salmon, you can’t be sure it’s organic.

According to the company Simply Organic, 1 in 133 people have a sensitivity to gluten. This makes the gluten-free market an attractive one for natural product companies, and they’re no exception. They include in their certified gluten-free product line items like:

Alfredo sauce
Pancake & waffle mix
Enchilada Sauce
Banana Bread mix
Salsa mixes
Various flavours of tomato sauce

Simply Organic also has a great line of organic herbs and baking needs that you’ll find indispensable in your kitchen. I’m a big fan of their organic pepper, which tastes great and comes from organic sources. If their baking products are as of high a quality as their spices, you’d do well to give them a try. To check out what they’ve got and find a dealer near you, see their website.

Family's Best Organic Chips

If you’ve got the munchies, sometimes nothing but a handful of potato chips will satisfy that craving. While chips are never exactly going to be good for you, if you stick with organic options, it makes it easier to know what exactly you’re eating while doing your part for the earth as well.

In Canada, the President’s Choice label offers potato chips in their PC Organics line. These snacks are made from organic potatoes, organic sunflower oil, sea salt and seasoning. They’re available in salt & pepper, barbecue and sea salt flavours.

Family’s Best Organics offer USDA Certified organic chips, available in natural flavour, mild jalapeno and garlic & pesto. Their products are made from organic potatoes, fried in organic sunflower or safflower oil and then seasoned.

Whole Foods offers their own organic chips under their 365 Everyday Value label. Made from organic potatoes, they’re fried in organic sunflower oil and then seasoned with organic spices.

In a recent piece in the New York Times’ Opinion Pages, Dr. James Hansen, a renowned researcher of climatology and a leading scientist on climate issues, shares his views on Canada’s oil sands reserves and what exploiting them could mean for the environment and climate change. Hansen is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. He has been recognized with many awards and honours over the years in recognition of his work on climate change.

With a PhD in Physics and an MA in Astronomy, Hansen is perhaps best known for helping to bring knowledge of global warming to the public stage in the ’80s, when he testified to Congress about the realities of climate change. More recently, he’s authored a book, Storms of My Grandchildren, which looks at the potentially grim future humanity has in store and ways mankind can help avert the coming climate catastrophe.

The amount of plastic in the Pacific Ocean’s “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” has grown 100-fold over the past 40 years, according to a new study into the influence of human trash on the ocean environment. The study, which was published today in the journal Biology Letters, was part of the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX), which looked at the area of the Pacific Ocean a thousand miles west off the coast of California.

“Plastic only became widespread in late ’40s and early ’50s, but now everyone uses it and over a 40-year range we’ve seen a dramatic increase in ocean plastic,” said lead researcher Miriam Goldstein in a statement. “Historically we have not been very good at stopping plastic from getting into the ocean so hopefully in the future we can do better.”

The researchers found that not only is the amount of trash growing at an alarming rate, but it’s having other effects on the natural environment. The marine insect Halobates sericeus (better known as “sea skaters” or “water striders”), for instance, has started using the floating trash as a surface on which to lay eggs, which has led to an increasing number of eggs in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. While it’s beneficial to the water strider, such a dramatic increase in insect population could have consequences all along the ocean’s food web.

Photo by Ingrid Taylar: Flickr

Drift Sunglasses

With the summer sun on the way, it’s important to protect your eyes from damaging UVA and UVB rays. Thanks to some forward-thinking designers, it’s possible to look stylish while doing your part for the environment.

Designer Stella McCartney has introduced a new line of eco-friendly sunglasses (watch out for sound on that website) this season. The sustainable collection includes seven designs in both metal and plastic frames, with an aim towards using raw materials from natural resources.

ECO offers collections for men and women in several different designs and styles. The company’s eyewear is made of 95% recycled material and they promise to plant a tree for each frame sold.

If you’re looking for something unique, DRIFT Eyewear creates their hand-crafted frames from fair-source wood that’s Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. They also donate 1% of their net sales towards conservation efforts as part of the 1% for the Planet program.

Several prominent Canadian environmental groups have teamed up to launch a massive protest campaign against the federal government’s controversial bill C-38. The Black Out Speak Out campaign will run for a month in protest of the proposed changes, which would weaken the country’s environmental laws and make it more difficult for charities and NGOs to take part in the review process.

The campaign kicks off today with full-page ads in the Globe and Mail, La Presse and Ottawa’s Hill Times, as well as the launch of an official website, where concerned Canadians can sign up to stay informed and take part. Participating environmental groups will then spend the next four weeks spreading the word and building support for the campaign, which will culminate on June 4 in a massive web black out, with websites going dark to protest the way the government is attempting to silence dissent.

Participating groups include CPAWS, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, Environmental Defence, Equiterre, Greenpeace, Nature Canada, Pembina Institute, Sierra Club Canada, West Coast Environmental Law, and WWF Canada.