Is Your Halloween Chocolate Happy? List of Certifide Fair Trade and Organic Chocolate

Quiet cloudy day, turkeys roaming in the field.

At least two times a year we find the excuse to give, receive and enjoy chocolate; Valentine's Day and Halloween. The making of cacao has/had developed into a greedy, nasty, chop-down-the-trees, slave oriented business until relatively recently. To combat this awful type of trade, we now have some civilized guarantees with Certified Fair Trade and Certified Organic Chocolate. You would think this is a no brainer, right? Well, with deep regret, I'm here to tell you, we and the chocolate industry have a long way to go.

I say we because most people are not committed to purchasing double certified chocolate, meaning certified both organic and fair trade. I know certifications can be expensive, and for some small companies like Grenada who are committed to not using pesticides, they still lack the certification. While this particular company "does it right", the only way to know at the check out counter (metaphor for impulse buy) if a chocolate bar is both organic and has good labor practices is through certification. I am surprised that more people do not consider these both in unison.

And the chocolate industry... this is voting with your dollars at its best. If you think the chocolate industry is suddenly going to go warm and fuzzy for humanity and the environment, then I have a mountain with a lake and ocean view on it to sell you. They will not change unless their is money to be made or consumers demand it. That means back to you babe.

So how do you vote with your dollars? By buying only double Certified Organic and Fair Trade chocolate. This is not as easy as you think. There are many chocolates that you think are double certified and they are not. For instance Newman's is organic, not Fair Trade. Divine chocolate is Fair Trade but not organic. Trader Joe's cocoa is Fair trade but not organic and their chocolate bar is organic but not fair trade. Green and Black's is very sneaky; their marketing gives the impression they are both organic and fair trade but only their Maya Gold offering is both. Dagoba is another one - all organic but only one of their bars is certified fair trade. A cynic would say these companies purposely have one line of fair trade which then gives the impression that all of their chocolate is. (are you the cynic?) Rapunzel is also marketed as Fair Trade but they only devote a small paragraph on their website to fair trade and use the word "primarily" when they talk about sourcing. This is a good reason why certification guarantees you get what you are expecting.

Need help? Well, here's a list double Certified Organic and Fair trade chocolate bar companies (the whole company, not just one bar). Notice there are only 11 companies devoted to all of their products being double certified, in the world. If I've missed any, please let me know. It would be nice to have an ongoing list.

Alter Eco
Art Bar
Cocoa Camino
Equal Exchange
Health by Chocolate
Shaman Chocolates
Sjaak's Chocolates
Sweet Earth Chocolates
Terra Nostra
Theo Chocolate
Vital Choice

Some people might say that these companies are not considered the best tasting chocolate, that they have sacrificed flavor for their certifications. I ask you, is sacrificing the environment and our fellow human beings worth a little flavor? You can probably guess my answer.

Blog Action Day 2009 - Clothes Drying Racks Make a Difference

Calm, quiet morning.


So today is Blog Action Day 2009 for Climate Change and Global Warming. Much is written about what you can do to take action. You know the usual drill: Change your light bulbs, change your car, change your eating, change your heating or change your cooling, change your garden or your landscape and change your laundry.

Yes that's right, your laundry. How many of you are still not hanging your clothes up to dry? I'm not an energy user expert, but by the looks of the list above, not using your dryer would make a bigger impact than many of the changes listed. People are still making up excuses: I have no room, I have no time, I don't like wrinkles, I don't like the crunchies, I don't, I don't I don't...

Enough already with the excuses. And if your final excuse is where you live won't allow it? Well, try a little civil disobedience. What's the worst that could happen?

So start using a clothes drying rack or clothesline today, like most of the rest of the world. You can do it, really. And then ask 10 friends to join you.

Eco Oxymorons - Green Washing or Green Wishing?

Clear sunny morning; flaming trees scattered near and far.


Every once in awhile I come across something and say to myself, or any one who will listen, "Now there's an oxymoron". Most of them have to do with the green world, so let's just call them eco oxymorons. Many are related to green washing within an advertisement, description, title or label. You know, adding those little key words that makes something appear greener than it is. I think sometimes green washing is a company's way of green wishing, a way to muscle into the market place. The biggest green washing (and abuse) going on today is the use of the word "natural". But that's another blog coming, a rant and rave for sure, so stay tuned.

Back to the eco oxymoron... So below is a list of gathered green oxymorons. Some are short, some are long, some are funny, or serious or stupid. Many simply a play on words. Most importantly, none of which I made up. If you would like to add to the list, please comment with your own eco oxymoron. Here we go:

Clean Coal
Chemical Free
Organic Junk Food
Melted Ice
Melted Glacier
Natural Make-Up
Clean Diesel
Dry Lake
Sustainable Mining
Plastic Glass
Safe Plastic
Monsanto's Crop Protection
Green Golf Course
Level Population Growth
Veggie Meatballs
Safe GMO's
Eco Tourism
Eco Friendly Plastic Bags
Green Shopping Mall
99% Pure
PVC Fitness Ball
Plastic Silverware
Free Water
Green Parking garage
Silver Lining Organic Underwear
Clean Camping
Environmental Road Trip
Forest Management
Non Toxic Bug Killer
Plastic Wood
Healthy Ice Cream
Meatless Meat
Biodegradable Plastic
Artificial Grass
Artificial Snow
Carefree Garden
Safe PVC
Green Cars
Sustainable Development
All Natural Artificial Flavoring
Sustainable Luxury
Green Skyscraper
Safe Pesticides
Greener Hummer

And my all time favorite . . . Safe SIGG.

The Greening of Southie - Boston at Its Best

Clear crisp morning with low clouds moving quickly. Classic fall morning.


Last night I watched The Greening of Southie (South Boston) at our local, very hip Red River Theatre. It wasn't another downer environmental film (which I love by the way), it was a very enjoyable, interesting movie which I highly recommend. The movie was followed by a panel discussion by our local geek from the Jordan Institute, an architect and NH's most experienced green builder. The sell out crowd asked great green questions too.

The movie was about Boston building its first Gold LEED certified building at a time when the city didn't know how to spell LEED. You might think a movie about building a building sounds pretty boring, but the director did an excellent job mixing in the colorful workers (who couldn't spell green) with the dynamics of this state of the art green building invading the traditional neighborhood of South Boston. That was a take home message in and of itself - The new high income green wannabees displacing families who could no longer afford the upscale coming digs. This part actually left me unsettled. Is that progress?

Back to The Greening of Southie - I did enjoy the workers who were chosen for their hesitant embracing of "this green stuff". That was quite heart warming and the entertaining part of the movie. (otherwise it would be boring) The movie walked you through the LEED certification process and the different points you got for the green options you used. They were shooting for the Gold standard which meant getting 39 points.

The LEED certificatioin is not a perfect system, but it's a start. I was impressed at the steel being able to be 95% recycled content coming down from Maine. Why can't that be done everywhere? (that's why recycling your food cans and junk cars is so important) I was a little disappointed that more emphasis is not placed on insulation. After all , that is the most important part of energy saving. - which is at the core of carbon neutral buildings. They used recycled cotton batting instead of fiber glass but it looked like it was going into traditional 4 inch walls which seems like no big deal when you're sitting on a windy cold harbor. Apparently their operating energy costs were down by 50% compared to traditional buildings. So something worked. Could it have been even better? Probably.

Like all good movies they stumbled and there were moments of doubt and catastrophes (ripping up almost all the bamboo flooring because the adhesive didn't do its job would be catastrophe to me). But they prevailed in the end like most movies do.

I highly recommend this movie for all to see. Why traditional building continues is beyond me when green options can be the same price and the cost of operation is lower. Sounds like a no brainer to me. This would be a great movie for every town to have in their library.

So, if you're looking for some good to do today, purchase the DVD (if you can find it used, great). Then pass The Greening of Southie around to friends and after that, donate it to your town's or City's library.

Trailer - The Greening of Southie from Wicked Delicate Films on Vimeo.

Safe Cosmetics Video - And Things You Can Do

Watching a pair of kestrels lying in wait.


Safe Cosmetics, founded by health and environmental groups, has started a new campaign via video to get their message out. They've asked for help so I'm just doing my bit here.

They interview regular folks off the street about their knowledge about personal care products, which turns out to be pretty weak. If you're up on the subject, there isn't really anything new, but the point is so few, it must be a minuscule amount, people know much about the subject, as you'll see in the video. The point is to get the subject of safe cosmetics on people's radar.

So you might ask why? If you look at the list of endorsing organizations for safe cosmetics it gives you an idea of where the concerns are coming from: physicians, women's groups, children's groups, autistic organizations, environmental groups, right to know organizations and cancer groups. That's because the thousands of chemicals that have not even been tested, that are in our daily lives through "things or stuff" we put in or on our body may have serious consequences to our health, our children's health, the environment and other critters.

Just out today from Newsweek is an article about how chemicals may be causing obesity, even in newborns because there is no other explanation as to why this is occurring. The article titled "Why Chemicals Called Obesogens May Make You Fat" explores the new theory about chemical exposure and how it tweaks our ability to regulate our fat cells. Back to the long standing gender bender issue. (wasn't that the whole thing about BPA and SIGG etc.?)

The long list of questionable chemicals that go into our cosmetics is huge, some say 80,000 chemicals, most of which have never been tested, most of concern are petroleum in base. So what can you do? (or tell a friend to do) Glad you asked. Here are some things you can do to help the Safe Cosmetic Campaign, for yourself, others and the environment (our future):

1 - Watch the video and send to friends by email using this link

2 - Sign the petition for Safe Cosmetics

3 - Use low chemical profile products - less is more (better)

4 - Use certified organic products to lessen chemical exposure

5 - Make your own products, DYI cosmetic recipes are available

6 - Know your ingredients - daunting task but using the Skin Deep cosmetic safety data base is a great place to start

7 - Start learning, begin with Treehugger's excellent article: 7 Common Cosmetic Ingredients You Need to Avoid

8 - And ... Watch the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Video

SIGG - Just Another Plastic Water Bottle

Mist rolling in; feels like being in the clouds.


In case you have been on some remote island or in deep in the jungle without any contact to the human world for the last 3 weeks, you missed the SIGG scandal and their admission that they had not been forthcoming about their lining indeed containing BPA. So while Sigg was selling their "BPA-Free" bottles (not) to confident sucking pregnant women, SIGG was pretending to be an environmental company and laughing all the way to the bank.

I won't bother to rehash all the facts and comments that have come before this, a lot of which has been discussed in previous blogs (you can do a search in upper left corner) but I do want to point out some irony.

The SIGG lining, the old BPA containing lining and the new "eco-care", (what ever that means, they won't say) are made from types of epoxies, a polymer made from resins. Just google epoxy and there are many definitions. But guess what? It's a plastic. SIGG (and Laken) can spin all the eco words they want, but the bottom line is, their lining is plastic, always was and will be.

"... plastics. any of a group of synthetic or natural organic materials that may be shaped when soft and then hardened, including many types of resins, resinoids, polymers, cellulose derivatives, casein materials, and proteins: used in place of other materials, as glass, wood, and metals, in construction and decoration, for making many articles, as coatings, and, drawn into filaments, for weaving."

SIGG is willing to exchange their old bottle for their new one but do you really want to be drinking from an unknown plastic? Yes it beats using disposable water bottles but by now (since you were not deep in the jungle) you know there are many alternatives to SIGG. Have you seen the SIGG bottle that says "I'M NOT PLASTIC?" Kind of ironic.

I am fascinated by the blog and twitter discussions of folks willingly replacing their old SIGG bottle with another SIGG, no questions asked. Is it me or are they missing something?

So I guess that squeezey inexpensive #4 plastic (low-density polyethylene or LDPE) plastic water bottle isn't so bad after all. I'm not a fan of plastic but it beats throwing away single use water bottles. They, #4 bottles, are inexpensive, have a relatively low environmental cost (impact) of manufacturing and can be recycled. (virgin aluminum is many more times environmentally costly compared to steel, glass and plastic) Plastics #2, #4, and #5 have a strong food safety record, so they say.

SIGG (and Laken) claim they are "an environmental company". What is so environmental about using virgin aluminum which is 6 times more "costly" than the next type of container and then lining it with an unknown plastic that you refuse to be transparent about? (oh, must be that 1% planet donation thing they do) It seems to me that drinking from a SIGG is just liking drinking from any other plastic water water bottle, only worse.

Colleges Going Green - They Need to Do Better

Sunny clear day, with fall clearly in the air.


I had the very mixed emotions of bringing my daughter (my baby) to college on Saturday. Having been raised in a "college town", I love visiting campuses for that academic, young spirited, high energy rush. I also now enjoy visiting colleges with a green eye perspective to see how colleges are going green. At the end of the day, I left with some pleasant surprises and, unfortunately, some disappointments.

Colleges going green get a lot of media attention, especially since there seems to be some competition to be listed in the top what ever for being green. I think it's a good thing to go after such a status; certainly better than the party school category.

The college my daughter is attending is no where to be found on "the list"of green colleges, but their website still boasts a tab for "green living". The initiatives are impressive, with the ever present, well documented, school's "commitment" to going green. Looks great on paper (not literal, it's online) but visiting proved to be another story.

When we first drove up to the dorm entrance I was surprised and pleased that my daughter was handed her room keys along with a stainless steel water bottle. (thank God it wasn't a SIGG) It was a no-name brand but the message was more important than the product - use reusable water bottles. This was a great start.

Once in the room, there was a standard size paper posted on the back of the door with instructions for recycling, but no encouragement to Reduce and Reuse before you Recycle, like using the water bottle they were just given. It was the basic list of items to recycle but what was seriously lacking were containers to put all this. It would have been nice to have 2 waste containers, one clearly labeled for recycling, so student were constantly reminded of what was expected of them. Some schools hand out bags clearly marked so they can easily carry them to where they need to go. It is a waste of a perfectly good bag, but they probably have a much higher participation rate.

My other daughter happens to be doing a semester exchange out in Northern California which she likens to Burlington, Vermont on steroids. In her dorm room there are 2 baskets, one trash and one recycling for students. Each trash can on campus is buddied with a recycling bin. All dumpsters have a big sign on it: "WAIT - Can you recycle it?" Sounds like a pretty easy enough thing to do. Why can't all schools do this? And towns and cities for that matter.

Back to the dorm room. Also on the sheet of paper were reminders to turn off the lights when leaving the room and any other electrical "things" not needed (I suppose that is the "reduce part"). It mentioned using CFLs (compact fluorescent light bulbs) and said to dispose of them properly in a plastic bag and give them to a janitor. I'm not sure how many students will actually do this, I hope all. It very casually mentioned that they contained mercury but I would have liked to see them really push the proper disposal and to not put it in the regular trash. Maybe they didn't want to sound alarming or have some parent freak out about the mercury but I think they could have heightened the instructions a bit.

I did find something quite disturbing and totally unacceptable - the instructions, in the event that a CFL broke, actually said to look it up online as to how to take care of it. ?^$%?? By then it's too late and the likelihood of everyone looking up the directions online seem pretty remote. I would have like to have seen in big print, bigger than everything else, about opening windows and getting out of the room asap, in addition to the "be careful about picking up the glass" etc. This is a very serious over site on the college's part.

There were no other do's or don't like using a smart strip or at the very least turning of the surge protector to power down phantom load.

Once the furniture was rearranged and the bed made, off to the student union we went. They had coffee for the parents (yes I brought my thermos) and, EEK, handed out free water in disposable bottles. Why didn't they have big containers of water like the coffee so students could use those stainless steel bottles they were just given? Doesn't anyone use a water fountain anymore?

There was a table set up by an environmental group showing green cleaning products, reusable water bottles, a Brita filter that did not say BPA-Free and some paper items with recycled content. I asked them if they were encouraging students to hang dry their clothes and they mumbled something about trying to figure out where to hang a line outside. I suggested some racks inside might work too but they thought the lack of "air" might not let the clothes dry. I shared my thoughts about how once the heat comes on, the air is usually pretty dry and the clothes should have no problem drying. My daughter was mortified.

In the afternoon we went to the Welcoming Event by the President and Deans held in their big auditorium. Before it started, one of Deans handed out, EEK, bottled water. This really struck me. How is it that the students were given reusable water bottles but the staff was not setting an example? What's good for the goslings is good for the geese. As I sat and listened, I wondered what would this scene would have been like 30 years ago. They would not have handed out bottled water, people didn't drink water like they do today. If someone needed water,they would have brought their own glass or the school would have provided a pitcher of water and small glass for all. I think that anyone can manage to get through 1 hour without the need to drink water and this obsession with drinking water is, well, an obsession.

Overall the day was lovely, the school is wonderful and my daughter is sure to flourish. But I did leave very surprised at how un-progessive the school was with regard to environmental awareness and behaviors. After reviewing their website, which seems quite thorough, it doesn't seem the school is really walking the walk. There's talk about renewable energy, there are a few solar panels on one building, they do carbon-offsets and have a green building policy. These are all really big wonderful top-down initiatives to be applauded for sure but equally important are the small things, done by each person everyday for the bottom up approach.

Colleges, at least some, should perhaps review their green policies, update them, and put all the do's and don'ts that might be on their website into real action. I think it is wonderful that there is so much emphasis on colleges going green, that institutions have sustainability policies and being environmentally conscious is "in". Colleges have such a precious opportunity to teach young people about our role in the future of the environment, to create lasting habits and to have them appreciate all that surrounds them. I love that colleges are going green - but they need to do better.